The preincarnate Christ often appears in the OT as “the Angel of the Lord.” One of the strangest occurrences of this is found in Judg 13:3-21. The Angel of the Lord appears, as a man, to a barren woman and tells her that she will give birth to a son. (The son is the famous OT character, Samson.) In answer to the prayer of Manoah—the woman’s husband—the Angel of the Lord returns to tell Manoah the same piece of good news. 

Manoah does not know who the Man is; he evidently thinks He is a prophet. Manoah invites Him to eat with him and his wife. The Angel of the Lord says that He will not eat with them, but that they should offer a sacrifice to the Lord. When they do, the Angel of the Lord ascends to heaven “in the flame of the altar” on which the sacrifice was offered. It is then that the couple realizes they have seen God. Manoah is sure they will die (cf. John 1:18). 

What is the author’s purpose in recording the details of this encounter with the Lord? While the author does not say, we can make a very good guess. Eating with the Lord is a sign of fellowship with Him. During the time of the judges, the nation of Israel was out of fellowship with God. Immediately before the couple meets the Angel, the text repeats a common refrain in the book of Judges: “…the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.” The couple’s slowness in recognizing their Visitor strongly suggests that they were like their countrymen. 

God cannot have communion with sinful people, even if they are believers. The OT couple’s sacrifice was an acknowledgment of their sin. That needed to take place first.   

The NT teaches the same thing. Eating with the Lord is a picture of communion with Him. The church at Laodicea was out of fellowship with the Lord because of its sin. He called the believers there to repent so that they could eat with Him (Rev 3:19-20). Repentance is turning from a habitual sin. That is what most believers in Laodicea needed to do before they could grow closer to the Lord—before they could eat with Him. 

If a believer who is walking in the light (1 John 1:7) becomes aware of a sin, he needs to confess that sin to the Lord in order to be forgiven and cleansed (1 John 1:9). If he does not, he is out of fellowship with the Lord. We could say he has stopped eating with Him. 

The Angel of the Lord was telling Manoah and his wife that they were a picture of the nation. The Lord would not eat with them because they had done evil in His sight. The first thing they needed to do was confess their sin and turn from it. A sacrifice to the Lord was a picture of that confession and repentance.  

We can make another application from this story. Not all Israelites were believers, but the nation was God’s chosen people. Even though they had sinned against the Lord in egregious ways, they were still His people, and He loved them. In this account, the Lord appears to this couple even though He will not eat with them. Though they don’t deserve it, God will send Samson to help them through difficult times.  

The same is true for the believer who is out of fellowship with the Lord. The believer who needs to confess or repent of his sin is still a child of God. Such a believer is not close to the Lord, but he still has eternal life. The Lord won’t eat with him, but still wants what is best for him, just as He wanted what was best for Israel and for the believers at Laodicea.