HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 27, 2024 – Earlier this fall, God had me attend church services again, and to my credit I at least didn’t storm out like the last time God sent me. This time, he mostly had me sit at the back and talk to him (pray) and read the Bible. Sometimes he moved me closer towards the front and told me to listen to the minister for a while. In one of my listening sessions, a minister mused about whether he’d ever seen an angel.

This got me thinking about my own encounters with God’s holy angels and about what Jesus says about angels – namely, that we’ll be like them if and when we make it to Heaven. And then I started thinking about all the times in the Bible where angels appear, and the circumstances of their appearances, and whether they appear as humans or in glory. This got me digging deeper into each of the angelic appearances in scripture, and before I knew it, God had me writing this article.

We know from scripture that we’re not to call on angels or to worship them. We’re also not to pray to them or obsess over them or be unduly curious about them. But we should be knowledgeable about them, since, as Jesus promised, we’re going to be like them if we make it to Heaven. This and this only (what Jesus said) is what drives me to want to know about angels. Note that I’m talking here about God’s holy angels; the fallen ones are not our concern.

Below is a list of the main characteristics of God’s holy angels. All this information comes either from scripture, from my own or others’ personal experience with angels, and from God and Jesus teaching me about them.

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SUBMISSIVE TO GOD: God’s holy angels are 100% submissive to God. Their complete submission to God means that God’s Spirit can work powerfully through them. God directs them, is the source of their supernatural strength, and enables them to perform miracles. During our time on Earth, we likewise learn to let God direct us, be the source of our strength, and enable us to perform miracles. In fact, you could say that since our rebirth, everything we’ve done revolves around learning how to be more and more submissive to God. This is how we’re preparing to be “like the angels”.

ANGELIC BODIES: God’s holy angels can appear to us in their glorified (heavenly) form or in human (earthly) form. The specific form they take depends on their mission and the message God wants to convey. Interestingly, holy angels never appear as females, whether in glory or in human form, despite their popularization in modern culture primarily as females. When in human form, holy angels always appear as males. When in heavenly form, they are neither male nor female but appear to have more the characteristics of a male due to their imposing size, lack of breasts, and obvious strength. God’s holy angels in their glorified forms are breathtakingly beautiful, whereas in human form, they can be quite ordinary looking. By ordinary, I don’t mean unattractive, I just mean they don’t have attention-getting looks. That’s because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. That’s not why they’re here. They’re also relatively low-key in manner when they’re in human form, at least the angels I’ve encountered are. In their glorified form, the angels are anything but low-key.

BFFs: If you’re born-again, God’s holy angels are your friends. This doesn’t mean you can call on them or hang out with them on a whim; it just means they’re not your adversaries. When God or Jesus sends them to you, they come to help you by doing precisely what they’ve been instructed to do. Only if you make it to Heaven will the angels be your friends in the fullest sense of the word, and forever. It’s comforting to think that we already have angel friends waiting for us in Heaven.

NOT ON CALL: Despite being our friends, God’s holy angels will never come to us if we call on them. They are not at our beck and call. They do not take orders from us. They only do what God or Jesus expressly sends them to do. Fallen entities, on the other hand, are eager to take orders from us, but they do so with the intention of eventually turning the circumstances against us. At no time and in no way will demons do anything for our ultimate benefit. Their mission is to tempt and spiritually destroy us, not help us. Do not ever call on angels. Do not pray to them, do not worship them, do not adulate them. If you call on angels, you’ll get demons. NEVER CALL ON ANGELS. I cannot stress that enough.

ENTERTAINING ANGELS: When God’s holy angels appear to us in human form, we won’t know at the time that we’re interacting with (or as the Bible puts it, “entertaining”) angels. This knowledge will be supernaturally withheld from us. Only afterwards will God (sometimes) let us know that we had an angel encounter. We can see this in Abraham’s interactions with the “men” who were on their way to Sodom, just before its destruction.

I’ve had interactions with angels a few times (that I know of) since my rebirth. You can ask God to let you know if someone you’ve encountered was an angel, and he’ll tell you, if he thinks you need to know. Interestingly, I’ve been mistaken for an angel on a few occasions, just by sitting silently at the back of a room or a church and praying. The people who mistook me for an angel were very disappointed to find out afterwards that I was only human.

INTERVENERS: God sends his holy angels to assist people on Earth, including sending them to intervene in situations or try to prevent people from falling for a temptation. I’ve had this happen a few times, where a “man” seemingly randomly showed up and interjected himself into a conversation or confrontation I was having, and then quickly disappeared. Again, at the time, I had no idea that the intervening stranger was an angel; it was only afterwards that God revealed it to me. I remember one instance in particular, where the angel was pleading with me to soften my harsh treatment of someone, and I can still see the deep sadness in his eyes when I refused to back down. I remember wondering at the time why a stranger would be so invested in the argument I was having (it didn’t appear to have anything to do with him) and I wished afterwards that I’d listened to him. But I didn’t listen to him, and I paid the price spiritually.

HIGHLY INTELLIGENT: Angels get all their power from God through his Holy Spirit, so they have an enormous breadth of knowledge and depth of wisdom that humans cannot rival. Even AI is hard-pressed to keep up with God’s holy angels and in fact can’t, as whatever God knows, his angels can be informed of, and God knows everything, past, present, and future. Still, there are some limits to the knowledge granted by God to his holy angels. For instance, the angels don’t know exactly when the tribulation will start or the world will end. Only God knows that.

NOW YOU SEE ‘EM, NOW YOU DON’T: God’s holy angels have an uncanny habit of showing up suddenly and just as suddenly disappearing. They do this whether they’re in their glorified or human form. They don’t send you their calling card and let you know they’re on their way; they’re just there and then not. It’s a good habit for us to emulate, being exactly where we need to be when we’re needed, and not being in the way when we’re not. This is a habit we can only form by being fully submissive to God and doing exactly as he says when he says to do it.

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These are some of the main characteristics of God’s holy angels. There are many more, of course, some of which I know but most of which I assume I don’t. As I mentioned above, I only know what scripture informs me, what God and Jesus tell me, what I learned from encounters with angels myself, and what I’ve learned from other people’s encounters. Have you learned anything about holy angels that God’s given you the go-ahead to share with us? If so, let us know in the comments below!