Huh? Wrestling with angels?

Aren’t angels supposed to be the good guys? Don’t they go around spreading love and light and all that wonderful stuff?

Yes, angels are beings of love and light. But as portrayed in the Bible, angels have a dark side, too:

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, by Eugene Delacroix

That same night . . . Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.”

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

So he said to him, “What is your name?”

And he said, “Jacob.”

Then he said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”

Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”

But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life was preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. (Genesis 32:22, 24–31)

Yes, Jacob thought he was wrestling with God. But that’s impossible. God is omnipotent. If the “man” that Jacob was wrestling with had really been God, it would have been no contest! That’s why the story has been traditionally identified as “Jacob wrestling with the angel.” As we’ll see in a future post, in the Bible God commonly appears through angels, and angels are sometimes called “gods.”

Now, if all of the leading characters and all of the stories in the Old Testament are symbolic of Jesus Christ (as he himself told us in several places in the Gospels), does this mean that Jesus, too, wrestled with angels?

And if the Bible is telling the story of our own spiritual rebirth as “new creations in Christ” (see 2 Corinthians 5:17), do we, too, wrestle with angels as part of our spiritual journey?

That’s the subject of a spiritual conundrum posed by a reader named Ray Silverman:

Swedenborg says that Jesus was “tempted by the angels.” I’ve been thinking a lot about this and wondering if this is just something that took place within Jesus’ mind at a level we cannot begin to imagine, or something that takes place within our minds as well. If it does take place within us as well, could you give me some practical examples of how we might be “tempted by the angels.” Thanks!

For more on wrestling with angels, please click here to read on.