Judith MacNutt
By: Suzanne O'Keeffe, The 700 Club
CBN.com –While working as a psychologist in Boston, the Lord showed Judith His power to heal when she prayed for her patients. Judith had grown up Southern Baptist but after she moved to Clearwater, Florida she became involved in the Roman Catholic Church. The Baptist were closed to the charismatic ways so she studied under a Catholic priest as she felt drawn to the sacraments, and the liturgy; they believed in healing, believed in Holy Spirit, and were full of life. She married in 1980 and they eventually moved to Jacksonville. It was there the Lord led Judith to open Christian Counseling Services which served many denominations of Christians. When she worked in the hospital she could pray for people but not with them, here people have experienced inner healing, deliverance, and directions for their life. Her experience does not stop with emotional healing; Judith knows the truth of God's healing the physical as well. Along the way, the Lord has allowed her to see into the spiritual realm of angels. She has written a book title Angels are for Real describing what she has learned and she believes it lines up with the Scripture. Her study of angels began after what she believes to be an angelic encounter. She lost a ring that was given to her by her father. She prayed to God for an angel to return it and one morning, during what she describes as a highly spiritual moment with an overwhelming sense of calm as well as unexplained light, she found the ring on top of her bible. From that moment she became interested in angels and the experiences others have had with angels.
In her book, Judith first describes the purpose of angels. According to her, angels are to return with Jesus at the second coming, guard the Church, execute judgment, give the law, exalt, worship, and glorify God, act as God's messengers, act as guardians, deliver from evil, bring healing, and gather the elect and carry them through death. In describing the duties of angels, she warns against learning of angels through texts that are not of the scripture.
Using examples from her life, the lives of others, and scripture, Judith explains how angels appear. She claims that angels manifest in ways not visible to humans such as invisible barriers, voices, and unexplained forces. According to her, angels also appear in the traditional sense as holy beings clothed in blinding light. She uses the example of the angels appearing to the shepherds in the field on the night of Jesus's birth. She also claims that angels may manifest in any form they wish to accomplish their tasks. She takes this view from the writings of Thomas Aquinas. She uses biblical examples to show that angels manifest in human form to do their work on earth. The following chapter gives examples of what she believes are real life examples of manifestations of angels.
Judith then draws from the writings of apostles Paul and Peter, theologian Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and theologian Thomas Aquinas to explain the hierarchy of angels in heaven. She writes that there are nine orders of angels, each with its own purpose and level of authority. She lists seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, powers, authorities, principalities, archangels, and angels as the nine orders. The seraphim, cherubim, and thrones form the first group and exist to serve, praise and protect God as well as reflect his glory. The second group is made up of dominions, powers, and authorities. Thomas Aquinas called this tier the "angels of the cosmos." These angels oversee the universe, impart God's wisdom, battle with the forces of evil, and perform miracles on earth. The third tier of angels, the principalities, archangels, and angels, are directly involved in human affairs and serve to protect man and convey the Word of God.
Judith expands on the archangel order. She states that according to Christian tradition, there are seven archangels. Only three have been named in scripture. She cites Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael as those three. While Michael and Gabriel are mentioned in canonized books of the bible, Raphael was mentioned in the apocryphal book Tobit. To explain the power of archangels, Judith shares an encounter she had with a satanic warlock. The man was supposedly sent by Satan to disrupt her work as a therapist. Judith rebuked the man and felt a calming presence behind her. The man looked behind her and immediately ran screaming from the room. Judith believes an archangel was sent to protect her.
Judith also believes that there are guardian angels sent to protect individuals and groups. She shares the stories of others who have experienced being protected by an angel to illustrate the duties and activates of guardian angels. According to her stories, guardian angels bring healing as well as protection.
Judith chooses to delve into the discussion of fallen angels and demons. She recalls multiple examples from her youth where she believes to have encountered a demon. Her encounters occurred at the ages of seven and seventeen0. She reports feeling an overwhelming sense of evil coming from the figures she saw. She provides categories of demons she has seen in her own work in psychotherapy. According to her, these are occult spirits, spirits of sin, and spirits of trauma. She also provides examples of these demons and their actions. She finishes her section on fallen angels with a teaching on the power of Jesus over demons and that with God has ultimate power over demons. She admonishes that an understanding of the evil in the spiritual realm is very necessary but an interest to the point of obsession with demons is unhealthy and dangerous.
She finishes her book with an explanation of the thinness of the veil between our world and the spiritual world. She claims that God will show the spiritual world to those who ask in faith.