The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Revelation 5:11,
"Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand."
How many angels are there?
In John's vision of heaven he saw a number of angels, "thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand." All surrounding God's throne and worshiping the Lamb. That is a lot of angels! Ten thousand times ten thousand is one hundred million (if my math is correct).
I would suspect, as I am sure many people do, that John's description of the multitude of angels was not necessarily an effort to do a head count as much as simply express there were angels beyond number. Lots of angels, numbering in the millions.
In Revelation 12:7 we read of a war that took place in heaven. The Archangel Michael and his angels (the good guys) fought against "the dragon" and his angels. The dragon lost and he and all his angels were cast out of heaven to earth. Earlier in the chapter, verse 4, we read of "an enormous red dragon" whose tail "swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth."
It is thought that these "stars" are the angels in heaven - and that a third of them joined Satan in a rebellion against God and were expelled from heaven. So if there where a hundred million angels who worshiped the Lamb, representing two-thirds of the total number of angels, that would mean maybe thirty million or so joined in Satan's rebellion. (Again I point out that the hundred million number given for the angels that worshiped God in Revelation 5 may simply be a way to express there were angels beyond number.)
In any event, a "whole-lotta" angels! Good angels and bad angels (I assume the ones who joined in Satan's rebellion are the demons we read of in Scripture). It gets me to thinking how big heaven is and how populated it will be with both humans and the good angelic beings (will there be other beings as well? What are these four creatures we read about in chapter 5?). Taken together, with God's expansive presence, heaven has to be one huge place!
Eternity is a long time, and I just have this feeling that the environs, both in heaven and on the renewed earth, will be very adequate for a massive population and that we will never tire of some form of limitation of any kind. Certainly not in a spacial sense and certainly not in the sense of exhausting the opportunity to meet and get to know new faces!
Just musing here. I think it healthy for us to muse and focus on what we are looking forward to in the resurrection and the hope we believers share. I know I have a lot of questions about it!
How about you? What do you think about these things?
A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.
"Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand."
How many angels are there?
In John's vision of heaven he saw a number of angels, "thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand." All surrounding God's throne and worshiping the Lamb. That is a lot of angels! Ten thousand times ten thousand is one hundred million (if my math is correct).
I would suspect, as I am sure many people do, that John's description of the multitude of angels was not necessarily an effort to do a head count as much as simply express there were angels beyond number. Lots of angels, numbering in the millions.
In Revelation 12:7 we read of a war that took place in heaven. The Archangel Michael and his angels (the good guys) fought against "the dragon" and his angels. The dragon lost and he and all his angels were cast out of heaven to earth. Earlier in the chapter, verse 4, we read of "an enormous red dragon" whose tail "swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth."
It is thought that these "stars" are the angels in heaven - and that a third of them joined Satan in a rebellion against God and were expelled from heaven. So if there where a hundred million angels who worshiped the Lamb, representing two-thirds of the total number of angels, that would mean maybe thirty million or so joined in Satan's rebellion. (Again I point out that the hundred million number given for the angels that worshiped God in Revelation 5 may simply be a way to express there were angels beyond number.)
In any event, a "whole-lotta" angels! Good angels and bad angels (I assume the ones who joined in Satan's rebellion are the demons we read of in Scripture). It gets me to thinking how big heaven is and how populated it will be with both humans and the good angelic beings (will there be other beings as well? What are these four creatures we read about in chapter 5?). Taken together, with God's expansive presence, heaven has to be one huge place!
Eternity is a long time, and I just have this feeling that the environs, both in heaven and on the renewed earth, will be very adequate for a massive population and that we will never tire of some form of limitation of any kind. Certainly not in a spacial sense and certainly not in the sense of exhausting the opportunity to meet and get to know new faces!
Just musing here. I think it healthy for us to muse and focus on what we are looking forward to in the resurrection and the hope we believers share. I know I have a lot of questions about it!
How about you? What do you think about these things?
A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.
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