ANNOUNCER: This is Grace in Focus. Today, the conclusion of our week-long series about Jesus’ preincarnate appearances. There were some remarkable preincarnate appearances of Christ during the time period of the judges. Let’s look at a couple of them today to Gideon and to Manoah and his wife, Samson’s parents. Thank you, friend, for joining us. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Find us at faithalone.org, where you can also find hundreds, if not thousands, of articles that are written from a Free Grace perspective, all available to you for your research and reading, along with our subscription-free magazine also called Grace in Focus. You can find out about our events and about our online seminary with full scholarships. And there are other things as well. That’s faithalone.org. 

And now with the conclusion of our discussion about Jesus’ preincarnate, Old Testament appearances, here is Bob Wilkin, along with David Renfro. 

BOB: Well, David, we’re coming to the end of our caravan on the appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ before His incarnation. By the way, I have a theory that probably for all of eternity, Jesus has been the God-man. In other words, from all of eternity, He’s had a body. Before the creation, I believe He had a body and that what happened at the incarnation was, He went from this body which He had, to being the baby or the zygote and then the fetus and the birth, etc. But He’d always had a body. 

And the reason I suggest that is otherwise, what you have to argue is every time He appeared, He took on bodily form and then He didn’t. But you’d have to say it was almost like an appeared body. But it didn’t just appear as a body. When he was with Abraham in Genesis 18, he ate food. 

DAVID: He ate food. And like we mentioned earlier, in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve heard him walking. 

BOB: Right. And saw him. And we’re going to look at two other people today from the Book of Judges. One is the parents, Samson was one of the judges, and his parents. And then you’ve also got Gideon. You remember Gideon with the fleece and Gideon with the 300 and first he’s got, what. 10,000 and God cuts it down or there’s 300. Both of them thought they were going to die because they saw God. So which would be the first one in Judges, is that Judges 6? 

DAVID: That would be Gideon in Judges chapter six, actually from six to eight. 

BOB: We both said this is one of our favorite books in the Old Testament. 

DAVID: I have a commentary on Judges in it, the title of it is Distressing Days of the Judges. So when I taught Judges, it was like, hey, if you want to be depressed, go to the book of Judges because it’s a story of incredible decline spiritually of God’s covenant people. 

BOB It is. But it’s also about the grace of God. Oh, absolutely. 

DAVID: Over and over and over. 

BOB: Time and again, he raises up these judges to deliver the nation even though for most of the time they’re in rebellion. 

DAVID: Right. And it’s just fascinating that the Lord would continually show His abundant grace to a people that absolutely does not deserve it. 

BOB: Okay. So let’s look at Gideon. What does it start around verse 11 of chapter six.

DAVID: Right. It says, here we go again, “The Angel of the Lord,” capital A, “came in sat under a terabinth tree.” Terabinth, I think, is kind of like an oak tree or something like that. “Which was in Ophhra which belonged to Joash, the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites.” See, that’s the thing is, the nation Israel was plagued by enemies and that was part of God’s discipline during this period of judges before the king. 

BOB: And Gideon’s going to be the one to deliver them. And Gideon wasn’t exactly the highest paragon of virtue, but he did do what God wanted him to do. 

DAVID: He obeyed the Lord, that’s for sure. 

BOB: Notice that he came and sat down under this tree. So this is somebody in an actual body. 

DAVID: It has to be a, well, we would consider a physical body. But an omnipotent God, that’s no problem. 

BOB: Right. But notice verse 12, “And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor.’ ” And he’s like, “Oh, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then is all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles, which our fathers told us about?” In other words, they know about all the miracles that were done in Egypt and in the wilderness wanderings and everything else. 

DAVID: Well, to me, it’s even more, you know, because he said, if Yahweh is with us, how can we be in this miserable, defeated situation? And you know what that implies, that Yahweh can’t do anything about it. So to me, this is a verse of unbelief. 

BOB: It is. And so then it kind of goes back and forth between Gideon and the Lord. And the Lord says you’re going to save Israel. This is the Old Testament concept of salvation, which is deliverance from temporal difficulties. And he’s going to save Israel from the Midianites. And he, like Moses, he’s like, well, who am I to do that? And so then he says, well, okay, if you’re going to do that, give me a sign. And what’s the sign he gets? 

