Angelic Court Reporting; Rev. 3:1
Revelation
3:1, “To the angel of the church in
This
is addressed to “the angel if the church in
The
word “angel in Hebrew is malak,
and in the Greek, AGGELOS [a)ggeloj], and both of these words have the same range of
meanings. The first is that of a human messenger. For example, in Luke 9:52 we
are told that Jesus sent certain messengers out, not to announce the gospel or
to teach the Word but they were messengers sent with a mission to secure
lodging for the Lord Jesus Christ when He was on His way to Jerusalem. So that
in a sense is just an ordinary use of the word AGGELOS to refer to messengers.
This is used, though, very rarely in the Bible. Another usage that is similar
to this is its use in relationship to a prophet. A mistake that is often made
is that because of this one statement in the Gospels where the where the word
is used to refer to a prophet as a messenger therefore it must mean that in
Revelation. For example, in Matthew 11:10 we have a quote from an Old Testament
passage, Malachi 3:1, where malak is used to refer to a prophet: “This is the one about
whom it is written: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare
your way before you.’” Luke
We
must follow some basic rules of interpretation. First, a word’s meaning must
follow its normal usage unless the context provides a strong reason for doing
otherwise. Second, just because we can’t provide a complete answer to why an
angel would be involved in this process it doesn’t mean that we should exclude
the option. For example, we can’t fully understand how angels can procreate with
human beings but it is clear from the language used in Genesis 6:3 that when
the sons of God took the daughters of men, that phrase “sons of God” always
refers to angels everywhere it is used in the Old Testament. So just because I
can’t fully understand how that happened it doesn’t mean that I should look for
some other interpretation or some other meaning of the word. What we discover
is that the angels carried out various functions in the plan of God.
In
the book of Revelation the word AGGELOS is used 67 times, out of a total of 175 times in the
whole New Testament. So a third of the usages of AGGELOS in the Bible are in the
book of Revelation, and in all but eight of those 67 it refers to a
supernatural being. The eight that are questioned refer to these angels of
these seven churches. What we discover is that all of the other 59 are
supernatural beings, so it would fit the usage in the book to say this refers
to an angel, not a human messenger.
1) AGGELOS means a
messenger in its primary use as supernatural intelligent beings that are used
by God to serve Him in the administration of the universe. One thing that
stands out is that they are used by God in the administration of blessing and
judgment toward mankind or to individual human beings.
2) At some point after the creation of the universe
Lucifer fell into arrogance. He lusted after the authority of God and wanted to be thought of as God. He wanted that control, he wanted to run the universe. That is described in
Isaiah 14:12-14; Ezekiel 28:11-15.
3) Somewhere after this God convened a trial and he
sentenced these angels who followed Lucifer to a penalty of the lake of fire.
Jesus refers to this is Matthew 25:41 where he says that the lake of fire was
prepared for the devil and his angels. That verb “prepared” is a prefect active
indicative, indicating that it currently is in existence. It is talking about
the present reality of a completed past action. In other words, the lake of
fire has already been fully established and completed in the past and it
currently exists. What Jesus was saying here is that the penalty was set up and
the lake of fire was established but for some reason the angels were not placed
into the lake of fire. So this establishes the fact that something happened,
some delay has occurred between the original guilty verdict on Satan and the
angels and the final consummation of putting them in the lake of fire. We know
that at the end of Revelation is when Satan and the angels are cast into the
lake of fire, so why is there this delay? It is clear from various indications
in Scripture that human history is directly related to this angelic rebellion
that occurred in eternity past, that God has created the human race in order to
demonstrate through us certain aspects of His character and His ability to rule
the universe that can only be learned by experiment. The word “experiment” is
used in the sense of something that demonstrates a known point. So what God is
demonstrating in human history is His character, His love, His justice, His righteousness.
It becomes clear from observing various texts throughout Scripture dealing with
Satan and with Jesus and the virtues of the Christian life that what is at
stake is first of all the attribute of love. God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son…” So Satan apparently has challenged God’s character
in the sense that, If you really loved us you couldn’t
sentence us you couldn’t send us to eternity in the lake of fire. So another
challenge that we infer from Scripture is that God’s justice has been
questioned. How can a just God enact such a harsh penalty? What God is
demonstrating is just why this is so harsh. Poverty, war, disease, suffering, are the result of human beings doing the same thing that
Satan did: “I want to be like God.” We are all trying to be like God and there
is such a fragmentation throughout history that has brought all of this chaos
and disorder. So God is demonstrating in each generation, in each dispensation
where he gives different amounts of information and different amounts of
empowerment, that no matter how little or how much God gives to the human race,
no matter what He does to help us, that unless there is total obedience to Him
it all falls apart. In every dispensation the dispensation ends in chaos. No
dispensation has ended on the ascendancy, it always
ends in human failure. So God is demonstrating through this experiment of the
human race that no creature can ever find peace, prosperity, happiness, apart
from total dependence upon Him. So it is, as it were, a trial. When you go to
trial lawyers come forth and present evidence, the data, case studies, in order
to demonstrate their point. That is what God is doing in history. So the angels
are involved, as it were, as witnesses in this enormous trial that God has set
forth in human history. God is validating in a courtroom kind of setting His
character and the fact that only He can rule the universe and Satan cannot.
Within
this appeal trial concept we see certain legal notions brought forward, one of
which is this concept of being a witness. For example, in John chapter one John
the Baptist came forth as a witness to bear witness to the light. The verb is MARTUREO [marturew], the noun is MARTUROS [marturoj]. These are terms that are used in a courtroom, just
as we use them today. John 3:11, “I tell you the truth, we speak of what we
know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept
our testimony.” 1 Corinthians 4:9, “For it seems to me that God has put us
apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in
the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as
well as to men.” In other words, we are a visual evidence for the angels. They
are watching us, learning things from us. This is what Peter says in 1 Peter
1:12, “It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you,
when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have
preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels
long to look into these things.” Ephesians
4) Human history provides evidence in a legal court of
appeal which establishes Satan’s guilt, Adam’s guilt, and God’s integrity.
5) Angels observe human actions: 1 Corinthians 4:9; 1
Peter 1:12; 1 Timothy 5:21.
6) Angels observe as confirming witnesses to the giving
of divine covenants. Whenever we enter into a contract we have to have a
witness, as in the marriage contract. Witnesses give testimony to the
validation of the covenant. The same thing happens with angels. Galatians 3:19.
Angels were present at the giving of the Law as confirmatory witnesses. Cf.
Deuteronomy 4:26. How does God use angels in the Bible? The first place we see
angels is in Genesis chapter three: cherubs. After the fall God sets many
cherubs with flaming swords to keep people away from
The function of angels in the book of Revelation is to deliver God’s judgments on mankind. They are witnesses of God’s judicial enactments on the human race. What exactly are these seven letters to the seven churches? They are the judicial evaluations of these churches. So if we takes angels here as literal angels, and these are judicial documents evaluating the spiritual life of these congregations, then what we learn is that there is an angelic counterpart in this trial setting to each congregation that is keeping a record. They are angelic court recorders who are responsible for observing local congregations to write up evaluation reports. These evaluation reports are then utilized at the judgment seat of Christ in the future. So once we take this terms and understand it literally as true angels, then we explore what the Scripture says about the role of angels, it makes perfect sense to understand these as angels who are keeping a record that goes into the heavenly court documents on each congregation.