Summary: We should proceed carefully as we evaluate proposals of life elsewhere in the universe, but in the end we must recognize that the Bible assumes the existence of God’s heavenly host.
Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!
Psalm 148:2 (EVS)
UFOs and the Government
Thinkers, here is something for you to ponder which is gaining the attention of millions‒again! The House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee has just held public hearings about UAPs, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, formerly known as UFOs. Earlier, in May of 2022, the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee held their own hearings on the subject. Videos of UAP’s were made public at that time.
The hearings revealed again that pilots continue to report encounters with UAPs. These UAPs remain beyond explanation. No means of propulsion is visible, nor any control surfaces. They are reported to travel at amazing speeds, and to turn sharply as though they had no mass. Sometimes they are tracked on radar; other times they are not. Sightings seem to happen more often near where nuclear weapons are kept. In fact, it has been claimed that UAPs have deactivated nuclear missiles.
The Government says it has no answers, and is not keeping secrets. Are these really highly sophisticated military craft developed by the United States, or perhaps by our earthly adversaries? That’s what people are asking. If the latter is true, it is cause for concern.
Whistleblower David Grusch, who served for 14 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency claimed in the Oversight Committee hearings that our government has actually retrieved bodies of non-human aliens, part of a larger cover-up. Grusch also claimed that the Vatican might have records of UAP activity from the time of Mussolini.
Are we alone in the universe? And if the answer is no, what might that mean for faith, the Bible, and the future? As we contemplate these questions, it will be important to avoid sensationalism, and proceed with care.
“O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.” Isaiah 37:16
A Long Ways Away
According to the present state of cosmological understanding, travel at velocities greater than the speed of light is not possible. In 2011 an experiment in Switzerland by an international organization called OPERA seemed to have shown that subatomic particles called neutrinos had exceeded the velocity of light, but that turned out to be a mistake, caused by a bad cable and clock.
If the speed limit of the universe is unbreakable, as Einstein and everyone since has insisted, it becomes difficult to accept the presence of visitors from other planets for the simple reason that it would take them so long just to get here. Think of the term “light year.” That is how far light travels in a year.
Other solar systems are hundreds of thousands of light years away from us, and even more. That’s a long time to ride in a spaceship. The speed of light would indicate that, whatever pilots and others are reporting, it did not come from the far reaches of space. In fact, some have entertained the notion that UAPs are really from inside the earth!
Sensational Claims
As you might expect, there have been sensationalists who have exploited the matter of any possible relationship between the Bible and alien visitors. Erich Von Däniken published a book in 1968 called Chariots of the Gods? It was wildly successful, bringing wealth and fame to the author. He claimed that Sodom and Gomorrah had actually been destroyed by a nuclear explosion, that Ezekiel’s vision of the “wheel within a wheel” (see Ezekiel 1:16, 10:9-10) was actually a spacecraft, and that the Ark of the Covenant was really a communication device for transmitting messages to and from the aliens.
People can be convinced of such things if they are not aware of the contexts in the ancient Scriptures. Von Däniken has rightly been debunked for his pseudoscience and distorted portrayal of the biblical texts, as have others like Immanuel Velikovsky before him. But the extraterrestrial genie was out of the saucer. Finding aliens in the Bible persists.
Interpreting Ezekiel and the Hosts of Heaven
Let’s look at the vision of Ezekiel. Remember first of all that this was a vision, and not a video. There is an important difference. The vision was, we might say, a dream Ezekiel was given while he was awake. We should not expect to find in a vision what a camera would record. Interpreting the vision requires knowledge of the world back then, and the thoughts of the people of the time. They all looked to the night sky with wonder, and many of them believed they were looking into the abode of gods.
Sometimes, when the Scriptures are critical of the “hosts of heaven,” this is why. Take, for instance, Jeremiah 44:25. “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: You and your wives have declared with your mouths, and have fulfilled it with your hands, saying, ‘We will surely perform our vows that we have made, to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her.’ Then confirm your vows and perform your vows!”
Other times the Scriptures recognize that God has created these hosts of heaven, and that they are not the false gods of the nations, but rather servants of the Lord. We see this in Psalm 80:14: “Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine…” The Lord is often called Yahweh Sabaoth in the Scriptures, meaning: the one who calls into being the heavenly hosts. This occurs in the Old Testament over 200 times, and with the name Elohim for God rather than Yahweh, over 20 times.
Who are these hosts, then? Are they angelic beings? And what does that mean…that they are non-material, rather than physical? But let’s get back to Ezekiel. What Ezekiel saw was intelligible to him and to his fellow Israelites as the heavenly honor guard surrounding the throne of God, and the throne itself.
The throne was about to move on those wheels within wheels which were able to go in any direction. The Lord was leaving his temple in his city, due to the prolonged sin of the people. That’s the meaning, and that’s what’s important. Ezekiel didn’t just go for a walk one day and see a spacecraft. He was God’s prophet who was to deliver this message to the exiles in Babylon, and in a vision they could all interpret.
But before we become altogether dismissive of the idea of extraterrestrial life, let’s recall Josephus, and his list of the portents preceding the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70. He writes that, though it may seem incredible, witnesses testified to seeing shining soldiers moving about among the clouds. That today would be classified as a UAP event. See Patterns of Evidence article Considering the Torn Temple Curtain.
Questions to Ask
If extraterrestrials turn out to be real someday, we will have to shift our cosmologies. But we have done that before. We don’t think of space in the same way the people of biblical days did. To them there was a clear dome above the earth. Many do not think of time the same way either, believing the days of creation were really eons. We have also shifted our idea of being at the center of the universe with the sun going around the earth.
Will our worldviews someday become worlds-views? One thing that will not have to change will be our faith in the Creator and Redeemer.
If life on other planets becomes an established fact, think of questions it will raise. Are there other worlds that have fallen? Are there other worlds that haven’t fallen? Should we send missionaries to other worlds? Skeptics will say: ‘See, life was bound to evolve other places with no help from God.’
And how will we interpret the New Testament statements about cosmic redemption if the cosmos turns out to be so much bigger than just us?” (e.g., Romans 8:21 “…that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”) Will Jesus return to this planet, but not to others at the same time? Will we find that God sent his Son to other worlds as well? What if advanced civilizations say: there is no God? What if they say: of course there is a God? Oh, there is lots to think about!
Conclusion
The articles of biblical faith tell us that God created the heavens and the earth. Of that we will remain certain. Whether or to what extent the angels of God might be from other physical worlds remains unknown. The Bible calls angels “ministering spirits” (Hebrews 1:14), but that does not necessarily mean they are non-material, any more than it means they have wings with feathers.
The Bible does tell us of a heavenly host of beings that answers to the Lord who created them all. Maybe, rather than let people say we are hopelessly outdated with our biblical understanding of the cosmos, we should remind them that we have believed in a heavenly host for a long time now, long before there were UAPs.
Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Engraved illustration of the “chariot vision” of the Biblical book of Ezekiel. (credit: Matthaeus (Matthäus) Merian (1593-1650), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Dr. Frederick Baltz is Pastor Emeritus of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Galena, Illinois. He has written a number of books including When the Bible Meets the Sky: The Star of Bethlehem and Other Mysteries, and A Faith to Suit You Well.
