Heavenly Love, Heavenly Pain

If angles have a heart like Lucifer’s that can become proud, and if angels have a heart that can love, they their heart must be capable to feel pain as well.


At times we might think of Earth as the “black spot” of the universe, tarnished by sin and boiling with suffering. After all, Adam and Eve are the only two creatures at the head of a race that has been utterly pulled down by transgression.
It is a much experienced reality that our globe is howling as suffering breaks into our hearts in an indomitable attempt to clutch them completely. The pain that you, or people around you experience may overshadow a genuine attempt to make sense of a perfect and happy place somewhere up there. The discrepancy between that place we call heaven and the world into which we came into being without personal choice may seem inequitable.

But is suffering the condition of the sinful human creatures exclusively?

Ellen White offers valuable insight that reveal the kind of suffering holy beings experienced:

“The news of man's fall spread through heaven. Every harp was hushed. The angels cast their crowns from their heads in sorrow. All heaven was in agitation. A counsel was held to decide what must be done with the guilty pair. The angels feared that they would put forth the hand, and eat of the tree of life, and be immortal sinners.”

And again: “Sorrow filled heaven, as it was realized that man was lost, and that world which God had created was to be filled with mortals doomed to misery, sickness, and death, and there was no way of escape for the offender. {…} The anxiety of the angels seemed to be intense while Jesus was communing with His Father.”

Thus, unfallen holy angels experienced:
• Sorrow
• Agitation
• Fear
• Anxiety
If the angels felt sorrow merely at realizing the condition of the fallen human race, I would imagine that as they witnessed the unprecedented condition of misery and decadence, their sorrow persisted at least, if not increased.
The holy angels’ suffering is two-folded:
1. First, because they’ve experienced war and separation before we did, when Lucifer rebelled and, along with his followers, lost his home.
2. Secondly, because they have experienced distress when Adam and Eve fell.

Therefore, when you think of the heavenly angels ministering to you, as the Bible records them to be doing in Hebrews 1:14 (Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? - KJV), you can be assured that they are able to empathize with you! And if you still need another trust-building brick, here is another insightful quotation: “Angels were so interested for man’s salvation that there could be found among them those who would yield their glory and give their life for perishing man.”

At times it might be comforting to contemplate on the fact that angles feel our pain and suffer with us; that the unfairness of being born without choice on a sinful planet dissolves into such an extraordinary proof of love.

The holy angles lived once in perfect peace and happiness - before sin came into existence. We haven’t yet, because we came into being after sin appeared. But we all have felt pain. And we are all heading towards the same initial state of peace and happiness, all through Jesus’ selflessness proved through a love so strong that could not remain buried more than a Sabbath’s rest, but resurrected to righteously reign forever. We can keep going despite the pain because we know that beyond all suffering there is love, and that beyond all the pain in the universe there is an atoning sacrifice through which total restoration is possible.



.