Angels, Devils, Ghosts, Satan and... Extraterrestrial Life?
Here is a subject I've studied off and on for several years and kind of like my Theory on the Origin of Evil, I'm just going to kind of throw this one out here. Much of this is conjecture, theory and hypothesis off of Bible studies I've done, where the Scripture does not give us exact and strait forward answers. Some of the theories are mine. Some are expanded upon theories borrowed from other ideas found in Christian thought, historical fact and scientific study. All of which (to the best of my knowledge) are in the public domain.
Also what can be found in these pages are some ideas of plausible explanations for Scripture passage harmonization of accounts that don't necessarily make sense on the surface. One of the major chunks of this study is an attempt at a sequence of what happened at the resurrection. A "read between the lines" if you will of some of the events. Now I will never dogmatically proclaim that these types of conjectures are "revealed from God" or "the way it really happened". They are mere plausible hypothesis that may be (or may not be) close to the truth of the real events that transpired. I do my best to try and accurately put together reasonable conclusions and contexts which my theories are drawn off of. They may be right, they may not be.
I welcome anyone who has questions, or if you notice something out of the Scripture, or proven historical, or scientific fact that I may have missed? Let me know. I'd be happy to look at it.
Also, on account of the length and the complexity of this study, it will be broken up more into chapters than some of the other Bible studies I've posted have been.
What is an angel?
Before I begin here though, I want to make one thing clear about the Greek and Hebrew. When the Scripture refers to "angel", the word is also translated "messenger". It is very clear in some of these contexts that the messenger is human. "David sent a messenger to King Saul." Obviously, that's a human messenger. In other cases angels are clearly entities other than man. Now according to deductive reasoning and church tradition, angels are often referred to as "spiritual beings". Now the Scripture never uses the word "spiritual" in reference to angels, so the idea is a bit ambiguous to our current understanding at least.
The only time "spiritual" is connected to the physical presence of something is in 1 Corinthians 15:44, where Paul makes mention of natural bodies being raised as spiritual bodies. Now what that exactly means, at current – I aint got the foggiest clue.
Now was Jesus resurrected as a "spiritual body". I tend to say "no", because the language of resurrection tends to state that the dead will be raised first, and then the believers will be changed into their incorruptible state, as the new heavens and the new earth are recreated. The other reason I tend to say that Jesus was not "raised a spiritual body" is that the body that went to the cross and was put in the tomb, is the one that rose from the dead. Now obviously Jesus was raised in a "physically healed up" state, although he still bore the scars from his ordeal. He did eat and people did touch him, just to prove that he indeed was resurrected and he was not a ghost.
Now I've heard people say that Jesus could walk through walls and stuff, but I believe that is a misreading of the Scripture. In the case where it says he "came through the door although it was locked" and also where it says "he vanished out of their sight". A closer reading of the text doesn't seem to indicate that these were any thing "super natural miraculous". I suppose one could say that it was supernatural for Jesus to be able to open the door although it was locked, just as the angels loosed Paul and Silas from prison and "their chains fell off"; but nowhere in any of these passages does it indicate that bodies or parts there of, passed through solid objects. In the passage where "he vanished out of their sight", the Greek actually indicates that it wasn't Jesus who vanished, but rather the sight of the disciples became "dim" and in their dimness, Jesus simply walked away.
"Spiritual" life and Physical life:
Now to start out, angel, devils, ghosts and Satan are (sort of) in one category and extraterrestrial life is in another. Making an assumption here that since God did put life on this planet, it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that He put life elsewhere in the universe. Which, as to kicking around in my own brain, the existence of angels and devils as written of in the Scripture, does support the proposition that there is life on planets other than Earth. After all, Hebrews 1:1-3 and 11:3 talk about the worlds (plural) God has created.
Now what sort of life may this be residing elsewhere in the universe? Is it of comparable intelligence to human life? Is it humanoid in form, also created in the image of God? Would it be plausible for Jesus to be incarnated on more than one planet at the same time? All this of course is speculation, since to what ever knowledge the general public may have of extraterrestrial life is unknown. Did something crash near Roswell, in the New Mexico desert in 1947? Yes! Was it of extraterrestrial origin? I don't know. Personally though, even looking through the lens of my Christian faith, I don't negate the possibility that it could have been.
So, here is where I'm going to jump off a little bit on angels. (Hang on to your hats, we'll tie this back into extraterrestrial life in a minute – and no, I'm not going to say angels are aliens or vice versa.)
