I recently wrote and presented this paper on the Angel of the Lord. For some reason, I am no longer able to copy and paste my papers into blogger like I was able to a few months ago, so I am having to go about this in a different manner. Therefore, I will not have my footnotes and sources for this paper. However, once I finish uploading this paper to the blog, I will publish all of my sources into a separate post. Sorry for the inconvenience. Here is the paper:
Throughout the history of the church, Christians have struggled with the doctrine of God. Ranging from discussions on the character of God Himself to discussions on how God should be viewed as a Trinity, Christians have continued to debate how the God of the Bible should be viewed. Many of these discussions have been solved, giving Christians some solid ground to unite around. For instance, if a person does not accept the doctrine of the Trinity today, then they are no longer considered to be part of the Christian faith, for that is one of the central doctrines of Christianity. However, there are still some discussions in the world of Christianity that have not been settled, areas where people continue to debate by searching the Scriptures and seeing what the church fathers have come up with over the last two thousand years. One such instance deals with the passages that speak of “the angel of the Lord.”
Who is this mysterious being that speaks to the Patriarchs in the opening books of the
Bible? Ultimately there seem to be three options: “(1) It is simply an angel with a special commission. (2) It may be a momentary descent of God himself into visibility. (3) It may be the Logos himself (Christ) ‘a kind of temporary preincarnation of the second person of the Trinity.’” Over the last two thousand years, all three of these views have been considered and held by many of the church fathers, and like many debatable topics in the Church, there have been trends of thought where one of the options were more prevalent than others at certain times in history. So the question that remains is who was right? Have scholars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries developed a final answer? After looking through several commentaries on these various passages, it seems as if there is still much confusion as to the true identification of the angel, but significant ground has been covered.
So what does Scripture itself say about the angel? The final word on this difficult doctrine should not lie on the shoulders of these great men of God but on the word of God. Therefore, it is important to look at the passages in which the angel of the Lord appears and see if Scripture can provide a definitive answer of this staggering question. Throughout the Old Testament, God sends the angel of the Lord to deliver messages to many of the Patriarchs. One of the first instances of his appearance is found in Genesis 16:7 where he promises Hagar that she will bear a son to Abraham. In chapter eighteen, the text states that the Lord appears to Abraham, but then it mentions that there are three men with Abraham. Although these men are not specifically called angels, it shows some messenger of the Lord (maybe even the Lord Himself) in a physical body speaking with Abraham, which has caused scholars to wonder if these instances with the angel could be paralleled to this passage. In chapter nineteen, two angels appear in Sodom to destroy the city, and once again the question arises as to their connection with God. Furthermore, some wonder if these might be the other two men that had appeared to Abraham in chapter eighteen. Later, in chapter twenty-two, an angel once again appears to Abraham, this time to prevent him from sacrificing Isaac. Finally, in chapter thirty-one, an angel appears to Jacob in a dream but declares that he is the Lord. In these five passages alone, the dilemma is introduced, providing a basis for each of the three options listed above, causing one to wonder who this angel is and if he can be connected to God.
But the problem is only further complicated as Scripture continues. In Exodus 3, the identity of the being to whom Moses is speaking shifts mid-text. The text first claims that an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses, but a few verses later it states that it was the Lord who met with Moses at the bush. A similar instance occurs with Joshua in Joshua 5. Instead of an angel, the text identifies the man as the commander of the Lord, but the situation is very similar to the other appearances of the angel. Furthermore, the man tells Joshua that he is standing on holy ground, which could possibly mark this man as being divine. Finally, in Judges, there are several more instances when the angel of the Lord appears to God’s people. Judges 6 shows another shift where the passage begins with the angel speaking and ends with the Lord speaking, this time to Gideon. Yet Judges 13 introduces the angel of the Lord to be strictly an angel, such as when Manoah’s wife says that the man looked like a messenger of the Lord.
Although this listing of passages is not exhaustive, for there are other instances at which the angel of the Lord appears to God’s people, it encompasses a good selection of occurrences that must be dealt with. How should these passages be read? Can this angel be directly identified as God, or is it simply a messenger of the Lord? And finally, what have some of the church fathers and heroes of the faith had to say about such passages? Although it may not be wise to fully depend on the opinion of others, for Scripture is the basis of our faith, their studies and conclusions can prove to be valuable. Therefore it is important to consider what men like Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther had to say about the angel of the Lord.
Stay tuned as we look next at what some historical figures said about these passages...
Matt
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