by Basil Munroe Godevenos

Created on: January 20, 2009

Angel worship and the first commandment

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

That seems pretty clear. But it doesn't answer the question: is it OK to worship angels?

The problem hinges, as grammarians would agree most problems do, in a prepositional phrase. "Before me."

The first thing a grammarian does when parsing a sentence is get rid of the prepositional phrases. They're useless (in grammatical terms), and the sentence is a whole lot easier to understand without them.

What happens when we throw out "before me"? We get "Thou shalt have no other gods." That answers our question quite nicely. Worship nothing but Yahweh.

But that phrase is in there, and we can't just discard it, unfortunately. It seems to suggest that we can worship anything, as long as we worship God first and foremost. OK, so we CAN worship angels. Right?

Well that depends on your definition of worship. A widely held opinion is that the words "worship" and "devotion" are virtually interchangeable. Can you be devoted to more than one thing? Devotion is service, and the Bible states we can't serve more than one master. Furthermore, it seems very wrong to me to even think of serving an angel. After all, the angels are just as fallible as humankind. Remember that demons are angels who disobeyed God.

Another important factor to note is how angels behave around humans. In every case I can think of where one angel or multiple angels appear to human beings, the words "do not be afraid" or "fear not" are uttered. We know from the biblical description of seraphim and cherubim (the former being bodies of flame in humanoid form, the latter being chimera-like beings, bestial and fierce in appearance) that they strike imposing and glorious figures. Yet we are extolled to "fear not".

Conversely, scripture leads us to believe that to fear God is virtuous. The definition of that fear of God is a form of devotion, service, or worship. It is the highest form of respect. Which is not to say it's wrong to respect other beings, be they human, animal or spirit.

I know people who speak to angels. This is an interesting one. Praying to angels in the same way we pray to God is useless. Angels are spatially limited, not omnipresent or omniscient. They can't hear your prayers if they are out of earshot. But if you have reason to believe that God has place an angel near you, why not speak to it? Why not thank it for serving God on your behalf?

It is misguided to worship angels in the sense of devotion and service, as it would be to worship a human being in that sense. But as we would hold some reverence and respect for a fellow servant of God, so should we revere and respect the angels.

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