forum What powers would you typically attribute to Biblical angels?

Started March 20, 2018 by shurikenwolfbadass_13

tune

Just asking to ask.

• God's messengers (you can get really creative with this one)
• Soldiers in the spiritual war against demons (there are some instances in the Bible when a human's "eyes were opened" and they could see the battle raging around them. The Bible specifically states that Michael is the Archangel. The term or prefix 'arch' is Greek for ruling or chief. And then Gabriel is God's special messenger. I think most people think Michael is like the guys who leads angels to battle, and Gabriel handles more of the non-violent duties.)
• In disguise (usually as a human) to test someone, warn someone, lead someone to safety, etc (connects to the messenger role). I know lots of people who believe they encountered an angel in that way, whether it be a man that led one of my friends' dad out of the pentagon during 9/11 and then disappeared, or when two of my friends were warned by a jogger that appeared in front of them to go home before two guys that had been following them caught up. The Bible also says to always take care of people who come to you asking for help, because it might be an angel in disguise.
• To comfort or help humans

Hope this helps, my Christian background finally came to use.

I'm actually very familiar with the Bible, although I'm not necessarily religious, but not nonreligious either. In was just asking opinions.

I was thinking something like this…
Superhuman intelligence: All angels are stated in the Bible to be especially smarter then humans.
Superhuman strength: An angel moved the stone in front of Jesus's tomb, that several seasoned soldiers couldn't move, and did so, with ease.
Superhuman speed: Khamael, the Angel of Death, took out an army of Assyrians in a single night, and, as disturbing as it is, I'm sure you know, but there are other places in the Bible, where angels have murdered an impossible number of people, in very brief periods of time and the like.
Pyrokinesis: Seraphim are beings of fire, and, angels called Powers, are spirits of nature who have been know to do things with fire, along with the other classical elements of nature, and the sun.
Hydrokinesis: Again we refer to Powers, who are said to have control over the classical elements, including water and the seas.
Geekiness: The archangel Gabriel, destroyed a city in the Bible, partially by summoning great tremors, and again we refer to Powers, who are famously able to control the Earth, and the moon.
Aerokinesis: All angels, are "spirits of the air", and yet again, Powers have control over the winds.
Atmokinesis: The other thing that Gabriel used to destroy the city which I cannot recall, is that he summoned a great, windy storm, full of rain, snow, sleet, hail, thunder and lightning, and yet asgsin, powers could control the weather.
Photokinesis: All angels are beings of light, the foremost of which, are Seraphim, and Archangels.
Sedation: I think there was one time, when an angel put everyone in a palace to sleep.
Flight: Duh, but especially for Seraphim, one calculation shows that for the seraphim that transport the souls of the righteous to New Jerusalem, the distance they fly, and the short amount of time it takes to get there, means that they can fly faster than the speed of light.
Invisibility: Mentioned several times e.I. "invisible spirits of the air."
Intangibility: Angels are partially non-corporeal.
Shspeshifting: Angels have visited humans in human shape, and, let us not forget, Satan became a snake to trick the first two humans.
Teleportation: When Abraham died and Lucifer stood over his body, Michael teleported down to that location instantly from heaven.

Yes, I know that angels don't have powers in the sense of Superman or whatever, but I'm trying to classify them, no doubt Imissed a few.

In the war between angels and demons, angels’ main weapon is the truth, while demons’ would be lies.

Oh okay then, that's what you meant. Well angels can do anything that God tells them to do (just like humans could technically do the same, if he thought it was for the best). It's all God's power in the end, and it isn't limited. Do you have a "God" character in the story you're writing, or will the angels basically be their own race that exists without being God's helpers?

Well, I don't think it'sjust God, but I think that's the main thing. Remember, Satan still has more natural power than men, he has some of his angelic power from back when he was God's favorite. But now, after the fall, without God backing him, St. Michael could curbstomp him. Plus remember, he got through to the garden of Eden, past four Cherubs who had God's power, while he wasn't affiliated with God. So, in short, I think God gives angels most of their power, but not all of it, I think He grants them a small bit of their own power.

“I have the kielbasa you ordered.”

Right, Satan has power simply because he was created as an angel by God at first, so he retains some of those powers. But I think it's turned into something more, not just "fallen angel" abilities. The kind of power he has is enough for the Bible to name Satan God's enemy. Makes you wonder if 1) he gained more powers from the "dark side" (dumbest but easiest way to describe it :P), or 2) all angels have his capabilities. And in general, I'm sure there is a natural limit to an angel's power that God has given, but there's no natural limit to God's power (miracles), so he can make them stronger for a time if he wants to.

But yeah. If you're on God's side, you're on the winning side, and there's no way Satan can defeat you.

Yes, let me address this.

1. Agreed. He still has some power.
2. I'm sure it has, he probably lost most of his angelic power, and gained both free will, and some other powers.
3. I disagree on this one. I don't think it's Satan's power that makes him an adversary of God. I think it's that he's smarter than every other being except God, he's even smarter then Michael, but much less powerful now, even though as a full angel he had more power than Michael, now he's weaker.
4. I don't think he gained more power, but rather that he gained different power, and he also gained free will.
5. As I'm sure you know, Satan is attributed as the Archangel of the Seraphim, or he was, at least. Anyway, Seraphim are the most intelligent and powerful of all Biblical angels save for archangels, and Satan is an archangel above that. He is extremely powerful as Lucifer, and Michael paled in comparison to that version. Any angel that went up against Lucifer, would always lose no doubt. As the Hell-Prince Satan, no doubt also, that he's still at least as powerful as a regular Seraph. So he is AT least as powerful as the greater angels, if not even moreso.
6. Yes, they are limited. The Bible basically says that their intelligence and power is greater than men's, but limited.

