FELLOWSHIP WITH ANGELS
by Richard Kirby

One reality that we neglect is that of the unseen spiritual world. On this subject I wish to suggest that we are influenced by the skeptical spirit of our age to a much greater degree than we imagine, and to urge upon my Christian brothers and sisters an awareness of spiritual beings, a reality which the spirit of materialism and pseudo-enlightenment has done so much to obscure.

A characteristic mark of our age—an age which has been called post scientific and even post-Christian—is its denial of everything supernatural. Spiritual beings described in the Bible are considered products of a benighted pre-scientific imagination, along with fairies, leprechauns, and unicorns. They are typically described as “medieval superstitions” such as no rational person can any longer believe. The Restoration Movement, infected as it was by the rationalism of Locke, thus drank deeply of the same fountain of “Enlightenment” that has come to full expression in this century. A deep mistrust of religious experiences, visions, and angelic visitations has always distinguished the movement. In this respect our fore-fathers did not come out “on the side of the angels.” While we do not need a revival of that wonder-seeking subjectivism that the restoration preachers reacted against, we do need to realize that the rationalistic spirit was present at the inception of our movement and has penetrated its thought in a subtle way. This has resulted in our tendency to confine all supernatural activity to the past. While the attempt is made to support this view from the Bible, the real reason, I believe, is a reluctance to admit the supernatural in our time. This is the product of post scientific rationalism; it is basically anti-supernatural. While people may resist the full implications of anti-supernaturalism, they are nonetheless deeply dyed in it.

For instance, if we think about angels at all, we think of them as beings that formerly appeared to select individuals and who will be present at the Second Coming. We do not see them as now at work in our lives. We may grant that angels are still somehow “ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. I:14), but we hardly grasp the implication of such teaching. We do little thinking about angels, and we are surprised by the suggestion that God has allotted to each of us a number of such beings to watch over us. It all sounds like idle speculation to us.

We have been conditioned to see the invisible world as a meaningless dance of atoms rather than as a purposeful dance of angels “in heavenly places.” When we contemplate the universe, it is popular science, not the Bible, that most naturally furnished pictures for us. The “faith” of our minds may admit the existence of an invisible world such as the scriptures portray, but not the faith of our imagination. A person can “believe” that God will answer prayer or that He is ruling in the affairs of men, but if he expects no concrete results his faith is unworthy of the name. I may believe that everything cooperates with God for my good (Rom. 8:28); but if I am fearful and discontented my reason has not risen to the level of my faith.

Before an open Bible we will agree that angels and demons exist, but we are doubtful that they are active today as they were in New Testament times. This is more feeling than faith, for there is no sure evidence in the Bible that demon activity and angelic ministration were to cease. Not only do the scriptures indicate their continued activity, but every period of history furnishes records of demonization. Missionaries of all denominations report active demon resistance among their converts. So it is not the absence of evidence that disposes many of us to deny demon activity today. It is a mental attitude, born and bred in the climate of scientific materialism and nourished by rationalism.

It remains to be seen how much this rationalistic spirit has affected our outlook on spiritual things in general. What, for example, of the “prayer of faith” in healing, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, prevailing prayer? Is our attitude toward these subjects formed by reverence for what the Bible says or by the unconscious absorption of the twentieth century worldview?

One of the most subtle enemies of the mind is the inability to see beyond the assumptions of a particular time and place. The “Spirit of the Age” is the very atmosphere of our thought; in it we live and move and have our intellectual being. Only a sense of history can free us of its tyranny. Chesterton once said that the Catholic Church frees us from the necessity of being a child of our times. Substitute for Catholic Church God’s revealed Word, and you have stated the Christian’s unique position in any age. The Bible sets forth the true worldview. The believer is thus freed from the peculiar blindness of his age. The Bible describes reality. Scientific rationalism is a useful, if limited, approach to certain aspects of reality. The Christian who tries to impose the so-called scientific view on the Bible loses his unique advantage and is unfaithful to his heritage. We must not be apologetic about the supernatural or wish to keep it safely confined to the first century. We must be unashamedly supernaturalistic. We must defy the Spirit of the Age and assert the reality of the other world without blushing. As the saints of both Testaments knew, this universe of ours is uncompromisingly miraculous. It is much more like a Magic Show which the Great Magician keeps in His spell than the blind, meaningless whirl of matter contemplated by the modern infidel.

This is not a call to return to medieval superstition or to a foolish credulousness, but I would prefer these to any view that excludes the miraculous from the world picture. As Francis Bacon once wrote: “I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran [Koran], than that this universal frame is without mind.” Better be a medieval peasant than a latter day Christian Sadducee. The peasant nightly invoked his Lord against “the ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beesties and things that go bump in the night,” but the world of his imagination was closer to reality than the lifeless modern world picture.

I believe it is the Christian’s duty to renounce this attitude, to reject the modern worldview, and to affirm the Bible world view unashamedly. Faced with militant anti-supernaturalism on the one hand and the rapid increase of demonic activity on the other, we must not be made timid by the climate of opinion, even among our brethren. Let us recognize our enemy with all his resources and take advantage of every spiritual weapon at our disposal.—Montverde Academy, Montverde, Florida 32756