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• ESPAÑOL: ¿Es Jesucristo ‘El Ángel del Señor’?

Hi my name is Dean Smith and in this podcast I want to discuss the mysterious Being in the Old Testament called ‘The Angel of the Lord.’

When you study some of the sects that broke off of Christianity, such as Mormonism and the Jehovah Witnesses, it was due largely to disagreements on the divinity of Christ. 

The Jehovah Witnesses claim that Jesus is not God and that He is a created being. They consider Jesus the highest of all God’s created beings and even the first one God created, but insist that Jesus was not divine. They even insinuate that Jesus is actually Michael the Archangel.

The Mormons followed a similar path, stating that Jesus was created and therefore not divine. But they went one step further and added that Lucifer was Jesus’ brother. 

But Christ’s divinity is not only clearly taught in the New Testament, it is also seen throughout the Old Testament where we see Christ in His Divine pre-incarnate form.

Jesus is the ‘I am’

To see that connection, we start with John 8:48-59, where Jewish leaders accused Jesus of having a demon. 

Jesus responded by saying that Abraham was overjoyed that He would see the day Jesus would come.

The Jews replied it was utter nonsense because Jesus wasn’t even 50 years old and He was claiming to have seen Abraham.

Then Jesus takes it one step further, stating quote “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am” Verse 58.

The Jews were outraged. They knew exactly what Christ was doing. He was claiming to be God, which is why they sought to stone Christ for blasphemy in verse 59.

This is because Jesus not only said he existed before Abraham, but called Himself “I Am,” the very name of God. 

Of course, this claim takes us back to the story of Moses’ encounter with the burning bush while he was minding his father-in-law’s flock in Midian.

We read in Exodus 3, verse two:

“Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of [a]a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not being consumed.”

In this passage we read that The Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the bush. 

But then something strange happens in verse 4:

“When the Lord (Jehovah) saw that he turned aside to look, God (Elohim) called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”

The Angel of the Lord who is in the bush is then referred to as both Jehovah and God. 

When the Angel of the Lord told Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, Moses asked who shall I say sent me. The Angel of the Lord answered, “I am who I am” in verse 14.

The Angel of the Lord, who is also Jehovah and God is called the “I am” and in the Gospel of John, Jesus said He was the “I Am. 

So was Jesus stating that He was the The Angel of the Lord?

The first thing we need to realize is that the Angel of the Lord is not an angel. 

The Hebrew word, malak, translated angel in this passage simply means messenger. It refers to a role. The same word is used to refer to messengers sent from kings in the Old Testament, but it is also used of angels.

The Angel of the Lord is both the messenger of God in this passage and God Himself. He speaks for God and as God. 

Secondly, like English, Hebrew has a definite article “the” which is used to describe and emphasize one particular being.

So while we have references to angels, there was only one that was referred to as the Angel of the Lord. He is differentiated because He is also God.

We see this in many of the other passages that refer to the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament.

The Angel of the Lord and Abraham

In Genesis 22:1, we read that God (Hebrew: ‘Elôhı̂ym) commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. 

When Abraham arrived at the mountain, and was about to sacrifice Isaac, we read that it was the Angel of the Lord who stopped Abraham from doing it.

But look at what happened. We read:

11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 And the Angel of the Lord said, “Do not reach out your hand against the boy, and do not do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” (Genesis 22:11-12).

But look at the strange way the Angel of the Lord explains this. First He talks about God in the third person, when The Angel of the Lord says Abraham feared God. But then the Angel of the Lord says you have not withheld your only son from ME.

In the NASV, the word Me is capitalized. The Angel of the Lord is God because He was going to receive the sacrifice intended for God. But He is also separate from God.

Then in verses 16-17, the Angel of the Lord called down from Heaven stating because Abraham had not withheld his son, the Angel of the Lord says “I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens.” 

The Angel of the Lord is the One who will bless Abraham and expand his lineage. This is exactly the same thing that God promised to do in Genesis 12:1-3.

The Angel of the Lord is the God of Bethel

We see the same thing happening in Genesis 31:11-13, when Jacob had a dream. We read, “The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ I answered, ‘Here I am.’” quote The Angel of the Lord then goes on to say quote “I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a memorial stone, where you made a vow to Me” (Genesis 31:13 NASV).

In this dream, The Angel of the Lord says He is the God of Bethel. Of course that is where Jacob had the dream of angels ascending and descending on a ladder to heaven and set up a memorial stone dedicated to God at this location.

