Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 114:455 (Jul 1957)
Article: The Old Testament Revelation of the Creation of Angels and the Earth
Author: Merrill Frederick Unger

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BSac 114:455 (Jul 57) p. 206

The Old Testament Revelation of the Creation of Angels and the Earth

Merrill F. Unger

The Angels Are Created

“Praise ye Jehovah…all his angels…” (Ps 148:1–2). Lucifer, the day star, son of the morning, was not the only celestial spirit to issue forth from the divine creative Omnipotence. He was, however, apparently the first. The appearance of his gem-studded glorious person in the primal Eden of God was the harbinger of the calling of myriads of other radiant spirits of light into being to inhabit the angelic spheres. The infinite Creator was manifesting not only His creative power and wisdom but supplying His desire for fellowship with holy, unfallen beings made in His own likeness and fitted for His own holy presence.

Spirits of flaming fire. The serried ranks of angelic spirits ceaselessly worship their Creator and serve Him with holy delight. “Are they not all ministering spirits” (Heb 1:14). The psalmist speaks of God’s having made these ethereal creatures “spirits” and “a flaming fire” (Ps 104:4). He also celebrates the strength, holy zeal, and unswerving obedience of the angels:

Bless Jehovah, ye his angels,
That are mighty in strength, that fulfill his word,
Hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Bless Jehovah, all ye his hosts,
Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure (Ps 103:20–21).

BSac 114:455 (Jul 57) p. 207

The creation of the angelic hosts as a part of the total creative activity of the eternal God countless ages before the creation of the human race is magnificently set forth in Colossians 1:16–17: “For in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers: all things have been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist.”

In considering angelic beings, horizons must be immeasurably widened to comprehend the whole universe. No suggestion appears upon the pages of divine revelation that these incorporeal beings, unconfined by the limits of time and space or the laws that prevail in the natural sphere, are restricted to the realm of this earth, or indeed to any other part of the universe. They are denizens of the “Father’s house” and its “many mansions,” a beautiful figure employed by our Lord to designate nothing less than the universe with its multitudinous dwelling places (

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