Sent Forth: Meditations on the Angels of God
II. Created as Light: The First Creatures and the Order of Creation-Part One
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day (Genesis 1:1-3).
There is something strange about that passage. Something more seems to be going on.
Stay with me here. God creates the heavens and the earth. Darkness is upon the face of the deep. Then God creates light and separates it from darkness. But wait, just four verses later, on day four, he creates the sun and the stars, the actual orbs that produce light in our physical world? How can there be light on the first day when there is no sun, moon, or stars?1
Our forebears knew this problem, and took it seriously. Their answer to this conundrum was to look deeper into what Scripture calls “light.” For instance, Augustine suggested that “light” in this passage, at least in one framing of it, means something in addition to photons. Our own physical light (if we can call it that) is not made of traditional matter. It is actually tiny packages of pure photonic energy.2 Light in scripture means many more things than photons. Augustine suggests that this was the moment of the creation of the angels. Brakel agrees, and adds that this was also the creation moment of the third heaven, and all the hosts of it.3 Which brings us to another interesting tidbit in Genesis 2:1.
When all six days draw to a close, it says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them" (Genesis 2:1). The word "host" catches the eye. The Hebrew word is tsaba, which is actually a military word (Numbers 1:3; Numbers 31:14; 1 Samuel 17:45; Isaiah 40:2; Job 7:1; 1 Kings 22:19; 2 Chronicles 18:18; Psalm 103:21; Psalm 148:2; Nehemiah 9:6). It is the word for an ordered army under leadership. It is the word that stands behind the great divine title repeated throughout the Old Testament, the LORD of hosts, YHWH Tsebaoth. A quick read of this verse make us think it’s a tallying up the contents of the universe. Actually, it is announcing that by the close of the sixth day, a host has been made, ordered, and brought to completion. In heaven as well as on earth. The earth's host will become the sun and stars. The heavens' host, from the first day, is the complete angelic army. The Sabbath rest that follows is the rest of a sovereign who has set his whole kingdom in order, visible and invisible together, and found it all very good.
But is there any actual traction in the Word of God for associating angels with light? Well, for one, in Matthew 28:2-3, the angel at the tomb: “his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow.” Luke’s adds that they appeared in “shining garments” (Luke 24:4). Let’s not forget the angel who appeared to the shepherds was surrounded by “the glory of the Lord” shining round about them (Luke 2:9). Daniel 10 actually gives us one of the most vivid examples. Daniel’s angel has a body that was “like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire” (Daniel 10:6). Revelation uses similar language more than once. The angel in Revelation 10:1 is “clothed with a cloud” with “a rainbow upon his head,” his face “as it were the sun.” The angel in Revelation 18:1 comes down from heaven, and “the earth was lightened with his glory.” There appears to be scriptural reason to at least consider whether angels were created on day one of creation week.4 In other words, the angels, likely created on the first day, represent a whole spiritual realm that precedes the physical. They could also be called light because they are the first intelligent beings, created to behold and then reflect the Light that is God himself, for “God is light.”5
It is an interpretation, I know. Augustine and Brakel are careful not to dogmatize, so I must follow suit. But you have to admit, it has Scriptural weight (not to mention theological coherence).
Because, the principle that governs this gives us an outline of order in creation. God does everything orderly. Always (1 Cor. 14:33). He creates according to wisdom, beauty, authority, and function. For instance, we know that the intellectual precedes the sensual. The spiritual precedes the physical. So it make sense that the heavenly precedes the earthly. Since God is indeed sovereign and wise, his creative acts follow an order that reflects his nature.6
This means that the angelic creation, being purely spiritual and intellectual, comes before man. Yet they are still creatures, not little or demigods. They have neither eternity of themselves nor life in themselves. They are made things, called into being by the Word, the eternal Son. Yet they appear to be the first things he made. He is the Captain of them (Josh. 5:14, 15). Just like us, they possess personality, intellect and will. They have agency. They each have a name, a place, a history. They stand in direct relation to God before any physical universe existed.7
I have already mentioned our beloved à Brakel, who took up this question with strength. He also suggests that angels were created on day one, and that they are creatures of a higher order than man, but a lower order than God. They are not made up of any material. You can’t touch an angel. They have no physical bodies.8
The Apostle Paul, writing in Colossians 1:16, establishes the principle: “By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.” This is not to suggest that Paul is giving chronology; his point is Christ’s absolute creatorship over every aspect of created beings, heavenly and earthly, visible and invisible. The angels, and whatever those thrones and dominions and principalities are, belong to the invisible creation that is made by Christ, upheld by Christ, and ordered for Christ.9
This has consequences for how we understand where we fit into it.
