The angel of the Lord: Who is He?

12 June 2022

The angel of the Lord: Who is He?

The word “Lord” as used in Scripture has two connotations. First, it is used as a polite title and second, as a divine title. In the first century, the word “LORD” was used to translate YHWH. When the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew to Greek, they used “Kyrios” (LORD) to translate YHWH. The word LORD (Kyrios) therefore, came to be accepted as a proper name of God. The Jews and the Christians alike, will never use Kyrios (LORD) to refer to anyone. If they do, it would imply that they regard that person as God.

Arguably, the most mysterious figure in the Bible, particularly, in the Old Testament is “the angel of the LORD”. He appeared to Abraham, Hagar, Isaac, Jacob, Manoah and his wife, Moses, Joshua, and many others. The Hebrew word malak translated as “angel” actually means “a messenger”. As a messenger, the “angel of the LORD” must be a distinct person from the LORD as the sender and the sent cannot be the same person [1]. Let us examine some key passages that deal with the appearances of this special angel.

His Appearance to Hagar

The first time we see the angel of LORD in Scripture is in Genesis 16:7. Here, he appeared to Hagar near a spring in the desert and he promised to multiply Hagar’s descendants (Genesis 16:10). Obviously, the angel promised what only God could do. Of particular interest was the fact that the author declared the angel of the LORD as LORD. Hagar said to him “You are El-Roi”; for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing Him?” (Genesis 16:13, NRSV). Here, Hagar identified the angel with God (El-Roi, the God who sees) [2].

Second Appearance to Hagar

The angel of God again appeared to Hagar in the wilderness of Beersheba after Abraham had sent her and Ishmael away (Genesis 21). Hagar feared that Ishmael would die and withdrew a short distance from him, so as not to see the agonising death of the child, and wept bitterly (Genesis 21:17). Here, the angel of God distinguishes between himself and God, of whom he speaks in the third person, “God has heard the voice of the lad” (Genesis 21:17). At the same time, he continues in the next verse to repeat the promise made before, saying, “I will make of him a great nation” (Genesis 21:18). The speaker here is God Himself, yet a person distinct from God [3].

His Appearance to Abraham

The angel appeared again in Genesis 18. Here, we are told three angels appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. In Genesis 18:13, one of the angels is referred to as the LORD. As the angels turned toward Sodom, the one identified as the LORD, spoke to Abraham about plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sin (Genesis 18:17). Throughout Abraham’s intercession on behalf of the cities, the angel is addressed as LORD, a title given only to the true God. The angel spoke as the LORD and assumes the authority of God, to pardon or punish as he saw fit [4].

When it was time to execute the verdict pronounced on Sodom and Gomorrah, we are told, “Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the LORD out of the heavens” (Genesis 19:24). A careful reading of this text shows that the LORD at Sodom was a distinct person from the LORD in heaven. The one on earth at Sodom was the angel of the LORD and the one in heaven was the LORD [5].

His Appearance to Jacob

In Genesis 32:24-32, we are told Jacob wrestled with an angel, who blessed him, and in seeing him Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face” (Genesis 32:30). He claims to be “the God of Bethel”, that is, the God who appeared to Jacob at Bethel, and to whom Jacob made a vow (Genesis 31:13). The prophet Hosea refers to this event, when he says, “He [Jacob] struggled with the angel…; he wept and begged for his favour. He found him at Bethel and talked with him there—the LORD God Almighty, the LORD is his name!” (Hosea 12:4-5). The angel, with whom Jacob wrestled, is declared by Hosea to be the LORD God Almighty [6].

Jacob himself confirmed the divinity of the angel in Genesis 48:3. When Jacob was about to die, he decided to bless Joseph’s sons and adopt them as his own. Genesis 48:15 reads: “Then he blessed Joseph and said, ‘May the God before whom my father Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has delivered me from all harm—may He bless these boys.” In this benediction, he called this angel both “God” and “the angel”.

