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Find the answers to all those questions you were too embarrassed to ask in Sunday School. Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. Hosted by Luke Taylor.
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Do You Not Know that You will JUDGE ANGELS? (I Corinthians 6:3)
I Corinthians 6:3
Introduction
Back in the first episode of this show, I laid out several mysteries of the Bible that have always puzzled me. Things like talking donkeys, six-fingered giants, that time Michael got into a fistfight with the devil over the body of Moses… And I’ve done episodes on all these things.
But there’s one mysterious verse for which I never got around to finding an explanation, and that will finally change today.
In I Corinthians 6:3, Paul writes:
Do you not know that we are to judge angels?
Uh, no, I didn’t know that. I must have missed that day in Sunday School. Frankly, I don’t feel qualified to judge angels. I can’t even judge the difference in butter and Country Crock. And yet the Bible offhandedly says buckle up and get ready for some angel judging.
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to I Corinthians 6, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
(Continued)
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about what Paul meant about judging angels in I Corinthians 6:3
This is one of those I-checked-every-commentary-I-have-on-the-shelf type of episodes. And I have several. And I looked at what all of them said about this verse.
Honestly, none of them gave me a full answer as to what this verse meant. Half of them didn’t even acknowledge anything weird about this at all. They just said, “yep, you’ll judge angels,” and moved on like that isn’t an interesting tangent to explore.
And that kind of negates the need for a commentary in the first place, right? I don’t buy a commentary for the parts of the Bible I already understand. I buy a commentary to help me with the parts I don’t understand. A few verses down, this chapter is going to say, “Flee from sexual immorality.” I don’t need a commentary to explain that one to me. I just need to do it. But all my commentaries will have a whole lot more to say on verse 18 than verse 3.
Anyway, I won’t belabor this point. We need to get into today’s study. Let’s start with exploring the context of this strange verse.
The Context
I won’t read all the way down to verse 18 today, just the first 8 verses of the chapter. Because I want you to appreciate the peculiar-ness of this comment about angel judging. When you have a weird verse of the Bible to understand, we always want to make sure we understand the context, which will shed a little light on why Paul brings this up.
I Corinthians 6:1-8
When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! 4 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, 6 but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!
Paul is writing I Corinthians to correct a series of problems in the church there at Corinth. There were several issues needing addressed. We have actually covered chapter 5 of this book in an episode earlier this year.
Paul’s main point in this part is to state that Christians should be capable of judging issues between other Christians. Paul says if one of you feels like a fellow Christian has done you wrong, don’t sue them and try to take them to court. That actually brings a disgrace upon the church to the outside world. They’ll say, “Why should I become a Christian? The Christians can’t even get a long with each other!” And Paul says it would be better to just let another Christian rip you off than to bring disgrace upon the church by taking each other to court.
Not only that, but Christians should be able to have the wisdom and integrity to settle things without needing to rely on the legal system to enforce it.
So that’s Paul’s point here, and Paul uses a couple of illustrations to explain it. One, he says, do you not know that saints will judge the world. Two, do you not know that saints will judge angels.
Now, these are supposed to be well-established facts among believers. That’s what makes the matter of angel-judging so jarring; because for most of us, this isn’t a concept we have heard about before. What Paul is saying, though, is supposed to be common knowledge within the church. He isn’t saying, “did you know?” He’s saying, “Do you not know…?” Like when I bring the wrong thing home from the store and my wife says, “Do you not know that Country Crock is different from butter?” No, this is new information for me. I actually question whether there’s a meaningful difference at all.
Judging the World
So let’s start with the matter of judging the world. There’s a lot more Biblical precedent on this one than the second, yet this is often a matter that most Christians don’t realize or think about all that often.
Someday, we Christians are going to assist Jesus Christ in the rule of planet earth. Many of us don’t realize this because when we think about eternity, we often think about being up in heaven forever and ever as a citizen of a heavenly city.
But here’s what the Bible actually says about our future reality. For one thing, heaven is going to be brought down to earth, so the idea of living forever and ever in heaven is kind of a misnomer. We will live out our eternity on a planet. Second, we are going to assist Jesus in ruling that planet. Now, let’s break down the timeline just a bit.
