Humans, Not Angels

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One of the tendencies that you and I have when reading the Bible is to elevate the Bible characters to a kind of saintly status that we can never achieve. Perhaps to try and come to terms with our own shortcomings, we put them on a pedestal, and say to ourselves "I could never reach that level!"

But I like what Oswald Chambers, the famous Christian devotional writer, once wrote: "A saint is not an angel and never will be; a saint is the flesh and blood theatre in which the decrees of God are carried to successful issue."

In other words, God lives out His decrees and His will through us, human beings, not angels - despite our obvious flaws and shortcomings as frail humans.

The Wonder of God's Human Choice

Isn't it good to know you don't have to be an angel?

Think about this: Jesus didn't come to earth as an angel in the New Testament. The great wonder of the Incarnation is that Jesus became, not an angel, but a human. A fragile human. A human who got tired and hungry. A human who felt pain and weariness. A human being with all the frailty and fragility of any other human.

We're not called to be angels. Of course, we are called to be holy. To live victoriously over wilful sin, through the power of the Spirit.

Embracing Our Sanctified Humanity

But God's sanctifying grace won't take away your humanness. In fact authors Gary Nebeker and Normal Thiesen, in an article I read called "Consciences that Condemn", state this: "God does not expect us to lose our 'humanness' through our salvation. Part of the human condition is to be less than perfect in every endeavour that we attempt. Accepting this reality - in the hope of Christ - is beneficial both psychologically and spiritually."

I want to turn back to Abram's story this week and look at a famous passage in Genesis 15, where God makes a covenant with Abram. But when I read this passage a little while ago, it wasn't so much the covenant that got me, this time of reading. It was Abram's humanness that really stuck with me.

Even though Abram was called, equipped, and sent by God, and even though he was, in one sense, a saint, he was a human saint, not an angel.

Thank God today, that you are called to be a human, not an angel.