What Do Latter-day Saints Believe About Angels?

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Third Hour Staff

Joined: Nov 2023

Hey guys, so for a long time, I thought that Latter-day Saints and other Christians basically agreed on what angels were and what their role is. And while there is certainly a lot of overlap, as it turns out, there are also some major differences. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about what Latter-day Saints believe about angels — what kind of beings they are, what their role is, and why we believe the way we do. Hang tight!

Angels are messengers of God. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught, “From the beginning down through the dispensations, God has used angels as His emissaries in conveying love and concern for His children.” Angels appear throughout Latter-day Saints scripture, including, of course, the Bible; they show up quite a bit in our church history, and we believe that God sends angels even today.

So what kind of being is an angel? There are some Christians who believe that angels are as different from us as we are from animals—they believe that some angels might take human form but are actually a different species of being altogether. Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, believe that angels, like you and I, are all ultimately spirit children of God, made in His likeness and image. Oscar McConkie wrote simply: “In form, angels are like human beings.” And indeed, that is the way the scriptures regularly portray them.

Now, there certainly are differences, but we believe those differences have less to do with kind and more to do with where angels are currently situated within God’s plan of salvation.

To read the entire article: Saints Unscripted