Acts 12:15

Acts 12:15. Then said they, It is his angel. Some have tried to explain away this difficult passage by suggesting that the word rendered ‘angel' in the original signified ‘messenger' simply; but this is most improbable, for how could they have expected a messenger from the prison at such an hour? Besides, Rhoda knew the voice of Peter.

It is evident that the Christians (or at least some of them) who were present that night in Mary's house believed that Peter's guardian angel had assumed his voice and was standing before the door. The whole question of the ‘unseen ministry of angels' is a very mysterious one; some of the weightiest of the fathers have taught definitely that every believer has a guardian angel. So Basil and Chrysostom. Very little is told us concerning these Beings and their work and office among us in Holy Scripture. Our Lord's words (Matthew 18:10), ‘I say unto you, that in heaven ‘heir angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven,' simply teach us that these blessed Ones are concerned more or less closely with the words and works of men; they tell us, too, that very blender is the partition which separates the world we know from the other unseen world, that the spirit-world, which seems so infinitely far, is perhaps all the while close beside us. But the guarded reticence of all inspired teaching on this question warns us from inquiring too closely into a mysterious subject with an aimless curiosity.

For the comfort of believers the Master has told them of the existence of these blessed spirits, and of the intense interest they take in every life battling here with evil; more than this the Holy Spirit has not vouchsafed to disclose. The whole subject of angelic ministry has been exhaustively discussed in Bishop Bull's noble sermons on the ‘Existence of Angels,' and on the ‘Office of the Holy Angels towards the Faithful' (Bull's Works, vol. i., Sermons xi. xii.).