There has been some who teach that people become angels when they die, However, the Bible reveals that Angels are different than humans, in several ways. One, Angels were created to Worship God (Isaiah 6:1ff), and for our benefit (Hebrews 1:14), as they were sent out “to minister to those who will inherit salvation.” Second, Angels are Spirit beings, and not tied to this physical realm. Hebrews 1:14 reminds us that they are “ministering SPIRITS” (Emphasis mine), they are real beings but they are without material substance as we think of it. Third, 1 Peter 1:12 tells us that Angels are curious about salvation. Angels were created as a group, not a race (human race), and as such they have no part in the redemption offered through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. They are determined in their rebellious state, and cannot repent of that rebellion. Angels have an intellectual awareness of our salvation, but they haven’t felt salvation or feasted on it. They can never know the freshness of being born again. Fourth, Genesis 1:26-27, tells us that only mankind (Male and female) was created in the image of God, but nowhere in scripture does it say that Angels were created in God’s image. As such it would seem that in the original creation of God, mankind was created as the highest of all the created beings. While the world and all of creation will be affected by the work of Christ on the cross. Jesus becomes the second Adam, and took upon himself the form of man (not angels). Interestingly, the second person of the trinity appears in the Old Testament as “The Angel of the Lord” yet he could not redeem mankind until he takes on the form of a man. Understand my friends, we do not need to become less than what we are when we die, God prepares for us a “tabernacle” (body – 2 Corinthians 5:1ff) to live in while we are absent from the body after death. We do not regress in creation, we are redeemed to move toward our intended design. We are higher than the angels, not equal to them. As followers of Jesus Christ we do not need to become Servants of Christ as Angels, we are already His servants, visual representatives of Christ to this world.
