Ministering Spirits of the Local Universe

38:6.1Af­ter the sec­ond mil­len­nium of so­journ at se­raphic head­quar­ters the ser­a­phim are or­ga­nized un­der chiefs into groups of twelve (12 pairs, 24 ser­a­phim), and twelve such groups con­sti­tute a com­pany (144 pairs, 288 ser­a­phim), which is com­manded by a leader. Twelve com­pa­nies un­der a com­man­der con­sti­tute a bat­tal­ion (1,728 pairs or 3,456 ser­a­phim), and twelve bat­tal­ions un­der a di­rec­tor equal a se­raphic unit (20,736 pairs or 41,472 in­di­vid­u­als), while twelve units, sub­ject to the com­mand of a super­vi­sor, con­sti­tute a le­gion num­ber­ing 248,832 pairs or 497,664 in­di­vid­u­als. Je­sus al­luded to such a group of an­gels that night in the gar­den of Geth­sem­ane when he said: “I can even now ask my Fa­ther, and he will pres­ently give me more than twelve le­gions of an­gels.”

38:6.2Twelve le­gions of an­gels com­prise a host num­ber­ing 2,985,984 pairs or 5,971,968 in­di­vid­u­als, and twelve such hosts (35,831,808 pairs or 71,663,616 in­di­vid­u­als) make up the largest op­er­at­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion of ser­a­phim, an an­gelic army. A se­raphic host is com­manded by an arch­an­gel or by some other per­son­al­ity of co-or­di­nate sta­tus, while the an­gelic armies are di­rected by the Bril­liant Evening Stars or by other im­me­di­ate lieu­tenants of Ga­briel. And Ga­briel is the “su­preme com­man­der of the armies of heaven,” the chief ex­ec­u­tive of the Sov­er­eign of Neb­a­don, “the Lord God of hosts.”

38:6.3Though serv­ing un­der the di­rect super­vi­sion of the In­fi­nite Spirit as per­son­al­ized on Sal­ving­ton, since the be­stowal of Mi­chael on Uran­tia, ser­a­phim and all other lo­cal uni­verse or­ders have be­come sub­ject to the sov­er­eignty of the Mas­ter Son. Even when Mi­chael was born of the flesh on Uran­tia, there is­sued the super­uni­verse broad­cast to all Neb­a­don which pro­claimed, “And let all the an­gels wor­ship him.” All ranks of an­gels are sub­ject to his sov­er­eignty; they are a part of that group which has been de­nom­i­nated “his mighty an­gels.”