7 Surprising Facts on Angels

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Angels are fascinating creature of God. God loved His children so much, He wanted us to have protectors to watch over us and deliver messages down straight from Heaven. Angels are there to praise God in all of His glory. These spiritual beings are a great asset to the Lord and He uses them frequently.

However there are a lot of myths and misinformation about what angels do, what they look like, and their purpose on earth, so it can quickly get confusing. With so much out there, it can be hard to understand what is truth and what isn’t. Luckily, God blessed us with the Bible and it speaks directly about His angels. Some of the things you thought you understood about angels might be completely false!

Here are some of the most surprising facts about angels, straight from the Bible.

We each have a guardian angel.

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No matter if you are a Christian or not, you are assigned a guardian angel at birth. God loves each and every single one of His children, and wants them to be safe. So God chose to send down His angels and assign one to each of us so that we would have constant protection. The angels are assigned to protect, encourage and guide us. Guardian angels are present in scripture as well. “For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways,” reads Psalm 91:11. Again there is more validation in Psalms 34:6-7 which reads “This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.”

Angels were created before humans.

While there is some debate about when exactly angels were created, we know for sure that angels came before humans and most likely before the earth as well. God spoke to Job saying: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. . . when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” The term "sons of God" is one of the many designations for angels, as the Book of Job earlier states. One thing we can be certain about is that the angels were created before the seventh day of creation. The Bible says: “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts” (Genesis 2:1).

Angels can never die or be physically hurt.

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Since angels do not have physical bodies (Hebrews 1:14), they cannot be hurt in the sense of suffering physical harm in the same way a human being with a body could be hurt. Likewise, angels cannot die in that sense, either. Physical death is something that humans experience when their bodies cease working and their spirits depart from their bodies. Since angels do not have physical bodies, they cannot experience physical death. While they can’t be physically hurt, they can be emotionally as we know that fallen angels can suffer deeply. When Jesus cast demons out, they sometimes feared that Jesus was going to torture or torment them (see Matthew 8:29; Luke 8:28).

Some angels rebelled against God.

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With both the angels and humanity, God chose to present a choice of free will. While the Bible does not give numerous details regarding the rebellion of Satan and the fallen angels, it seems that Satan, who is probably the strongest of all God’s angels (Ezekiel 28:12-18), in pride chose to rebel against God in order to seek to become his own god. Revelation 12:4 is understood to be a figurative description of one third of the angels choosing to follow Satan in his rebellion, becoming the fallen angels. Unlike humanity, however, the choice the angels had to follow Satan or remain faithful to God was an eternal choice. The Bible presents no opportunity for the fallen angels to repent and be forgiven.

Angels are more than just messengers.

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The word angel means 'messenger' so, not surprisingly, many times in the Bible, God chooses angels to take his message to people. Probably the most famous time that angels were God's messenger was when they were used to announce the coming of Jesus into the world – both at his birth and to tell Jesus' friends that he had come back to life. But angels do much more than deliver messages from Heaven. Angels aren't just nice, kindly beings, they are also the mighty and powerful warriors of God. There's a dramatic description of a war in the spiritual realm between the Archangel Michael and God's angels and Satan and his rebellious angelic followers. In addition, the Bible says that one of the most important roles for angels is praising and glorifying God. In Revelation 5:11-12, it describes of over 100 million angels praising God in Heaven. Lastly, the most famous role of angels is being a ‘guardian angel’ or our protectors.

Angels have a hierarchy.

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The Bible frequently mentions angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim. These are just a few of the different categorizations of angels. The angelic realm has three hierarchies which each have 3 choirs of angels. The higher ranks have greater power and authority over the lower ranks, and have different tasks and appearances. For example, Seraphim angels are closest to the throne of God (Isaiah 6:1-7) and Cherubim angels are described as being the celestial attendants in the apocalypse (Revelations 4-6). Other choir rankings include Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Archangels, Principalities and Angels. All fall under God’s rule and continually praise and serve Him.