What is the identity of the ἄγγελοι of the seven churches?
Possible Interpretations
1. The ἄγγελοι are angels (Oecumenius, Caesarius of Arles [as an option]), Alford, Charles, Thomas, Michaels, Beale, Osborne, Hamilton, Koester, Fanning)
a. Elsewhere in Revelation ἄγγελος is only used of angels (Alford, 4:560; Charles, ICC, 34; Michaels, IVPNTC; Beale, NIGTC, 217; Hamilton, PtW, 51, Koester, 60–61).
b. Stars are a common symbol for angels (Osborne, BECNT, 99; Beale, NIGTC, 218).
c. In the NT there seem to be angels who “are allotted to persons, and are regarded as representing them” (Mt 18:10; Acts 12:15) (Alford, 4:560, Charles, ICC, 34).
d. In Daniel there are angels who represent nations, making it reasonable that there could be angels that represent churches (Alford, 4:560, Charles, ICC, 34; cf. Beale, NIGTC, 217).
e. Church leaders are not addressed in these letters; churches as a whole are addressed through the angel (Alford, 4:560).
f. Oecumenius, acknowledging the absurdity of a letter being written to an angel in the presence of God and of rebukes to a holy angel regarding sin, concludes that Christ “speaks periphrastically of the church” when he references its angel (Greek Commentaries, ACC, 10; cf. Caesarius of Arles, Latin Commentaries, ACC 66; Charles, ICC, 34).
g. Another option is that the angels are held culpable for the failures of the churches due to “corporate representation” (Beale, NIGTC, 217–18).
2. The ἄγγελοι are church leaders (Caeasarius of Arles [as an option]; Perkins; Gerhard; Dabney, Bavinck, de Burgh, Elliott, Tenney, Leithart)
a. The term ἄγγελος can be used of human preachers (Mt. 11:10; 1 Cor 11:10) (Perkins, Works, 4:441; cf. Leithart, ITC, 122).
b. The letters are addressed to them (Bavinck, RD, 2:467). “If Jesus actually appeared to John, dictated the actual words we read in the text, and expected John actually to send the messages to the churches, then the notion that the recipients are angel-spirits makes little sense. … To put it provocatively, or snarkily: Where do angels receive their mail? And, how does John know the addresses?” (Leithart, ITC, 123).
c. The ἄγγελοι are held responsible for for the conduct of the churches (de Burgh, 23). Notably, “in Greek most of the exhortations of the messages are explicitly addressed to a single person—the angel. … Now, as difficult as it might be to imagine that Jesus holds the some human leader of a city church responsible for the condition of his flock, it is far more difficult to determine what these charges and exhortations mean when addressed to an angel-spirit” (Leithart, ITC, 123–24).
d. Since holy angels have no need to repent, church leaders are in view (Caesarius of Arles, Latin Commentaries, ACC 66).
e. “Jesus threatens to remove the lampstand (the church, 1:20) from Ephesus if the angel fails to repent. That leaves the future of the Ephesian church dependent not on the repentance of the community or its leader, but on the repentance of his spiritual guardian, over whom the community can exert no influence” (Leithart, ITC, 124).
3. A “symbol to represent the heavenly or supernatural character of the church” (Ladd, 35; cf. Oecumenius under 1.g.).
a. The pastor interpretation is ruled out since the term ἄγγελος is not used of pastors in the NT.
b. The pastor interpretation is ruled out since the letters rebuke the whole church rather than a church leader.
c. The angel interpretation is ruled out because apocalyptic literature never has angels representing men.
d. Ladd reaches his conclusion by process of elimination.
Rejected Interpretations
1. The ἄγγελοι are angels
a. This is the strongest argument for this position. However, chapters 2-3 connect to the rest of the book in an interesting way. For instance, the coming of Christ in these chapters refers to a coming in judgment on individual churches during the present age whereas the coming later in the book refers to the coming in final judgment on the whole earth. Thus, for terms to be used somewhat differently in chapters 2-3 is not surprising.
b. The term star is used variously in Revelation of actual stars (6:13; 8:12; 9:1), of angels (8:10–11), of the patriarchs (12:1), of Israel (12:4), and of Christ (2:28; 22:16). It is not inconceivable then that it is here used of pastors.
c. I reject (along with most Reformed interpreters) the interpretation that sees these texts as teaching the existence of guardian angels. For instance, Turretin rejects Matt. 18:10 as a prooftext on the grounds that “it cannot be gathered from this that a certain particular and peculiar angel is granted to individual infants for a perpetual guard” (Institutes, 7.8.9-14 [1:558-59]; cf. Hodge, ST, 1:640; Bavinck, RD, 2:467; Erickson, CT, 2nd ed., 469; McCune, STBC, 1:371–72). Regarding Acts 12:15, Turretin notes, “Nothing prevents us from taking the word angelou here for ‘messenger (a frequent use of the word, Mt. 11:10; Lk. 7:24, 27; 9:52), for ‘it is a messenger sent by him’ to announce something concerning him (as they who are in chains are accustomed to use messengers to report their condition)” (Turretin, Institutes, 7.8.9-14 [1:558-59]; cf. Peterson, PNTC, 365–66).
d. The angels in Daniel 10 are not territorial spirits or representatives of particular nations but demonic spirits seeking to influence those nations. J. Paul Tanner notes with regard to Daniel 10:13, “Care should be taken here, however, not to label this a “territorial spirit,” as though a geographical assignment is the issue. More accurately, the stress is on sociopolitical structure, meaning that this demon was targeting the empire and the human authorities behind that empire” (Tanner, EEC, 635–36).
e. This seems factually inaccurate. The address in the letters is in the singular, not plural. In other words, the messengers are singularly addressed by Christ. To be sure, they are addressed as representatives of the churches, but they are also addressed in such a way that they bear responsibility for the churches. It seems unlikely that unfallen angels can be held responsible for the straying and sinning of churches (cf. Bavinck, RD, 2:467; de Burgh, 23; Leithart, ITC, 1:123).
f. Fanning notes the difficulty with this view: “But such a sequence of images seems too convoluted to follow (star in his hand equals an angel over the church equals the ethos of the church addressed as a person). Moreover, it is hard to see how “angel” could represent such a meaning” (ZECNT, 107–8).
g. It seems difficult to see how unfallen angels could be held responsible for sin.
3. A “symbol to represent the heavenly or supernatural character of the church”
a. The stars are already a symbol of the angels. To make the angels a symbol of the church means to have a symbol symbolize a symbol. See also the quotation from Fanning under 1.g.
b. Ladd does not offer positive argumentation for this view.
Accepted Interpretations
2. The ἄγγελοι are church leaders
a. There is precedent for this term to be applied to human messengers (Mt 11:10).
b. If John were to obey, he would of necessity be writing to other humans because he could not send what he wrote to a heavenly angel. As Leithart notes, “The more we try to imagine a set of letters sent to angel-spirits, the more implausible it becomes. And then we are left with the unhappy (perhaps unfair) suspicion that commentators do not think Jesus really intended John to write to the angels at all” (Leithart, ITC, 1:123).
c. The ἄγγελοι are held responsible for for the conduct of the churches.
d. A call to repent (2:5, 16) can only be addressed to a human. Even if this is understood as a call for the whole church to repent, as I think it should be, it would be hard to exclude the messenger from the call to repentance since it is addressed to him. It would seem inappropriate to command an unfallen angel to repent (cf. Caesarius of Arles in Latin Commentaries on Revelation, ACC, 66; Leithart, ITC, 1:123).
e. It would be difficult to imagine a church being judged for the failure of its representative angel.
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