Angels Amongst Us

The only angel the Bible calls “the archangel” by name — a warrior who defends God’s people and leads heaven’s armies against the dragon.

Michael is one of the most powerful heavenly beings mentioned in Scripture. The book of Daniel calls him “one of the chief princes,” and he appears there in the middle of a mysterious conflict between heavenly powers. Daniel 12:1 describes him as “the great prince who protects your people.”

He appears again in the book of Jude, disputing with the devil over the body of Moses. Instead of leaning on his own authority, Michael says, “The Lord rebuke you!” — which tells us something important about him. Michael is enormously powerful, but the power he fights with was never his own. In Revelation 12 he leads the angels into battle against the dragon, and the dragon is named: Satan.

Role

Archangel

Character

Brave, loyal, powerful, disciplined

Mission

Defend God’s people and fight against evil

Appearance

The Bible gives no physical description

Symbol

Shield and sword

Known for

Leading angels into battle against the dragon

Did you know? Michael is the only angel specifically called “the archangel” in the Protestant Bible.

• Courage★★★★★
• Strength★★★★★
• Obedience★★★★★
• Messenger role★★☆☆☆
• Protection★★★★★

When Gabriel arrives, something enormous is about to happen — he is the angel who announced the birth of John the Baptist, and then the birth of Jesus.

Gabriel first appears by name in Daniel, where he is told to explain visions the prophet cannot understand: “Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of the vision.” He becomes famous in the New Testament. He appears to a priest named Zechariah to say that he and his wife Elizabeth will have a son — and that son becomes John the Baptist. Gabriel tells him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God.”

Then he is sent to Nazareth, to a young woman named Mary, and his message changes history. Notice how he opens it. Not with thunder, but with reassurance: “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God.” If Michael is heaven’s warfare, Gabriel is heaven’s news.

Role

Messenger of God

Character

Calm, faithful, wise, reassuring

Mission

Deliver God’s most important messages

Appearance

Appears in humanlike form

Symbol

Scroll

Known for

Announcing the birth of Jesus

Did you know? Gabriel announced two births, not one — John the Baptist’s first, and then Jesus’s.

• Courage★★★★☆
• Strength★★★★☆
• Wisdom★★★★★
• Messenger role★★★★★
• Reassurance★★★★★

Forget the chubby babies with little wings in old paintings — the cherubim of the Bible are majestic guardians stationed where God’s holiness is.

The first cherubim appear near the very beginning of the Bible. After Adam and Eve are sent out of Eden, Genesis 3:24 describes cherubim guarding the way to the Tree of Life. They turn up again on the Ark of the Covenant: two of them, worked in gold, their wings stretched over the mercy seat.

Ezekiel sees them in a vision connected with God’s glorious throne, and his description is extraordinary — wings, several faces, brilliant movement, nothing like an ordinary creature and nothing at all like a Renaissance painting. Everywhere they appear, they are near something holy, and they are guarding it.

Role

Heavenly guardians

Character

Majestic, powerful, watchful

Mission

Guard the places connected with God’s presence

Appearance

Winged, many-faced, brilliant

Symbol

Wings and throne

Known for

Guarding the way to the Tree of Life

Did you know? Two golden cherubim were made for the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, facing each other with their wings spread.

• Strength★★★★★
• Protection★★★★★
• Majesty★★★★★
• Messenger role★☆☆☆☆
• Mystery★★★★★

Six wings each, hovering over the throne, calling to one another — and what they call is the one thing they most want heard: God is holy.

The prophet Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a throne, and above him are the seraphim. Each has six wings. With two they cover their faces. With two they cover their feet. With two they fly. Even these beings do not stare at God.

Then they call to one another, and the sound of it shakes the doorposts of the temple: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” One of them takes a burning coal from the altar and touches Isaiah’s lips with it — not to hurt him, but to make him clean and ready for what God is about to send him to do.

Role

Heavenly worshippers

Character

Reverent, devoted, powerful

Mission

Worship God and proclaim His holiness

Appearance

Six wings — two over the face, two over the feet, two for flying

Symbol

Flame

Known for

Crying “Holy, holy, holy”

Did you know? The word seraphim is connected with burning — they are, quite literally, the burning ones.

• Worship★★★★★
• Holiness★★★★★
• Strength★★★★☆
• Messenger role★★☆☆☆
• Mystery★★★★★

A lion, an ox, a face like a man and a flying eagle — four creatures covered with eyes who never stop praising God, day or night.

