2 Corinthians 1:3-5 Misquoted: God Needed Another Angel in Heaven
Angelversaries
The Broadway musical Joseph and the Amazing, Technicolor Dreamcoat is based on the story of Joseph and his brothers from the book of Genesis. The musical was written way back in 1968 by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber. If you are familiar with the story, you know that 10 of Joseph's brothers grow jealous of him because he is their father’s favorite. So one day, while they are out in the fields, they sell Joseph off to a trading caravan on its way to Egypt, and then fake his death by smearing the dreamcoat of the title with blood.
They then have to tell the story of Joseph’s demise to their father, and, in the musical, they nominate Rueben to deliver the news via a song that sounds like a country-western. The chorus goes like this:
There's one more angel in heaven
There's one more star in the sky
Joseph, we'll never forget you
It's tough but we're gonna get by
I know you’re probably not that familiar with late 60’s Broadway songs, but it’s a good introduction to the Christian Cliche I want to address today. The idea that “God needed another angel in heaven.”
This cliche is common in the Christian world, as well as in the non-Christian world. It’s one of those cliches that we tend to use in one of the most difficult situations any of us face: dealing with grief after the passing of a loved one. This is the sort of thing we say in the reception line at a funeral, when we are searching for words to say. In particular, this cliche is one that gets used at the death of a child. We don’t expect to lose someone so young, and so we seek comfort in the idea that the child is an angel now.
As I said, this cliche is particularly common in the non-Christian world. It’s a pretty common belief that when we die, we become angels. I blame the cartoon Tom and Jerry. That was a pretty violent cartoon I watched as a kid where the mouse Jerry was always getting the best of the cat Tom. And often, Tom would lose one of his nine cat lives, and as he died his soul would be portrayed as an angel with little wings and a harp ascending to a cloud. I’m sure the idea of dead people becoming angels has been around a lot longer than that, but that’s how I learned about it. And I think that’s how most of our culture still thinks about it.
In fact–and I didn’t know this until I started working on this sermon–it’s now pretty common for funeral directors and grief counselors to talk about “angelversaries.” If you have a loved one who has passed away–and, in particular, if you have lost a child–these professionals encourage you to do something significant on the date of death and think of it as that person’s “angelversary”--the day your loved one became an angel.
There are several poems available for framing or for printing on the back of a funeral folder that use this cliche. I found this one on the internet:
God needed an angel in Heaven
To stand at the Savior’s feet
His choice must be the rarest
A lily pure and sweet
He gazed upon the mighty throng
Then stopped and picked the best
Our child was his chosen one
With Jesus she’s now at rest
A soul too precious for this earth
Know you are forever loved
That’s a heart-breaking little poem. And I can see how it offers some comfort.
But I also see several problems with it. So, we’re going to spend a little time thinking about the phrase: “God needed another angel in heaven.”
It is Meant to Convey
With each of these cliches, I’ve been following a basic outline where the first question I ask is: Is there any Biblical truth? I want to give each of these statements a fair shake and consider the Biblical roots that they might have grown out of. But in this case, the statement is really not Biblical at all, as we’ll see in a moment.
But I still want to give the statement the benefit of the doubt. So I’m changing the first question to: Why do we use this phrase? It is a very common phrase, one that will be said hundreds of times in funeral homes across the country this week. Why do we say it? I’ve got three reasons:
It is meant to convey comfort. Talking with someone who has lost a loved one–especially under sudden circumstances or when the loved one is still young–is one of the most awkward and uncomfortable things any of us experience. We want to show our care and concern. We want to express our love. More than anything, we want to say something that will take a little of the pain and hurt away. So, saying something like: “God got a good one” or “God must have needed them more” or “God wanted a new angel in heaven” is one of the ways we try to do that.
I read a lot of stories this week of people who were told this cliche in moments of great vulnerability. For the most part, they expressed how they did not find it helpful. In many cases, they expressed how it added to their pain. But, in every case, they said that they knew the person who said it meant well. They knew it was coming from a heart of care and concern.
