Curiously Kaitlyn - Why Angels are Jealous of Humans

Welcome to Curiously Katelyn, where we try to make theology make sense.

Welcome back to another Curiously Katelyn. I am joined once again by producer Mike. Mike, how are you?

Katelyn, I'm feeling angelic today. Are you? Yeah, and a little boyish. Wow, without context,

what a way to answer it. What a waste. You know, it's also funny. I love this. I have a feeling most

of our audience finds it annoying. They're just hitting like skip 30 seconds. No, I like it. I like

your answers. And unlike today, most days, I'm not totally sure what you're going to say. I know

it'll be connected to the episode. I don't know what it's going to be. This week, I knew part of

what you were going to say, but boyish was not on my list of your possible answers. I got to keep

on your toes. All right. Now, if our audience isn't totally confused, let's go ahead and play this

week's kid question. Are angels depicted in the Bible as girls or boys? Oh, wow. There's there's

something going on in the background there. I love that like every parent listening is probably

like, yeah, sometimes there's just not even not even like, oh, let's record that again. Just like this.

I just like that the that probably what happened is a mom or a dad is like holding their phone for

the kid asked this question. And while that's happening, another child is screaming bloody murder.

And we're all just kind of going. We're just going with it. We're just going with it. So to be

clear, the question was, are angels depicted in the Bible as girls or boys? Girls are boys.

It's interesting. A very good question. And I was thinking about this. I'm like, man, every time

an angel is mentioned in the Bible, seems like a boy. Seems like a boy. Right. So is this going to be

like, is it just all boys because boys are bad? No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. This is such a good

example of a question where I really feel like how we should go about this is by saying yes and

no. I think we should start with the yes because the yes is kind of more obvious. But then the no

is really important too. And then we'll figure out which of the two we learn on. But there's some

reason we might want to say yes. And there's a good reason why I think we should say first that a

kid would ask this because on one hand, all creatures that you encounter with very small minor

exceptions that you learn in like upper level biology, all creatures you encounter boys and girls.

Yes. Kind of central to your experience of humans and animals. And like you're just you even

learned later, right? I was just at the field museum last weekend and flower season. There's like

a sense of like boy and girl. You know, so you just learn that's how creatures work. There's

boys and there's girls. Angels, very different kinds of creatures. We don't typically see them

or encounter them. Sure. So on one hand, you would go my assumption is there's boys and girls.

And then you might go I every time I can think of an angel in the Bible, seems to be a boy.

And there's a few reasons for that. One, every reference, this is not just your feeling,

this is true. Every reference to angels in the Bible uses male pronouns. So like when in judges,

there's an angel holding a staff. It says in his hand or in Zechariah, when he says the angel

answered him, he says he answered all of the angels in revelation are he's one little minor

nerdy point about this is that at least in Greek, the word that we use and translate angel is just

a masculine word, which if you speak Spanish or another language that works this way, you would know

doesn't mean that thing is a boy. It's just in other languages and some other languages other

than English, all nouns are either feminine or masculine. Greek is one of those languages. So

every single word, feminine or masculine, spirit, for example, feminine. So some people would say

the Holy Spirit, maybe you should use feminine pronouns for the Holy Spirit. The Bible doesn't do

that. So that's a good reason, but maybe not too, but maybe too. But usually if you're talking about

a cup or a chair, it doesn't matter to you that it's a feminine or a masculine word that doesn't

tell you something about the gender of the cup or the chair to my knowledge. No. But with angels,

that fact is coupled with the fact that masculine pronouns like he and him and his are used to

describe angels. They seem to look like men in a couple of instances when they are described

in Genesis 18 and Ezekiel 9, the way they are described physically sometimes even with dress

sounds like a man. Like it's like that's you there would be it would be very surprising to people

who had heard these stories originally if someone described in those ways turned out to be a woman.

Their expectation is that this is a man. And then you have the fact that the only angels that have

any names are Michael and Gabriel, which are boys names. I've heard Michael is a great name and a great

name. Yeah, solid name. And just like anyone named Michael must be sort of angelic. I

is see and boyish and boyish. Yeah, so all of these are pretty good reasons right to think like

it seems like angels boys five minutes six minutes in. We figured it out. We can't figure it out.

