Clarifying Joseph Smith’s Statement Concerning
Angels as Resurrected Beings    


D&C 129:1-3
    There are two kinds of beings in heaven, namely: Angels, who are resurrected personages, having bodies of flesh and bones – For instance, Jesus said: Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.  Secondly: the spirits of just men made perfect, they who are not resurrected, but inherit the same glory.


Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl
    From this the thought has been conveyed to the minds of some that a personage cannot be an angel unless he is resurrected and has a body of flesh and bones. Any messenger sent from the presence of the Lord with a message is an angel.  (Doctrine and Covenants Commentary [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1978], p. 811)

 
Charles W. Penrose (Apostle)
    [Responding to a question regarding D&C 129:1. Elder Charles W. Penrose of the Quorum of the Twelve said:] Take, for example, the quotation in the foregoing letter of inquiry, from section 129, verse 1, of the Doctrine and Covenants; reference to the text cited will show that it is not there stated that “all” angels are resurrected beings, a notion that our inquirer, like some other persons, seems to entertain and which forms the origin of his trouble. The theme discoursed upon is the presence in heaven of two kinds or classes of beings, namely first, resurrected beings and, second, spirits who are not resurrected. It is not asserted that there are no other kinds of persons in heaven than they, but the subject treated is of the two classes mentioned.
    There are angels of various appointments and stations. Michael is called an “archangel” (Doc. & Cov. 29:26; Dan. 10:13). Some are resurrected beings like the angel that was sent to John the Revelator (Rev. 23:8, 9) and those already referred to in Doc. & Cov. sec. 132, while others are “ministering spirits sent forth to minister unto them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. 1:14). Some of these angels are described as “the spirits of just men made perfect” and are “not resurrected,” and others were made ministering spirits before entering into mortality, serving among their fellows in their pre-existent state. Christ was a ministering spirit before his birth into this world. He was “anointed above his fellows.” The angel Gabriel was a ministering spirit after he had been a mortal man (Noah), and before his resurrection, for Jesus of Nazareth was, as quoted by “Subscriber,” “the first-fruits of them that slept.” (See Luke 1:11-30; Dan. 8:16; 9:21.)
    Angels are God’s messengers, whether used in that capacity as unembodied spirits, selected according to their capacities for the work required, or as disembodied spirits, or as translated men, or as resurrected beings. They are agents of Deity of different degrees of intelligence, power and authority, under the direction of higher dignitaries, and subject to law and order in their respective spheres. ...  Thus it will be seen that all angels are not resurrected beings, nor is it so declared, as imagined by the writer of the letter here replied to.  (Editor’s Table, Improvement Era, August, 1912, No. 10)