Guardian Angels
So do we get a guardian angel each and if we do because there are more humans on the planet than ever does that mean God might run out of angels one day or is he creating more as he needs them and equally could Satan’s forces be getting over-stretched?
First let’s do some basics:
The word “guardian” does not occur in Scripture. The idea of one angel per person comes from Matt 18 10 (see point 5 below), but Jesus is talking about children, and even this is open to discussion.
However there are various places in Scripture where we can get some idea of numbers of angels:
1. Jesus claimed to be able to call on 12 legions of angels, just on a whim.
Roman legions had about 4700 soldiers, so this would mean 56,000 angels were just hanging around doing nothing, waiting to be called on.
2. There is a simple calculation from Revelation 5:11 Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12 In a loud voice they sang: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
The words “ten thousand” come from the Greek “myriades” (our word “myriad”). A myriad is ten thousand, but the Greek literally says “myriads of myriads”. So this means “more than one myriad” (at least two of them) TIMES “more than one myriad”.
So even if “myriads of myriads” only means 2 myriads X 2 myriads, this is still 400 million angels. If it means 10 myriads X 10 myriads, we have got 10 billion!
But note that even though we can do this sort of “confident guesstimation, about numbers, this seems not to be given as an exact count, but as an indication that the number was really vast.
3. In Rev 9 16 The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.
It appears again to be angels being counted at 200 million. This time, the number is an exact one, because John says he heard the number being given
Are these the same angels as the ones in Rev 5? We are not told.
4. Then there is the task given to the angels at the end of the age. Mark 13:26 “At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
Unlike Santa Claus, who can get round every child in the world in one night, angels can only be in one place at a time, and their speed of movement may be restricted (Dan 10 13).
So IF they are all to be all over the world, collecting “the elect” (that’s us) from every place, I reckon there is likely to be at least one angel per person, to be able to “collect” efficiently.
There are two billion people who claim to be Christians across the world – of course not every one is a “real” Christian, but that would still mean the number of angels to collect “the elect” could easily run into billions.
5. Then there are the number of angels needed to care for children, Jesus said in Matt 18 10 “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
This appears to mean that each child has its own angel.
As a ball-park figure, there are about between one and a half billion and two billion people in the world who could be counted as “children”, so we can assume about two billion angels to allocate to all of them.
And even after all this calculation, we have only established the MINIMUM number of angels, there could be two or three times this, or hundreds of times more.
So, ‘breathe’ again, God isn’t about to run out yet!
On your other points:
I don’t think there is any indication that God is “continuously creating” angels; we know that when satan fell he swept one third of the angels with him (Rev 12 4), and I don’t see any indication that God just “printed more” to make up for the loss.
Nevertheless, satan’s forces are ALREADY stretched – Hooray! – partly because they are outnumbered two to one, but mainly because Jesus the Conqueror is fighting on our side!