This is going to get a bit eschatological. I know there may be some listeners out there with a different understanding of eschatology than I have. I’m not trying to push a particular eschatology with this podcast, so I’ll just explain my views and how judging angels plays into it, and you can take what works for you from that and try to fit it into the eschatological view that you have.
I take Revelation pretty literally and that events will pretty much play out in the order they appear there. So if we jump to Revelation 19, we see the Second Coming of Christ right there.
Revelation 19:11-14
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.
We will talk about those armies of heaven in a minute. All the armies of the Antichrist are wiped out. Antichrist is dropkicked into the Lake of Fire. The devil is placed in what is called an abyss or bottomless pit. Then Jesus takes the reins of planet earth for 1,000 years.
And that 1,000-year period is described in Revelation 20. This is not in heaven. This is down on earth. And it talks about how the saints of today- that’s you and me- will rule and reign with Christ here on earth.
Revelation 20:1-4
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.
4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. [That’s us] Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
So we will reign with Christ for a Thousand Years. In fact, if you were to go to heaven today, you will be coming down with Christ in those earlier verses I read about the Second Coming. You will be part of the armies of heaven. These are all the saints who have ever lived, from Adam and Eve, from Old Testament Israel, all the way up to the time of the tribulation. You’ll come back to conquer earth and to rule it alongside Christ for 1,000 years. There are many many verses that talk about this outside of Revelation.
Daniel 7:27
And the kingdom and the dominion
and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;
his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
and all dominions shall serve and obey him.’
Jude 14-15— quoting directly from the Book of Enoch, actually- says:
“Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
Revelation 2:26 says to the church- these are the words of Jesus:
The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations
So it was common knowledge that someday, we Christians and all saints of old will rule the earth with Christ. This is why in Jesus’ parable of the minas, the reward for doing well as a christian today is that you will get charge over cities. “Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.”
So the main takeaway today- the keyest key point I want you to remember- is that this world is practice for the next one. What you do today has ramifications in eternity. Not just your salvation, but what your eternity will be like when you get there.
What happens after 1,000 years? Well, this current world is destroyed by fire. There’s a final judgment, and this world is destroyed. Does that mean our time of ruling and reigning is all done? No, because here’s what
Revelation 21:1 says
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
We are given a new world in which to rule and reign with Christ. This one will be forever pure, untouched by the taint of sin like this current world is. And THAT world is where we will spend eternity. So that explains what Paul means in
I Corinthians 6:2
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?
Judging Angels
But what about verse 3?
Do you not know that we are to judge angels?
How do angels fit into this? Well, remember something I talked about on a recent episode, which was called: Angels vs Humans: Who Ranks Higher in God’s Kingdom? That was episode 83. And in that episode, I established that- as wild as this sounds- humans have a higher status in God’s hierarchy than angels do.
Angels exist to serve God and serve us. Now, since they’re spiritual beings, angels are capable of doing things that we can’t do. Angels are incredibly smart- I would say much smarter than we are. They are more benevolent than we are. They guard over our lives and have probably saved our skin more than we’ll ever know until we get to heaven. They fight spiritual battles for us and they love humanity. And yet, they do these things because God made humans in His image, and so they protect us. They serve us, according to Hebrews 1 and 2.
We actually have a higher rank or status in God’s Kingdom than the angels. And that also applies to fallen angels. We can cast them out and tell them where to go.
When the devil or fallen angels tempt us into sin, we surrender our authority to them. We lose our dominion. They gain legal rights over our lives and property.
However, because Jesus lived a sinless life and died and rose again, He got our dominion back. He reclaimed all authority over planet earth; another way to say it is, He always had it and He lived a full life without ever losing it. That’s why He says in
John 14:30
…the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me…
The devil and the fallen angels had no legal rights on Jesus. He was totally free. And He bought back our dominion that we lost in the fall of man in Genesis 3. When we become believers, we are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms according to Ephesians 2:6, so we also have a higher rank than the demons and fallen angels.
That’s why they have to listen to us. By our relationship with Jesus Christ, we have a higher authority on this planet than the demons and fallen angels.
So just remember: in God’s eyes, this world is for us, and we have rulership rights over it beyond that of the angels. The angels are servants here; we are the kings and queens.
