ANNOUNCER: In the Bible, the Old Testament especially, we see the term the Angel of the Lord. Who is this Angel of the Lord? We’ll spend some time today thinking about this, here on Grace in Focus. Welcome, friend, we’re glad you’re with us. Grace in Focus is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Find out more about us at faithalone.org. There you will find information about our conference ministry, about our online seminary where you can earn an MDiv degree, and our blogs. We produce blogs daily and you can subscribe to them right through this website, faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s discussion here are Bob Wilkin and Philippe Sterling. 

BOB: Okay, Philippe, do we want to do the Angel of the Lord or you’re also talking about how the Messianic thread relates to our own death and resurrection, future resurrection, but I guess we advertised we’ll do Angel of the Lord this time. So you want to do that this time? 

PHILIPPE: Sure, we can do that. That’s such a great topic and there’s so much. 

BOB: And we’ll see how far we get with this. But the Angel of the Lord, I think in Hebrew it’s Malak Yahweh, right? And I remember hearing a paper at the Evangelical Theological Society, and a speaker argued that the Angel of the Lord is not the preincarnate Christ. And I remember talking to Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who was in the audience after it was over, and I said, what did you think? And he said, I don’t know about his Messiah, but my Messiah appeared all over the Old Testament, to all kinds of people. And I agree with the Dr. Fruchtenbaum. 

PHILIPPE: Yes. Of course, we began with the question and who was walking in the cool of the day? It’s somebody that they’re having direct interaction with. It’s a divine being.

BOB: well, John 1:18 says no one has seen God at any time, but His only begotten Son has revealed Him. So if no one has ever seen God, then they couldn’t have seen God the Father in the Garden. They could see the Son of God in the Garden. They could see the Second Member of the Trinity, the Messiah. And that’s what they saw. And there’s lots of examples of where the expression, the Angel of the Lord is used, but we find out that the people say, I’ve seen God and I didn’t die. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, I’ve seen Yahweh. And the first occurrence, the first clear identification of the Angel of the Lord, that also seems to be Yahweh is with Hagar in Genesis 16:7-13. So it may be good to to read the entire section. 

“Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. And He said, ‘Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going? ‘ “And then she explains,  “I’m fleeing,” verse 9, “The Angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your master.” So He keeps talking whoever and makes a promise: “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly.” And the Angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are with child” and what will be with this child, but note verse 13, “Then she called the name of Yahweh, who spoke to her.” 

BOB: Moses is identifying the Angel of the Lord here as Yahweh. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, exactly. And spoke to her and she calls Him, “You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees, for she said, ‘Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” So she’s directly, seeing One and just calling him Yahweh, the one who sees me who completely. 

BOB: And by the way, it seems quite possible that Hagar may well be a believer, and Ishmael too. It would be surprising if they weren’t since Abraham saw the preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ in Genesis 15 and he believes in Him in Genesis 15. You would think he would be someone who is sharing this with his family. Of course, he met with him earlier in Genesis 12 also, but there he doesn’t yet come to faith. 

PHILIPPE: And the linkage, I think that I think clarifies this for me that Ishmael most likely was a believer, when Abraham dies, we’re told both Isaac and Ishmael come together to bury him. And the idea is, I think that he recognized the whole matter of the promise of resurrection and ultimately will be there because we see that in Hebrews 11 as well. But here is just verse 13, she called the name of the Yahweh who spoke to her. You are the God who sees. 

So Yahweh and Elohim as well here, and she called the place, my pronunciation is not going to be right, Beer Lahai Roi, wordplay, about God, the God who sees me, basically, that is there. And so Hagar then brought Abraham his son and Abraham named him son Ishmael. But this encounter of Hagar and everything that is happening identifies the Angel of the Lord as an incarnate form of Yahweh that is there. 

BOB: That’s great. Now you’ve got a chart here. Have we ever put this in the magazine? Give me an article on this and we’ll put it in the magazine. But there’s another one you’ve got. The next one is what? 

PHILIPPE: Genesis 22 with Mount Moriah when Abraham’s offering up Isaac. Let’s look at verses 11 to 18, of Genesis 22. So it says, I have verse 11, “But the Angel of the Lord,” so again, a clear statement identifying him, “called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.” So here, perhaps the third heaven somehow intersects.

BOB: Of course, we don’t know if heaven is the third heaven or the first heaven, he could just be in the cloud. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, that’s right. He appears in the clouds, probably, that’s most likely, to speak with Abraham and says, “Because you have not withheld your son,” your unique son from me, “your only son.” And of course, we know that Isaac was not the only son of Abraham, because there was Ishmael as well, but the unique son, the chosen. 