Angels and Death:
Angels, we know obviously from the Scripture were created by God. They are life forms, who like the rest of life here on earth, are subject to destruction. This dawned on me one time when I was looking up something in Ezekiel that was talking about the angels who were showing Ezekiel these wheels. There is a reference in the Hebrew that describes their "dead bodies". Now I found this reference peculiar because the angels in this passage had not fallen, yet it was clear from the Hebrew that they were and would be subject to death. At first this confused me, but as I started to think of the redemption plan as a whole and Christ's redemption of the creation as well as of men, it made sense to me. If the universe came under condemnation on account of the sin of he who was created in God's image; (Adam and Eve) than yes, everything being subject to death (the end result of the fall) that makes sense. This struck me because here in the passage, it was talking about creatures who would still endure death though no fault of their own, but because of us.
Now what of angels (fallen and not) do we know? Well, Jesus makes reference to the fact that they do not marry, nor are given in marriage. (This reference is in all the gospels.) In John, Jesus talks about the point of marriage "being of this world"; is on account of the fact that death reigns in the current order of things and the reproduction of species being necessary: so thus why carbon based life reproduces. Angels we know are life forms on account of the fact that they are created by God. I'd come to the conclusion based on what I'd read in Ezekiel, as well as these passages in the gospels that talk about them not marrying, that they are not "carbon based" life forms. Their life span apparently runs the course of earthly history, and if Christ had not redeemed anyone (or the created order) they would perish in the end just like all other life forms. Interestingly though, life that has the ability (via a will) to transgress God's order of things, also has the capacity to come under God's condemnation. I know this sounds really strange, how can an animal come under God's wrath when it isn't created in God's image. It is an interesting question, but apparently it can happen. Genesis 9:5 talks about the life of man having been taken of either man or beast, being required of God from man or beast who took this life. (Ezekiel 14:13 also talks about the land sinning against God. Now how does land sin?)
So we know angels are life forms. They appear to be of comparable intelligence to humanity. They appear to have a life span that is equal to the history of the universe. The ones who have disobeyed will be cast into the Lake of Fire at the end of time. It is usually concluded that all "non human" angels that appear to humans, appear in human form and always look to be male. They do not appear to be carbon based. They do not reproduce, so thus by implication it would be unlikely that they would actually have organs to that purpose. (The Nephilim in Genesis were indeed remarkable human beings, yet just human beings. Since God "made everything after it's own kind" and we know angels don't reproduce, it would be erroneous to conclude that these people were some sort of angelic and human hybrid. Carbon based life is so specific to it's own DNA that we can't even cross mammals in the same groupings, none to say create life from two totally unrelated bases. (We don't even really know what angels are "made out of".) Besides this, anything of a fallen nature (angels or man) can not create life. Only God can do that, and only if He wills.
Nephilim and aliens:
The next hypothesis I've heard is that these Nephilim were a human / extraterrestrial humanoid hybrid. My first "knee jerk" reaction is to say no; although I suppose theoretically it is possible. (And now wouldn't this make a wild sci-fi movie. There's a Bible fan fiction to write!) Although, (and here's where I burst my own bubble) if speaking in terms of redemption; multiple separate races, all created in the image of God, would all need their own specific incarnation of the Messiah. Now this is theoretically possible, albeit how plausible is another question? This is how it would have had to have been, if these races never had any contact with each other; (all requiring their own version of Christ).
On the other hand though, it is theoretically possible to have inter-planetary contact between races bearing their own versions of the Messiah, just to find out He's is what they have in common. (I've written fan fiction of similar genre.) In thus said cases though, the races would have to be so genetically different that they would have no reproductive compatibility. If two groups were genetically compatible, that would essentially mean they were the same species and so thus one Messiah on one planet could atone for both planets. Now somewhere in this universe, that scenario is entirely possible. According to our own Scripture though, there is no indication that this has happened in our case; for in order for that to be true, some portion of humanity would have somehow left Earth a couple of millennium ago. The last scenario, (which would make this one possible) would work if some other extraterrestrial life form had taken humans from earth, only to have these humans return again sometime later. In thus said case though, they still would have been the same species, having originated on the same planet.
So all this being said, what does this have to do with angels and how would angels tie in to this? Well, all this proves is that presences of extraterrestrial life somewhere else in this universe is altogether possible, as angels are non human life forms of comparable intelligence. Now anyone who's read C.S. Lewis's space trilogy knows there's at least one other human who's invented races of humanoid type creatures who are not created in the image of God, yet for the same reason as the angels and the rest of creation "groaning and travailing in awaiting the revelation of the sons of men" anxiously await the human Messiah.
Next - The "angels" at Christ's resurrection.
