Are the holy angels perfect, or do they sometimes fail God (Job 4:18; 15:15)?

Further questions follow in verses 11-16. His assertions as to the holiness of God are quite right. The lower heavens, defiled by the presence of Satan, are indeed "not clean in His sight." His assertions as to the filthiness of man are equally true; but the inference that Job must be guilty of secret evils, which he "winked at" instead of acknowledging, were wide of the mark.

That obedience to the will of God characterizes every activity of the elect angels cannot in the face of Psalm 102 be called in question; they have no will contrary to the will of God. I suppose the angels whom He charged with folly (Job 4:18) were fallen angels.

"Shall mortal man be more just than God?" — or "just before God," in His presence. Compared with His holiness, even the heavenly beings are unclean. The seraphim veil their faces as they proclaim Him. How much less can mortal man, whose mortality is a witness of his sin, vaunt himself. His breath is in his nostrils; like a tale that is told his life is compassed in a day — like the ephemeral moth.

This is all quite true, and in other connections most appropriate; but, as already said, it falls beside the mark, for it does not meet Job's need. Truly, in the sight of God, all are as an unclean thing, but will that set aside the fact that there is such a thing as righteousness in the children of God? If all are thus unclean in the sight of God, then Eliphaz must take his place beside Job, a thing he is by no means ready to do, and all explanation of suffering fails.

Eliphaz continues, "If God puts no trust in His saints (evidently angels), and the heavens are not pure in His sight, how much less man, who is abominable and filthy, who drinks iniquity like water!" (vv.15-16). From God's viewpoint this too is true, but would Eliphaz have appreciated it if Job called him "abominable and filthy?" Thus Eliphaz was seeking to use a general truth to convict Job of worse guilt than was actually true of Job.

Ques. — What of the angels, are they not holy?

C.C. — We do not speak of holiness until after testing. Men and angels were created in innocence, not in holiness. We do not properly speak of holiness until after the attitude as to sin is taken. Angels who stood the test are called “holy” and “elect” angels.

The angels are elect and holy. This shows that some of the angels that were created were preserved from falling; that was their election. Whereas the human race fell in its federal head, so that all are fallen. The church is an Object of great interest to the angels. By it they learn the manifold wisdom of God. That is why brothers take their hats off, and sisters keep their bonnets on, in the assembly. 1 Cor. 11.

The great angelic beings of heaven have their own state and conditions of life: they are the holy angels, who live in constant unswerving obedience to God, carrying out His will as His servants, even as it is written, “Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire.” Men are differently constituted to angels, and although their life is a very blessed one, it is not given to us to enter into their thoughts and feelings, and all that constitute their heavenly life. We read of their shouting for joy in Job 38:7, and often of their praise. But this eternal life, which was with the Father is not communicated to the angels, but to those the Son has received from the Father.

Again, the elect angels are bound to do God's will, but there is no uncertainty. God sustains them in will and deed; they delight to do His will, and there is no question at all about the result. Such a question cannot be raised. Their delight to do God's will is a part of their existence, in which they are sustained by infinite power, and thus they do it by the strength given to them. Even Christ Himself was responsible to do His Father's will when He had undertaken it; but there could be no question for a moment as to failure. His moral being was perfectness, was never anything else, nor could be. But every created being is responsible; that is, he ought always to do God's will, not his own. It flows from the necessary and immutable relation of the creature to the Creator. The creature ought to be, in all its thoughts and ways, what suits the relationship in which it subsists. All relationships as such have duties in the including thoughts and feelings which correspond to and express the relationship. Husband and wife, father and child, master and servant, brother and sister, by virtue of the relationship in which they are, ought to be what the word expresses, and all that is implied in it. The husband is bound to be a husband: that is, he is bound to be what the word means; and so the wife; and the rest. The relationship is not the duty; but the duty is inseparable from the thought of it. It will be found that this is not the idea that men have of their responsibility to God (and in part they are right, but that they are so is the consequence of the fall), and in practical result they are wholly wrong.

It is sometimes said that Adam was without sin in his nature, and he fell, and therefore the fact of a person being sinless does not of necessity guarantee that he shall not fall. That is so, for God has never yet made an imperfect being. But, nevertheless, as far as I see from Scripture, every being that has been set on the footing of responsibility has fallen. The devil fell, demons are fallen beings, angels also have fallen, and yet all were made perfect. Adam fell, and he was made perfect. Every being must be maintained by the power of God, and where one has to keep himself in the position in which God has been pleased to set him, and that by his faithfulness, is sure to fail, as all such have fallen. Christ alone could stand under the most trying temptations, and under the most dreadful circumstances, even when forsaken by God; yet He glorified God perfectly, and finished to His satisfaction the work that was given Him to do. But no other has ever done that.

A well-known and honoured servant of Christ used to quote one of old: "suppose it pleased God to send two angels, the one to rule an empire, and the other to sweep a crossing in one of the streets of London; the latter would perform his business with the same willingness and heartiness as the former." We are more than angels, fellow-believer, saved by grace and called to glory. Would we were more like these blessed heavenly servants of the Lord, who, though "excelling in strength," yet never fail to do His commandments (strength combined with obedience), and, mark, christian reader. — not in a mere sense of duty, but heartily, "hearkening to the voice of His word." They not only know, but love the voice of their Heavenly Master. Do we, members of His body, who are united to Him and to one another by an infinitely closer tie than angels are, serve our Heavenly Head and Master heartily and with a ready mind?