Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Recently, in response to a commentary about UAPs, aliens, and the demonic, several people wrote in about our claim that angels are not made in the image of God as humans are.

Though the Bible does speak of angels, it never states that angels are made in God the image of God as humans are. Though the Bible does speak of angels,

it never states that angels are made in God's image. In fact, there's not biblical reason to think

that they do. Genesis 1 plainly emphasizes that humans are made in God's image, repeating the

point several times in just two verses. The description offers a contrast between humans and everything else that

God made. In this very first mention of humanity in Scripture, in fact, humans were created and set

apart for the unique and special task of filling and subduing the earth. That task and the title

of image bearer are described together.

But angels were not given this task, nor were they given the title. They are described as

assisting humans in this task, and they clearly were made to serve God as his soldiers and his

messengers. In other words, angels and human beings were created for distinct purposes. Psalm 8 offers further

description of all this in poetic form. It describes God's generosity to humanity, specifically in

their unique placement within the cosmic hierarchy. What is man that you're mindful of him,

the son of man that you care for him. The psalmist then compares humanity to heavenly

beings and notes that man is made a little lower than angels, yet he's the one crowned with glory

and honor. Further, it says, God has put all things under his feet. This contrast is an important

point. Human beings have greater dignity than angels, but not because we're more powerful. In fact, we're not,

but our value lies elsewhere. Comparatively, at least throughout Scripture, we know far less about

angels than we do about humans. Angels appear in Scripture about 300 times, but the details are vegged.

The safest thing we can assume about angels is that they are intimidating because they often appear by saying,

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