Side-note here: just because we outrank angels, I would not suggest that we should try to be bossy to angels. Don’t pray prayers to angels telling them what to do. That’s not what the Bible instructs us to do. The Bible tells us to pray to God alone.
Unless an angel personally visits you, I don’t believe it’s appropriate for us to try to address them or boss them around. You submit your prayers to God and let God tell the angels what to do.
Psalm 91:11 says
he will command his angels concerning you
So I just want to put that out there because I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea from my words today and think, “Well if I outrank angels, I’ll just start telling them what they need to do.” No, don’t go that way with it, because that’s not what Scripture teaches.
When will we judge angels?
So when will we judge angels? I’ve laid out the timeline. I’ve laid out the hierarchy. When does all this angel-judging go down? I have three answers to this question. And these are not exclusive; I believe all three of them are likely to happen. But you don’t necessarily have to agree with all of them. I’ll give you my three answers today.
I believe this will be at the time of the Second Coming of Christ. At this time, our spiritual eyes will be opened; we will be in glorified bodies that we’ll live in forever. We will perceive clearly in both the physical and spiritual realms- if there even is a difference in the two from that point on.
Most commentators take this verse about the judging of angels to mean sentencing the fallen angels. But I actually think that’s only a small part of it. I think the main meaning of “judging angels” is actually talking about ruling over them and using them as ministering spirits during the thousand years. And probably also in the New Heavens and New Earth after that.
Just like verse 2- do you not know that the saints will judge the world- is not talking about a sentence of condemnation. We aren’t condemning the world. The word “judge” there is talking about ruling the world. Just like in the Old Testament book of Judges, it’s not talking about judges in the sense of how we think of a judge today; it means the “judges” as in the rulers of Israel before they had kings. The rulers were called the judges. That’s what it means in I Corinthians 6:2, and I think that’s also what it means in I Corinthians 6:3. We will judge or rule the world, and part of that ruling authority also means we will tell angels what to do.
But: part of that ruling does include judging in the traditional sense, which means judging between right and wrong, and placing appropriate sentences on their actions. So how will we judge angels in that sense?
Well that brings us to what I believe is the second meaning of judging angels, and it pertains to the fallen angels. We will probably be involved in the sentencing of these evil spirits. The Lord is going to pass judgment on the members of humanity for eternity, one by one individually. God will send individual people to heaven or hell. Perhaps He has committed the judgment of the individual spirits as our task.
So we will look at a spirit’s record and say, “oh, you’ve been a naughty spirit, you joined Satan’s rebellion. I condemn you to the bottomless pit with Satan, or perhaps to the Lake of Fire.” I imagine the judging of fallen angels will be something like that.
Here is a third way I believe we will judge angels, and I’ll admit, this one is the most speculative. As I said before: you don’t have to agree with all three. But we might also judge the good angels in a similar manner. Now you say, “Luke, why would you judge a good angel?” My speculation is, perhaps they will receive rewards for their service to us. It’s a good judgment.
I mean, we humans will receive spiritual rewards for our acts of service in our lifetimes. See Romans 14:10, Matthew 10:42, or I Corinthians 3:10-15. That’s a good judgment.
If we get rewards for our good service, doesn’t it seem logical that angels would also receive rewards for their good service? Again, this is just speculation, but perhaps angels receive blessings for all the good they did as well. And perhaps we get the honor of bestowing those rewards on the angels who ministered to us.
Perhaps you’ll be shown how you almost got in a wreck one day and an angel grabbed your steering wheel and prevented it from happening, and you never even knew you almost died in that wreck, and perhaps God will give you the honor of blessing that angel for saving your life.
Perhaps you got a great job during your years on earth, and you find out that during the interview, you weren’t going to receive that job, and an angel gave you favor to that boss during the job interview and caused you to get that position. And all this time you thought it was your great resume but no, it was a blessing of God, delivered by an angel.
Perhaps you were at the store and you were about to pick up the tub of Country Crock, and an angel grabbed your hand and said, “No Luke, don’t do it, your wife sent you here after BUTTER.” And you didn’t listen because there’s no difference in Country Crock and Butter. And you were right, but your wife still made you sleep on the couch that night. And that angel tried to spare you from sleeping on the couch, so you reward that angel.
