Friday 20 September 2019

Fearing To Tread Where There Are Angels

There are some people who claim to have seen an Angel, the white winged vision of purity making sure nothing bad befalls us and when asked to describe them you get the usual wings, white flowy dress and occasionally carrying a harp like in the thousands of paintings and films which have an Angel in them but the problem is whatever it was they saw, if it had wings and such then it wasn't an Angel.
The Angels in the Bible, and there are several kinds but hardly any have wings and those who do, like the Seraphim's, who actually have six wings with which to cover their glowing bodies so they don't blind whoever is unlucky enough to bump into one.
There are ones called the Thrones, which are described in the Bible as 'wheels within wheels', the rims of which are covered in eyes and then there are the Cherubs, described in Ezekiel 10:14 as having 'four faces: the first the face of an ox, the second a human face, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle'.
The Angel we all picture in our heads is the portrayal of them by painters who gave them wings as a way to identify them from the regular people in the painting.
Another Biblical character is the Devil, him of the cloven-hoofed, pitchfork, red-skin, goatee and horns only that's not how the Bible describes him mainly due to the Bible not describing him at all but rather depicting him as disembodied voice.
Once again artists are to blame, making him visually striking by giving him all of the above and the image just stuck as did that of Hell where far from the land of fire and brimstone with demons handing out punishments for eternity as expected, Peter 2:4 describes it as being 'put into chains of darkness to be held for judgment' and nowhere does it mentions the Devil ruling over it.
So the next time some religious crackpot is on TV talking about Angels, the Devil or Hell then you can roll your eyes because if you see a Biblical Angel you would never sleep again, even Jesus never saw the Devil and Hell is a place where you are chained up and there are some people who pay good money for that already.

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