In Revelation 4, John sees four living creatures around the throne of God. One is like a lion, one like an ox, one has a face like a man, and one is like a flying eagle. Each has six wings, and each is covered with eyes — in front and behind, and all around.

Day and night they never stop saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” The imagery is close to the heavenly creatures Ezekiel saw centuries earlier, which is one of the reasons these two visions are so often read together.

Role

Heavenly worshippers

Character

Watchful, devoted, mysterious

Mission

Worship God continually

Appearance

Lion, ox, human and eagle — six wings, covered with eyes

Symbol

Throne and eyes

Known for

Praising God day and night

Did you know? All those eyes are the point — nothing around God’s throne is half-awake or looking the other way.

• Worship★★★★★
• Awareness★★★★★
• Mystery★★★★★
• Strength★★★★☆
• Messenger role★☆☆☆☆

He turns up at the hinge of one Old Testament story after another — and the Bible never gives him a personal name.

The Angel of the LORD appears to Hagar, to Abraham, to Moses, to Gideon, to Samson’s parents, and to others besides. The Hebrew word translated “angel” also simply means messenger.

What makes him mysterious is the way the text handles him. Some passages clearly distinguish him from God; others have him speaking with God’s own authority. Exodus 3:2 says the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in flames of fire from within a bush — and a few verses later, God speaks to Moses out of that same bush. Because of passages like these, some Christians believe these appearances may be God Himself made visible, and possibly Christ before his birth. Others understand him as a messenger who represents God perfectly. The Bible leaves the question open, so this page does too.

Role

Divine messenger

Character

Authoritative, mysterious, powerful

Mission

Appear at the great turning points of biblical history

Appearance

Often humanlike; once, fire in a bush

Symbol

The burning bush

Known for

Appearing to Moses, Hagar, Gideon and others

Did you know? Christians have held different views about who this figure is for almost two thousand years — and the Bible never settles it.

• Authority★★★★★
• Mystery★★★★★
• Messenger role★★★★★
• Strength★★★★★
• Protection★★★★☆

Daniel spent a whole night in a den of lions and walked out in the morning — and he knew exactly who to thank.

King Darius had been tricked into signing a law he could not undo, and Daniel was thrown to the lions for praying to God anyway. The king did not sleep. At first light he hurried to the den and called out, in a voice the Bible describes as anguished, to ask whether Daniel’s God had been able to rescue him.

Daniel answered from inside the den. He was completely unhurt — and the reason he gave was not his own courage. “My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions.”

Role

Protector

Character

Protective, obedient

Mission

Rescue Daniel from the lions

Appearance

Not described

Symbol

Lion

Known for

Shutting the mouths of the lions

Did you know? The Bible never tells us this angel’s name.

• Protection★★★★★
• Strength★★★★☆
• Obedience★★★★★
• Mystery★★★☆☆
• Rescue★★★★★

Peter was asleep, chained between two soldiers, with guards on the door — and an angel walked him straight out.

A light filled the cell. The angel woke Peter with a tap on the side and told him to get up, and the chains fell off his wrists. Then: put your clothes on. Put your sandals on. Follow me.

Peter did, but he thought he was seeing a vision — it did not occur to him that any of it was really happening. They passed the first guard, and the second, and came to the iron gate leading into the city, and it opened for them by itself. Only when the angel left him standing alone in the street did Peter come to himself and say, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me.”

Role

Rescuer

Character

Efficient, protective, obedient

Mission

Free Peter from prison

Appearance

Surrounded by light

Symbol

Broken chains

Known for

Leading Peter out of prison

Did you know? Peter was so sure he was dreaming that when he finally knocked at his friends’ door, they did not believe it was him either.

• Rescue★★★★★
• Protection★★★★★
• Speed★★★★☆
• Strength★★★★☆
• Stealth★★★★★

The biggest announcement in history was made at night, in a field, to shepherds — and then the sky filled up.

Shepherds were out in the fields near Bethlehem, keeping watch over their flocks at night, when an angel of the Lord appeared and the glory of the Lord shone around them. They were terrified. The angel’s first words were the ones angels so often start with: “Do not be afraid.” Then came the news — a Saviour had been born, in the town of David.

And then it stopped being one angel. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with him, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.”

Role

Messengers and worshippers

Character

Joyful, celebratory, reassuring

Mission

Announce the birth of Jesus

Appearance

A glorious heavenly host

Symbol

Star and trumpet

Known for

Proclaiming Jesus’s birth to the shepherds

Did you know? The Bible does not actually say the angels sang. It says they were praising God and saying it.

