Angels Angels Angels: Embraced by the Light...Or...Embraced by the Darkness?

by Phil Phillips

Discovering the truth about angels, near-death experiences and other spiritual awakenings.

315 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 1994

Reviews

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve been interested in angels ever since getting stuck on a lyric in a song by The Devil Makes Three: “Even the devil was an angel before he tried to rush the throne…” Thinking about it, I began questioning whether angels have free will. After a bit of research, the answer I found was that angels do have free will but choose to give God “full obedience” because the only other choice available to them is to be cast into “everlasting fire” wearing “everlasting chains under darkness”. You know, THAT kind of free will. After this bit of research, I realized that I knew very little about angels. Though they’re a constant part of Christian theology, they seem a relatively minor aspect for which I’d venture most Christians don’t give a lot of thought.

Doing more digging, I discovered a page at ChristianAnswers.net which, among other things, includes this juicy nugget: “It seems reasonable to conclude that there are at least as many spirit beings [i.e. angels] in existence as there will have been human beings in all their history on Earth.” WHAT? We’re talking billions upon billions of angels. The Population Reference Bureau estimates about 107 billion people have lived… and human history is not yet over (though Trump and Republicans are doing all they can to wind it down). As I wrote at the time, it seems pretty weird that angels are kind of a footnote in the scheme of things if there’s more than 100,000,000,000 of them. Why do they exist? What are they doing that couldn’t be handled by a dozen, or, uh, none, since God is omnipotent? What relationship do they have to humans? On this last question, according to 1 Corinthians 6:3, apparently humans will eventually judge angels??? All humans? Some humans? In what way?

Listen, it goes without saying that this is all completely insane and has no basis in reality. Nevertheless, my desire to know more about this underknown side belief of Christianity led me to purchase Phil Phillips’ ANGELS, ANGELS, ANGELS: EMBRACED BY THE LIGHT…OR…EMBRACED BY THE DARKNESS? in hopes of learning more. I have previously read two of Phillips other books (HALLOWEEN AND SATANISM and DINOSAURS: THE BIBLE, BARNEY & BEYOND) and found both very entertaining, so I hoped for more of the same here. While there is some of Phillips’ patented craziness and a fair amount of typos and embarrassing mistakes—for example, Phillips seems to genuinely not understand the difference between “affect” and “effect” as he uses both incorrectly at times throughout this book, and there is a point where he quotes the exact same lengthy passage from the Bible twice in a page and a half—the majority of the book is a critique of what he terms “New Age” belief about angels and “New Age” practices more generally. A lot of this isn’t particularly funny or insightful, so this 300+ page book did end up being more of a slog than I’d hoped for. There’s the occasional moment of true absurdity, but a lot of the book is relatively tame, for what it is.

I was encouraged at first when I opened my copy of ANGELS, ANGELS, ANGELS. Incidentally, the copy I purchased is autographed by Phillips himself! Anyway, the author begins with a discussion about how angels have increased their footprint in popular culture, asserting in part that “many stores now have ‘angel departments’”. Uh, they do? At one point there was a little superscript ‘1’ next to a sentence, which I thought indicated a footnote or endnote. I found nothing at the bottom of the page or at the end of the chapter. When I flipped to the back of the book, it read, “Chapter 1 – No endnotes.” Perfect. Incidentally, when there are endnotes, it is Phillips citing one source repeatedly, then the next chapter repeatedly cites a different source. This is not what you’d call a well-researched book.

Phillips claims that angels are mentioned more than 300 times in the Bible. As to how or when they were created, he doesn’t have a good answer. “The writers of both the Old and New Testaments do not explain the origins of angels. They simply assume their existence.” ::insert Nic Cage YOU DON’T SAY? meme here:: Though he can’t comment on their creation, there are some angel facts that Phillips drops pretty early on which are of note. He says that Jesus believed angels are present “all around us” and that they are assigned to individual human beings. Citing Matthew 28:5, Revelation 10:5-6, and Revelation 17:1-18, Phillips adds that angels desire to learn, communicate with speech, and have a revelatory knowledge of God’s plan for the world. Angels also, “of course, have no need for salvation”. Of course. But wait, what about that “humans will judge angels” bit from 1 Corinthians 6:3? Don’t worry about it! More on angel attributes: they have intelligence, show emotion, are immortal, sexless, do not marry (why buy the cow, amirite, angels?), and as I mentioned above do have free will (“at least to a degree”, lol).

