20100503 Question: The Final Battle

9: In the final fight portrayed in Revelation, who would be the soldiers on each side? I figured for God, he would have all his angels and his saints fighting with him. But, if the angels aren't really alive, how can they die? So will the fight just go on forever, because angels can't die? I was also wondering, regarding Guardian Angels, do they feel our pain? That is, if we get hurt, in anyway, can they feel it?

9. The references in the book of revelation to the angels waging war are actually referring to two different times. some of it is referencing the original fall of the angels who refused to love and serve God. Then, partially in reference to the end of the world, there is a lot of eschatological imagery (images used to talk about future events, mostly symbolic).

It is true that angels are not alive like we are (we are souls that animate, or "make alive" human bodies). When we die, our souls are separated from our bodies, and we await the resurrection when our bodies will be restored and glorified. Angels experience none of this. They do not have senses in the same way we do. They do not suffer death like we do. They do not suffer pain in the same way we do.

But they are alive in that they are able to chose their own way. Inanimate objects have no power of choice, nor of knowledge, nor of love. We know that angels can learn and do have knowledge and can sense things, though in a different way from us. We even know--in the case of demons at least--that they can feel pain, but it is a spiritual pain, whereas ours is usually a physical pain.

But the battle we are concerned with primarily is the war for men's hearts. The angels, saints, and we members of God's church here on earth are constantly at war with the forces of evil in men's hearts as well as those powers possessed by the devil and his angels. the message of Revelation is primarily that the end of time comes for each of us at different times (often without notice) and that we need to be on the right side of the battle whenever that time comes...

I do not know if they feel pain that corresponds to our pains... I know that the life of God, His grace, His blessing, is painful to the demonic angels that truned away from God... I have not found a reference anywhere as to whether God's angels feel pain, but I am thinking about how Heaven is to be devoid of suffering and sadness... I'm going to present the opinion that angels probably look on things with God's perspective: rather than suffering and sin being things that cause them pain, they probably perceive them as obstacles to overcome for the greater glory of God...