Imagine if you meandered to a church website and clicked the tab for beliefs, few churches, if any, would have a doctrinal statement on angels. It’s easy to regard angelology with a little bit of suspicion, or dismiss it as useless speculation. After all, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? However, the catechetical instruction found in the Westminster Larger Catechism doesn’t hesitate to teach biblical doctrine about angels, including here in Question 16.

Throughout the Catechism, we see the important and appropriate place for angels. For example, previously, angels were included in the teaching on God’s decree (Q. 12–13), and subsequently they will appear in the teachings on providence (Q. 19), the return of Christ (Q. 56), judgment (Q. 88–90), worship (Q. 105), and prayer (Q. 192). But who are these angels that the Bible and the Catechism take time to instruct us about? That’s where this question is directed.

With humble modesty, the Catechism confines its answer to the scriptural depiction of angels, but even in that avoids certain creative and speculative paths. For example, the biblical title of “archangel” (1 Thess. 4:16), identities of Michael (Jude 9) and Gabriel (Luke 1:19), and the distinction between cherubim (Gen. 3:24) and seraphim (Isa. 6:2) have often led theologians to identify a created order in the angelic host. The Catechism, however, doesn’t commit to or even address such things. In its silence, we might be reminded that the secret things belong to God and only the revealed things to us (see Deut. 29:29).

Of utmost importance in answer to the question at hand is that angels are created. First, this teaches that they stand within the created order and not above it (see Neh. 9:6 and Col. 1:16). This means, of course, that they cannot be the objects of worship—adoration, tribute, or prayer. This was one of Paul’s concerns when he said, “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels” (Col. 2:18). Even the Apostle John was rebuked by one of the angelic host when he fell down at his feet. The angel was eager to command, “Worship God” (Rev. 22:9). Second, it teaches that angels were created distinct from mankind. There’s the superstitious idea that when someone dies, they become an angel. This is far from biblical truth, as angels are a separate aspect of creation.

The Catechism then speaks of eight attributes concerning the created angels. The first thing noted is that angels are spirits (Ps. 104:4 and Heb. 1:7). In this, they are like God who is Spirit (John 4:24 and Q. 7) and man who has a spirit (Prov. 20:27). But they’re also different in their spirituality. God is a simple Spirit without composition—infinite and omnipresent. Angels are not and cannot be, as they are, biblically, circumscribed to a location. Man is an embodied spirit and angels, at least in the same manner, do not have bodies.

Further, the Bible teaches us that angels are immortal (Matt. 22:30), holy (Matt. 25:31), excelling in knowledge (2 Sam. 14:17), and mighty in power (2 Thess. 1:7). Yet, like humanity, they were subject to change. While the Bible passes over the fall of the angels with a degree of silence, we know that they, like humanity, were mutable in their created state: “And the angels who did not stay within their own positions of authority, but left their proper dwelling” (Jude 6). It’s a cosmic tragedy that some fell beneath the purpose of their existence—the praise of God’s glorious name (Ps. 103:20–21). Angels, the Bible says, are even today “sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14).

In his treatise, On Communion with Angels, the English Puritan Isaac Ambrose wrote, “In learning the whole counsel, will, and mind of God, let us turn over those leaves which speak of angels; these are the invisible attenders of the blessed Deity, and without some knowledge and apprehension of them, we shall never attain to conceive of their God and ours, as we ought to do.”