So what are angels for, exactly? The book of Revelation indicates that their “primary function and role” is worshipping God. Certainly nothing says self-confidence like creating billions of creatures whose only purpose and choice is to bow at your feet and tell you how great you are. When one of the angels, Satan, chose to use his free will otherwise, God goes scorched-earth on him, saying he has “destroyed” him, “brought fire from your midst [which] devoured you”, and “turned you to ashes upon the earth”. Or rather… God will get around to doing those things one day. In fact, according to Revelation 20:10, “the day has not yet arrived when the devil is cast into the lake of fire”. One of these days, though, God’s gonna get ya—just you wait! Until then, um, I guess just do whatever? Engage in weird little pissing contests with God by trying to get humans to turn to tarot cards and meditation (but, like, the bad kind of meditation instead of the good Christian kind!!!), possess humans and animals, give people dreams in which they think (erroneously!!) that they’ve gone to Heaven/met Jesus and tell them that they are supposed to be kind! HAHA! That’s classic Satanic behavior: telling people they should be kind to one another. Because, you see, you’re not supposed to be kind—you’re supposed to love Jesus and that, in turn, will make you kind probably.

Phillips goes on to say that the Bible identifies four main types of angels: cherubim, seraphim, archangels, and personal angels, which in turn are organized into thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. Okay, sure. What any of this means is anybody’s guess, although one thing Phillips does know is that the orders of angels do not imply a hierarchy and they are all equal. Mere moments after making this statement, Phillips without any self-awareness claims that seraphim are “a very high-ranking order of angels”. The first angels mentioned in the Bible are the cherubim, which popular culture has turned into fat little baby angels, but Phillips wants you to know that really they’re cool warriors. He illustrates this by pointing to Genesis 3:24, after Adam and Eve are put out of the Garden of Eden, when God put a handful of cherubim and “a flaming sword which turned every way” to stop them from getting back in. Wait… you’ve barely finished creating humans and you’ve already got swords? Flaming swords? On what day did God create FLAMING SWORDS, and why was this so important that it came so early in Creation?

There aren’t many angels whose names are known. There are at least 4 archangels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel), but possibly there are 7 or 12? Where those numbers are coming from are, again, anybody’s guess. Archangels are the “chief princes of Heaven”, whatever the hell that means. The only other angel whose name is mentioned by name, other than Lucifer/Satan, is “the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abbadon, and in Greek, Apollyon”, who is King of hideous creatures who “have the power to hurt men five months”. I wondered if Phillips was confused and this “Abbadon” truly is just Satan again, but I searched the name online and found on Wikipedia that Revelation 9:7-11 describes Abbadon as king of “a plague of locusts resembling horses with crowned human faces, women’s hair, lions’ teeth, wings, iron breastplates, and a tail with a scorpion’s stinger that torments for five months anyone who does not have the seal of God on their foreheads”. I’m sorry, a plague of locusts resembling horses? A plague of locusts resembling horses with human faces that torture people for exactly five months? Again I must ask: WHAT? Beyond the bonkers Mad Libs description here, I can’t help wondering what exactly does it mean to be “king” of a plague of locusts? Is Abbadon the head of their locust government or is it more ceremonial?

We all know what a plague of locusts resembling horses with human faces looks like – big yawn, amirite? Tell me something I don’t know: what do angels look like? Well, get this: they’re invisible. I’m sure you’re shocked to hear this. Actually, though, they can take on a corporeal form “if a body is needed”. Ezekiel describes one Cherubim as having four faces (of a lion, an ox, an eagle, and a man), four wings, hooves, and oh yeah it sparkled like Edward Cullen. John saw six-winged creatures with eyes all around AND WITHIN them. But mostly when they take on corporeal forms they look like humans. Another cool thing about angels: they’re really good at murdering people! “One of the most powerful displays of angelic power” occurs in Isaiah 36-37 in which “The angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead.” Awesome! This is much better than Satan and his despicable “be kind” campaign. But wait a minute… if angels are so powerful, why do guardian angels (totally a real thing!) sometimes seem to fail at their jobs by letting people get hurt/die? The answer is that angels “cannot help somebody who is a victim of another’s sin”. Phillips explains that a person could be punished because of the sin of their parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent because, according to the Bible, “the consequences of unrepented sin . . . extend to the fourth generation”. Excellent. I have no problem accepting this as rational and just with no further explanation required!

