Angels in the Bible: What Scripture Says

The short answer: In the Bible, angels are created spirits whom God sends as messengers and helpers. Scripture names only two of them, Michael and Gabriel, and calls only Michael an archangel. Angels worship God, carry his messages, protect his people and carry out his judgments. Some fell with Satan. The Bible never tells anyone to pray to an angel; every faithful angel in Scripture points people to God.

The King James Bible uses the words angel and angels 296 times, from the cherubim at the gate of Eden to the angel who shows John the new Jerusalem. Yet it says less about angels than most people expect, and much of what is popularly believed about them comes from later art and tradition rather than from Scripture.

This guide sets out what the Bible itself says, verse by verse, and marks where tradition goes further. It ends where every passage about angels points: away from the angels and toward God.

What is an angel?

Both the Hebrew word mal'ak and the Greek word angelos mean messenger. The name describes what angels do more than what they are. Hebrews sums up their work in one line:

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?
Hebrews 1:14 (KJV)

Angels are created beings. Psalm 148 calls on "all his angels" to praise the Lord, "for he commanded, and they were created" (Psalm 148:2, 5), and Paul says that all things in heaven, "visible and invisible," were created by Christ (Colossians 1:16).

People do not become angels when they die. Jesus said that in the resurrection people "are as the angels of God in heaven" (Matthew 22:30): like the angels in that they do not marry, not turned into them. Hebrews 12 names "an innumerable company of angels" and "the spirits of just men made perfect" as two different groups in the heavenly city (Hebrews 12:22–23).

The kinds of angels Scripture names

The Bible describes only a few kinds of heavenly beings, and gives personal names to only two angels.

Cherubim guard the way to the tree of life after the fall (Genesis 3:24). Ezekiel sees them with four faces and wings (Ezekiel 1 and 10), and two golden cherubim covered the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant (Exodus 25:18–20).

Seraphim appear in a single chapter, Isaiah 6. Each has six wings, covers its face before God, and calls to the others:

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
Isaiah 6:3 (KJV)

Michael is the only angel the Bible calls an archangel (Jude 9). Daniel calls him "one of the chief princes" (Daniel 10:13), and Revelation shows him leading the angels against the dragon (Revelation 12:7).

Gabriel brings God's messages: twice to Daniel (Daniel 8:16; 9:21), then to Zechariah and to Mary. He introduces himself to Zechariah this way:

I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.
Luke 1:19 (KJV)

Raphael and Uriel, often listed with Michael and Gabriel as the four archangels, do not appear in the Protestant Bible. Raphael comes from the book of Tobit, which is part of the Catholic and Orthodox Old Testament. Uriel comes from 2 Esdras and 1 Enoch, books outside both the Protestant and the Catholic canon.

How many angels are there?

Scripture never gives a number. When it reaches for one, it reaches for the largest it can say:

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;
Revelation 5:11 (KJV)

On the night of his arrest, Jesus told Peter that he could ask his Father for "more than twelve legions of angels" (Matthew 26:53). A Roman legion had several thousand soldiers. The point is overwhelming help that Jesus chose not to call.

What angels do in the Bible

They worship. The seraphim of Isaiah 6 and the countless angels of Revelation 5 are doing the same thing: praising God.

They carry God's messages: to Abraham and Lot (Genesis 18–19), to Gideon (Judges 6), to Mary and Joseph, and to shepherds outside Bethlehem, where one angel was suddenly joined by many:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Luke 2:13–14 (KJV)

They protect and deliver God's people. An angel shut the lions' mouths for Daniel (Daniel 6:22) and walked Peter out of prison past the guards (Acts 12:7–10).

The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
Psalm 34:7 (KJV)

They carry out God's judgment. In one night the angel of the LORD struck the Assyrian army that was besieging Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:35).

And they rejoice:

Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
Luke 15:10 (KJV)

Do we have guardian angels?

Two passages come closest.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
Psalm 91:11 (KJV)

Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 18:10 (KJV)

Psalm 91 promises God's protection through his angels. It is also the verse the devil quoted to Jesus in the wilderness, twisting it into a dare (Matthew 4:6). Jesus' words about "their angels" show that children matter in heaven's sight.

Neither passage says that each person has one angel assigned for life. Many Christians believe that, and the Bible does not rule it out, but it does not say it either. What it does say is plainer: "The LORD is thy keeper" (Psalm 121:5).

The angel of the LORD

In some passages "the angel of the LORD" speaks as God himself. The angel appears to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:2), and the voice from the bush says, "I am the God of thy father" (Exodus 3:6). After the angel of the LORD speaks to Hagar, she calls the one who spoke to her "Thou God seest me" (Genesis 16:13).

Many Christian interpreters, from the early church on, have read these appearances as the Son of God before his birth. Others read them as an angel speaking with God's full authority. Scripture does not settle the question, and faithful Christians hold both views.

Satan and the fallen angels

Not every angel stayed faithful.

And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Jude 6 (KJV)

Revelation pictures a war in heaven in which Michael and his angels cast out "the great dragon," "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan" (Revelation 12:7–9). Peter adds that God "spared not the angels that sinned" (2 Peter 2:4).

The name Lucifer comes from a single verse, Isaiah 14:12, where the King James Bible translates a Hebrew word meaning "day star" or "shining one." The chapter is a taunt against the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4). Christians since the early church have also read it as a picture of Satan's fall.

Angels at the end of the age

Jesus said that at his return:

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Matthew 24:31 (KJV)

Paul adds "the voice of the archangel" to the trumpet that raises the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:16). In Revelation, angels sound the trumpets, pour out the bowls and announce the fall of Babylon.

What the Bible warns about angels

Scripture is firm on one point. When John fell at the feet of the angel who had shown him his visions, the angel stopped him:

See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
Revelation 22:9 (KJV)

Paul warned against "worshipping of angels" (Colossians 2:18), and against any message that changes the gospel, even one from "an angel from heaven" (Galatians 1:8). Nowhere in the Bible does anyone pray to an angel. People pray to God, and God sends his angels.

What this means for your life

Every faithful angel in Scripture points away from itself. Gabriel says he stands "in the presence of God." The angel in Revelation says "worship God." Angels are not the hope the Bible offers. They are a sign of how much God cares for the people he is bringing home: "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister" (Hebrews 1:14).

So the Bible's teaching on angels comes down to ordinary days. You are not alone and not unwatched: "the angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him" (Psalm 34:7). And the stranger in front of you may matter more than you know:

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Hebrews 13:2 (KJV)