There's a whole other thing we could say that we'll get to know in a minute, but I just want to

pause and say it's interesting that in the Bible angels are exclusively described at least as

physically presenting like they look like men. And yet most of our popular culture depictions

of angels are women. Yeah, they tend to be really sweet kind of ethereal women. So I think I told

you this like last Christmas when this happened. It really annoyed me. I was at a church where

they wanted to read the Christmas story on Christmas Eve, which I love makes sense. But they wanted

the whole congregation to have these like speaking parts. So like the past year of friends reading

the story, but at certain points, there's like a signal on the reading for us all to give some kind

of like we read those words or we make a sound or we and the angels whenever the angel said anything

in the story, it was all the women. All the women should say that part. Of course, because eight women

are so angelic women are angelic. They're like ethereal and beautiful. And so this is this is just a

weird and we don't need to spend a bunch of time on this, but this is a weird fact about human

history that along the way we have ended up depicting a lot of angels in these really feminine forms.

And yet we don't have an example of that in scripture. We have one verse, which I should name in

case any really nerdy person is listening. There's one verse that some people will go to. There are

some nerdy person listening. There's one verse that some people will go to to say is this not a

reference to an angel. That's a woman. Okay. It's in Zachariah chapter five where it says, then I

looked up and there before me were two women with the wind in their wings. They had wings like those

of a stork and they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth. The reason this is probably not

like slam dunk evidence for women angels is because Zachariah is describing a very symbolic,

very otherworldly vision here. We don't know what he's talking about totally like we have some

theological ideas about what his point is, but we're not sure that this description is definitely

a description of angels. It talks about women. It talks about wings. So maybe, but it's not it's not

in a genre that is intending to describe to us literally how reality is. It's in a genre that's

using images to kind of tell us a theological point like a lot of prophecy. It's hard to know what

we should take as like literally this is how the world is and this is how we will experience the world

and what is intended to be taken as an exaggerated kind of theatrical description of reality that

teaches us a theological truth, but isn't how we actually experience the world. So it's not the

best evidence because it's kind of a weird passage. We don't really know what to do with it. It's

the only one that even sort of seems like the angels look like or are described as women.

Okay, I bet that was really helpful for the few nerds we have. Just in case anyone was like what

about Zachary? For us non nerds. It just seems like Caitlin masculine pronouns. All the angels

are described as boys, Gabriel, you know, Michael. It just seems like all right, we probably know there

are some girl angels, but yeah, it's not that complicated. They're basically men. They're basically men.

Yeah, except not. Here's the no side of that list. So all of the yes evidence is how they appear

to humans, which is important because we're humans, but doesn't tell us how they actually are that

just tells us how they are presenting to humans in a particular time and place. Scripture is a

wide range of history, but it's a particular time and to a particular set of people. Angels in terms

of how scripture describes them really broadly are described as spiritual beings. They're not

described as having bodies and we would say that having a body is really important to being a man

or being a woman. Yes. And most of the time, I think this is one of the really important things to

know. Angels are very rarely, though they sometimes are, but they're very rarely described as individual

creatures. There is Gabriel. There is there is Michael. That's a real anomaly from how angels are

usually described. Usually they're both described kind of impersonally. Even when there is one angel,

it's the angel of the Lord or the archangel. It's not a specific personality, but even more

common than that is just the angels, like the angels that are praising God when Jesus is born,

or the angels that are praising God at the throne room and revelation, or the angels that witness

and rejoice at creation. Job describes that, or the ones that are worshiping God throughout all of

human history, like in Luke 15 or in Revelation 7, and they're often described in broader terms as

just kind of with existing within the spiritual realm. So sometimes they're listed in the New Testament

in particular, in lists among the heavenly hosts, the spirits, the principalities, the powers,

the dominions, the authorities, the thrones. So that doesn't mean angels are not specific personalities,

but it does mean that scripture is much more interested in telling us anything about the

existence of this kind of creature than it is about telling us about a specific creature.

The history of Christianity has involved a lot of people who got maybe a little too into angels.