Although what I’ve shared is a bounty of the bizarre, all of this is in the first portion of the book. As mentioned, the bulk of the book isn’t as fun and is mostly arguing against “New Age” conception of angels. For example, he argues that the New Age belief is that angels work miracles, but this is a “dangerous lie” because only the “Lord God” works miracles. Angels don’t convict the heart, only the Holy Spirit does. Angels don’t hear prayers and know the thoughts of men, only God does. It seems to me that you’re just saying the same thing using different words, but he’s treating it like it’s an unbridgeable divide. Also, much of the book is just straight up summary of various “New Age” angel books, along with a minor bit of commentary about how the Bible says that faith in Jesus is the main thing and that it’s wrong to seek out contact with angels. One of the most amazing things in this portion of the book is that Phillips argues that Christians should not “gullibly swallow” reports of near-death experiences or other angel encounters as truth, but should instead “put what they say to the test” and “seek verification”. What he means by this is to confirm whether the experience aligns with his personal interpretations of the Bible. The reason for this is that demons can transform themselves into “highly appealing entities”; for example, in 2 Corinthians Satan transforms into “an angel of light” to, quote, “deceive people into thinking that he is something other than what he is”. Incidentally, this discussion occurs just a page or so after a description of God punishing David for conducting a census (seriously) but offering him a choice of punishment (a la Gozer in Ghostbusters). David chooses three days of “the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel” using “the sword of the Lord” (there’s that sword again! The definite article “the” suggest there’s only one such sword, not a multitude of them… I’m going to have to seek out books on God’s sword after this). David ends the destruction early by making a “burnt offering” on an altar. If Satan can impersonate an angel of light, did David at any point question, “Am I being punk’d?”

A handful of additional comments from Phillips bearing mention before I wrap this up:
- He says that self-acceptance is not redemptive and calls the idea “utter nonsense from a Bible point of view”. (Anybody who has experienced any measure of self-acceptance can easily debunk the claim that it is not redemptive.)
- He warns that God’s secrets are not to be understood. “When we seek out what is not ours to know, we begin to walk in shadows, not light.” (When your religion gets too nonsensical and convoluted to defend, just say that it’s a sin to try to understand it!)
- He argues that the Bible “tells us plainly that we should be casting down imaginations”, adding that “lust, envy, greed, and virtually all evil practices begin first in the imagination”. (Yes, Phil Phillips is coming out hard against imagination!)
- One of my favorite quotes: “If someone asks you to enter an altered state of consciousness to contact your personal angel… don’t.”

Ultimately, the biggest issue I have with the latter 3/4 of the book is Phillips’ anti-humanist philosophy. At one point he describes what he thinks are un-Biblical beliefs of cults and cult leaders throughout the last century; one of those is the alleged Mormon belief that “endless punishment is unscriptural, unreasonable, and revolting”. How shameful to believe that endless punishment is bad! Phillips also talks about a particular author who believes that Hell is a punishment for human bad behavior, “not the automatic outcome of separation and torment for those who find themselves separated from God’s presence because they refused to accept God’s offer of forgiveness.” It’s a twisted conception of “forgiveness” that requires the recipient to “accept” and commit to worshipping and obeying the forgiver, else be cast into eternal hellfire. It is so obviously unjust as to leave one speechless that it even needs be said.

While ANGELS, ANGELS, ANGELS isn’t as consistently the raucous ride I’d hoped it would be, there are a fair number of deliciously goofy statements about angels in the first quarter. That, in conjunction with Phillips’ unfailing faith in the goodness of a plan that rejects “works” in favor of obeisance, and which punishes the most minor infractions with wholesale slaughter and interminable torture, earns this book its 1-star rating.