Angel fever is upon us. Like never before, there is a widespread emphasis and excitement about angels in popular culture. Television programs portray angels as heroes helping mankind. Hollywood has turned out a number of movies with very human, earthy angels as the heroes discovering what it is to be human and live here. Bookstore shelves are literally packed with a never ending stream of books on angels.

They range from accounts of angels intervening in human affairs in miraculous ways such as saving a boy bitten by a snake to protecting a social worker walking at night in a dark alley. Other books explain how one can actually contact and speak to your own guardian angel. Many religions now find a common denominator in admiring and loving the charitable influence of angels.

Angels now are found on posters, cards, statuettes, ornaments, and other good luck charms intended to bring the blessing and goodness of the angel into the home. What are Christians to make of this?

On the surface, it sounds like a good thing. What can be wrong with directing people to spiritual matters, even if it is through angels? After all, won’t people’s fascination with angels ultimately draw them to God? Isn’t it better for people to receive a fairly moral and uplifting message in the form of accounts of angels, than to take in the sex, violence and immorality of other secular media? Well, we need to get the Bible’s perspective on this issue.

First, let’s remind ourselves of the work of angels according to the Bible. Hebrews 1:14 tells us they are ‘ministering spirits’ i.e. they are servants, spiritual beings that serve. They serve in many capacities. Some, such as Gabriel, have a ministry of announcing things, like the birth of John to Zecharias, and the birth of Jesus to Mary, or the coming of Messiah to Daniel. Others have had a ministry of protection, like Michael, protecting the nation Israel. Others have had the ministry of exercising judgement on the nations as we see in Revelation.

Some spiritual creatures, loosely grouped with the angels, like the cherubim and seraphim, perform the ministry of worship and guarding the holiness of God around His throne. The point is that angels are all servants. They are not independent spiritual mercenaries who are agreeing to work with God; they are His servants. The angels who struck out for independence are those who followed Satan in his rebellion according to Revelation 12:9 and became demons, or fallen angels. God’s angels do not seek worship for themselves, for an identity apart from the true God. They consider themselves not their own, but servants of their Creator. With that as the foundation, let us examine the current angel fever.

I think there are three very disturbing things about it.

Universal Fatherhood of God

Firstly, the current attitude toward angels promotes something called the Universal Fatherhood of God. What does that mean? Well, the universal Fatherhood of God is a teaching that says, “God is everyone’s Father, we are all the children of God. No one is not a child of God; we are all His children, finding different ways up the same mountain.” This teaching comes across very strongly in these angel books and TV shows. In these stories, the angels are sent by a rather distant and inaccessible God, who condemns nobody, and accepts everyone on simply the basis that they were created. The angels in these stories are often like agents of redemption reaching out to someone chronically depressed or a violent father, who responds to their kindness by turning over a new leaf. The point is clear, though never stated: you don’t need Jesus Christ to be the child of God. God is your Father already, and thus may send His angels to intervene in Your life! In these shows, angels indiscriminately help anyone, because the teaching is clearly, “we are all the children of God”. People from religions that deny or reject Jesus Christ are blessed by these angels and sent on their way with a ‘you go live happily ever after, now’.

But the Bible does not teach that. The Bible does not teach that we are all the children in God. In fact, it teaches that being God’s child is not a birthright given to every human. Rather, it teaches that we are born into a cursed family of Adam, who are estranged and cut off from God (Ephesians 2:1). The news does not get any better. Not only are we not in God’s family from birth, but we are born into a family at war with God’s family (John 8:44): This is perhaps the most insulting news a human can hear: naturally speaking, your spiritual father is the devil. But I didn’t come up with that idea, Jesus did. I think He should know.

God is not a Father to everyone. The Universal Fatherhood of God is not taught in Scripture. Who is He a Father to? John 1:12. It’s conditional. Those who repent of their sin, in essence, cut their family ties to the devil’s family, and receive the Lord Jesus Christ for Who He is, God, Lord and your only hope of salvation are born into God’s family. That’s what the Bible teaches.

Now, think about it. Imagine a servant of God helping a person in the devil’s family in some physical or emotional way, and then leaving him by telling him that he is on good terms with God. No servant of God would do that. Yes, he may well help the person in some needy way, but no true servant of God would leave him without confronting him with his greatest need, his spiritual need of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, Scripture seems to indicate through Hebrews 1:14 and Matthew 18:10 that their ministry focuses around believers, those in God’s family. See, when angels appear smiling to unbelievers, help them and then disappear, it implies that the Gospel isn’t crucial. An angel met them, but made no mention of the Gospel. That’s like me finding a man critically injured on the side of the road, walking up to him, smiling, shaking his hand and saying, “Have a nice day” and walking off. How could eternal beings like angels truly serve God by glossing over the fact that unbelievers have only one way of escaping eternal judgment, and that is through Christ? Indeed, Revelation 14:6 tells us of an angel who will give man one last chance by preaching the Gospel to the whole world before the final and worst judgement comes.

Doesn’t Acts 17:28 say ‘For we also are his offspring’, i.e. we are all the children of God? No, we are all the offspring of God, related to Him in the sense that He breathed His life into our original Father Adam. But we are fundamentally opposed to Him spiritually until the day we take Him as our Lord.

