_4_Number and Ranks of the Angels

The number of the angels is very large. Dan. 7:10: “Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.” Luke 2:13: “A multitude of the heavenly host.” We cannot compute the number of them exactly; Scripture itself tells us as much when it speaks of “an innumerable company of angels” (Heb. 12:22) and uses the expressions “thousand thousands” and “ten thousand times ten thousand” (Dan. 7:10). Keil in his Commentary on this passage: “A term for the innumerable host of the angels who surround God and serve Him; cp. Deut. 33:2; Ps. 68:17.”

That there are orders or classes among the angels is clear from the different appellations given them in Scripture. Scripture mentions Cherubim (Gen. 3:24; Ps. 80:1), Seraphim (Is. 6:2), “thrones, dominions, principalities, powers” (Col. 1:16), “archangel” (1 Thess. 4:16). Also among the evil angels there are greater and lesser spirits (Matt. 25:41: “The devil and his angels”; Luke 11:15, 18, 19: “Beelzebub, the chief of the devils”). But we are unable to determine the number of the ranks and their precise difference, since Scripture does not give us sufficient information. Luther and the dogmaticians reject the nine orders, or choirs, of angels with the subdivisions (terniones) as uncertain.11 It has been rightly pointed out that Scripture changes the order of enumeration in naming the several ranks of the angels; cp. Col. 1:16 with Eph. 1:21.