What? Yeah. I know. It's crazy that we ever got too into anything going on. I don't know why you

would think angels in the outfield would. That seems like a very historically accurate. It seems

like it must be true about angels helping baseball players. The crazy thing is that's not even the

weirdest we've gotten. In especially some medieval theological times, people got really into,

which it makes sense why they did. There's tons of weird references to angels in the Bible,

and there's lots of different words used to describe angels. So you've got like seraphim and

cherubim and you've got archangels and you've got, and so in the Middle Ages in particular, people

sometimes came up with very elaborate maps, basically. Of here are the hierarchy of angels,

and here's how all they work, and here's where you put Gabriel, and here's where you put Michael,

and here's, and it doesn't, that's not wrong necessarily, but it doesn't seem like scripture is

very interested in giving us that level of detail about angels. It seems like the point

scripture is trying to get across to us is angels are creatures God has made that serve God's

purposes, and actually seem very oriented towards serving humans in particular. Most of the time

angels are mentioned other than worshiping God, which is their primary, just like humans,

primarily oriented not towards ourselves or to even material creation like the earth we live on,

everything, all creatures when they are restored and redeemed when they are created are intended

to glorify and worship God, but the secondary purpose it seems for angels is to minister to humans.

So it talks about them as messengers, it talks about them in first Corinthians or no in Hebrews 1,

as ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation, i.e. humans who will

inherit salvation. So they both scripture seems both more interested in talking to us about angels

as a whole, and in showing us they worship God even when we don't, and God has graciously given

us the opportunity to be ministered to by these creatures that in some ways we might think of as,

I mean, they're more powerful in many ways than we are. They seem to have abilities that we don't

have, they can, you know, travel through space and time, it's, Jesus says they do not die, like,

so there's a sense in which they have powers and knowledge and wisdom that we do not have,

and yet it seems to be that they're oriented not towards having authority over us,

but serving and ministering and being God's messengers to God's people.

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Spotify or wherever you're listening now. All right, let me make sure I'm understanding you.

You have said we shouldn't be so obsessed with angels. Probably not. Yeah. So should we

kind of criticize the kid who sent in this question? No, it's a great question. I just want to

make sure. All right, don't be obsessed with angels. Focus on the collective group, not the

individual angels. And then you said angels don't have physical bodies. Seems to be true. Are

they like a ghost if I like put my hand like my hand would just kind of go right through an angel?

Quite possibly. Interesting. Again, scripture doesn't tell us that. Okay. But I do think I think

I want to emphasize that part a little bit more because I went by it really fast. It is really

frequent in scripture that angels are described as spirits. And why that matters so much for this

question about are they boys or are they girls? Is we tend to talk about being a girl or being a

boy, not just in terms of all creatures, right? Like humans have this difference and animals seem

to have this difference. But because of like the cartoons we like and the like little stick figures,

our kids draw and we tend to think everything can be categorized into boy and girl,

including ghosts spirits, the little creatures that we draw or that we animate or whatever.

And instead, scripture seems to really connect being gendered, being male and female with having

a body. Like on a really basic level, the difference there is one of how your body is.

There's so much more we could say that scripture says about what it means to be a man or what it

means to be a woman. We've done some episodes where we've talked about this. But one of the only

things that we can say with like a lot of certainty is that scripture says we were created male and

female and that that difference in our bodies is what gives us the ability to say boy, girl, male

female. And if that's true and angels do not have bodies, then we can't really say boy, girl,

male female. So angels don't have gender is what you're saying? I would say no, probably.

Yeah. I'm not going to say that with complete certainty. But and one of the pieces of evidence

that people will often use for this is one, the verses I already mentioned versus like Hebrews 114

that talk about angels as spirits. And then it's just sort of like a logical conclusion. Okay,

their spirits, they don't have bodies, means not male and female. The other verse that people

will often go to is when Jesus is given this like kind of philosophical conundrum where the

teachers say to him, okay, a woman marries a man. He dies in the system at the time. One of the

kind of responsibilities of his brother was to marry her so that she could continue on the line.

So they say, okay, her first husband dies. She marries his brother, second husband dies. She marries

the next brother on and on on whose husband will she be in eternity? And they're trying to trick him

in part because they don't actually believe in the resurrection of the dead. They don't actually

believe in a life after this one. And so they're trying to say, well, here's some good evidence

against that. How would that work? Possibly. And Jesus gets out of that in a way that is a little

bit tricky like they're tricky. Reverse polygamy. Reverse polygamy. Yep. She's everyone's wife. Yeah.