Angels are not traveling philanthropists; they are servants of God, and will thus carry out His purpose. What is His purpose? Jesus stated it in Matthew 16:18: I will build my church. Angels who would help a man physically but not spiritually are actually leading him away from the church, and thus undoing the urgent message of the Gospel. So problem number one is that the tendency of the angel fever today is to promote a one-religion ecumenical atmosphere, where Jesus doesn’t matter and we all have one Father, the universal Fatherhood of God.

Angels as Mediators

The second problem is that in the current secular angel fever angels begin to serve as mediators between God and man. Angels, biblically, are messengers, not mediators. To some, this is a subtle difference, but it is a crucial one. A messenger carries a message from one party to another. He is not responsible to relay a response back. A mediator acts as a go-between between two parties. He represents one party to another and vice-versa. Now the Bible says that there is and has been and always will be only one mediator between God and man (I Tim 2:5). Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God, became man to die and rise for our reconciliation to God. Being 100% God and 100% man, He was and is the true mediator. He revealed God to us, and explained His only way of salvation, and now as a High Priest, He represents man to God, all those who will receive Him by faith. He alone can offer forgiveness, intercession and bring our case before the Father, for He alone is qualified to do so. Remember that in Revelation, not even the holy angels were found worthy to open the book, only the risen Christ could do so.

Now in these angels stories, angels not only give people messages that are non-biblical or even contradictory to the Word, but they apparently have the right to represent the person back to God. This is the job of a mediator. There are people who pray to their angels, asking them to tell God to bless them. They regard the angels as friendly intermediates, who will put in a good word for them. Sadly, many even trust them for salvation. They think because they sense the warmth of their supposed angel, they must be in good standing with God. They have never come into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, yet they are trusting in their personal angel to make them right with God. They think that God is pleased with them since their angel seems benevolent. But as we have shown, we must judge our experiences by the Bible, not the Bible by our experiences. We cannot trust even our experiences if they contradict Scripture. Indeed, Paul says in Galatians 1:8 that even if an angel appears and contradicts the Word, let him be accursed. What God says finally in His Word supersedes any claim of any experience.

It is incorrect to think that since angels are directing people to spiritual matters, it is overall a positive thing, and people will land up approaching God. No, in fact, it is the same idolatry present in so many false religions: a refusal to humble oneself and repent personally before God through Jesus Christ. Intermediaries save you the pain, the humility, and the tears. People will do anything to avoid the painful confrontation between them and God. Angels then become like agents of salvation, they do it for you, without the hassle of all the personal accountability you need in that born again thing.

This is a fatal error. Angels have no more power to save you than any human being who lived. Only God can save, by personally approaching Him in the Person of God the Son, Jesus Christ.

Angel Worship

Thirdly, the current angel fever amounts to angel worship. Colossians 2:18 specifically forbids angel worship. Consider what worship involves. Worship is regarding someone as being so valuable to you that you place your trust in him. Worship is seeing someone as being of such great worth that you seek comfort in his very person. Worship is admiring someone to the point of expressing praise and gratitude. Worship is regarding the person as being of such high value that communicate with him regularly.

Consider that this is exactly what people are doing today. People put up angel posters and figurines to draw the protection of the angel. They speak openly of how they pray to their angel for protection and guidance. People admire angels to the degree that they write poems about them, sing songs about them, paint them, draw them, write about them, pouring admiration and praise on them. People find their comfort in the thought of their personal guardian angel, not in the thought of a personal relationship with God. They have replaced God as the object of total dependence. They have replaced God as their source of life. They have replaced Him as their best Friend, the one they praise and say thank you to. They pray to the angel, instead of God. They have found one they think is an intermediary to God, but in fact, the angel is a substitute for God. It is salvation on my terms, apart from God, with no repentance needed.

Consider how an angel reacted when John was so awed by his beauty and brilliance that he fell down to worship him (Revelation 19:10). A true angel of God refused worship. Why would the true angels of God continue to promote something that is resulting in their worship by millions of humans? Even if they had done it indirectly, they would no doubt stop and change course, to direct people to God.

Angels are an important part of God’s plan. We should not gloss over their prominence in Scripture. But the undue fascination with angels has become an idol to many, replacing the true God whom they serve. People have set up angels in their own capacity to serve them as they please. But this is not according to God’s plan.

God will not regard gratitude to an angel as gratitude to Him. He will not regard love for an angel as love for Him. He will not regard trust in an angel as trust in Him. He has cleared the way for personal interaction between us and Him through Jesus Christ, and any attempt to reach Him through other intermediaries is simply veiled idolatry, a refusal to meet with Him on His terms, and to deceive our hearts in to a false peace because the intermediary of our choice is somehow supposedly related to God.

Remember the ominous warning in 2 Cor 11:14. Satan has every capability to masquerade as one of God’s, as I’m sure his fallen angels do.

I’m sure many of the angel stories are made up. I think a small fraction of them are true accounts of God’s angels obeying God’s instructions to intervene and be seen. I think many of the stories involve real accounts, real angels, but not God’s. They further an agenda that seems like love and peace on the surface, but it is hostile to the Gospel. It promotes the Universal Fatherhood of God. It teaches that angels can be your intermediary to God. And they subtly, if almost too humbly promote the worship of themselves.

Remember, even if an angel appears, and contradicts the Word of God, He is accursed. No true servant of God has his own agenda. I believe as we approach the return of Christ we are seeing an upsurge and increase in demonic activity. Be aware and awake, that this very subtle and seemingly innocent avenue, may be another example of such activity.