Please know that when I talk about these phrases, I’m not trying to make you feel bad if you’ve ever used them. My goal is not to be the cliche police. When we say something like “God must have needed a new angel in heaven” I know that comes from a good place. I get it.
Another reason I think we use this phrase or others like it is because it is meant to convey a good opinion about the deceased. We’re saying that the person who is gone was a bright light, a good person, someone God would be pleased to have in heaven. That’s the idea in the poem I read earlier, when it talks about God looking for the “rarest” flower, “pure and sweet.” It’s the idea that a person can be “too precious for this earth” so of course God took them home.
Aside from the theological concerns about how one gets to heaven–it’s really salvation by works if we believe God only takes the best–I can see how this can be comforting. It’s a way of saying we really liked the person who died. They were important to us, so of course they would be important to God. Thinking of them as angels now–with the obvious implication that only good people get to be angels–is a nice way to remember the best parts of them.
And, third, I think this cliche is meant to convey that our loved one is not completely gone. We want to believe that our loved one lives on in some way and is still part of our lives. Not just as a memory, but as a sort of spirit guide–or angel–who is watching over us and, in some cases, can even influence things that happen here on earth.
A lot of cultures believe that their dead ancestors continue to play a role in the events of the living. In a culture that has been influenced by Christianity, it is easy to think of those ancestors as angels. And it is not uncommon to believe that those ancestral angels follow us around, and that we can talk to them, and at times of great need we like to think of them lending a little extra boost to our efforts.
Again, I am not trying to make you feel bad if you have lost someone dear to you and you now find comfort in the idea that that person is an angel who is still a part of your life. I get it. It’s a common belief in our culture. We do, of course, believe fiercely that there is life after death for Christians. It is a source of great hope.
But, the phrase “God needed another angel in heaven” is still problematic.
On Angels and Heaven
Let’s turn, then, to the second question in my outline: Where does the phrase go wrong?
The idea that God calls people to heaven because He needs them to serve as angels has at least two major problems. It paints a confusing picture about the afterlife. And it paints a confusing picture about God.
First, a confusing picture of the afterlife. Quite simply: People and Angels are different. Human beings do not become angels when they die. And angels are not the souls of people who have passed away. People and angels are different categories of created beings.
According to the Bible, angels are real. The word “angel” appears almost 300 times in our English Bibles. They show up in some fascinating stories and in many cases they play an important role in helping God’s people. It’s natural for us to be interested in angels and for us to want to learn more.
And yet, the Bible is really not about angels. 300 mentions seems like a lot, but there are many details we might want to know about angels that we are not given. I had a seminary professor who said the Bible is primarily about how human beings can have a right relationship with God. Angels sometimes play a part in the story, but the story isn’t really about them.
So there is a lot that we cannot say for certain. For example, we know God created the angels, but we don’t know when on the timeline of creation He did so. Likewise, we know that there are fallen angels who are in rebellion against God, but we don’t know when that rebellion took place and we don’t know exactly what the rebellion was about. Whenever we talk about angels, we need to be careful not to speculate too much.
Here’s what I’m gonna do. I can’t clear up everything there is to know about the afterlife, but I can share some facts about angels and heaven that seem relevant to our cliche. So, rapid-fire like, let me give you 3 Bible facts about angels, and then 3 Bible facts about heaven.
First, Angels are powerful spiritual beings. Angels are not humans, they are virtually indescribable celestial beings who come from the presence of God. Luke 2:9, from the Christmas story, is a good example:
9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
The thing to pay attention to here is that the shepherds were terrified. When the Bible tells a story of a human being encountering an angel it almost always includes the angel saying “Don’t be afraid.” Because, make no mistake, if any of us see an angel it will be terrifying.
Second, Humans are a little lower than angels. Hebrews 2:6-7 quotes from Psalm 8:
6 But there is a place where someone has testified:
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
7 You made them a little lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honor
The Bible marvels at the high station human beings occupy. We have the mind of God. We are crowned with glory and honor. We are made just a little lower than angels. This is an honored position, but it is a position different than angels. We are not the same. We do not become angels.
