Doctrines (posted Wednesday, February 28 2007)

In the Old Testament, believers were frequently visited by someone called the Angel of the Lord. This manifestation was a means for Jehovah to send information to His followers, but unlike dreams or visions or prophecies, it was an actual physical personage.

Who or what was the Angel of the Lord?

What is an angel?

In scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments, beings called angels appear with some regularity. As previously discussed in an article on the duties of angels, we learned that angels are beings created as messengers from God. By applying this definition, the Angel of the Lord must be some form of messenger from God.

However, this messenger has a special and specific title. The grammatical difference is slight, but important nonetheless. This messenger is not from the Lord as the rest are, but is a messenger of the Lord. Expanding this slightly for clarity, the Angel of the Lord is a messenger who is the same substance as the Lord; or one could say the Angel who is the same as the Lord. This is an important truth for reasons which will be examined below.

To clarify, this does not mean that God has a traditional angelic body or form. God is not part-angel and angels are not part-God. The created beings which we call angels are not related to the Angel of the Lord at all. It simply means that Jehovah sometimes manifested Himself as a special messenger in the Old Testament, which was given a special title: the Angel of the Lord.

Where does scripture prove this?

Just as everything else on this site, this claim must be backed up with the sound teachings from the Word of God. The Angel of the Lord appeared a number of times in the Old Testament, so to keep the article length manageable only a few will be examined here.

The first occurance of the Angel of the Lord in scriptures is to Hagar, servant of Sarai, wife of Abram. The Angel of the Lord encounters Hagar and has a conversation with her. At the end of this conversation, Hagar says that she has now seen and spoken to God. No regular angel would have allowed her to call him God, except one who is God: the Angel of the Lord.

- Genesis 16:7-10,13 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered. Then the Angel of the Lord told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." [...] She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me."

Further on in the Old Testament, the Angel of the Lord claims to have personally brought the Israelites out of Egypt as He swore to their forefathers. As before, a regular angel would certainly not claim credit for these achievements when they were performed by the one true God.

- Judges 2:1-4 The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.' Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you." When the angel of the LORD had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud

The final event for this brief study is when Gideon was worried that he would die because he saw the Angel of the Lord face to face. This did not worry people when regular angels appeared to them, but was a frequent cause for concern when men saw God.

- Judges 6:20-23 The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And Gideon did so. With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared. When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, "Ah, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!" But the Lord said to him, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die."

Other occurances of this title which can be studied include Moses and the burning bush, Balaam's donkey, Samson's birth, and a number of events in the life of King David.

Conclusion

Therefore, scripture shows that the Angel of the Lord was a physical manifestation of God to man in the Old Testament. In every case when this title is used, the context indicates that God Himself is speaking through a manifestation which the Bible calls the Angel of the Lord, and that the people who spoke with the Angel of the Lord clearly knew that He was God. In theology, this is called a "theophany": an appearance of God, as deity, to man.