Featured Did God Make Angels to Be Creative Beings?

1 Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.

In this text, the Spirit reveals that people will depart from the faith because they give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. We thus learn that demons have originated doctrines intended to lead people to depart from the faith.

God did not give these demons these doctrines, and these demons did not learn these doctrines from humans. Explicit biblical revelation about doctrines originated by demons shows that demons are angelic beings who are creative.

 

Where does the Bible teach that angels do not have free will?

 

This was the exact passage that I have been thinking through for the past 35 minutes or so to show that the Bible does teach that angels have free will!

In fact, this passage also teaches directly that angels are creative:

1 Kings 22:20 And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.

Different angels responded to the Lord in different ways in response to the question that He asked. That plainly shows their creativity because they came up with different proposals.

Moreover, when an angel came forth as a volunteer, he was exercising his free will.

1 Kings 22:21 And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. 22 And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so.

When he said that he would be the one to persuade Ahab to fall, we do not read that the Lord specified to him exactly what he was to do and what he was to say, etc. in persuading Ahab to go to his demise. Instead, the Lord asked the angel how the angel planned to accomplish his task!

The angel answered that he would do so through the message that he as a lying spirit would utter through the mouths of all of Ahab's prophets (22:22). His answer shows that his plan was of his own devising and was not something that the Lord told him to do.

 

Actually, in Job, it was God who twice directed Satan's attention to Job. Yes, God limited the extent of what Satan could do, but He does so with all His creation, including all humans. No created being does anything except what God allows him to do.

Furthermore, God did not tell Satan exactly what he was supposed to do to Job. He allowed Satan great latitude to do as he wished within the limits that God set on him, which shows that Satan did have a free will within the limitations that God placed on him.

If God's limiting Satan in that manner shows that Satan does not have a free will, then no human has a free will either in that sense.

 

I do not know what you are talking about in this comment.

 

Interestingly, 4 people so far have said that God did not make angels to be creative beings. It would be interesting to hear more about their views, especially in light of the multiple lines of evidence that I have provided so far.

 

No, I reject that notion categorically and do not believe that the Bible teaches any such thing.

 

Some hold that the references to angels playing trumpets (and other musical instruments) in Revelation are not to be taken literally. Long before God inspired the writing of that book, God had provided inspired revelation that cannot be taken figuratively that also speaks of the sounding of a trumpet:

Exodus 19:10 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, 11 And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. 12 And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: 13 There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.

This passage makes clear that no humans were or could have been responsible for the sounding of the trumpet from Mount Sinai on that occasion. It also makes clear that a trumpet would be sounded and not just that a trumpet-like sound would emanate from the mountain. Exodus 19:16-19 records the fulfillment of this instruction by God and the sounding of the trumpet (19:16, 19).

Because other passages record that Moses received the Law through the agency of angels (Acts 7:53, Gal. 3:19), we know that angels were present when the Law was given at Sinai. An angel may very well have sounded the trumpet recorded in Exodus 19.

In any case, either God Himself sounded the trumpet on this occasion or an angel sounded it. Either way, the passage proves the existence of a supernatural being producing a sound on a musical instrument.

This passage supports taking the passages in Revelation that speak of angels sounding trumpets as literal statements speaking of angelic beings playing musical instruments, which implies their being creative beings.