BOB: And he had other sons later with Katurah, but this is, in a sense, his only son, because this was the son of promise, and it was the only one through Sarah. 

PHILIPPE: Right. That’s going back to Genesis 15 and 18,  to Sarah. “Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord,” and that is Yahweh, “Will-Provide” as it is said to this day, “In the mount of Yahweh, it shall be provided.” What’s going to be provided? Well, it’s this substitute for Isaac. The ram represented this substitute, but ultimately, there’s a greater one that will come, but identified with somehow Yahweh and the Angel of the Yahweh. So that’s, again, who appeared to Abraham, spoke to Abraham here. 

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PHILIPPE: Now, of course, we know from Genesis 18,  after a whole matter of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, that Yahweh had come down in human form with two angels.

BOB: You have three men appear, but they’re actually two angels and the Lord Jesus, the angels of the Lord. And the two go off to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Meanwhile, there’s this negotiation between Jesus and between Abraham where he says, how about 50 righteous people, will you spare the city and gets all the way down to 10. He’s like, okay, I won’t spare it if there are 10, but guess what? The Lord’s hard-pressed to come up with four. We’re not even sure about Lot’s of wife, but she turns back and becomes the model for Morton’s salt. All right. Very good. What’s the third one? 

PHILIPPE: Well, Exodus 3:1-9, the Angel of the Lord with Moses. 

BOB: Right. This is the old burning bush passage and take off your sandals because you’re on holy ground. 

PHILIPPE: And the whole idea of worship, this angelic being, the Angel of the Lord.

BOB: And he’s called the Angel of the Lord in verse two. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah. Verse two, and the Angel of the Lord appeared to him. And so it’s not just simply a flame, a burning bush that Moses sees, but I think it’s the whole glory of the Lord, the actual appearance of the Angel of the Lord there. “So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.” And then verse four, “When Yahweh saw that he turned aside to look,” and that’s the identification of the Angel of the Lord with Yahweh, simply Yahweh, and then “God.” So that’s Elohim, “God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!” “Here, I am,” and “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground,” because of his appearance there. And he identifies himself. “He said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon,” who? 

BOB: God. And no one has seen God the Father at any time, so this must be God the Son. So the Angel of the Lord here is the preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ. 

PHILIPPE: And yet Moses is able to see, to hear, to converse with Him.

BOB: We often think that Old Testament saints really didn’t know anything about Jesus. They saw Him face to face, many of them did, and it’s possible He appeared in every generation from the time of Adam and Eve all the way until Malachi, maybe even during the silent years, we don’t know. But He appeared to people in many generations, and so far we’ve seen a couple in Genesis, one here in Exodus, maybe we could end this session with Numbers, I don’t know if we have time to talk about Balaam.

PHILIPPE: The angel that’s there to stop him. 

BOB: Okay, Balaam’s coming with his donkey and the angel is standing in the path and the angel is going to kill Balaam, but the donkey talks, and after donkey won’t go on any further finally, there’s this discussion that goes back and forth and the angel says, I would have killed you, but for the donkey, right, but this Angel of the Lord is the Lord.

PHILIPPE: Yes. And exercising judgment, protection, ultimately, and not allowing Balaam to curse, but in Balaam’s prophecies, later on, concerns the one who’s going to come. I can’t think of the exact expression that’s used, but the Christ who will come.

BOB: Numbers 22:22-35, and do you think Balaam was a believer? There’s a lot of controversy on, he was a prophet, was he also a believer? 

PHILIPPE: He was acquainted with Yahweh, and of course he meets Him face to face here. And he prophesies some clear matters concerning Israel. So it may be that he really was a wayward prophet.

BOB: So he may be born again, we may see him in the kingdom, but it’s not crystal clear, right? All right. We better wrap it up there, but we’ve got some more on your charts. So we’ll pick this up next time because there’s a lot more on the Angel of the Lord, and we’ll hit a few more of these. In the meantime, keep grace and focus. ANNOUNCER: Be our guest and subscribe to our 48-page magazine, 6 issues per year also called Grace in Focus. It’s free by emailing your name and snail mail address to GES@faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment or feedback. If so, please send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s radio@faithalone.org. That’s radio@faithalone.org. And when you do, please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible. That would be a great big help.

On our next episode we will continue our focus on the Messianic thread running through Scripture.