No, how he gets out of it is he says, at the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given

in marriage. They will be like the angels in heaven. So some people will say, okay, angels don't

marry, which means angels don't have gender. I don't think that can be the answer. In part because

if you want to say that, then you want to say, okay, angels don't have gender because they don't

have marriage. We won't have marriage in eternity. Does that also mean we don't have gender?

And and Christian theologians for a long time have gone back and forth on this. There were some

early Christian theologians who said, yeah, we won't. We will be more perfect in not having this

central division between humanity. Humanity will be one. It will be one kind of being.

I think there's a lot of reasons that's not right. One being our created difference, male and female

is described in Genesis as good and a gift from God. Not something that happens because of the

fall. What the fall does is it takes that good difference and turns it into a distorted

relationship. So all of a sudden, this thing that should just be difference becomes hierarchy,

becomes domination, becomes a strangement from each other. If this created difference is good

and it has something to do with the goodness of our being in bodies, being embodied creatures,

and we've said many times in the show before, in eternity, we don't lose the shackles of this body.

Our bodies are restored and redeemed. They were made good and they will be restored to be good.

I think we still have male and female them. And somehow yet, Jesus is saying something about how

marriage will be different than or not existent at all. And that is for a different episode.

I was going to say, you were taking us down a path and we're going to stop there.

We're going to not talk about marriage and have it.

Nope. Nope. Okay. Very interesting, Caitlin. Here's what I want us to pivot to though,

related to angels. Because I think like very interesting theoretical. But a lot of times,

I think your average person who does another Bible very well, doesn't know theology very well,

would say that angels are better, are superior to humans. And what you've kind of said in all of this

is that, ah, you don't think that is the case that angels are even jealous of humanity.

Yeah. Why would you say that? Yeah. There's lots of places in scripture that do talk about

angels in a sense that would make you think like higher being, more important being.

Um, angels do not sin. Yeah. Better than sinning. That seems pretty good.

Angels have power and wisdom and they can fly right. And so in a certain sense, yeah,

scripture speaks about angels very positively. They are doing God's work and are used by God

in a different way than God uses humans. And yet, scripture also describes them as oriented

ultimately towards worship of God, but secondarily towards ministering to humans. They are not

described as made in the image of God. The way humans who have bodies are described as made in the

image of God. There's so much more we can say about made in the image of God and what it means to

have a body. And the fact that God does not have a body, but then Jesus and Carnot has a body. And

that's not just wasn't true for a little while. It's still true. Jesus currently is an embodied

human and also fully God. So scripture describes angels as powerful and important and involved in

all of this kind of cosmic battle and also cosmic worship of God. And yet, it says in 1 Corinthians

and later in Revelation that we, when we are reigning with Christ, will judge the angels.

What that means? I don't know. I don't know how to tell you to prepare for being the judge of

angels, but there is this sense in which we focus a lot on this show and lots of Christians focus on

how Jesus condescended to us, how Jesus, he humbled himself. It says in scripture to be a human.

What we don't often always talk about is that movement from, from higher to lower is true and

beautiful. And we should thank God for it. What's also true and what scripture says very often is

in doing that, Jesus humbles himself and elevates us. Because God chose to be a human. That says

something about humans that elevates and dignifies and increases the value of humans. A value we already

had made in the image of God created good. And yet in becoming a man, Jesus elevates humans. And

part of how scripture describes that is not only that we will reign and rule with Christ in

eternity, which as friend of the show Malcolm Foley likes to say does not mean Jesus has a big throne

and we're all just kind of sitting in little baby thrones around him. It really means we will

exercise this authority that by the grace of God we are given to do participating in God's good

work that doesn't end of ruling and reigning over creation. That's robust. That's not just like

it's so nice he lets you sit with him. It's like he dignifies what it means to be human

and redeems and restores us so that we are able to take on this incredible role that in our fallen

state we can't. Going back to the verse that we mentioned before and Hebrews 1 it says angels are

ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. Many theologians are history.

