(a) They are created beings.
Ps. 148:2-5—“Praise ye him, all his angels.... For he commanded, and they were created”; Col. 1:16—“for in him were all things created ... whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers”; cf. 1 Pet. 3:32—“angels and authorities and powers.” God alone is uncreated and eternal. This is implied in 1 Tim. 6:16—“who only hath immortality.”
(b) They are incorporeal beings.
In Heb. 1:14, where a single word is used to designate angels, they are described as “spirits”—“are they not all ministering spirits?” Men, with their twofold nature, material as well as immaterial, could not well be designated as “spirits.” That their being characteristically “spirits” forbids us to regard angels as having a bodily organism, seems implied in Eph. 6:12—“for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against ... the spiritual hosts [or “things”] of wickedness in the heavenly places”; cf. Eph. 1:3; 2:6. In Gen. 6:2, “sons of God” =, not angels, but descendants of Seth and worshipers of the true God (see Murphy, Com., in loco). In Ps. 78:25 (A. V.), “angels' food” = manna coming from heaven where angels dwell; better, however, read with Rev. Vers.: “bread of the mighty”—probably meaning angels, though the word “mighty” is nowhere else applied to them; possibly = “bread of princes or nobles,” i. e., the finest, most delicate bread. Mat 22:30—“neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven”—and Luke 20:36—“neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels”—imply only that angels are without distinctions of sex. Saints are to be like angels, not as being incorporeal, but as not having the same sexual relations which they have here.
There are no “souls of angels,” as there are “souls of men” (Rev. 18:13), and we may infer that angels have no bodies for souls to inhabit; see under Essential Elements of Human Nature. Nevius, Demon-Possession, 258, attributes to evil spirits an instinct or longing for a body to possess, even though it be the body of an inferior animal: “So in Scripture we have spirits represented as wandering about to seek rest in bodies, and asking permission to enter into swine” (Mat. 12:43; 8:31). Angels therefore, since they have no bodies, know nothing of growth, age, or death. Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 133—“It is precisely because the angels are only spirits, but not souls, that they cannot possess the same rich existence as man, whose soul is the point of union in which spirit and nature meet.”
(c) They are personal—that is, intelligent and voluntary—agents.
2 Sam. 14:20—“wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God”; Luke 4:34—“I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God”; 2 Tim. 2:26—“snare of the devil ... taken captive by him unto his will”; Rev. 22:9—“See thou do it not” = exercise of will; Rev. 12:12—“The devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath” = set purpose of evil.
(d) They are possessed of superhuman intelligence and power, yet an intelligence and power that has its fixed limits.
Mat. 24:36—“of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven” = their knowledge, though superhuman, is yet finite. 1 Pet. 1:12—“which things angels desire to look into”; Ps. 103:20—“angels ... mighty in strength”; 2 Thess. 1:7—“the angels of his power”; 2 Pet. 2:11—“angels, though greater [than men] in might and power”; Rev. 20:2, 10—“laid hold on the dragon ... and bound him ... cast into the lake of fire.” Compare Ps. 72:18—“God ... Who only doeth wondrous things” = only God can perform miracles. Angels are imperfect compared with God (Job 4:18; 15:15; 25:5).
Power, rather than beauty or intelligence, is their striking characteristic. They are “principalities and powers” (Col. 1:16). They terrify those who behold them (Mat. 28:4). The rolling away of the stone from the sepulchre took strength. A wheel of granite, eight feet in diameter and one foot thick, rolling in a groove, would weigh more than four tons. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 86—“The spiritual might and burning indignation in the face of Stephen reminded the guilty Sanhedrin of an angelic vision.” Even in their tenderest ministrations they strengthen (Luke 22:43; cf. Dan. 10:19). In 1 Tim. 6:15—“King of kings and Lord of lords”—the words “kings” and “lords” (βασιλευόντων and κυριευόντων) may refer to angels. In the case of evil spirits especially, power seems the chief thing in mind, e. g., “the prince of this world,” “the strong man armed,” “the power of darkness,” “rulers of the darkness of this world,” “the great dragon,” “all the power of the enemy,” “all these things will I give thee,” “deliver us from the evil one.”