The Angel of the Lord, in Scripture, is a conundrum for Christendom. Most Bible scholars agree that all ‘Angel of the Lord’ appearances are pre-incarnate interactions of Jesus.
Problem, Hebrews 13:8 says,
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Why is this a problem? Well, we have seen up to this point in the series that the Angel of the Lord speaks with the full authority of God. Now, we see that His expectations at Sinai are the same! Yep, Jesus was at Mt. Sinai and He is the Lawgiver! But, that is running ahead a bit.
When I first began studying the Angel of the Lord, I found something blindingly obvious, and amazing. Moses spoke with the Angel of the Lord at Mt. Sinai. Here are the details from a post a couple years ago. If Yeshua/Jesus is the Angel of the Lord, and it is the Angel who Moses spoke with on Sinai who gave the Torah, and Yeshua/Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, then Christendom has a serious non-sequitur when they claim He ‘did away with the Torah,’ or ‘we don’t have to do that.’
Just a few minutes ago a good friend who is on this walk texted me Hebrews 11:26,
I’ve never noticed that, but the author of Hebrews is clearly familiar not only with the Angel of the Lord as pre-incarnate Yeshua, but further alludes to the validity of the Book of Jashar that mentions several encounters before the burning bush. |
The challenge for Christendom is that if they indeed believe the Angel of the Lord is Yeshua and He is unchanging, then the Judges 2:1-5 passage completely blows the ‘did away with Torah’ argument out of the water.
2 Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you, 2 and as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not [a]obeyed Me; what is this you have done? 3 Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they will [b]become as thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.’” 4 When the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5 So they named that place [c]Bochim; and there they sacrificed to the Lord.
When Yeshua says,
John 7:16 So Yeshua answered them and said, “My teaching/doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your [a]countrymen, you shall listen to him. 16 This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.’ 17 The Lord said to me, ‘They have [b]spoken well. 18 I will raise up a prophet from among their [c]countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.
Folks, as evidenced throughout Scripture, the Angel of the Lord is the visible voice and presence of Yehovah. He speaks in first person with all of the authority of the echad living Elohim! He accepts worship and sacrifice.
Now, another side note: Christendom refers to Messiah’s ‘first coming’ and ‘second coming.’ Scripture never uses either term…. I submit that we shouldn’t either. The fact is, in one sense He has been here many times, and in another sense, He has always been here…. What we look for, like Judah, is the coming of the Messiah as Melek Yisrael, the lion of the tribe of Judah.
Blessings and shavua tov!
natsab 
We need a “love” button for this one 🙂
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I was afraid I pulled too much together in one post, particularly the numerous links…. I didn’t want to rehash parts I had previously covered…
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I liked it – a one-stop shop 🙂
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You know that is a great point about not using the terms first and second coming. Excellent.
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And, thank you for the additional morsel you provided this morning… 😉
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Delicious breakfast morsels!
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Appearances of Y’shua Mashiyach in Tanakh – Andrew Gabriel Roth (AGR) translator of the Aramaic English New Testament (AENT) spoke last month at Tabernacle of David, Burnsville, MN on ‘The 24 Tanakh Appearances of Yeshua’. I have been working through that teaching bite by bite over the last couple of weeks. You or your listeners may want to check his research:-) (http://youtu.be/7jJwnzKzqX0)
You mentioned a few verses from Hebrews and here is Hebrews 13:8 from the Aramaic and AGR’s note from the AENT (5th edition) on 13:8 to may give an appreciation of his thinking on the topic. Hebrews 13:8 “Y’shua the Mashiyach is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Note 72 pg 426: ‘Rav Shaul knows Y’shua as the Word of YHWH who is Mashiyach, as the same yesterday, today, and forever, and all things were created by the Word of YHWH from the beginning of time. It was Mashiyach who spoke with Noah and Awraham and gave the Torah to Moshe, which is why it is very wicked for Christians to speak evil of Torah and suggest that Israel could not keep the Torah which was given to them, when YHWH Himself says, “But the word is very nigh unto you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it” (D’varim/Deut. 30:14)’ Andrew is from the Tribe of Judah and became a follower of Y’shua haMashiyach after his anti-missionary work. (The Note does bring up a different topic, I notice – there was never doubt from the Aramaic manuscript side that Paul authored Hebrews. It was part of the package so to speak – Just a side-bar). Shalom. Phil in AK
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Good addition. Love it. Gonna drop you an email. I want to connect you with two friends in AK.
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I love the AENT and Roth’s work. I used it this morning myself 😊
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Pete,
Great post! never thought about 1st and 2nd coming as heresy. You are correct “he has been here many times”, indeed as the hymn says “he was there all the time”!
Thanks you,
Barry
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Not sure I’d call it heresy, but I’d say it doesn’t line up with Scripture…
Blessings.
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And if you are entering in on this post, you may find this link helpful as it pulls Parts 1-4 together. 😉
https://natsab.com/?s=%22Angel+of+the+Lord%2C+Pt.%22
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“What we look for, like Judah, is the coming of the Messiah as Melek Yisrael, the lion of the tribe of Judah.”
This speaks to the single greatest division between Judaism and Christianity. If we could all grasp this truth, then the division would disappear.
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