• Joy★★★★★
• Worship★★★★★
• Messenger role★★★★★
• Celebration★★★★★
• Fear factor★★★★☆

Jesus’s friends came to the tomb on Sunday morning expecting a body, and found angels with a question instead.

The stone had been rolled away. While the women stood there not knowing what to think, angels in clothes that gleamed like lightning were suddenly beside them, and the women were so frightened they bowed their faces to the ground.

The message was short. “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” And then the gentlest part of it: remember how he told you this would happen, while he was still with you in Galilee. They had been told. Now they understood.

Role

Messengers

Character

Hopeful, authoritative, reassuring

Mission

Announce that Jesus had risen

Appearance

Bright, dazzling clothing

Symbol

The empty tomb

Known for

Announcing the resurrection

Did you know? The four Gospels each tell this moment slightly differently — how many angels, standing or sitting, inside or at the entrance.

• Hope★★★★★
• Messenger role★★★★★
• Joy★★★★★
• Authority★★★★☆
• Mystery★★★☆☆

Thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand — the Bible never counts the angels, it just keeps running out of numbers.

Daniel sees “thousands upon thousands” attending God. Revelation describes “thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand” around the throne. Hebrews speaks of thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly. Nobody is given a total.

That seems to be deliberate. We are not handed heaven’s staff list; we are simply shown that it is vast, and that all of it is busy doing the same thing. Psalm 103:20 gives what may be the simplest description of an angel anywhere in the Bible — mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.

Role

God’s heavenly servants

Character

Powerful, obedient, worshipful

Mission

Serve God

Appearance

Countless heavenly beings

Symbol

Stars

Known for

Worship, messages, protection and service

Did you know? Ten thousand times ten thousand is a hundred million — and Revelation uses it as a starting point, not a total.

• Worship★★★★★
• Obedience★★★★★
• Strength★★★★★
• Messenger role★★★★☆
• Protection★★★★☆

Not one of God’s angels. The Bible presents this one as an enemy, not a servant.

A king over the creatures of the Abyss, named twice — once in Hebrew, once in Greek — and both names mean the same thing.

Revelation 9:11 says the creatures coming up out of the Abyss have a king over them, “the angel of the Abyss.” His name in Hebrew is Abaddon. In Greek it is Apollyon. Both are bound up with the idea of destruction.

That is very nearly all we are told. The Bible gives no description of him, no history, and no further appearance. There is not enough here to place him among God’s faithful angels, so he is not listed with Michael and Gabriel — and there is not enough to say much more about him than Revelation does.

Role

Mysterious judgment figure

Character

Destructive, fearsome

Mission

Connected with judgment in Revelation

Appearance

Not described

Symbol

The Abyss

Known for

Being called the angel of the Abyss

Did you know? He is one of the few figures in the Bible given a name in two languages at once.

• Destruction★★★★★
• Mystery★★★★★
• Authority★★★★☆
• Messenger role★☆☆☆☆
• Faithfulness☆☆☆☆☆

Not one of God’s angels. The Bible presents this one as an enemy, not a servant.

Satan is in the Bible, but he is not one of God’s angels — Scripture presents him from beginning to end as the enemy.

The word Satan means adversary, or accuser, and that is how he acts throughout Scripture. Revelation calls him the dragon, the ancient serpent, the devil, and the deceiver of the whole world. Jesus says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Revelation 12 describes the dragon and “his angels” being defeated by Michael and his.

You may have heard that his first name was Lucifer. That word comes from older English translations of Isaiah 14:12, where the King James Version reads “O Lucifer, son of the morning.” The Hebrew behind it is usually translated today as morning star, shining one, or day star — and Isaiah 14 is speaking directly about the king of Babylon. Christians have long read the passage as echoing Satan’s pride and fall as well. So it is more careful to say that Lucifer became a traditional name for Satan than to say the Bible introduces an angel called Lucifer the way it introduces Michael and Gabriel.

Role

Enemy and deceiver

Character

Proud, deceptive, rebellious, accusing

Mission

Oppose God and deceive people

Appearance

Described as a serpent and a dragon

Symbol

Serpent or dragon

Known for

Temptation, accusation and rebellion

Did you know? Satan is not a name so much as a job description: the Hebrew word simply means the adversary.

• Deception★★★★★
• Pride★★★★★
• Rebellion★★★★★
• Faithfulness☆☆☆☆☆
• Obedience☆☆☆☆☆