Third, Angels serve and protect God’s people. One of the roles performed by angels is that they minister to those who are redeemed (Heb. 1:14). Psalm 91:11-12:
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
We cannot see angels, but the impression given is that they are operating in the spiritual realm to protect us in ways that we are not aware of. The Bible does say that there are guardian angels, they are real. But they are angels. They are not those who have died before us.
Now, real fast, 3 Bible facts about heaven. If we don’t become angels, what can we say about what happens to Christians when we die?
First, The souls of the redeemed go to be with God at death. Ecclesiastes 12:7:
7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
We believe in heaven. Heaven is God’s home. We believe that our souls go there when we die. And, second, we believe:
Heaven is wonderful. When Jesus was dying on the cross, one of the two criminals being executed with Him recognized Him as the Messiah:
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
Paradise sounds like a pretty good place. And one of the reasons we believe heaven is good is because Jesus is there.
Third, those in heaven are aware of what is happening on earth. For those wondering if our loved ones can still see us and know what is happening in our lives, Revelation 6:9-10 gives a bit of a hint:
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”
Here is a picture of souls in heaven watching the events on earth and anticipating the day when God will bring it all to an end. There’s not a lot of detail here, but it does indicate that those who have died are still aware of events on earth.
It doesn’t say that they become guardian angels. It doesn’t say that they can influence events on earth. But I do not think it is wrong to think of them as spectators in the stands watching us and cheering us on and desiring for us to live for Jesus.
So, the phrase: God needed another angel in heaven is problematic because it paints a confusing picture of the afterlife. Humans do not become angels. Those who belong to Jesus do go to heaven, and heaven is wonderful; but that does not make us angels.
On God’s Need
Then, the second reason this phrase is not terribly helpful is because it paints a confusing picture of God. I’ll put it like this: God does not “need” anything. When we imply that God has taken a person to heaven because He needed them, we are actually describing Him as a selfish God who is indifferent to our feelings.
In Acts 17 the Apostle Paul is addressing the idea of sacrifice and temples for worship. And he says that it is a mistake to assume God is dependent on human beings to keep him happy. Here’s how he puts it:
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
It is inaccurate to talk about God needing people to do anything, let alone join Him in heaven. God is gracious in sending Jesus to save us. He is gracious in opening heaven to those who believe. But He didn’t do it because He needs anything.
And if it were so, if that poem is accurate when it says God is collecting the best flowers, how horrible does that make God? That would make Him like the 4th grade bully on the playground stomping around and taking all the best toys from the helpless 1st graders. How is that good, or fair?
I ran across a sermon by a pastor named Marjorie Weiss. She quotes from a blog by a woman named Bonnie Engstrom Bonnie is a Catholic mother of eight who also experienced the death of a child. After the Sandy Hook massacre, when a gunman shot up an elementary school and took the lives of 26 people, most of them 6 or 7 years old, she began to see many people posting on Facebook that God must have needed many more angels in heaven.
Bonnie went online and politely asked a few people to refrain from using phrases like that as it could only hurt and further wound the parents with its implication that God had orchestrated the shooting because He wanted more angels. More than a few people responded by saying they would not stop using the phrase because they didn’t really care whether it hurt the parents or not, it made them feel better to think of the children as angels and so that’s what they would do.
So Bonnie posted a blog. Here’s part of what she wrote:
“On the more basic level' “God needs another angel” implies that it was God’s will that the child died. It was God’s actual, active will that sent a shooter into the school, church, grocery store, movie theater, shopping mall to kill innocent children. It was God’s actual, active will – it was what God wanted and needed to happen—for my baby to die in my womb, for another’s to suffocate on the umbilical cord, for another’s to develop in such a way that he could not live outside of the womb, for another’s to be killed in a house fire or by a drunk driver.
What kind of crappy god is that?! [And here she writes “god” with a small-letter “g”] What kind of pathetic god needs to send down severe pain and anguish so he can populate heaven with more angels to worship him?! When people make that statement they demote god into someone horrible and evil, unintentionally chipping away at whatever hope the parents have. Please don’t do that to us. Please don’t chip away at our hope in an all-good and all-powerful God. It is already shaky because of what we’re living through.