We have talked about angels as being sort of jealous of humans both in the sense of the relationship

we get to have with God. God became a human. God made us in his image and there's something about

that that has to do with having a body. It's not it's not to focus too much on our bodies. We can

we can focus on our bodies and our differences between men and women too much. But scripture seems

to say not only is that difference good or embodiedness is good the fact that in our bodies we are

male and female is good. And also how the angels are while they have all this power will they

wisdom. There is something lacking in not having a body. There is something that is good about being

a creature with a body and the kind of body that Jesus took on in the incarnation. That's not so

that we can just feel better about ourselves. But I think it's a good way for us to remember

when we are tempted especially in this moment with technology the way it's going with some of our

desires to live free of our bodies. It's good to remember that actually those who live without

bodies these angels who have all this power that was that that is partially connected to them not

having a body that being fully spirit. There's something lost there and there is something really

good in us having these bodies. I mean and just there's something good in being human. I

think so often in the church and I understand why we do it. We focus on the the fall of humanity,

the sinfulness of humanity. And and even as the human experience there's a lot of bad stuff that

comes with the human experience. It is painful. It is sad. It is confusing and complicated and

and you know as you get older your aches and pains grow more and more and and it can feel like

it's so hard to be human sometimes and we we long like oh wouldn't it be amazing if we were angels

and raised that the other and and I think to pause for a moment and just consider the fact that

angels are jealous of me of my body of my relationship with God and that somehow some way

in new creation I will actually be judging angels and and that God if the kingdom of of God is

already partially here on earth what does that mean for today in the way that I that go about

living in this creation living in this world in the ways I interact with people it's it's

like I'm thinking of this especially because our two-year-old miles is in very much in the stage

right now where he wants to do everything yeah and it's it's always I do it I do it I do it and man

it's like so frustrating because it slow it's slower it's not as good as if I were to do it and yet

there is something there is joy I also experience and seeing miles learn new skills and doing things

together with him and how much more so our Heavenly Father who is like no I want you I don't want

you to just sit off to the side and and hang out I want you in the game I want you to try and

attempt and together we're going to do this thing that that's a beautiful image I think I love

that it it reminds me of how I learned in seminary to to kind of dislike when people when they sin

say oh I'm only human yeah it is not essential to humanity to sin but to your point it is essential

to humanity to be limited and we mix those up a lot we really struggle with with assuming

that it is essential to humanity to sin but also assuming that because I have this constant

experience of sin and it's it's negative effects that my experience of my limitations is also

an effective sin that I can't wait to be free of so I want to be like the angels not just how

Jesus describes in eternity where we do not die I want to be like the angels in terms of free

of limitation of my smallness of my finitude and along the lines of what you're saying about miles

our Heavenly Father gave us our smallness and called it good and when we experience as miles does

this frustration with like I'm trying to do it all and I'm not capable of doing it all

there's a way that we can turn and go along the lines of these angels there would be something

lost if I could do it all there would be something lost if I was free from the limitations

of my body how can I when I am feeling that frustration or the the kind of way that sin

continues to disrupt that smallness and make me make me hate it how could I see the gift there

both in the beautiful example you gave of a child of going this is inefficient this is complicated

but there's goodness here how could I in my own experience of oh I can't do 45 things today

or I it is just not possible for me to to have my eyes everywhere in the room and to how could I

recognize that there are are ways that that frustrates me or ways that that you know limits me

where could I see the gift there in the way that angels don't experience yeah that is a good

reminder Caitlin any other final words for us as we wrap up today we'll have to do another

episode on being married in heaven I don't there's there's a lot more we got to say there and if

you're listening to this and you've never thought about that passage I'm so sorry to disrupt your

day with thinking about marriage marriage yeah we'll say that for another time fortunately I don't

think we'll get very many kid questions I don't know if kids are thinking about marriage that's fair

that's fair but maybe they'll hear this episode now the boy now I'm like yeah some parent is gonna

put their kid yeah and I don't know you have little boys but I'm around little girls and listen

they're obsessed I mean especially for me right now they're planning my wedding like they're really

into weddings so they might want to know okay our boys are still trying to convince you and know

that you're not a lot of getting married we shouldn't get married because if you get married you got

a kiss yeah yeah look gross Caitlin thank you as always everyone at home thanks for tuning in

and we will see you next week curiously Caitlin is a production of Holy Post Media produced by Mike

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