Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Close Relationship of Angels to Their “Little Ones.” PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
28. Close
Relationship of Angels to Their “Little Ones.”
With reference to the words, “When through the
laver I became a child in Christ,”5999
5999 Cf. Tit. iii. 5; 1 Pet. ii. 2. | it
may be said, that there is no holy angel present with those who are
still in wickedness, but that during the period of unbelief they are
under the angels of Satan;6000 but, after the
regeneration, He who has redeemed us with His own blood consigns us to
a holy angel, who also, because of his purity, beholds the face of
God. And a third exposition of this passage might be something
like the following, which would say, that as it is possible for a man
to change from unbelief to faith, and from intemperance to temperance,
and generally from wickedness to virtue, so also it is possible that
the angel, to whom any soul has been entrusted at birth, may be wicked
at the first, but afterwards may at some time believe in proportion as
the man believes, and may make such advance that he may become one of
the angels who always behold the face of the Father in heaven,6001 beginning from the time that he is yoked
along with the man who was foreknown and foreordained to believe at
that time, the judgments of God, which are unspeakable and unsearchable
and like to the depths, fitly bringing together all this harmonious
relationship—angels with men. And it may be that as when a
man and his wife are both unbelievers, sometimes it is the man who
first believes and in time saves his wife, and sometimes the wife who
begins and afterwards in time persuades her husband, so it happens with
angels and with men. If, however, anything of this kind takes
place in the case of other angels or not, you may seek out for
yourself. But consider whether it may not be appropriate to say
something of this kind in regard to each angel who is so honoured
according to the word of the Saviour, that he is said to behold always
the face of the Father who is in heaven. But since in what we
said above, that the little ones have angels, but that the great have
passed beyond such a position, some one will quote in opposition to us
from the Acts of the Apostles, where it is written, that a certain maid
Rhoda, when Peter knocked at the door, came to answer, and recognizing
the voice of Peter, ran in and announced that Peter stood before the
gate; but when they who were gathered together in the house wondered,
and thought that it was quite impossible that Peter verily stood before
the gate, they said, It is his angel.6002 For the objector will say that, as
they had learned once for all that each of the believers had some
definite angel, they knew that Peter also had one. But he, who
adheres to what we have previously said, will say that the word of
Rhoda was not necessarily a dogma, and perhaps also the word of those
who did not accurately know, when one as being little and God-fearing
is governed by angels, and when now by the Lord Himself. After
this, in order to establish our conception of the little one which we
have brought forward, it will be said that we need no command about
“not despising” in the case of the great, but we do need it
in the case of the little; wherefore it is not merely said, “Do
not despise one of these,” pointing to all the disciples, but
“one of these little ones,”6003
pointed out by Him, who sees the littleness and the greatness of the
soul.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|