CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM

Cherubim and Seraphim

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Is it just me or does this happen to everyone? I was “triggered” as the preacher was preaching. Sometimes I’m sent soaring in the heavens. This time my mind was sent back to stand at the gate to the garden of Eden. In his sermon, the pastor had mentioned “the God who dwells between the cherubim.” This, of course, has to do with the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies; first in the tabernacle then in the temple. It also got me thinking about Nadab and Abihu. “Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord” (Lev. 10:1). We can see something of why it says in Hebrews, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb, 12:29).

If we were to add together what we’ve seen so far, and to state the obvious, we might say that the God who dwells between the cherubim is a consuming fire.

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Meanwhile back at the garden gates. “So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). Unlike Aaron’s son’s, Nabab and Abihu, God did not consume Adam and Eve. Instead, He put in place cherubim and a flaming sword, which, like the wheels Ezekiel saw in his vision of God (Ezek. 1:15-217), "turned every way”.

So, now we have a flaming sword between cherubim.  

Who doesn’t love singing the old hymns? The following are a couple of verses that will help us work our way to the heart of what I would like us to see. Reginal Heber wrote the brilliant Holy! Holy! Holy! hymn. The Triune God is thrice holy. Here’s verse two:

2 Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore Thee,

casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;

cherubim and seraphim, falling down before Thee,

which wert and art and evermore shalt be.

Then there’s that great old hymn, O Worship the King by Robert Grant. In verse two he writes:

2 O tell of His might and sing of His grace,

whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.

His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,

and dark is His path on the wings of the storm.

So, we’ve got cherubim and seraphim falling down before God and we see, as it were, God riding on the wings of the storm. Poetic pictures lifted from Isaiah and the Psalms illustrating the holiness and the mightiness of the Triune God.

Now, and here’s the rub: If we keep in mind that we know about God analogously, such as Him riding on the dark thunderclouds of the storm as it moves across the earth. We never see God as He is, but always through a Mediator, a go-between. “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). And if we will agree that Christ has always been the Mediator, yes, even “the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8), then we will see that He is the One “Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters, Who makes the clouds His chariot, Who walks on the wings of the wind” (Psa. 104:3b).

So, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). He is the God who dwells between the cherubim, Who walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, Who is a consuming fire, and consumed Nabab and Abihu when they tried to fob Him off with profane fire. Yes, God is Triune, and is holy, holy, holy. Just like the flaming sword, He is the One everyone needs to go through to get to God. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). He is the eternal Word who came from heaven to earth and became flesh to dwell among us (John 1:14). 

Now, we know that when God “came down” to give His Law to Moses on Mount Sinai “that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain … Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly … And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to gaze at the Lord, and many of them perish” (Exo. 19:16,18,21). “And He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand came a fiery law for them” (Deut. 33:2b). Instead of “fiery law" the ESV has “flaming fire”. However, Strong’s Concordance agrees with “fiery-law” (See Hebrew 799). One is reminded here of what Abraham saw when God cut a covenant with him, “It was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces” (Gen. 15:17 ESV).

So, after all that, in the words of that old Matthews Southern Comfort song, “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

It’s the word “flaming” as in “flaming sword” and “fiery” as in “fiery law or “flaming fire” that we need to focus on. The words fiery and flaming as used here are the same in the Old Testament Hebrew language.

Now, the preacher I mentioned above, also mentioned the “snake on the stake”, i.e., the one that King Hezekiah destroyed. “He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan) (2 Kings 18:4b NIV). (Nehushtan means copper. Depending on percentages, copper mixed with tin gives you bronze and brass.) What does this have to do with the cherubim and the flaming sword at the gate to the garden of Eden? It’ll become clearer in a moment.

Moses & Brass Serpent
Engraving by Jacques P Migne 1864

The reason Moses had made the bronze snake was because “the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live” (Num. 21:6-8; cf. 1 Cor. 10:8-10).). The NIV changes the word “fiery” to “venomous snakes”, we can’t have the reader thinking that these are anything other than regular poisonous snakes! The OT Hebrew word here is saraph, which, yes, means “burning” as perhaps happens when bitten by a poisonous snake. However, that word saraph as in fiery, is the exact some word for seraph, as in the seraphim that Reginal Heber in his Holy! Holy! Holy! hymn has us mention as we are singing.

We’ll use the NIV for the following vision of Isaiah, “I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:1-7).

Whether Israel in the wilderness or Isaiah in the temple, seraphim are messengers, angels, of God for judgment and for healing. Now, one more verse before we look at the cherubim and the seraph (a.k.a. the flaming sword) at the gate to the garden. The NIV misses the boat with its “adders and darting snakes” instead of the NKJV’s and ESV’s more accurately descriptive “the viper and fiery flying serpent”, “the adder and the flying fiery serpent” in Isaiah 30:6; (cf. 14:29). Keep in mind the idea of the Lord riding on the wings of the wind surrounded by His cherubim (clouds) and His seraphim (lightning bolts, yes, fiery flying serpents).