In Jacob’s blessing, we realise that the angel cannot be different in essence from God Almighty because the blessing of the angel was the same as that of the God who shepherded him. It was also the same as that of the God of Abraham and Isaac. This is evident in the statement, “…may He bless these boys”. The three descriptions, “God before whom…the God who has been my shepherd…and the angel who has delivered me…” together have the pronoun “he”, not “they”. This implies that the angel who delivered him was also God [6].

His Appearance to Moses

In Exodus 3, the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the burning bush. Moses got curious and drew near to observe this startling sight. God called unto him, out of the bush and instructed him not to draw closer. Furthermore, He declared, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). Moses then hid his face; because he was afraid to look upon God.” In this passage, the angel of the LORD is identical to the LORD and is declared to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob [6]. There are other instances where the angel of the LORD appeared to people and either was referred to as God or was ascribed things that only God could do.

Who is the Angel of the LORD?

A created angel?

The question that has echoed down the centuries is, “who is this mysterious angel”? In trying to answer this daunting question, three schools of thought have emerged. The first school holds that the angel of the LORD is a created angel, one of the spirits who wait continually on God and does His will. According to this line of interpretation, the angel assumes divine titles, claims divine prerogatives, and accepts divine homage, because as a representative of God he has the right to the titles and honours of God. Hence, he speaks as God because God speaks through him. Though this interpretation sounds good, it seems to be very unlikely given that the cases in which he is presented as given are many and the claim to be divine is explicit. Also, God is not always presented in the Bible as one person and so the harmony of the Bible would be affected should we bend the “rules” in favour of this hypothesis [8].

Sender same as sent

The second position is that the angel of the LORD, though divine, is not personally distinct from the LORD Himself. Thus, it was one and the same person who sent and was sent; was the speaker and the one spoken to. From the logic that the sender and the sent are not the same, this hypothesis is definitely invalid.

Pre-incarnate Christ

The third school of thought argues that the angel of the LORD is pre-incarnate Christ. The angel of the LORD is thus the second person of the Trinity. According to Amevenku and Boaheng, this position appears to be more convincing, given the overarching theme of Scripture as a promise given and later fulfilled in Christ. This theme points to the primary and fundamental revelation of the great divine truth of God’s self-disclosure in the angel of the Lord, on which all the subsequent revelations of Scripture are founded. The various Old Testament passages refer to a person called the angel of the LORD who, on the one hand, is identified with the LORD and on the other hand distinguished from the LORD. He accepts divine worship, claims divine authority, exercises divine prerogatives, and receives divine homage [9]

Moreover, it is observed that after the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the angel of the LORD appeared no longer. Amevenku and Boaheng, however, assert that the activity of the angel of the LORD was not different from that of Jesus. Like the angel, Jesus was sent by the Father (John 5:36, John 16:28), speaks for the Father (John 3:34; 14:24), exercises the Father’s power (Matt. 28:18), forgives sin (Matt. 9:2), and receives worship (Matt. 14:33; John 9:38). In Luke 24:27, it is said of our Lord Jesus Christ that “beginning from Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Later in the New Testament, appearances of angels, like Peter in prison, would read “an” angel and not “the” angel as applied in some translations. Because the apostles now knew Jesus. A face had been put to The Word, so to speak. All this implies that before Jesus Christ was incarnated (came in human form), He had come to the earth to interact and intervene in the affairs of people. Indeed when Jesus said “before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58), He knew exactly what He was talking about.

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References

[1] Frederick M. Amevenku & Isaac Boaheng. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, (Accra: Noyam Publishers, 2022), 20.

[2] Frederick & Isaac. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, 21.

[3] Frederick & Isaac. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, 21.

[4] Frederick & Isaac. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, 21.

[5] Frederick & Isaac. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, 21-22.

[6] Frederick & Isaac. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, 22.

[7] Frederick & Isaac. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, 23.

[8] Frederick & Isaac. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, 26.

[9] Frederick & Isaac. “Essays In Exegetical Christology”, 27.

Samuel Daniels