Jump Start # 1698

2 Peter 2:4 “For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment”

  We continue on with our thoughts about angels. We now come to a very interesting passage that leads to many questions of which are not answered. God doesn’t write a section on “angelology” for us. Passages, such as our verse today, brings to light things that we would never know. It tells us a bit about angels. The purpose was an illustration for us. This isn’t about angels. It’s about us. The point being, God doesn’t play favorites. Sinful angels were judged. The sinful world in Noah’s day was destroyed. Sinful Sodom was reduced to rubble. The false prophets who were spreading their poisonous messages were going to face God and the meeting wouldn’t be pretty. God would judge them. He didn’t spare the world. He didn’t spare Sodom. He didn’t spare sinful angels, and he won’t spare these false prophets. That’s what the context is about.

Peter begins this historical section of God’s judgment by telling us about angels. It’s angels, the flood, and Sodom. The last two are in historical order. So, does that mean the sinning angels took place before the flood? Many think so. There are two theories that many believe Peter is drawing from.

First, some believe very early on, there was a rebellion in Heaven. An angel tried to take over. He was kicked out and eventually became Satan. That is the most common explanation for the origin of Satan, a angel that went bad. Isaiah 14 is generally used to defend this thought. There it says, “How thou art fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations” (v. 12). It sure sounds like someone got kicked out of Heaven. The problem with this theory is that the context tells us that this is a taunt that Israel would use against the king of Babylon  (v. 4). Babylon wouldn’t last. This is not talking about Satan, angels or any of those things.

Our verse in Peter presents a challenge to the angel gone bad theory of Satan. If Satan was a rebellious angel, why was he not committed to the pits of darkness like the others? Where did Satan’s angels come from? Are only some bad angels locked away and others were allowed to go to the “dark side,” using a Star Wars expression? Questions which we do not nor can not know the answers to. We have our theories. We have our ideas. We lack Biblical support to prove those theories.

Second, others believe the sinful angels were the ones in Genesis 6, before the flood, “when the sons of God came to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.” The “sons of God” is thought to be the angels. It is believed that angels came to earth and had sexual relations with women and a race of people were formed. Interesting. Many problems with that theory. Angels are spirits. So, they took on flesh, had sex and reproduced? Was this a heavenly and earthly mixture? What happened to that race?  The first of the chapter tells us that the sons of God married these daughters. So, the angels didn’t just come down here and have sex and leave. They married? They built homes, had jobs, became daddies and lived down here on earth? Did these daughters know that these men were not men, but actually angels? Did their babies look and act differently? This passage most likely is talking about spiritual people connecting with non spiritual people. Noah’s line seems to be righteous. Everyone else seems to be unrighteous. It got to a point when only Noah and his immediate family remained righteous. Every thought was evil continually. God destroyed the world because of sin. That seems to be the consistent theme running through these verses.

There are many angel theories that we just do not understand. Jude tells us that Michael, the archangel, disputed with the devil about the body of Moses. One little statement late in the N.T. Nothing is said about this in the O.T. It would have never been known, except God pulled this out, again, as an illustration for His people. The context tells us that the false among them were reviling “angelic majesties.” The dispute between Satan and Michael is brought up to show that not even Michael, not even to the devil, did he present a railing judgment against him.

Angels sinned. That’s sad. It’s sad when anyone sins. It shows that they chose a path other than what God had intended for them. It shows that they have a free will. They are not robots. They can rebel. When they do, they face the consequences.

There is no indication that sinful angels have a Savior. There is no concept of a sacrifice or the offer of forgiveness for those angels. Do angels continue to sin today? I don’t know. Was this a one time incident? I don’t know. Do we know what they did wrong? No. Peter doesn’t tell us. Jude says, “Angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day” (6). Do we even know what the proper abode of angels is? It’s hard to guess what they did wrong, when we are not sure what “right” looks like. What is the domain of angels? Heaven? God has sent angels to serve His people. We are down here, not up there.

The sinning angels are used to remind us that God will judge. If He doesn’t give an angel a free pass, He won’t give us one either. We must obey God. We must not rebel against God. We must humble ourselves in His presence.

There is a lot of things that we do not know about angels. What God tells us is to help us. Our hope and our place is with God.

Roger