So in the Verge last night, my church’s college/career group, we were talking about Isaiah 6 & Isaiah’s commission to becoming a prophet and take God’s word/plan to a specific people. It’s a great chapter & a wonderful part of scripture for teaching a few different aspects & the only other chapter in Isaiah I would say compares to it is Ch. 40.
Anyway, the question arose about the seraphim & the significance of them having six wings with four of them being used to cover themselves (two covers their face & two covers their feet) while only two of these six wings are being used to fly. I thought it was interesting enough that once my Bible study was done on the specific subject from that part of scripture (which was about leaving the comfort zone), that I started studying it on the side. It’s wonderful & actually goes so much more toward the story than I had originally imagined. So to start out here, I’m going to explain the angelic beings the seraphim & the cherubim. Now what I’m going to write below DOES have a point. Just read through it because it’s not all facts about these angels. It’s actually wrapped up with something I think is pretty important.
Cherubim – These are the angelic beings that we now depict as the “little baby,” but interestingly enough, in their true Biblical sense, they are anything but little, cute babies. In Ezekiel they are shown with the likeness of man, but with the qualities (or faces) of four different creatures. These creatures are a lion, ox, eagle, & man. So the cherubim have four “faces”, they’re not cute little babies, AND these are the known “guardian angels.” In Genesis 3:24 it says after driving out Adam & Eve from the Garden, cherubim were sent with a “flaming sword” as to guard the tree of life. The irony here, Satan himself was a guardian cherub before being cast out (Ezekiel 28). That’s not really much to go toward my thought right now, but I could think of several thought-provoking ideas that would make good discussion. I just like how God casts Satan out, His right hand “man” & top guardian angel of all angels, & when Satan tempts man to sin & succeeds in this temptation… God guards the Garden with very angels that used to serve right beside Satan when he was known as Lucifer. So reading through scripture & seeing the attributes of the cherubim, these beings, these angels, were made to worship & serve God through actual service. The cherubim were created by God to DO work for God. They are the workers that go out & guard & “take care” of things in full service, obedience, and worship toward God’s glory essentially being the “doers” of the angels.
Seraphim – I will probably take everything right out of the scripture I was recently on. There is much more about them but it’s summed up good with Isaiah 6:2. First off, I love the meaning from the Hebrew for the word seraphim. Seraphim, as defined in the Catholic encyclopedia, is “The name, Hebrew masculine plural form, designates a special class of Heavenly attendants of Yahweh’s courts.” This is important… “Yahweh’s courts” … It could have said “God’s courts” but with that we could just think that these angels are residing in Heaven. However, saying Yahweh’s courts puts these angels right in the midst of the throne of God (in the very “room” of God & all of His presence & glory). These angels are being described as having six wings, unlike the cherubim and their four wings. In Isaiah, he describes seeing the seraphim with two of their wings covering their feet and two of their wings covering their face. The reason two wings cover their feet is in recognition to their lowliness compared to God. They know they’re not worthy to stand in His presence, therefore covering their feet a lot like some cultures in the world might bow for a king or a leader putting that leader above them & of lifting him up. The reason two wings cover the face is because they can’t gaze on the glory & holiness of God. That’s pretty simply said. The facts about the four wings being used like that is VITAL to the point of the seraphim. They are using four of their six wings in worship to God. This is the vital part because that emphasizes not only their worship, but the importance of worshiping God.
This is the cool part to me… Cherubim are made to be the “doers” & seraphim are made to merely stand in the presence singing praises to God. All of this is to be done in worshipful reverence of God’s power, glory, & holiness & is to be done obediently. So God has made angels to do separate parts of worship, however, God made man to do ALL parts of worship. The Bible tells us in everything we do, we should do it in worship. We should do all things for the glory of God. I’m not sure Isaiah would have been so willing to go had he not seen the image of the seraphim exalting God in that way. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury. I say luxury, but I can’t even think of a better word for it because it’s completely indescribable. The fact remains, though. We were made to exalt God in every thing we do. Unlike the angels having specific reasons, we were made for all reasons.