If the angels were created on day one, with light, then they existed before the world was fully formed. They also witnessed the next five days of creation. They saw God the Son speak the universe into being. We can imagine the angels standing in heaven, watching as the Triune God unfolds the days one after the other, each more glorious than the next. And then they watch in wonder as God, on day six, creates a little beautiful creature called man. And in own image no less?! After His own likeness. It is perfectly reasonable that they beheld the mystery of the creation of this creature. Made after God’s own image, made of both spirit and matter, soul and body, immortal essence inside mutable flesh.10
And then something happens that Scripture tells us the angels themselves did not fully grasp. The God who created both angel and man, becomes, not an angel, but a man. Think of it! The Word through whom all things were created, both visible and invisible, took on our flesh forever. They would be astonished that He becomes subject to the very laws he created, including hunger and pain and death. The angels beheld the incarnation, and the Scriptures say they desire to look into these things (1 Peter 1:12). It is more than amazing that even the first creatures, who stood closest to God, leaned forward to understand God becoming flesh.11
If this is all true, then it means that the angels are our seniors in creation.12 The world was made in their presence. Adam, then Eve were created in their sight. And then in the fullness of time, the God they worshiped in heaven, took on human flesh and came to earth. This was the goal toward which the entire created order moved from the first millisecond of light on the first day.13
(This is longer than I had anticipated. I will try to be briefer in the next post)
End of Part One.
1 Slight clarification: Genesis 1:2 says darkness was “upon the face of the deep.” Darkness here is the condition over which God speaks His creation. This is not the creation of darkness, but the absence of light.
2 Augustine is deliberately cautious: “Where Scripture speaks of the world’s creation, it is not plainly said whether or when the angels were created,” yet he argues that if the angels are mentioned in Genesis 1, they are implicitly mentioned either under “heaven” or under “light.” See Augustine, City of God, XI.9.
3 Wilhelmus à Brakel states that “it is most probable” the angels, as the heavenly host, were created on the first day with the third heaven, while also saying that the exact day cannot be stated with certainty. See Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 1, chap. 9, “Angels and Devils.”
4 The angelic brightness texts are cumulative and I find them most interesting, but they do not by themselves prove that the light of Genesis 1:3 is angelic. They work best as supporting resonance from Genesis 1 and Job 38.
5 1 John 1:5. This statement should be read analogically. Angels are not divine light by nature. They are creatures illumined by God, who alone is light essentially. Augustine’s language is useful here: angels become light by participation in the unchangeable Light, not by possession of deity.
6 Historic Christian doctrine affirms the goodness of matter and the body, even while acknowledging an order of being among creatures.
7 Scripture clearly teaches that angels are creatures and that they existed before the foundation of the earth was laid, as Job 38:4-7 indicates. It does not explicitly narrate the moment of their creation in Genesis 1.
8 À Brakel defines an angel as “an incorporeal, personal being which God has created and gifted with an extraordinary intellect, will, and power.”
9 The KJV phrase “visible and invisible”does not say “invisible before visible.” Paul’s main concern in Colossians 1:16 is not chronology but Christology. His preeminence over every order of creaturely power.
10 Job 38:4-7 is the strongest biblical support: when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” The language strongly suggests angelic witness and praise at creation.
11 1 Peter 1:12 says that the angels desire to look into the things now reported through the gospel. “Did not fully see coming” should be understood phenomenologically, not as though God’s revealed promises were absent or as though the holy angels were ignorant in a crude sense. The point is that redemption in Christ is a mystery into which even angels long to gaze.
12 This point is offered cautiously. Much of it is inferential. I do not wish to press beyond the measure of Scripture. Yet there is considerable confusion about angels in our day drawn from general ignorance, novels, films, podcasts, social media feeds,, and the overall atmosphere of western culture. This is an attempt to bring the subject back under the light of Scripture, so that our thoughts might be shaped less by ignorance, imagination and assumption, and more by the Words of God.
13 See John 1:1-14, Colossians 1:15-20, and Hebrews 2:5-18.