The Confessions of the Protestant Church have accepted these conceptions only incidentally, and the statements show clearly enough that they place no value on any teaching about angels.⁸ This does not in the least mean that the Reformers were unfamiliar with the subject or doubted the literal truth of the angelic appearances in the Biblical narratives: their Church hymns prove the contrary, but in the sphere of piety they attached no great value to the matter.

§ 43. The only tenet which can be established as a doctrine concerning angels is this: that the question whether the angels exist or not ought to have no influence upon our conduct, and that revelations of their existence are now no longer to be expected.

1. It is not without considerable hesitation that the confidence of Christians in the protection of angels can be encouraged. For in the first place, that they avert the power of evil spirits⁹ could hardly be told to any but children without detriment, because against all that is usually ascribed to the devil, we should use the spiritual armour recommended by the Bible, and not rely on angelic protection.¹⁰ It is not less serious to teach an external protection through angels.¹¹ For we must teach that God has no need of angels for our protection, unless we assume a continual activity on the part of angels, and thus do away with the entire interdependence of nature. But it is said that it affords more consolation if God makes use of angels than if our preservation is effected by natural means, so that God, in view of our weakness, employs angels and then reveals the fact to us. On the one hand, this theory could not be carried through without very limited and almost childish conceptions of God, and on the other hand, it can only feed our vanity if we accept the idea that a whole species of higher beings exists only for our service. Wisely, therefore, in our Confessions—although strictly in opposition to the saints of the Roman Church—the intercessions of the angels have taken the place of their active influence. We cannot, however, take the Biblical passage on which this is founded as a convincing proof.¹²

That this conception is losing its influence among Christians follows naturally from the fact that it belongs to a time when our knowledge of the forces of nature was very limited, and our power over them at its lowest stage. In every such situation our reflections now instinctively take another direction, so that in active life we do not easily turn to angels. The argument of Luther¹³ has, moreover, as regards the angels, tended to repress the levity so easily elicited by the supernatural. But the confidence he wishes to strengthen will be the same even if we do not think of the angels, but expect the divine protection in the usual way. Since the Church has itself declared against the veneration of angels, we can rightly say it would be the worst form of veneration if, in deference to their unknown service to us, we believed we might omit any of the care recommended us for ourselves and others.

2. But more closely considered, nothing can be concluded from all the angelic appearances of which we have knowledge, either for present or future times, partly because these appearances occurred in that primitive period when the interdependence of man with nature was not yet settled and he himself was undeveloped; and, as even to many a philosopher at that time the notion of an education through higher beings was not unfamiliar, these warning and prophetic appearances might be an echo of that connexion of ideas. At a later time we find angels almost exclusively at great points of development when other wonderful events are wont to happen. Moreover, when the earlier teachers of the Church ¹⁴ assert that the intercourse between men and angels, which for so long a period had been interrupted, was only restored through Christ, this, too, must be understood in the same way, for this restoration did not extend beyond the Apostolic times.

Since they are so entirely outside our province, there is no reason for more accurate inquiry into the creation of angels either in itself or in relation to the Mosaic creation story, nor again into their general nature, manner of life, and activities. ¹⁵ On the contrary, for the actual province of Dogmatics the subject remains wholly problematic, and none but a private and liturgical use of this conception is to be recognized. The private use of the conception will always confine itself to visualizing the higher protection so far as that does not make use of conscious human activities. In the liturgical use the thought which has been specially in view is that God must be represented as surrounded by pure and innocent spirits. ¹⁶

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Footnotes

1. Cf. Reinh., Dogm., § 50. ↩

2. Matt. 16²⁷ and 25³¹. ↩

3. Matt. 18¹⁰. ↩

4. Matt. 26⁵³. ↩

5. John 15¹ is plainly figurative. ↩

6. Col. 1¹⁶. ↩

7. Heb. 14ff.. ↩

8. Apol. Conf. Art. ix.: Praeterea et hoc largimur quod angeli orent pro nobis. Art. Smalc.: Etsi angeli in coelo pro nobis orent, etc. ↩

9. Luth., Catech. Min.: Tuus sanctus angelus sit mecum ne diabolus quidquam in me possit. ↩

10. Eph. 6¹¹ff., 1 Pet. 5⁸⁻⁹ ↩

11. Cf. Calvin, Instit. i. xiv. 6–11. ↩

12. Zech. 1¹². ↩

13. In Genesis, ii. § 19: ‘The angels must be our protectors and guard us, but only so far as we remain in our path. Christ points to this explanation when He confronts the devil with the command from Deut. 6¹⁶. For thereby He shows that man’s appointed path is not to fly in the air. Hence, when we are in our calling or office and have a command from God or from the men who have the right to direct our calling, then we must believe that the protection of the dear angels cannot fail us.’ ↩

14. Cf. Chrysost. on Col. i²⁰. ↩

15. Cf. Reinhard, Dogm., §§ 53, 54. ↩

16. Cf. Heb. 12²². ↩