(From: Marjorie Weiss “Christian Cliche Series – God needed another angel” Sept. 15, 2020 https://prayingonempty.com/2020/09/15/christian-cliches-sermon-series/)
Saying that God needed for a loved one to die is a confusing and unsatisfying picture of God, however you choose to look at it.
Out of the Stands
Now, let me turn to my last question. If it is not helpful to say “God needed another angel in heaven,” is there better news in the gospel?
In addition to what I’ve said about angels and heaven, here I’d like for us to think about where we can find comfort in the face of overwhelming grief. I’d like us to look at 2 Corinthians chapter 1:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
The words that are used to describe God here: compassion and comfort, are important and powerful words. “Compassion” is the same word used to describe how Jesus felt when He saw huge crowds “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt. 9:36) It’s a word that describes the pit in your stomach–that hollowed out feeling–when you are just so moved by the suffering and pain of others.
And the word “comfort” is the same word that is used to describe the Holy Spirit in the gospel of John when Jesus promises to send a helper after He is gone. It’s the word “parakaleo”, and it literally means to “come alongside of.”
And these verses say that God is the “father of compassion” and the “God of all comfort.” The good news of the Bible is not that we get an explanation for all our suffering, but that when we suffer we have a God who “comforts us in all our troubles.” And where does that heart of compassion come from? Verse 5:
5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
It is because Christ has suffered that He is able to comfort us in our suffering. It is because God knows what it is like to see His Son die, that He comes to us with compassion in the midst of our grief.
Allow me to finish with a story. Derek Redmon was a British sprinter who at one time held the English record for the 400 meters. In 1992 he was competing in the Olympic games at Barcelona and was considered a contender for the gold medal. But in the semifinal something went wrong. 400 meters is once around the track, and about half way into the race Redmon suddenly pulled up in pain and fell to the ground. It’s a hard video to watch. It’s pretty obvious that something in his leg tore apart.
He laid on the ground for a little bit, and then he got up and started limping down the track. The other runners were way ahead of him. There was no way he was getting back into the race. But he knew this was going to be his final Olympics, it was something he had worked his whole life for, and so he was determined to at least cross the finish line.
Again, it’s hard to watch. He is clearly in pain. There are tears streaming down his face. And then, suddenly, there’s a man in a white t-shirt behind him. It’s his dad. He comes up next to his son and puts his arm around him. Security guards come up to him and he gives them a look that clearly communicates he is not leaving the track. There’s still more than 100 meters to the finish line, but he and his son are going to cross it together.
By the time they cross the finish line, the whole stadium is on its feet. Both Nike and Visa have used footage from this race in major ad campaigns. A father helping his son–in a moment of utter devastation, when everything he has worked for has been ripped away from him–maintain his dignity and at least have the ability to say he finished the race.
And here’s why I share it: life here on earth is tough. It is filled with suffering and tragedy and loss. Life on earth is marked by death. We lose loved ones. Sometimes under the most difficult of circumstances.
And if our picture of God is one where God is distant and aloof, off on the sidelines watching us struggle, that would be hard to take. Even worse is to think of Him randomly picking people to take away from us.
If you think of life as a race, and imagine God up in the bleachers watching us struggle to limp around the track, it’s pretty bleak.
The Bible doesn’t picture God like that, though. Instead, it pictures him like Jim Redmond, coming down out of the stands to come alongside us. He doesn’t just watch our suffering, He enters into it and shares it with us. He’s a God of compassion and comfort.
So, the phrase: “God needed another angel in heaven.” It doesn’t come from the Bible. We say it because we want to ease the pain. But there’s a good chance it does more harm than good.
We don’t find our hope in the false idea that our loved ones become angels. Believers in Jesus go to heaven, and heaven is very good. But our comfort comes from a God of compassion who does not leave us alone in our suffering, but comes alongside of us to help us to the finish line.
