Gabriel and Christmas Part 1

Viewpoint on Mormonism, the program that examines the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a biblical perspective. Viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry. Since 1979, Mormonism Research Ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now your host for today's Viewpoint on Mormonism. Welcome to this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry.

With me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM. We're into the Christmas season, and of course the Christmas season includes the story of the Nativity. Included in that story of the Nativity is an announcement that is made by an angel who is given the name of Gabriel.

And this is from Luke chapter 1, verses 26 through 38, and is titled, The Birth of Jesus Foretold. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever.

His kingdom will never end. How will this be, Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin? The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.

Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail. I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered.

May your words of me be fulfilled. Then the angel left her. Now there's a couple things in there that make it very uncomfortable for me as a Christian living in Utah when Mormons put on productions or plays or having anything to do with the birth of Christ. And part of it you mentioned in that narrative where it talks about Mary being overshadowed and will become impregnated. And we know that Mormons in the past have been very vocal, Mormon leaders in the past have been very vocal to say that this means that God, who has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's, came down and physically impregnated Mary, that he has body parts and passions, and obviously this is one of those times when he uses one of those parts in order to do this. And that's why I'm uncomfortable when I see Mormon productions talking about the birth of Christ, because I know that this is what Mormon leaders have taught. And we've talked about that before, where this was a literal God the Father coming down here and coming upon Mary, and the scripture very clearly says the Holy Spirit will play that role. But Mormons use that phrase that he's the only begotten in the flesh.

Yes. Because if they don't put that part on there, in the flesh, well then we're all begotten. We're all begotten of God according to the Mormon scheme of things. But getting back to this angel Gabriel, he's one of the few angels that is actually given a name. We know there is also mentioned Michael, who is specifically described as an archangel in the book of Jude. But Gabriel is not considered an archangel.

What are some of the characteristics? And as you've just been talking about, the book of Tobit actually calls Gabriel an archangel, but not in the Bible. Well, we should say that the book of Tobit is in the Apocrypha, which as Protestant believers, we don't hold to the Apocrypha as being scriptural.

It does not have the scriptural authority for us as Protestants. And I would say Gabriel is probably the most prominent angel in the Bible. He's mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments.

He makes an appearance twice to Daniel in Daniel's chapter 8 and 9. And then also, before the passage I just read, he appeared to Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth, who had John the Baptist. So mentioned in our Bible very prominently, he stands in the presence of God. That's what Luke 1 19 says.

The word for stands in the Greek actually means waiting before a superior. So we know that this is a special angel sent directly by God. He who looks like a man though, even though he is an angel, and we'll talk a little later about what does an angel typically look like, but this appearance apparently, according to Daniel, the name Gabriel means man of God, and that's how Daniel described him as a man. And then Gabriel scares people.

Even though he looks like a man, we see Daniel's frightened and falls on his face. Zechariah, his first words are, do not be afraid to Zechariah because there was obviously fear. And Mary's greeting might be more celebratory, but Gabriel still tells her not to fear.

Fear not. And then finally, we see here in this passage that Gabriel anticipates Jesus, and he relays a prophecy that concerns Messiah the Prince to Daniel, and he tells Zechariah that John the Baptist will be the forerunner before the Lord. And then most famously, as I just read, Mary, her son would be called the Son of the Most High. Okay, so how would a Mormon describe what an angel actually is? We're going to talk about ontologically what is an angel.

Robert L. Millet gives a, I think, a very concise description of this. Robert L. Millet is a BYU professor, a Mormon apologist, if you will, but he does describe in the context of Mormonism what an angel is. Yes, and this is from his book, The Mormon Faith, Understanding Restored Christianity.

Of which he's a contributor. And this is on page 39, and it says, Latter-day Saints believe that angels are men and women, human beings, sons and daughters of God, personages of the same type as we are. Parley P. Pratt, an early apostle, wrote, God's angels and men are all of one species, one race, one great family. Elder Bruce R. McConkie, a more recent apostle, wrote, these messengers, agents, angels of the Almighty, are chosen from among His offspring and are themselves pressing forward along the course of progression and salvation, all in their respective spheres. In spite of prevailing sentiments in the religious world, as well as in Christian traditions and legends, Joseph Smith taught that angels do not have wings. These beings, Joseph explained, either have lived or will live on this earth at some time in its history, and he uses D&C 130 verse 5 as his reference. They do minister to people on earth, sometimes being seen and often unseen. They are subject to the will and power of Jesus Christ. Now, of course, we would not agree with that description in saying that angels and men are of one species, one race, and one great family.

