Angels as Messengers in Christian Tradition

A Brief Look at the World Religions and Modern Psychology of Angels

Dec 22, 2008

Angels as messengers carry messages in time/space to mortal realm. Jungian psychology sees archangels as archetypes of change, inspire spiritual growth.

All religions of the world have held a belief of spiritual beings that mediate between earth (or time and space), and heaven (or a transcendental realm of the sacred and non-earthly). These beliefs have ranged from a belief in the spirits of one’s ancestors, to a belief in nature spirits and fairies, to a belief in angels from another world.

Universe Populated with Angels

Within the monotheistic religions, i.e Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, there was the belief in a tripartite world separating the cosmos into Heaven, Earth and Hell. This three-in-one universe was populated accordingly by angels, humans and demons. This was in direct contrast to the “monistic” cosmos of the Hindus, Jains and Buddhists in which truth was revealed through deep meditation, devotion to various gods, and studying and reciting scripture rather than through any mediating messenger.

Reliance on Prayer

The difference between these religions stems largely from the practice of prayer versus the practice of meditation and the contemplative arts. Prayer seems to rely on one or more intervening powers, be they angels or God as an incarnated being in Jesus Christ. The angels in western traditions become the messengers as well as listeners who “fall silent at dawn in order to listen to the prayers and praises of Israel.”

The term angel comes from a Greek translation of the original Hebrew word mal’akh which at one time meant the “Shadow side of God” but later came to mean messenger.

Message over Matter

What perhaps makes the notion of angel so familiar and intimate to humans and beyond any consistent description is that as messengers the angel is experienced more as what they do rather than what they are. “Their inherent nature cannot be separated from their relationship with the Prime mover, the God or Ultimate Source.”

By way of example, among the most.famous of these messages in world religions include the following:

Angels in Modern Times

Yet in modern times, with the advent of astronomy and particular findings of the 16th century, in which the earth was no longer the center of the universe but just another minor planet circling among many such planets, this literal acceptance of angels began to waver.

Many modern theologians and psychologists re-mythologized the old tripartite structure of the universe into a three part structure of the mind itself. Instead of a universe of higher, middle, and lower beings, it was the mind or psyche that became a three layered universe comprised of Ego, Super and Id. Or as with Carl Jung, archetype, Self, ego and complexes.

Language of Metaphor

Seeing angels as metaphors for change and archetypal energies, allowed theology and psychology to begin to speak the same language. Angels did not disappear as much as move to a new way of being seen.

Source: Godwin, M. (1990). Angels; An Endangered Species. New York: Simon and Schuster.

The copyright of the article Angels as Messengers in Christian Tradition in Metaphysics is owned by Megge Hill Fitz-Randolph. Permission to republish Angels as Messengers in Christian Tradition in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.