“He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). John Calvin offers the following,

Moses … speaks of punishment, when he relates that man was expelled and that cherubim were opposed with the blade of a turning sword, which should prevent his entrance into the garden … Moses uses a word derived from whiteness or heat … God had commanded two cherubim to be placed at the ark of the covenant, which should overshadow its covering, with their wings; therefore he is often said to sit between the cherubim … In this place angels are called cherubim … that it is referred to angels is more than sufficiently known. Whence also Ezekiel (Ezekiel 28:14) signalizes the proud king of Tyre with this title, comparing him to a chief angel.

Now, Calvin has mentioned Ezekiel 28, in which chapter we read about the king of Tyre being compared with the Devil, Satan. “You were in Eden, the garden of God … You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones … And you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones” (Ezek. 28:13a,14,16b). So, we see Satan being referred to as “the anointed cherub who covers … the covering cherub.” The word “covering” means to fence in, cover over, protect, defend, hedge in etc. (Strong's Concordance, Hebrew 5526). (May we be permitted to add "cloud", as in cloud-covering, to the list?) So, like the cherubim on the seat of atonement “covering” the ark of the covenant, Satan (like Adam who was to tend and keep it) (Gen. 2:15), the “anointed cherub” was to guard things in the garden. But, as we know, Adam broke covenant with God (Hos. 6:7), instead entering into a covenant with the rebellious chief angel.

How did the Devil deceive Eve and slither his way into convincing Adam to join him in his rebellion? “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made” (Gen. 3:1). Yes, we’re back to cherubim and seraphim, serpents. Because of the serpent, shouldn’t we have expected Satan to be a seraph rather than a cherub? If we keep in mind that he was a chief angel with respect to the garden, we can see how he had command over all the angels that were under him, whether cherubim or seraphim, even those angels (now become demons) that had joined him in his great rebellion. Satan spoke through the serpent, (or perhaps even transformed himself into a serpent), and by so doing, he became "that serpent of old."

Salvador Dali, Christ of St. John of the Cross

Though I prefer the idea that the fiery flying serpent pictures the Messiah, could it be that the snake on the stake that God commanded Moses to make was simply picturing a dead snake - prefiguring God's gospel promise of the Seed of the Woman crushing the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15) and healing, yes, saving His people from His fiery judgment? “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:14-16).

However, when we understand “Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14), then the idea that the flying fiery serpent on the pole was representing the preincarnate Anointed One, the Mediator, begins to make more sense. And, keeping in mind that the Devil was a chief angel, then we can see why the "anointed cherub" would try to impersonate and even try to usurp the princely role of the One who was to be the Anointed, anointed as the everlasting King of kings and angels.

There is only one angel in the Bible referred to as an Archangel, even Michael. Matthew Henry, the great Bible commentator, commenting on the war in heaven recorded in Revelation 12, says,

The parties—Michael and his angels on one side, and the dragon and his angels on the other: Christ, the great Angel of the covenant, and His faithful followers; and Satan and all his instruments. [And, on Daniel 10} Here is Michael our prince, the great protector of the church, and the patron of its just but injured cause: The first of the chief princes, v 13. Some understand it not of a created angel, but an archangel of the highest order, 1 Thess 4:16; Jude 9. Others think that Michael the archangel is no other than Christ himself, the Angel of the covenant, and the Lord of the angels, He whom Daniel saw in vision, v. 5 … Christ is the church's prince; angels are not, Heb 2:5. [On Daniel 12] Michael shall stand up in His providence ... Christ is that great prince, for He is the prince of the kings of the earth, Rev 1:5. And, if He stand up for His church, who can be against it? But this is not all: At that time (that is, soon after) Michael shall stand up for the working out of our eternal salvation; the Son of God shall be incarnate, shall be manifested to destroy the works of the devil. Christ stood for the children of our people when He was made sin and a curse for them, stood in their stead as a sacrifice, bore the curse for them, to bear it from them. He stands for them in the intercession He ever lives to make within the veil, stands up for them, and stands their friend. And after the destruction of antichrist, of whom Antiochus was a type, Christ shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, shall appear for the complete redemption of all His.

Keep in mind that the “anointed cherub” was thrown out God’s holy mountain, the garden of Eden (Ezek. 28:14) as seen in the following, “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down” (Rev. 12:7-10). “And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

So, the One who excommunicated Adam and Eve from His garden and posted angels on piquet duty at its gate, even, cherubim and seraphim, is the One who dwells between the cherubim, is the One rides upon the thunderclouds, “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen” (Rev. 1:7); “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works” (Matt. 16:27).

Yes, "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29) - as we've seen with the "flaming sword" and the "fiery flying serpents", "cherubim and seraphim" etc., but He gives grace to all who "Repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15).

Let us end with a couple of verse from the old Horatius Bonar hymn, Glory be to God the Father:

3 Glory to the King of angels, glory to the Church’s King,

glory to the King of nations; heav’n and earth your praises bring!

Glory, glory, to the King of glory sing!

4 Glory, blessing, praise eternal! thus the choir of angels sings;

Honour, riches, pow’r, dominion! thus its praise creation brings.

Glory, glory to the King of kings!