Can we command angels?
Question 8024
The idea that believers can command angels is found within certain charismatic and Word of Faith contexts, sometimes presented as a dimension of spiritual warfare or as a privilege that comes with the believer’s authority in Christ. Before accepting or rejecting this position, it deserves a clear biblical examination.
Who Commands Angels in Scripture?
Throughout the whole of Scripture, it is God who commands the angels. Psalm 103:20-21 is emphatic: the angels are those who “do his commandments, obeying the voice of his word” and serve as “his hosts, his ministers, who do his will.” The chain of authority is explicit — angels do God’s will by obeying God’s command. There is no text in which a human being commands an angel and is presented as doing something right and proper. The authority runs from God to angels, not through human beings to angels.
Even the archangel Michael, when he had a dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, did not pronounce a rash judgement but said, “The Lord rebuke you” (Jude 9). The highest-ranking angel we know by name, in direct confrontation with Satan himself, referred the matter to God rather than exercising his own authority. The implication for human beings attempting to issue directives to the angelic realm requires no elaboration.
The Charismatic “Commanding Angels” Teaching
The teaching that believers can and should command angels typically draws on Psalm 91:11, the promise that God will command His angels concerning the believer, and on passages about the believer’s authority in Christ. The logical problem is apparent: Psalm 91:11 is a statement about what God does, not a delegation of that authority to the believer. That God commands His angels to guard His people is a promise about God’s action, not an instruction about ours. It no more grants us authority to command angels than God’s promise to provide for our needs (Philippians 4:19) grants us authority to command the banks.
The believer’s authority in Christ, which is real and significant, is authority over sin and the flesh, exercised within the framework of Ephesians 6 through resistance, prayer, and putting on the armour of God. It is not a command authority over the angelic realm. The New Testament model for engaging with spiritual reality is prayer directed to God, not directives issued to His servants.
What Believers Are Actually Called to Do
Daniel 10 is frequently cited in discussions of angels and prayer. The angel who came to Daniel after twenty-one days of fasting explained that he had been dispatched from the first day but was opposed by the prince of the kingdom of Persia. Daniel was not commanding angels. He was praying to God. The angelic activity that followed was God’s response to that prayer. This is the consistent biblical model: prayer to God, who then directs His angels in ways the praying believer may not see or control. The believer’s task is intercession, not instruction.
So, now what?
The believer who wants the full engagement of the angelic realm in their life has access to exactly the right means of obtaining it: prayer to the God who commands the angels. Issuing commands to angels is not a step of faith; it is a step outside the proper order of things. The angels respond to God’s commands because they are His servants. Our role is to bring our needs before God, trust Him to direct His own servants as He sees fit, and leave the angelic chain of command in the hands of the One who designed it.
“Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his commandments, obeying the voice of his word!” Psalm 103:20