I acknowledge all of these points, except the free will thing. I think all angels, fallen or no, have free will. No scripture says the angels have no free will. You might already know all of this, but the Bible says at some point, maybe during the creation, maybe right after, maybe during the days that Adam and Eve lived peacefully in the Garden of Eden, the angels were in a time of choice. Essentially, God doesn't want to force someone to love him. That's why he decided to create humans with free will. That's how we fell. And that's how a third of the angels fell. At some point in heaven, Lucifer decided HE wanted to be God. So he rose up, gathered a third of the angels to his side, and created an army to defeat God and the good angels. Obviously, he was easily defeated and thrown down to earth. So he turned into a snake, thinking to himself that he'd spite God in the best way possible and take God's favorite creation down with him.

The angels that didn't sin were "confirmed" in their righteousness, basically that they were now the elect angels and would never sin again. But that doesn't mean that they can't sin. God simply has confirmed that they never will. The angels right now are like Jesus was when he was on earth. He was tempted in every way, he lived in our fallen world, he was fully human, but he would never choose to sin. Doesn't mean he couldn't. It's how humans will be after the Tribulation and the Second Coming when we finally get to live in heaven with God forever, when our sin natures are finally destroyed. So then in the same way, Satan still has free will also (since he was created that way like all the other angels and humans), but he has been "confirmed" in his evil. He will never choose to come back to God. The difference between humans and angels is that their time to choose has already passed. If they chose evil during that time, they will remain condemned. Humans are still in our time of choice, at least while we're alive. The only reason we're not like the fallen angels with no way back to God is because Jesus provided a way out for us. Not all will choose to accept it, though.

I think that they have some free will, they're not robots. I know the Bible says they have emotions, and that they can Choose to fall. But I think their will is limited in that, unless they choose to fall, they absolutely must have faith in their God. Also, which translation do you read? I read King James. Although again, I'm not that religious tbh.

I like ESV and NIV (considered to be the closest to the Hebrew and Greek meaning).

Maybe we disagree on what free will actually means?

Free will is the ability to make your own decisions, that's not an opinion, that's a fact.

The dictionary defines it as…

The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate, the ability to act on one's own discretion.

I think angels have this, because as you said, God doesn't like to force people to love him. That's also why Jesus stayed on the cross. But I think they willingly do what God says. They're not machines, but it's definitely probable that they aren't as free as humans.

Okay but what you were saying before was that Satan was the one who "gained" free will, implying that other angels didn't have that. That's why I wrote that whole comment in the first place. :P

Then you said angels' will is "limited" two comments ago. So that's why I questioned if your definition of free will was different from mine. A "limited" free will isn't the dictionary definition at all.

But I guess now you're saying they have dictionary definition "free will." It's confusing by human logic, but I think it's more like they just WON'T sin rather than they absolutely musn't. It's like God seeing infinitely into the future and declaring them forever righteous from what he's seen. So angels having full free will still falls under that.

Just because they choose never to sin doesn't make them less free than humans. Humans are slaves to sin, in fact. I'd rather be a "slave" to God than a "slave" to sin, anyway. We'll still retain our free will even in heaven though, it'll just be a totally different place where sin can't even enter in the first place. Besides, "good or evil" isn't the only choice people can make.

I know… Nothing is black and white, no matter how much we believe it to be.

I disagree that sin can't enter Heaven, simply because it was able to reach Satan, what with him being the first sinner, it was in Heaven, even if it isn't anymore, and furthermore still, Satan popular to common belief, actually can enter Heaven, and spends time on Earth too, so I think that it can reach Heaven, see the following… John 1:6-7
"(6)One day, the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. (7)The LORD asked Satan, "Where have you come from?", and Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming the Earth, and also in Heaven."

I don't think he can quite just wander around Heaven like you or I do in a Walmart, but he has access at least to it's gates, and I think he knows what goes down in Heaven, but that's just speculation. Of course we all know he gets thrashed at Armageddon.

Yes, I agree flawlessly with everything else though.

Right right, I misspoke. (It has Satan entering heaven in Job, one of my favorite books of the Bible. You've probably read that one?) The heaven we have now is temporary. When the Tribulation and The Second Coming and Judgement Day and all that come, God's going to destroy heaven and earth and create a NEW heaven and earth (combined, where God can live with us now) where there will be no more sin. That's what I meant.

(OOOOH! I GET IT, yeah.)
No I totally agree… I just think that angels are less free than humans, most likely by their own choice, they can choose to sin just like we can, they have emotions like us (although probably to a lesser extent), I just don't think they can say "Aye God, I'm gonna go chill on Earth for a bit." or something, I misspoke as well, maybe it's just the general vibe they give off…

Yeah I agree. And I think that might boil down to humans being God's special creation, his favorite, the ones created in his image. Angels are content doing what they were created to do, (bad example coming up, but you know what I mean) like a
sheep dog is content with taking care of sheep. Not that humans won't be content, but I think our purpose and talents and all the different jobs we have and the creativity we inherited from God etc, gives us more diversity and ability to do all sorts of things angels can't do. I think all of that will translate into heaven when this is all over.

This is cool, I liked having this conversation. Talking about heaven and angels and the supernatural is just exciting…

Thanks. You're right about all that.