De Moor IX:15: The Cause of the Goodness of the Good Angels, Part 3

[We could use your help: If you are being blessed by the translation work, please consider supporting the work and speeding it on its way.  Click here to watch a brief video on the project.]

They were not confirmed through the Grace of the Mediator:  α.  Because Scripture never speaks in this fashion, which assigns Christ as Mediator to Men alone, and never says that He was constituted as Mediator between God and the Angels, 1 Timothy 2:5; Luke 2:10, 11.  β.  Indeed, Scripture expressly denied that He as Mediator took hold of Angels, but affirms this of the seed of Abraham in opposition to the Angels, Hebrews 2:16,[1] concerning which passage see below, Chapter XIX, § 17; and LAMPE’S Dissertationum, volume II, disputation I, § 39-42, pages 37-40.  γ.  Because Christ was not made a partaker of the Nature of Angels; yet this renders Him suitable for executing the Mediatorial office between God and man, because He was joined to both parties through the participation of a divine Nature and of a human Nature.  δ.  There was no need of a Mediator for the Angels, since they did not sin:  for a Mediator supposes differing parties; a Mediator is not a Mediator of One, Galatians 3:20.

Now, a Mediator of Preservation, with respect to sin and separation merely possible, according to the observation of our AUTHOR, Scripture does not acknowledge.  WALÆUS indeed relates in his Locis Communibus, opera, tome I, page 195, that some distinguish between a Mediator of Reconciliation and a Mediator of Preservation.  That with respect to Reconciliation and Redemption Christ is the Mediator of men alone:  but according to their opinion, with respect to Preservation Christ is also the Mediator of Angels, because in Him they were confirmed, that they should not fall, and they are governed by Him as by their own particular Captain and King.  But WALÆUS himself, after he had denied on page 194b, that good Angels needed a Mediator, in whom they might be elected and delivered from sin; both from the Holiness of Angels asserted in Scripture, while Christ comes to seek what was lost,[2] and to save, not the righteous, but sinners;[3] and from Passages in which Christ’s power of Redemption and Reconciliation are expressly restricted to Men:  nevertheless, on page 195b, subjoins:  Peace between God and Angels is able in some manner to be said to have been constituted and confirmed through Christ, because they were placed beyond danger of a fall by Him, as the eternal Son of God; and because, inasmuch as their holiness in infinite ways falls short of the divine holiness, this defect is covered by Christ’s infinite holiness, and by His intercession, and they are able to adhere to God forever.  Similarly does the same WALÆUS write in his Synopsi purioris Theologiæ, Disputation XII, § 33:  But whether they (the Angels) had need for the Preservation of their origin, is disputed among orthodox writers, both ancient and more recent.  We ourselves more willingly accede to the affirmative opinion, which has the most weighty authors:  where he then subjoins reasons for this his assertion, to be recounted also by our AUTHOR in his Objections.

But our AUTHOR agrees with TURRETIN, who in his Theologiæ Elencticæ, locus IV, question VIII, § 8-10, observes, that this opinion concerning Christ as the Angels’ Mediator, not of Redemption, but of preservation, confirmation, and ἀνακεφαλαιώσεως, gathering together,[4] verily has nothing that is repugnant to the analogy of faith; nevertheless, he thinks that this opinion is not quite so well conformed to the words of Scripture.  He does indeed acknowledge that the grace of Confirmation fell to them through the Son of God, so that, from whom they had received being, from the same they might obtain the preservation of it, because the Father does not work except through the Son:  but, that this pertains to the mediatorial office of the Son, and that He is to be contemplated here as Mediator, he does not think; since a Mediator is no more required for confirming a creature in the grace of the Creator, than a Mediator was required to create it and to united it with Him in the first place.  On the other hand, the acts of Christ as Mediator are ἱλασμὸς/atonement and intercession, both inseparable from each other, to which Mediation for sinners is restricted:  compare also MARESIUS’ Decade Assertionum theologicarum, § 4, in Sylloge Disputationum, part II, page 217.

Objection α:  They subsist through Christ, Colossians 1:16, 17.  I Respond out of our AUTHOR:  Through Christ as God, who preserves them as all other things; in the same manner as through Him, through whom the Father works all things, they were also created, Colossians 1:16.

