One
of the most important contributions of the early Jewish-Christian community to
our understanding of Jesus is the connection they made between Jesus and the
Angel (or Messenger) of the Lord.* This
mysterious being appears in several places in the Hebrew Bible. He has the appearance of a man, yet speaks
and acts like God. This identification
was an important early step in the development of the idea of the Trinity: that the Angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate
Word of God, is God himself, yet is distinct from the Father.
* The Bible’s words for “angel” (malach in Hebrew and angelos in Greek) mean simply messenger. Whether this refers to a human messenger, a spirit-being messenger (an angel), or God himself acting as a messenger must be determined from the context.
One
of the most well-known appearances of this Messenger of the Lord is as one of
the three men who appeared to Abraham at Mamre (Gen. 18:13,17,20). In the passage, one of these visitors is identified
as the LORD God himself: “and the LORD said to Abraham” (Gen. 18:13). Later, this same LORD rained fire and
brimstone on Sodom “from the LORD out of heaven” (Gen. 19:24). This is a clear reference to two distinct
entities—the Father in heaven and the Son on earth—that share the divine name
(LORD, YHWH in Hebrew) and are
together one God.*
*
Evidence for this understanding among the early Jewish-Christians can be seen
in their controversies with the rabbis in which they used passages like these to
argue for the divinity of Jesus (Sanh. 38b).
Here’s
a list of the other appearances of the Messenger of the Lord where he is
specifically referred to as God or the LORD:
1)
The messenger that spoke as God to Hagar, identified as “the LORD” (Gen. 16:7,9-11,13; 20:17,18): “the
LORD who spoke to her” (Gen. 16:13).
2)
One of the three men, also identified as messengers (Gen. 19:1), that appeared
to Abraham (mentioned above, Gen. 18:1-2,13,22; 19:1,24): “And
the LORD appeared to him” (Gen. 18:1).
3)
The messenger that spoke as God to Abraham at his offering of Isaac (Gen. 22:11-12,15-18):
“You have not withheld your son, your
only son, from me” (Gen. 22:12).
4)
The messenger that identified himself as “God”
to Jacob at Bethel (Gen. 31:11,13): “I am the God of Bethel” (Gen. 31:13).
5)
The man identified as “God” that
wrestled with Jacob at Peniel (Gen. 32:24,28,30): “I have
seen God face to face” (Gen. 32:30).
6)
The messenger identified with God in Jacob’s three-fold blessing that he spoke
over Joseph’s sons (Gen. 48:15-16): “The God before whom my fathers...walked,
the God who has been my shepherd..., the messenger who has redeemed me from all
evil” (Gen. 48:16).
7)
The messenger identified as “God”
that spoke to Moses from the burning bush (Exo. 3:2,4): “God
called to him from the middle of the bush” (Exo. 3:4).
8)
The messenger with God’s name in him that went before the children of Israel in
the desert (Exo. 23:20-22): “My name is in him” (Exo. 23:21).
9)
The appearance of God before Moses and the seventy elders on Mt. Sinai,
traditionally identified as an angelic messenger: “And
they saw the God of Israel” (Exo. 24:10).
10)
The “LORD” (#1) who descended and
stood by Moses as the “LORD” (#2) passed
by in front of him (Exo. 34:5-6): “And the LORD descended in the cloud and
stationed himself with him there” (Exo. 34:5).
11)
The captain of the Lord’s army, identified as “the LORD,” that spoke to Joshua (Joshua 5:13-15, 6:2): “And
the LORD said to Joshua” (Josh. 6:2).
12)
The messenger that spoke as God at Bochim (Judges 2:1-5): “I
brought you up out of Egypt” (Judges 2:1)
13)
The messenger identified as “the LORD”
that spoke to Gideon (Judges 6:11,14): “And the LORD turned toward him” (Judges
6:14).
14)
The messenger, identified as a “man of
God” and “as God” who appeared to
the parents of Samson (Judges 13:3,6,8,22):
“We have seen God” (Judges
13:22).
15)
The “messenger of great counsel” in
the old Greek (Septuagint or LXX) version of Isa. 9:6, who in the Hebrew is
called “mighty God, eternal Father.”
16)
The “messenger of his [God’s] presence”
in Isa. 63:9, referring to Exo. 23:20-21.
17)
The man that glowed like metal in Ezekiel’s vision of the storm cloud, who
speaks as God (Eze. 1:26-27, 2:3-7): “And I am sending you to them...and you will
say to them, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says” (Eze. 2:4).
18)
The messenger who speaks as God before Joshua the high priest (Zech.
3:1-10): “And the LORD said to Satan” (Zech. 3:2).
Later,
under the influence of Greek philosophy, the idea of Jesus as the angelic
messenger of the Lord was misused. Some
began to teach that Jesus was “just” an angel, that is, that he was a type of created
spiritual being, and was therefore not God.
This view became very popular in the Arian heresy of the 4th
century, and lives on today in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In response, the Church
cooled to the idea of Jesus as the Angel (Messenger) of the Lord, and the
teaching was actually denied by Augustine of Hippo (5th century). But it remains an important Biblical teaching
when understood in the original sense that Jesus, the messenger of God, is in
fact God revealed to us, yet at the same time is distinct from the Father
God.
(For more on this topic, see our teaching Does God Have Parts? or the index category the Angel of the Lord.)
(For more on this topic, see our teaching Does God Have Parts? or the index category the Angel of the Lord.)
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