Guardian Angels

Many people, Christian and non-Christian are fans of the idea that people are assigned a guardian angel to watch over them. So I would like to address this popular belief from a Biblical perspective. 

Here is what the Bible has to say. 

 

Hebrews 1:14 – Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

This seems to say that all angels are ministering to believers. Not that everybody has an angel protecting them at all times, but that believers only have angels who minister to them. 

 

Matthew 18:10 – “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.

With out getting off topic by defining who I believe “littles ones” is referring to, we do see plainly by the statement of “their angels” that there are angels assigned to people. 

 

The question is whether each person—or each believer—has an angel assigned to him/her. In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel had the archangel (Michael) assigned to it (Daniel 10:21; 12:1), but Scripture nowhere states that an angel is “assigned” to an individual (angels were sometimes sent to individuals, but there is no mention of permanent assignment). The Jews fully developed the belief in guardian angels during the time between the Old and New Testament periods. Some early church fathers believed that each person had not only a good angel assigned to him/her, but a demon as well. The belief in guardian angels has been around for a long time, but there is no explicit scriptural basis for it.

 

To return to Matthew 18:10, the word “their” is a collective pronoun in the Greek and refers to the fact that believers are served by angels in general. These angels are pictured as “always” watching the face of God so as to hear His command to them to help a believer when it is needed. The angels in this passage do not seem to be guarding a person so much as being attentive to the Father in heaven. The active duty or oversight seems, then, to come more from God than from the angels, which makes perfect sense because God alone is omniscient. He sees every believer at every moment, and He alone knows when one of us needs the intervention of an angel. Because they are continually seeing His face, the angels are at His disposal to help one of His “little ones.”

It cannot be emphatically answered from Scripture whether or not each believer has a guardian angel assigned to him/her. But, as stated earlier, God does use angels in ministering to us. It is scriptural to say that He uses them as He uses us; that is, He in no way needs us or them to accomplish His purposes, but chooses to use us and them nevertheless (Hebrews 1:7). In the end, whether or not we have an angel assigned to protect us, we have an even greater assurance from God: if we are His children through faith in Christ, He works all things together for good (Romans 8:28-30), and Jesus Christ will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5-6). If we have an omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God with us, does it really matter whether or not there is a finite guardian angel protecting us?

 

Resource – www.gotquestions.org – the revisions above are my own.