One wind, and the Spirit it points to

Who Maketh His Angels Spirits

Psalm 104, the great hymn to creation, describes God clothing himself in light and stretching out the heavens like a tent. In the midst of this majestic picture comes a line about God's servants. He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire. The imagery is swift and elemental. The powers that serve the throne of God are likened to the moving wind and the leaping flame, restless, potent, and utterly at his command. The verse places the angels within the sweep of creation, as part of the ordered world God has made and rules. This single line takes on unusual weight because the New Testament quotes it directly. The letter to the Hebrews cites this verse in its opening argument about the surpassing greatness of the Son over the angels. So the psalm's brief image of wind and fire becomes a witness, in the hands of an inspired writer, to who Christ is. This gives us a rare and valuable thing, an Old Testament verse whose New Testament use is not a matter of guesswork but is written down for us to see. We will read the verse first in its own setting among the wonders of creation, then follow it explicitly into the first chapter of Hebrews, where its meaning is drawn out and set to work in the service of a greater truth.

“Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:”Psalm 104:4

The wind in Scripture

In Psalm 104 the verse belongs to a description of God's heavenly household and dwelling. The poet imagines God laying the beams of his chambers on the waters, riding on the clouds, walking on the wings of the wind. Everything is in motion, and the angels take their place in this vivid scene. They are called winds, and the ministers who serve him are called a flame of fire. The Hebrew word behind winds is ruach, which as elsewhere means wind, breath, and spirit together, so the line can be heard as making the angels into winds or into spirits, and both senses have honest support. The point in the psalm is the readiness and swiftness of these servants. Wind and fire are among the quickest and most powerful forces the ancient world knew, and both come and go entirely beyond human control. To liken the angels to them is to say that God's messengers move at his bidding with speed and force, that they are creatures of his will, dispatched and directed as he pleases. They are glorious, but they are servants. The whole thrust of the passage is the greatness of God, before whom even the shining ones of heaven are like the wind that comes and goes at his command. Nothing in the scene stands independent of him. Sky and cloud and wind and flame and angel alike are gathered into the household of the God who made them all. When the letter to the Hebrews takes up this verse, it does so as part of a chain of Old Testament quotations meant to show that the Son is greater than the angels. The writer sets this line about the angels beside another passage in which God addresses the Son as God, whose throne endures forever. The contrast is the argument. Of the angels God says that he makes them winds and flames, changeable servants suited to his purposes. But to the Son he speaks words of everlasting rule and worship. The angels are ministers. The Son is Lord. The Greek text of Hebrews follows the ancient Greek translation of the psalm, in which the word pneuma stands where the Hebrew has ruach. And pneuma, like its Hebrew counterpart, means wind, breath, and spirit. So the verse reads in Hebrews that God makes his angels winds, or spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. The writer uses the line exactly as the psalm intends, to describe the angels as swift servants, and then presses it into the service of a greater truth about the Son. This is a clear, explicit New Testament use of the psalm, and it governs how the church has read the verse ever since.

What it comes to mean

The verse teaches, first, something about the angels. They are real, they are mighty, and they are servants. Scripture does not encourage either the dismissal of angels or the worship of them. Here they are woven into the fabric of creation, as much God's handiwork as the clouds and the sea. Their likeness to wind and fire says they are powerful but not autonomous, swift but not self directed. They exist to do the will of the One who made them. This is a healthy corrective to every impulse to elevate spiritual beings into objects of fascination or fear apart from God. Second, the imagery of wind and fire is not chosen at random. Throughout Scripture these two elements often accompany the presence and action of God. The Spirit is likened to wind, and God is described as a consuming fire. When the angels are called winds and flames, they are being associated with the very phenomena that mark the nearness of God. They are creatures caught up in his glory, reflecting something of the burning, moving holiness of the God they serve. Yet they remain creatures. The fire is theirs by ministry, not by nature. Third, and most importantly, the way Hebrews uses the verse teaches us how to read the Old Testament with Christ at the center. The writer does not distort the psalm. He takes its plain meaning, that the angels are servants likened to wind and fire, and he sets it in the light of the Son's unique glory. The argument works precisely because the psalm really does describe the angels as changeable servants. The greatness of Christ shines all the brighter against the background of these glorious but subordinate beings. Reading the verse honestly means letting it say what it says about angels, and then hearing what Hebrews draws from it about the Son. We should resist two errors. One is to ignore the New Testament use and read the verse as if it were only ancient poetry about weather and messengers. The other is to read Hebrews' point back into the psalm as though the psalmist consciously intended to teach the deity of the Son. The truth is more layered and more wonderful. The psalmist praised God and described his servants faithfully. The inspired writer of Hebrews, with the fuller revelation in hand, saw in that faithful description a foil for the surpassing worth of Christ. Both readings are true to their own moments, and the second builds honestly on the first.