A Brief Study of Angels
What is the destiny of angels?
It seems somewhat presumptuous to be commenting on the final disposition of beings who have been in existence and active since before the world was created while we have only been around a few decades. But of course, we are not relying on our own experience or knowledge to speculate on what will become of angels. That would be foolish indeed. Any insight we have must come from the only reliable source we have for such matters--the Bible.
But frankly the Bible does not have much to say about this issue. However we should probably address a couple of matters with regard to the holy angels and what their future role will be. First, since there was an time in the past when some of the angels rebelled against the Lord (Luke 10:17-18; Revelation 12:7-9) we might pose the question of whether there might be another such occasion. In other words, is it possible that the holy angels might still fall? The consensus among conservative scholars is that, like humans, angels had a probationary period during which they chose to whom they would give their allegiance. For humans, we refer to this period as our “life.” At death the probationary period is over and we will be confirmed (so to speak) in our choice between following God or something else (Luke 16:19-31). So after the point of death our destiny is fixed and there is no changing it. Most believe that the holy angels were likewise confirmed in their allegiance to God when they rejected the lies and influence of Lucifer at the time of the rebellion. In this case we are taking the biblical teachings about man’s destiny and applying them to angels. We can not be sure that they are perfectly aligned but it seems reasonable.
Another question has to do with what angels will be doing in the eternal state. Since Hebrews 1:14 makes it clear that a major role for them is “to minister for those who will inherit salvation” what will they do after all believing humans have inherited salvation? Once again we must admit that the Scriptures do not speak to this issue just as they do not speak clearly to what we will be doing in eternity. It may be that some will continue in their present capacity since proclaiming God’s glory will never need to cease (Isaiah 6:1-3). But no doubt God will find something for them to do just as He will give each of us meaningful roles in His Kingdom.
Finally, the Bible says that we are “made...a little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:5; Heb. 2:7). Will this be true all through eternity that angels are inherently superior to us? Not necessarily. Some believe that upon receiving glorified, spiritual bodies we will have the same sort of powers and attributes that angels have. Thus they will not be on a higher level than us. Some go further and say that since angels were not created in the image of God (at least we are never told that they were as we were in Genesis 1:26-27), that in the eternal state we will actually assume the superior position. They point to I Corinthians 6:3 to bolster this claim and assert that we will be placed in authority over the angels in heaven. However, that verse could be speaking of judging fallen angels and may not necessarily mean that we will rule over the holy angels.
This concludes the section on the holy angels. Next we will look at the doctrine of fallen angels and of Satan.