What are the elect angels?

It is only as we get a knowledge of Him by the Spirit that we are able to take in the vast design of God in creation, and in bringing intelligent beings into that creation, and also placing them in a position in which they were to maintain themselves by obedience to the divine decree, not bringing about the fall of any, but allowing that fall to take place where the creature revolted from allegiance to his Creator. Myriads of others were upheld by His power, and not allowed to fall. Such angels (1 Tim. 5:21) are called elect. But, as we see, man has fallen, and has wasted all the resources that God had for him as a responsible creature, even the gift of His own Son was not withheld; and this was the last and greatest attempt (if I may use such an expression) to win back the rebellious race to right relations with Himself. “He sent Him last unto them”; and because they recognized in Him the Heir, they killed Him.

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.

To my own mind then it is full of the deepest interest, that while God chose before the children were born, and decided what was to be the lot of the one relatively to the other, He never made any man to be a sinner. No doubt the children of Adam are conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity; mankind are born in that condition. Their whole being is lost in it. It is no question therefore of making man a sinner, because since the fall he departed from God and the race is evil without exception. Man belongs to a stock now wholly depraved — evil the sad and universal heirloom. God's election is entirely independent of what He finds, and spite of all evil. He elects angels no doubt that never fell: even so they had nothing to do with determining the rest who were not so kept. In every case it is simply a question of God's choice. But the fallen condition of man gives to God's election, where sinners are the only possible objects, an exceeding beauty and very deep moment. He chooses entirely apart from anything that deserves it, in the face of all that is out of harmony with Himself. It is not so where He judges and rejects.

But the sense of God before his soul, with Whose presence he binds up "Christ Jesus," would give firmness and decision, and keep love and obedience indissoluble and active, in contrast with the moral laxity which usurps the name of that holy affection, though as far from it really as God is from fallen man whose evil will is allowed. There is but one article in the first part of the apostle's ground of appeal, not because it is one person, as Gr. Sharpe hastily supposed, but to mark their entire association, which could not be unless they stood on the same level of divine nature and glory. The one article τοῦ simply identifies the two persons in a common object, as the τῶν following marks off the "elect angels," however exalted, as having no title to be so identified. Christ Jesus could be and is put with God as on the same ground: not so the elect angels, though introduced connectedly, yet apart, as witnessing now, not merely in the future scene of glory. Compare 1 Cor. 11:10. Reference to any angels save those that kept their own first or original estate would be here altogether incongruous.

It may be well to notice also that the Authorized Version seems to lose the distinction between προκρίματος and πρόσκλισιν, words, as far as the New Testament is concerned, only found here. For the former refers naturally to "prejudice" which condemns a case before hearing or duly hearing it; as the latter expresses an undue inclination or "favour" for one side, even if one should hear both. Timothy is admonished by the most sacred associations to watch against any bias either way. Now "preferring one before another" is partiality; whereas "prejudice" (the marginal alternative of the Authorized Version, not "preference" as in the Revised Version's margin) is the true counterpart.

To understand fully the allusion here made by the apostle, we must call to mind the descriptive character which belongs to angels in the word of God.3 Perfect subordination, and a ready obedience to the voice of their Creator, distinguish the unfallen angels from those who fell, and kept not their first estate. Now the power which establishes true order in God's Church, is the same all-quickening Spirit which garnished the heavens, and set the elect angels in their appointed spheres. These, then, whose very nature is order, ought not to see disorder in God's house. But such must be the effect on them of any practical derangement of the relation which they know to have been established from the first between the woman and the man.

But more; an angel out of heaven might conceivably repeat the sin of those who kept not their first estate, and become a slanderer of Him by the word of whose power angels are themselves upheld. The apostle is not rhapsodizing when he thus expresses his alarm. Angels have sinned, and may again transgress. The saints shall judge angels in the day of Christ (1 Cor. 6:3). The possibilities of sin are known to God only, and with its probabilities we have less concern than with the certainty that all unrighteousness is sin, and that no creature is self-sustaining nor exempt from the peril of apostasy, when considered apart from its Creator. The elect angels are preserved from falling by the same Almighty arm which is ere long to bring within the circle of their bright and multitudinous array the Church of the first-born who now walk by faith (Rev. 5:11).

(Vv. 20, 21). Offenders, whether elders or not, whose faults have been fully proved by adequate witnesses, are to be rebuked before all that others may fear. Nevertheless, everything in the way of rebuke is to be done, not simply before others, but “before God” whose house we are, before the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Son over God's house, and before the elect angels who are ministers of those who form the house. Thus the rebuke would be without “prejudice” that would form a judgment without duly considering the whole matter, and without partiality that would prefer one before another.

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.

C.C. — The angels who have not fallen are absolutely indebted to God for their preservation.

QUESTION. — Is that why they are called “the elect angels?”

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.