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What Does the Bible Say About..Guardian Angels?

Although this as not happened to me recently, I have been able to see my "guardian angel" out of the corner of my eye on many occasions. I cannot find any scripture on this but my mother who passed away recently always said the same thing. We could not see a person, but a form and we knew who it was. Could you please give me an answer to this. Thank you.

Answer

I have previously written about the work of angels at Angels In Disguise. There I pointed out that the primary function of angels, until the return of Messiah, has always been one of communication.

There is no place in the Bible that talks of guardian angels. The closest scripture that might be, with effort, interpreted to speak of guardian angels would be Matthew 18:10—“ Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.” Even this passage does not say that the angels guard or protect the children, but that they represent them in heaven (with no indication that they ever leave heaven). Nor does it say how many people each angel represents; it may not be a one-on-one correspondence.

There are even some times that the word “angel” probably should have been translated as “messenger.” That is the meaning of the word, and many translators may do a disservice by transliterating the Greek word rather than translating it. For instance, in the early part of the book of the Revelation John is told to write to the “angels” of the seven churches of Asia Minor. This probably means that he was to write to what we would now call the preacher or reader (announcement maker?) of these congregations. It probably does not mean that each congregation had an angel, as we generally think of the term, to protect it.

Are there guardian angels? I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t say there are, so possibly there aren’t. If there are, could we see them? Probably only if they were giving a specific message to us. Even then we would probably react to angels, as did most people in the Bible, by falling on our faces in wonder or fear.

Still, I am not denying your experience. Although it could be explained much more simply as a physical phenomenon, I am not even denying the possibility of it being a sighting of a guardian angel. All I am saying is that the Bible says nothing about such a possibility, so I personally doubt it.