DAVID: Well, he goes in and he prepares a young goat and ephah of flour and all that stuff and, you know, Angel of the Lord, verse 20 says, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on the rock, pour out the broth…The Angel of the Lord,” verse 21, “put out the end of the staff that was in His hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread, and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the bread.” 

BOB: So here’s his first sign. 

DAVID: And then I love it. Then the Angel of the Lord departed. Boom. He started the fire then left. 

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BOB: And what does Gideon say in verse 22? Judges 6. 

DAVID: Well, I love what it says here. It says, “Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of Yahweh,” the capital A. You know, before that, he thought who is this when the person under the tree, then in later in verse 22, he said, Gideon says, “Alas, oh Lord God! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.” Isn’t that amazing? 

BOB: And then the Lord said, “Peace be to you, do not fear you shall not die.” You see, the common understanding was. if we see God, we’re going to die. Right. And he saw God, but God said, don’t fear you’re not going to die. 

Now, let’s fast forward to Manoah. Now, Manoah was the father of Samson and Manoah also saw the Angel of the Lord and Manoah also feared that he was going to die. What chapter is that in judges? 

DAVID: That’s Judges 13 and it goes what all the way from verse 2 to about verse 22 or so. 

DAVID: It mentions in verse 2 this guy “from Zorah of the family of the Danites,” the tribe of Dan, “whose name was Manoah and his wife was barren, and had no children. And,” once again, there it is, “the Angel of the Lord,” capital A, “appeared to the woman and said to her, ‘Indeed, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.’ “ 

BOB: Another miracle. 

DAVID: In other words, the Lord is going to cause a complete violation of the physical world. In other words, it’s a miracle. 

BOB: Right. But guess what? She’s given instructions that other mothers are not given. She’s told, “Therefore, be careful not to drink wine or similar drink,” like even grape juice. “And do not eat anything unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son and no razors shall come upon his head. For the child shall be a Nazarite.” Not with an A-R are not Nazarene, but Nazarite, 

DAVID: Which was a special calling. 

BOB: Right. “To God from the womb,” which nobody else was like that, but this was from the womb. “And he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” And notice she says, “A man of God came to me,” so she told her husband this. And “like the countenance of the Angel of God,” and Manoah prayed and says, please let this man of God come back. Now at this point, I don’t think he recognizes it’s God. Do you? 

DAVID: He might have suspected it before, but I don’t know that he was confident in what he believed or what he saw. So I think that’s the reason why he has this other question. Please come back. verify what I just saw. 

BOB: And he says a little bit later when he meets this man, “Are you the Man who spoke to this woman,” man, capital M? “And he said, I am.” This reminds me of “before Abraham was, I am.” And he says, I am. And “Manoah said, ‘now let your word come to pass.’ ” And the angel of the Lord said to him, “Of all that I’ve said to the woman, let her be careful.” He then says, I want to prepare a young goat for you. And he says, “I will not eat your food, but if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to the Lord.” And then notice what it says verse 16, “For Manoah did not know that He was the Angel of the Lord.” And then finally in verse 22, he says, what? 

DAVID: “We shall surely die, because we have seen God!” So to somewhere along the line, 

BOB: He knew that he had seen God. And so Manoah said this to his wife. What I want to suggest is that we’re wrong if we think that Jesus first appeared in His ministry for three and a half years in Israel in the first century. Jesus appeared over the course of many centuries, going all the way back to the creation and the Garden of Eden and all the way through until all of the prophets through Malachi and probably even in the 400 silent years, Jesus appeared many times in the Old Testament to many different people. They reported it to others. And so the word percolated around not just in Israel, but in the Gentile nations as well. So they heard what God had done. That’s why Rahab, for example, knows in Jericho that the people of God are God’s chosen people and that He’s going to deliver Jericho into their hands and so she ends up and becomes a believer. And she’s spared and her family is spared and she ends up in the line of Messiah. 

DAVID: Yeah. Isn’t that amazing. 

BOB: Well, we’re out of time, David, but I love this study. It’s an amazing topic. Is it? And let’s remember to keep grace and focus. 

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Now, friend, we appreciate you. We thank you for joining us all this week on Grace in Focus. We are thanking God for you and asking Him to give you His peace and a great weekend as you serve Him. Then come back and join us on Monday. Find us at your favorite podcast provider for more Grace in Focus.