We certainly wouldn't hold to that. The Bible makes it very clear that angels are a specific created type of being, and there's at least three, what I think are three good verses in the Bible that specifically point this out. One of them being Nehemiah 9-6 in the Old Testament. It says, You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve all of them, and the host of heaven worships you. Of course, the host of heaven, a host, would be another name for angels who worship God in his presence.

Then we have Psalm 148 that says, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights, praise him all his angels, praise him all his hosts, praise him, sun and moon, praise him all you shining stars, praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. Now in Mormonism, they would say, as you've just mentioned, that they are probably former humans at some point. But there it's saying they were created as angels themselves. It certainly does seem to give that impression that God created angels as angels, that they aren't some kind of mutated human or some kind of evolved human, but they were created what they are. So we don't have anywhere in the Bible that gives us any indication that what Robert L. Millet has said regarding angels is actually true.

This is something that is a part of Mormonism. Now, it is certainly a part of folklore. One of the most famous holiday movies would be what? It's a Wonderful Life.

It's one of your favorites, Bill. Yeah, and you've got Clarence, who's the angel, who was once a human being who's looking to get his wings. Now Millet says, and I think quite appropriately in a certain aspect, that angels don't have wings. But I would say, wait a minute, you can't really say that all of them don't have wings.

Certainly some of them don't. Well, the Seraphim and the Cherubim are talked about in the Bible as having wings. I mean, Exodus 25, 20, Ezekiel chapter 10, Isaiah 6, those are three passages you can go to that talk very clearly about the wings of the angels. And I don't think they're being symbolic.

I think they're talking about them literally having wings. Now, let's get back to angels being created. We also have Colossians 1.16, because I mentioned that there were three verses. And so we have Colossians 1.16, for by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. Again, we're not given this impression that angels are some kind of evolved human beings. You know, and John 1.3 goes right with that. Through him, all things were made, talking about the Word, the Word was God, the Word was Jesus.

Without him, nothing was made that has been made. So Jesus is the creator of all things, including angels. It's a little confusing, I think, in Mormon theology when it comes to angels, because I would think most Mormons would look at an angel as being a good thing. But yet Joseph Fielding Smith in Doctrines of Salvation, volume 2, page 73, gives us the impression that maybe angels are not as good as we might think they are. He says, No marriage in heaven for unrighteous.

This is the only answer the Lord could have given to those unbelievers. It is in full accord with the revelation given to the prophet Joseph Smith, wherein the Lord says that, quote, When they, those of this world who do not keep the whole law, are out of the world, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants to minister for those who are worthy of a far more and exceeding and an eternal weight of glory. For these angels did not abide my law, therefore they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition to all eternity, and from henceforth they are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever.

End quote. Now when I read that, I don't seem to get a very good impression of what an angel is because it sounds to me like in Mormon theology, at least according to Joseph Fielding Smith, that a being who is an angel and perhaps was a former human in this context, was not the best human they could have possibly have been. Otherwise, wouldn't they have received exaltation or wouldn't they receive exaltation in the next life or godhood? And he mentions marriage.

So does Spencer W. Kimball. He says that those without eternal marriage may be angels. Now the angels will be the people who did not go to the temple, who did not have their work done in the temple, and if there are some of us who make no effort to cement these ties, we may be angels for the rest of eternity.

Sounds almost like a threat to me. So are we to assume that maybe Gabriel wasn't a good human when he was on earth, or that Michael wasn't a good human when he was on earth, or even Moroni wasn't a good human when he was on earth? Because he was a human in the Book of Mormon, and then he dies and then comes back later and shows Joseph Smith the plates.

Tomorrow we're going to talk about Gabriel when he was on earth. organizations, the generous support of friends like you is necessary for effective ministry. During this holiday season, would you prayerfully consider a year-end donation to MRM to help give us a much needed financial boost into the New Year? Your tax-deductible gifts are much appreciated and will be used to further our efforts at MRM.