Jesus Led Israel in the Wilderness

I will leave you with one final example. We read in Jude 9:

“Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved[a] a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.”

So Jude says that Jesus was the one who delivered Israel out of Egypt. Note some translations state that it was the Lord who delivered Israel out of Egypt, but verse before (verse 8) clearly implies that Judes is talking about Jesus in verse 9.

The Apostle Paul says much the same thing when he warned “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents” (1 Corinthians 10:9 ESV).

Paul was referring to when the Hebrews were wandering in the wilderness and complained about their food and we read that the Lord (Jehovah) sent venomous snakes and many people of Israel died (Numbers 21:6).

So who was this Lord? Paul is clearly saying that the Lord was Christ.

But in Exodus 14:19, we read that it was “the angel of God” who led Israel out of Egypt going before them and behind them as a pillar of cloud.

But look at what God says about The Angel of the Lord:

20 “Behold, I am going to send an angel [literally messenger] before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21 Be attentive to him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your rebellion, since My name is in him. (Exodus 23:20-21).

God says that the Angel or Messenger of the Lord has the ability to forgive or not forgive their sin. 

This Angel of the Lord is like Jehovah in that regard.

This leads to the interesting encounter that Jesus had with the scribes after healing a paralyzed man in Matthew 9. It wasn’t so much that the Lord healed the man, but rather how Jesus did it that got the scribes upset.

We read in verse 2 that Jesus healed the man by forgiving his sins. In verse 3, the scribes were in a blather and accused Jesus of blasphemy because only God can forgive sin. But according to Exodus 23, the Angel of the Lord can also forgive sins.

The Angel of the Lord in the Pillar of Cloud

Then we see this another connection between Jesus and The Angel of the Lord. 

In Exodus 33:9-11, we read when the pillar of cloud descended on the Tabernacle, that Moses would go and talk to the Lord. Of course, as we previously stated it was The Angel of the Lord who was in the pillar of cloud.

But look at what it says in verse 11, “So the Lord {Hebrew Jehovah} used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.”

Again, the Angel of the Lord and Jehovah are one. But Moses could see the Angel of the Lord face to face and spoke to Him as a friend. 

But there was a second Jehovah, who when Moses asked to see His Glory, on Mt Sinai was told, “You cannot see My face, for mankind shall not see Me and live!” Exodus 33:20. Seeing this Jehovah’s face would kill Moses, so he only saw God’s back.

So there was one Jehovah, who Moses could see face to face and talk to as a friend, but another who Moses couldn’t see face to face.

We also see this in the New Testament, as John explains in chapter 1 verse 18;

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”

Though no one has seen God the Father, Jesus reveals God to humanity.

In John 14:9, Jesus says “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” and in verse 11 adds, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

So Jesus reveals God the Father to us, and in the same way, Moses could not see God, but could see the Angel of the Lord who because He is also God, represented God or the full godhead to Moses.

God’s Name is in the Angel of the Lord and in Jesus

Then when God told Moses that His name was in the Angel of the Lord in Exodus 23:21. In John 17:6, Jesus speaking to the Father said, ‘I have manifested Your Name to the People.”

In order for Jesus to manifest God’s name to the people, the name of God must be in Christ, just like it was in the Angel of the Lord. 

Jesus and the Father are one but also separate. 

The Angel of the Lord is God, yet separate from God. He speaks for God and speaks as God. 

This doctrine in the Old Testament proved to be a big quagmire for the Jewish theologians.

In his book, “Two Powers in Heaven”, Jewish Rabbinical scholar, Allan Segal writes that before the second century AD, Jewish rabbis accepted from their study of the Old Testament, that there were two powers in heaven. Two deities revealed by Jehovah and the Angel of the Lord.

However, Segal says that changed after the first century AD when Christians claimed that Jesus was this second deity. So as a result the rabbis rejected this Old Testament teaching and emphasized the oneness of God.  

But in closing Let’s not forget the prophet Isaiah’s description of the Messiah in Isaiah 9:6:

“For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God. Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Jesus is called the Mighty All-powerful God. He called the “Everlasting Father God, who is without begining and end. In other words, Jesus and the Father are one, yet separate.

Jesus is the Angel or Messenger of the Lord who became flesh and dwelt among us. 

Thanks for joining me on this podcast and I will catch you again.