How Does a Guardian Angel Work?

‘Guardian angel' is a modern term. But there's plenty from Scripture we can use to shed light on these important creatures and their job.​

Guardian angel is a modern term, and it would strike biblical audiences as rather surprising.

The term angel (Hebrew, mal’ak; Greek, angelos) means messenger, and a messenger and a guardian are different. Talking about guardian angels—guardian messengers—would be a little like talking about dentist messengers or accountant messengers.

St. Augustine famously writes:

The angels are spirits. When they are simply spirits, they are not angels, but when they are sent, they become angels; for “angel” is the name of a function, not of a nature. If you inquire about the nature of such beings, you find that they are spirits; if you ask what their office is, the answer is that they are angels. . . . Make a comparison with human affairs. The name of someone’s nature is “human being,” the name of his job is “soldier.” . . . Similarly some beings existed who were created by God as spirits, but he makes them angels by sending them to announce what he has ordered them (Expositions of the Psalms 103:1:15).

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The Bible uses other terms for non-human spirits that aren’t functioning as messengers. Sometimes high-ranking ones are called “sons of God” (Hebrew, bney Elohim) or “princes” (Hebrew, sarim)—as opposed to low-ranking spirits who run errands and deliver messages.

However, since low-ranking spirits have contact with humans, we encountered messengers frequently, and during the Christian age the term angel started being applied to every non-human spirit other than God.

Continued below.