The Missing Puzzle Piece In The Creation Week
Last Christmas, my kids and I bought Stephanie (my wife) a puzzle table and a puzzle. She had expressed a desire for one a few weeks before December last year, and I was able to find one on sale within our budget. My wife wasted no time beginning her “relaxing” task of assembling her puzzle. I must admit, it puzzles me that doing a puzzle relaxes my wife; I find sorting through hundreds of cardboard shapes to assemble stressful!
Due to the daily demands, life’s rhythms, and puzzle size, she could not complete it in one setting. For the first several weeks following Christmas, she would work on the puzzle during the occasional evening that allowed her to be at the dining room table to do so. During her initial efforts, the uncompleted puzzle remained in the dining room or on the table. Eventually, Steph made room for the puzzle in our bedroom, where she would retreat, and time and circumstances allowed her to have some personal time. After hours of “relaxing,” she would finish her Christmas gift. She could fit the last piece in place and view the complete picture of a scene she had been working on for a while, but the final piece was nowhere to be found!
Despite her best efforts, I don’t think the piece was ever found. Whether a dog, our youngest son, or a vacuum cleaner ate it, the piece vanished. All that effort and one missing piece prevented her from completing the entire picture.
As we continue our study of angels, we will continue to put theological pieces of the puzzle together to move us closer to having a complete picture of these heavenly messengers. Today’s focus is the answer to the question, “When did God create angels?” However, is this a part of the puzzle God gives us in His Word, or is it a piece of the puzzle He has chosen to keep secret, not to be found by us no matter how long or diligently we seek?
The Missing Puzzle Piece In The Creation Week
We discovered that the Bible teaches us that angels are part of God’s creation in our last post. These heavenly beings are spirits who minister to God’s people, participate in other aspects of His work, and praise Him as their Creator God. A brief recap of the creation account of Moses in Genesis chapters one and two reveal that angels are not mentioned in the six days of creation. These otherworldly beings are not mentioned anywhere in the creative work week of the LORD pertaining to the earth, its inhabitants, and the universe.
Despite their absence in each day’s summary, we know God created angels (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 148:2, 5; Colossians 1:15-17). Still, no mention of angels during the creation week is like the missing puzzle piece needed to complete a fuller biblical picture and understanding of these mysterious, majestic beings. Let’s see if the missing piece can be found in the Scriptures together!
Job, Were You There?
A tree on my grandparents’ property has a heart and my parents’ initials engraved on its bark. Unless my memory fails me, there is another tree near a bluff we used to slide down as kids, with my brothers’ and my initials carved out in another tree’s trunk. Anyone who passes by those trees in the future will see those letters cut into them and know that someone has been there before their arrival. Both of these engravings have been storytelling moments when my kids and I have been in those same woods, though they were not present when the action of carving took place.
Much like carvings that happened in the distant past (as far as my children are concerned), provide opportunities for storytelling, which leads them to a better understanding of who their dad and grandparents are; God points Job to His creating work of the world to help Job during his time of suffering to help him gain a proper perspective. After being silent for most of the book, the LORD challenges Job from a storm with a rapid firing of rhetorical questions about His creating, ruling, and sustaining work to help Job regain a proper view of himself, his suffering, and the LORD.
It is in the midst of the questions that we find the piece of information needed to help us understand a general timeframe for when God created angels.
Read Job 38:1-7.
God asked Job if he was present when He laid the earth’s foundations. In other words, “Job, were you there when I spoke the heavens and earth into existence?” The LORD highlights His eternality, power, and wisdom to Job’s mortality, frailty, and limited knowledge. He takes Job back to when He “carved” the earth into existence. Job wasn’t there when He formed the earth, but he could look around and see that it had been skillfully crafted. While God is reminding Job of the humbling truth to help him regain a proper perspective for living and relating to His Creator, we see in verse seven that while Job wasn’t present at God’s creative work, angels were! These heavenly servants were present; they sang and shouted with joy as they observed their Creator at work (Job 38:7)!
A Closer Look At Job 38:7
Two phrases demand our attention in 38:7, “The morning stars” and “sons of God” respectively. Some view the “morning stars” as planets like Venus, but thinking through the creation week, the creation of the sun, moon, and stars (including planets) were brought into existence after the foundations of the earth were laid. The LORD also plainly refers to the universe and its inhabitants in Job 38:31-33. Against the background of Moses’ writing and the contents of Job 38, I believe it best to conclude that “the morning stars” is another title for angels (consider Lucifer, an angel, is called “morning star” in Isaiah 14:12 too). It is the consensus of many that angels are likened to stars because of their brightness, beauty, and purity.
The second phrase, “sons of God,” also refers to angels. The Greek translation of this verse has “all my angels” for “sons of God.” An ancient Jewish paraphrase has “all the armies of heaven” instead of “sons of God.” But even without these two extra-biblical sources, the book of Job itself provides enough proof for “sons of God” being a reference to angels (See Job 1:6; 2:1). These glorious spirits are called sons of God because He created them, He is their source of existence, and because of His grace and favor upon them.
What Do We Learn from Job 38:7?
Moses’ creation account does not plainly tell us that God created angels, yet their coming into being is implied. The merism, “heavens and earth,” means that God created everything, seen and unseen. Yet, for them to witness God create the earth, He would have brought them into existence before He formed our world. Yes, the completed populace of angels (Matthew 22:30) was created by God before He began preparing a place for us to call home. Still, the exact time God called into existence is not a subject of biblical revelation (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Life Application
What does this new intellectual knowledge of angels mean for our daily lives? How does knowing God created angels before laying the foundation of the world affect us?
One of the things about the Genesis creation account that demands my attention is that God fashions things together in an orderly fashion. He spends the first three days creating spaces for other things to live and thrive in (or for non-living things to exist in). Elohim, out of love for what He is about to bring into existence, ensures it has everything it needs to function as He intends (Genesis 1:29-30).
On day one, God created a dwelling place for the sun, moon, and stars, which He brings forth on day four. On day two, He separates the waters from the waters, resulting in the sky for all the flying creatures to soar in and seas for all water creatures to swim in on day five. On day three, He calls the dry ground up, naming it land and causing vegetation to grow. Land and plant development on day three provides habitats for all land animals and people on day six.
Knowing that God created angels before establishing the earth and everything in it needed for our physical sustainability deepens my understanding of God’s love and provision for me as His child. How? By creating angels, ministering spirits who God sends to serve those who will inherit salvation before creating anything – let alone a human being – it becomes clear that my God has provided not only tangible things used to provide and care for me but also the often invisible and undetected work of His heavenly army!
There is no telling how many undetected spiritual battles have been fought on our behalf (2 Kings 6:8-18; Daniel 10:10-14), danger adverted (Matthew 2:13; 26:52-53; Acts 12:1-11), and repairs made to our souls (Matthew 4:11; Mark 1:12-13) by heaven’s special forces. We have a good, good Father who, in His infinite wisdom, makes sure we have all we need, even the things needed that are not on our radar being met by angelic beings not on our radar (Psalm 91:9, 11).
A Simple Prayer
Father, thank you for thinking of everything. Because you have thought of my every need and made the means to meet my every need, help me to trust you with every need. Amen.
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