WHO WAS THE ANGEL THAT JOHN WORSHIPED? by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 11, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 11

WHO WAS THE ANGEL THAT JOHN WORSHIPED?

By Dudley Marvin Canright

BY ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.

In Rev. 22:8, 9, we read: “And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book; worship God.”

This passage is claimed as proving the conscious state of the dead. It is asserted that this angel was one of the old prophets who thus appeared to John. If we grant this, the text does not prove the conscious state of the dead, because some of these prophets had already been taken to Heaven. Enoch was a prophet, and he never died. Elijah was a prophet, and he had been translated. Moses was a prophet, and, as can be shown, he had been raised from the dead. Again, at the resurrection of Christ, many of the saints which slept were raised; and in Eph. 4, Paul intimates that they ascended with Christ. It might have been one of these. So that, granting that it was a prophet that talked with John, the text does not prove the conscious state of the dead.

But this was an angel, and not a man nor the soul of a man. John says, “I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things.” A man is not an angel, but this was an angel. Is it not said that he was one of the prophets? No; a careless reading might give that idea, but a close examination shows that this is not what is declared. It is simply asserted that this angel was a fellow-servant of John and of his brethren the prophets. That is,

this angel was not to be worshiped, because he was simply a servant of God, and had only been sent to serve the prophets, John’s brethren. Read it carefully: “I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets.” Let us read a few other translations which will give the idea better. The American Bible Union translation reads: “I am a fellow-servant of thee, and of thy brethren the prophets.” The Emphatic Diaglott says: “I am the fellow-servant with thee, and with thy brethren the prophets.” Tregelles translates it: “I am the fellow-servant of thee and of thy brethren the prophets.” These translations give the idea better and more correctly. He was only a fellow-servant of these prophets, not one of the prophets themselves.

Furthermore, the interpretation given by our opponents contradicts the Bible by teaching that the dead come back to this earth and converse with men; while the Scriptures plainly declare that the dead know not anything. Thus Job says, speaking of a man’s death: “His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.” Job 14:21. Then after a man dies he knows nothing of what is transpiring on the earth. Again it is said: “For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything . . . Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.” Eccl. 9:5, 6. How can this be harmonized with the idea that the departed spirits of the dead do come back to earth and minister to their brethren? And in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, of which our opponents are very fond, the very point made is, that the dead cannot come back to earth and communicate with the living. Will they now contradict all this testimony to make out a case from this passage? Our orthodox brethren have joined hands with the spiritualists on this point. If their theory of this passage is correct, then the spirits of the dead do return to earth and do communicate with men, as the spiritualists say. The latter only carry it a little further, and thus establish their blasphemous doctrine of spirit communication.