Angels: God's Messengers--Our Attendants (2)

It is a great comfort to us that Christ was seen, attended on, and admired by angels. For it is the ground of all attendance and comfort that we have from the angels. This is a rule in divinity, that what is true for the Head is also true for the members. Therefore, what comfort and attendance Christ had, who is the Head, the church, which is the body, has the same, only with some differences. They attended upon him immediately for himself, they attend upon us for his sake. For whatever we have of God, we have it second-hand. We receive the attendance of angels, for the attendance they yielded to Christ first; they attend upon us, by his direction, commission, and charge. But surely, whatever they did to him they do to us, because there is the same respect to the Head and members. The devil was not mistaken when he alleged, 'He will give his angels charge over you, that you dash not your foot against a stone' (Psa. 91:11). He was right in applying that to Christ. And what is true for Christ will be true for Christians as well. For 'he that sanctifies, and they that are sanctified, are all one' (Heb. 2:11).
The angels will forever be attendants to us because their love and respect to us is founded upon their love and respect to Christ. When the favour that a king or a great person bears to one is founded on the love of his own son; he loves the other because he loves his son; so it is perpetual and sound, because he will ever love his son. The angels will forever love, honour, and attend us. What ground do they have to respect us at all? It is in Christ, whose members and spouse we are. So long as the church has any relation to Christ, so long will the angels respect the church; and the church has relation to Christ forever. Therefore, the respect that the blessed angels have to Christ and to the church is forever.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Fountain Opened, Works, vol. 5, pp. 496-501
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