Judging Angels?

[jb80]

I was just looking to see if someone could help and give some clarification over the meaning of this passage.

1 Cor 6:2,3

2Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?
3Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

What exactly does this mean that the “Saints will judge the world?” And especially the next verse that says that “We will judge Angels”?

One explanation I saw was that it’s referring to how we should test (judge) the spirits to see if they are from God. However, this doesn’t really seem to fit the rest of the passage which is talking about taking your lawsuits to the Church to be judged instead of to unbelievers.

Another explanation I saw was from the Haydock commentary (haydock1859.tripod.com/id167.html) and it says this about the verse

St. Paul here dissuades the new Christians from carrying their differences and causes about their temporal concerns before judges who were infidels, especially seeing the saints and the elect shall one day judge, that is, condemn all the wicked, and even the apostate angels, by approving the sentence which Christ shall pronounce against them at the day of judgment. (Witham)

Judge angels? That is, the wicked angels, the devils. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

This still doesn’t completely clear it up because I’m still left asking what is the purpose of us approving the sentence? And what happens if someone does not approve (or is that even possible), will that change the sentence?

It seems like it’s saying that Christ is allowing us to share in his judgment just as he allows us to share in his sufferings, but to what extent does our part go?

Thanks so much!

 

[Todd_Easton]

In A Commentary On The New Testament, published by The Catholic Biblical Association, 1942, page 457, on 1 Corinthians 6:2, it says:
2. The saints will judge the world in union with Christ their Head, the supreme Judge of men and angels. The judgment will be that of Christ, but also of His body, the Church, which judges with Him just as it rises with Him and reigns with Him.

 

[nablaise]

It is possible that angels are supperior and mighty in power, but not in dignity to the saints. If you look in the book of revelations, Angels are seen around the throne, but a ‘son of man’ is seen within the throne.

With this in mind. I think Paul is speaking judgment in communion with Christ as his ministers. One example would be in cases of exsorcism. Remember demons pleading to Jesus to let them go to a flock of porcs? this show that Jesus made a decision as about what to do with them. So the saints can do that to, and there are many stories about saints dealing with demons.

On the other hand, the word ‘angel’ does not necessarly mean spriitual beings. Human can be called angels. And also if you read books like the Book of Enoch, angels seem to be extraterrestrials. Sometimes, it seem that Enoch is describing galactic events, and the Watchers who often seem to be called angels seem to be aliens watching humans. So why are they watching us, perhaps we are superior beings and somehow their fate depends on us in some measure despite that they may be powerful than us.