Now I’m being a little jokey with that last one, but these are the ways that God’s angels bless us. Because if we get rewards for doing what God wants- and we’re really screwballs about it most of the time- but if we get rewards for doing good, and if fallen angels will receive punishment for doing bad- then doesn’t it stand to reason that the loyal angels will receive blessings for doing good?
So that’s what I believe Paul means about judging angels someday. Not just that we’ll punish the fallen angels who hurt us, but that we can reward the good angels who helped us.
Next Time
And that’s where we’ll put a pin in things for today. Next time, I’d like to do a mailbag episode answering your questions about any of the recent episodes I’ve covered. Anything about angels, principalities, spiritual legal rights- this is the time to send those emails.
Or, just anything on your mind that you’d like to know about. Something you find weird in the Bible. It’s been a few months since I did a mailbag episode, so if you’d like to have your question or comment included in the next one, just send it to weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
And make sure you’re subscribed so you can get that episode!
And by the way, I now have a Weird Stuff in the Bible store. It’s linked in the show notes, in case you’d like any merchandise that goes with the podcast. We have shirts, hoodies, mugs- including a mug with my pug’s face on it. If you receive any of the items, please send me an email telling me how you like it. I’ve ordered a mug with the podcast logo on it, but it hasn’t come in yet. But stay tuned and I’ll let you see how it turned out.
I guess I have time for two quick mailbag comments. Real quick here. I received one last week about my son, saying he’s smarter than most people in DC. Thank you, I agree. You’ll have to listen to last week’s episode to know what that’s all about.
Second, Perry says, “I've learned from you. So please don't stop teaching the Word of God. Don't listen to people putting you down.” And I’ve caught a little bit of flack here and there on my show but honestly, I feel like the responses to the podcast episodes have been almost all positive. So I don’t feel put down at all. Even if I say something that people don’t like and they get verbal about it, it doesn’t really discourage me. I just focus on the people who do appreciate the podcast, and I feel like that’s the vast majority, so it really doesn't bother me when a few people call me names.
Sometimes people disagree but they do so in a really kind and respectful way, and I love that. I even get encouraged by that because it means they took the time to hear me out, explain why they see it differently, they don’t call me a heretic or an idiot so I could read emails like that all day. And again, if anyone out there wants to get in on the next mailbag episode, with a question or even just a comment, reach out: weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
Closing Thoughts
Closing thought: this episode was a long time coming for me. I wanted to do it at the start of summer. Some of you might remember, I was filling in as a pastor for a local church in the first part of this year. I wrapped that up in early June. I was really gung-ho to dive into I Corinthians 6:3 at that time, but the more I did, I was like: woah, I gotta lay a lot of groundwork before I launch into this subject. I need to spend some more time talking about angels and demons and human-angel hierarchies and heavenly realms before I just start teaching about I Corinthians 6:3.
So that really put me on this trajectory I’ve been on throughout this summer about the book of Ephesians and spiritual legal rights and the dominion mandate of man. It was really just to bring us back around to this right here: do you not know that you will judge angels?
And the application Paul wanted us to pull from this thought is that this world is practice for the next one. We have a future ruling and reigning with Christ. So do not be afraid to take dominion now.
Judge sin- specifically, judge sin within the church. Because someday we’ll be judging the sins of angels, and managing the controversies that arise throughout the whole world. The Lord has called us to practice our discernment. We study biblical truth, we learn godly wisdom, we are to be impartial and fair, and then we apply the truth of the Bible to a situation. And that’s not just for the future thousand-year-reign of Christ. That’s for today.
Take God’s Word and apply it to the tricky situations you come across. It’ll cut through them like a hot knife through Country Crock.
Ruling and reigning within our territory; that’s what God has called us to do. And we are not to disgrace the Christian faith by dragging our arguments into the worldly courtrooms to let them adjudicate it.
If you have an argument with a fellow believer, find a pastor or some wise counselors you both trust- people who know God’s Word. Let them hear both sides. Trust them to render a verdict.
That’s weird to a lot of people in our culture- to take a disagreement we have with a Christian and bring it before your pastor or deacons or spiritual leaders instead of suing them in a court of law- but that’s what God has called us to do.
The Bible is not weird. WE are weird, because we don’t know about how qualified we are to judge such matters- even the judging of angels. But now we do. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.