Who ​are the Ang​els ​of Jude 1:6 and 2 Peter 2:4?

[Posted March 17, 2024]

Hi Mike,

I just have another question for you​, and please answer at your leisure – I know how busy you all are.

Jude 6 says “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but after their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the Great Day.”

I know religion teaches Satan fell away but we know that God created him as the “waster to destroy”. This verse in Jude makes it sounds like the demons or fallen angels, that kept not their first estate, fell away… Satan was created. Weren’t the demons/evil spirits also created?

Thank you for your time. Hope you and Sandi are both doing well!

Your sister in Christ,
K____

 

Hi K​____,

Thank you for your question.

You say:

“Jude 6 says “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but after their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the Great Day​.”

“I know religion teaches Satan fell away but we know that God created him as the “waster to destroy”. This verse in Jude makes it sounds like the demons or fallen angels, that kept not their first estate, fell away… Satan was created. Weren’t the demons/evil spirits also created?”

You are exactly right when you noticed that Satan is a created being who was created to be the destroyer and was created to be an adversary and a crooked serpent.

Isaiah 14:3-23 is a “proverb against the king of Babylon” who “hast said in [his] heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.”

Isa 14:13  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

Self-worship and thinking of one’s self as God is common to all men.

Ezekiel 28 is addressed to “the prince of Tyre.”

Eze 28:2  Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:

Neither chapter has anything to do with Satan, but that Babylonian false doctrine tenaciously clings to our memory.

To answer your question about “the angels that sinned” in Jude 6, the word ‘angel’ simply means “a messenger​.” It is used in scripture to refer to both physical men and to spirit angels, and we must consider “the sum of [the Lord’s] Word” to determine which is being referred to each time we see this word.

The Hebrew word for angel is H4397 malak, a messenger. Here is an example of where this word refers to both a spirit angel and physical men as ‘messengers’:

Num 20:14  And Moses sent messengers [H4397: ‘malak‘, a messenger] from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us:
Num 20:15  How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers:
Num 20:16  And when we cried unto the LORD, he heard our voice, and sent an angel [H4397: ‘malak‘, a messenger], and hath brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border:

Men are often referred to in scripture as angels, so all we need to do is to determine which “angels…kept not their first estate” referred to in Jude 1:6. Were they spirit angels, or were they men? We know that it does not refer to spirit angels because those angels are still doing what they were created to do. These angels of Jude 1:6 were not doing what they were instructed to do, and were instead going in to the daughters of the sons of men with whom they had been instructed to keep themselves separate, just as Israel was instructed after the flood. The Lord has always had a “seed of the woman” people whom He called out of this world:

Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee [the serpent] and the woman [the church], and between thy seed [the seed of the serpent] and her seed [the seed of  the woman]; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

After the flood, the Lord’s seed was Abraham and his descendants. The seed of the serpent was all the rest of mankind. Before the flood the seed of the serpent was Cain and his descendants. That is why we have two genealogies, Cain’s descendants in Genesis 4 and Seth’s genealogy in Genesis 5. Though we are not given the details​, it is manifested that Seth’s family had been instructed to keep their generations pure from the influence of Cain’s family because we are told this about why the Lord chose Noah’s family to build the ark and survive the flood:

Gen 6:9  These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Noah and his family were obviously the only family of Seth’s lineage, “the sons of God”, who had not “left their first estate” and married “the daughters of men.” The Lord was just as jealous of His people before the flood as He was after the flood when He said this to Moses and to Israel:

Exo 34:14  For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
Exo 34:15  Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;
Exo 34:16  And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods. 

Ezr 9:12  Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.

That is exactly what the sons of Seth, with the exception of Noah’s family, had done:

Gen 6:1  And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
Gen 6:2  That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
Gen 6:3  And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

Just like Samson many years later, the sons of Seth liked what they saw in the daughters of Cain’s descendants and they cared not for what the Lord had instructed them “and they took them wives of all which they chose.” In so doing they “left their first estate” and along with all the rest of the wicked dead “[the Lord] hath reserved [them] in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”

Jud 1:6  And the angels [Seth’s son’s, the messengers of the Lord before the flood] which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

The fact that the word ‘angels’ means fleshly men is made clear in Peter’s epistle commenting on this very same subject. Notice that the whole subject concerns itself with the judgment of ungodly men:

2Pe 2:1  But there were false prophets also among the people [including the time of Noah], even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2Pe 2:2  And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of [As it was in the days of Noah].
2Pe 2:3  And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
2Pe 2:4  For if God spared not the angels that sinned [Seth’s descendants], but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; [When did all of this take place?]
2Pe 2:5  And spared not the old world [Including Seth’s descendants who  “kept not their first estate”], but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
2Pe 2:6  And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
2Pe 2:7  And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
2Pe 2:8  (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
2Pe 2:9  The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Noah was “a preacher”, and a ‘preacher’ is also ‘a messenger’, an angel, and that is what all the sons of Seth should have been. The “estate” they were given was to be messengers of God, and they left that ‘estate’ to become the seed of the serpent by defiling their generations with “the daughters of men” of this world.

I hope that Peter’s account makes it clearer to you that the judgment of the “false prophets among the people” is signified in the Old Testament by these ‘angels’, the messengers in Noah’s day who kept not their first estate. They, along with all other wicked men, are “reserved in the chains of darkness  of the grave. Peter likens their fate to that of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I hope this helps to strengthen your understanding which is repeated three times, once in each of the first three gospels telling us that “angels… neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Not even to the daughters of Cain:

Mat 22:30  For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

Mar 12:25  For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.

Luk 20:35  But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: 

Spirit angels simply are not given to marry nor to give in marriage.

Your fellow messenger of the Lord, Mike