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1:16 clearly speak of the creation of the angels, (comp. I Kings 22:19; Ps. 103:20,21). The time of
their creation cannot be fixed definitely. The opinion of some, based on Job 38:7, that they
were created before all other things, really finds no support in Scripture. As far as we know, no
creative work preceded the creation of heaven and earth. The passage in the book of Job (38:7)
teaches, indeed, in a poetic vein that they were present at the founding of the world just as the
stars were, but not that they existed before the primary creation of heaven and earth. The idea
that the creation of the heavens was completed on the first day, and that the creation of the
angels was simply a part of the day’s work, is also an unproved assumption, though the fact
that the statement in Gen. 1:2 applies to the earth only would seem to favor it. Possibly the
creation of the heavens was not completed in a single moment any more than that of the earth.
The only safe statement seems to be that they were created before the seventh day. This at
least follows from such passages as Gen. 2:1; Ex. 20:11; Job 38:7; Neh. 9:6.
2. THEY ARE SPIRITUAL AND INCORPOREAL BEINGS.
This has always been disputed. The Jews
and many of the early Church Fathers ascribed to them airy or fiery bodies; but the Church of
the Middle Ages came to the conclusion that they are pure spiritual beings. Yet even after that
some Roman Catholic, Arminian, and even Lutheran and Reformed theologians ascribed to
them a certain corporeity, most subtle and pure. They regarded the idea of a purely spiritual
and incorporeal nature as metaphysically inconceivable, and also as incompatible with the
conception of a creature. They also appealed to the fact that the angels are subject to spatial
limitations, move about from place to place, and were sometimes seen by men. But all these
arguments are more than counter-balanced by the explicit statements of Scripture to the effect
that the angels are pneumata, Matt. 8:16; 12:45; Luke 7:21; 8:2; 11:26; Acts 19:12; Eph. 6:12;
Heb. 1:14. They have no flesh and bone, Luke 24:39, do not marry, Matt. 22:30, can be present
in great numbers in a very limited space, Luke 8:30, and are invisible, Col. 1:16. Such passages
as Ps. 104:4 (comp. Heb. 1:7); Matt. 22:30; and I Cor. 11:10 do not prove the corporeity of the
angels. Neither is this proved by the symbolical descriptions of the angels in the prophecy of
Ezekiel and in the book of Revelation, nor by their appearance in bodily forms, though it is
difficult to say, whether the bodies which they assumed on certain occasions were real or only
apparent. It is clear, however, that they are creatures and therefore finite and limited, though
they stand in a freer relation to time and space than man. We cannot ascribe to them an ubi
repletivum, nor an ubi circumscriptivum, but only an ubi definitivum. They cannot be in two or
more places simultaneously.
3. THEY ARE RATIONAL, MORAL, AND IMMORTAL BEINGS.
This means that they are personal
beings endowed with intelligence and will. The fact that they are intelligent beings would seem
to follow at once from the fact that they are spirits; but it is also taught explicitly in Scripture, II
Sam. 14:20; Matt. 24:36; Eph. 3:10; I Pet. 1:12; II Pet. 2:11. While not omniscient, they are