Objection β:  They are also subject to Christ as Mediator, Philippians 2:9, 10; Colossians 2:10.  Responses:  1.  We acknowledge that the Son of God, who as God created and preserves the Angels, as Mediator is the Lord of the Angels as ministers of His kingdom, who makes use of their ministry for the good of the Church, Hebrews 1:13, 14; 1 Peter 3:22.  2.  Hence also Christ the Mediator is able to be called the Head of the Angels, Colossians 2:10:  that is, Head with respect to dominion and government; not with respect to that special influx, whereby with the power of His merits He fills the Church as His mystical body, and all its members, since with this body He is most intimately united as Head, Ephesians 5:23, 29, 30; and since in Ephesians 1:21 Christ is also said to have been exalted above the Angels, yet in a particular relation, verses 22, 23, as Head of the Church, and the latter is considered as His body:  similarly also in Colossians 1:18.

Objection γ:  They were reconciled through Christ, Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:19, 20.  Responses:  1.  WALÆUS observes, Locis Communibus, opera, tome I, page 195, that by τά ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, the things which are in heaven, BEZA understands the souls of the deceased Fathers, who at that time were in heaven, when Paul wrote these things, all who were saved and reconciled to God through Christ alone, just as also the men that were at that time on the earth.  Certainly thus indeed is the passage in Ephesians 1:10 able best to be explained of the Church, as much of the Old Testament as of the New, as much triumphant in heaven as militant upon the earth:  it is indeed treated of the ἀνακεφαλαιώσει, gathering together in one, the gathering again, the returning unto one head, τῶν πάντων ἐν Χριστῷ, of all things in Christ, which has proper regard to those that by sin were separated from God, and hence were scattered abroad and wandering about, after the likeness of dismembered members of a body, Isaiah 53:6; through Christ and His blood these, having been restored to communion with God, are also most intimately united with each other.  2.  If, as WALÆUS judges, in the same place, at least Colossian 1 appears to hinder, for in verse 16 by τά ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, the things which are in heaven, are manifestly understood men and Angels, and indeed principally Angels; yet thence does not follow the Reconciliation of the Angels with God through the blood of Christ, as if God had also been angry with the Angels:  but, with elect men reconciled with God through the blood of Christ and restored to friendship with God, also were removed the hostilities that because of sin were thriving between Angels and elect human sinners; and to this extent the Angels also could be said in Ephesians 1:10 to be regathered with elect men, as it were, to the body of one society.  Just as, with sedition put down, good citizens and rebels, who were previously hostile toward one another, are reconciled; and, with mutual hatred put away, they live so peacefully, as if the body, composed of all, were one.  3.  But on the text of Colossians 1:20 it is able also to be observed, that τὰ πάντα τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, all things that are in heaven and are on earth, are rightly understood in one sense in verse 16, and in another more restricted sense in verse 20:  since he speaks of works of a diverse sort in these verses, in verses 16, 17, of works of nature, Creation and Preservation, in verse 20, of the work of Redemption, to which a transition was made in verse 18, and which is not extended to the Angels, neither the Good, who, never having been estranged from God by sin, do not need Reconciliation with Him; nor the Bad, concerning whom the Apostle testifies otherwise, Colossians 2:15:  compare LAMPE, Dissertationum, volume II, disputation II, § 25, pages 85-87.

And so the Grace of Confirmation was granted to them, according to eternal Election, through proper Obedience, by force of a gracious Covenant, which sort God also entered with Adam.  According to WALÆUS, Locis Communibus, opera, tome I, page 194, the Papists commonly assert, that the Angels, when they were first created, had the power of persisting or of defecting, which we admit:  but they add, that the Good Angels by an Act of their Free Choice merited God’s confirmation of them in the good.  But our AUTHOR rightly denies to the Angels any Merit strictly so called, because a work not owed and native, independent Virtue are required in it.  It might also be asked at this point, Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? Romans 11:35.  And so our men prefer to say, that Confirmation was granted to the Good Angels according to a gracious and eternal Election, of which Chapter VII, § 3, and with Grace following this in time.  At the same time, our AUTHOR thinks that Merit by Covenant is able to be attributed to them, insofar as they obtain Confirmation through their own personal Obedience, prescribed for a certain time, although unknown to us, and furnished by them through the cooperation of God; if we consider the matter here in a manner similar to that in the case of the first Man, with whom God had entered into a Gracious Covenant, concerning which see our AUTHOR below, Chapter XIV, § 13 and following.

[1] Hebrews 2:16:  “For verily he took not on angels; but he took on the seed of Abraham (οὐ γὰρ δήπου ἀγγέλων ἐπιλαμβάνεται, ἀλλὰ σπέρματος Ἀβραὰμ ἐπιλαμβάνεται).”

[2] See Luke 19:10.

[3] See Luke 5:32.

[4] Ephesians 1:10:  “That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι) all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him…”