What was Jesus doing throughout the 4,000 years of Old Testament history? Was He just idling His time away while waiting for His incarnation? Did He have no interest in or involvement with Old Testament believers? Of course he did. In fact, on numerous occasions, He broke into Old Testament history by way of Theophanies (“God-appearances”), also called Christophanies (“Christ-appearances”). These were appearances of the Son of God in human form, or some other symbolic form.
Today I’d like to introduce the biblical assumptions that must undergird our study of these Old Testament appearances of the Son of God. Tomorrow, we will look at some of the lessons we can learn from the appearances themselves. But first, the biblical presuppositions. 1. The Son of God is the eternal Son of GodAs the second person of the Godhead, equal in power and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Son of God is identified with all God’s purposes, messages, and actions. Therefore, when we are preaching from any of God’s Old Testament thoughts, words and deeds, we may legitimately infer the association and identification of Christ with them. He was not just a silent, detached observer throughout the Old Testament. Also, specific Old Testament actions are ascribed to the Son in particular. For example, the Son of God had a special role in the creation of the world (John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2), and also in “holding together” that creation afterwards (Col. 1:17, Heb. 1:3). Therefore, when preaching on creation, or on the laws found in nature, and the suspension of them (e.g. in the Old Testament miracles), we may preach Christ’s role in such Old Testament passages. 2. The Son of God is the usual way God speaks to humanity
God communicates with sinners through both general and special revelation. General revelation describes the universal communication of divine truth through creation, providence (Rom. 1:19-20), and conscience (Rom. 2:13-15). General revelation cannot save, as it cannot reveal the Savior – only our need of Him. Special revelation is the more selective communication of divine truth through visions, dreams, voices, etc., much of which has been written down in the Bible by the process of inspiration. Special revelation has a saving purpose, as it reveals not only our need of a Savior, but also God’s provision of one. The Son of God is the communicator of God’s special revelation. Behind every vision, dream, voice, and every word of Scripture was the Son of God. This is why He is called the eternal Word (John 1:1,14). He has always been God’s chosen communicator of special revelation, sometimes via the Holy Spirit, to humanity. He has always been the one mediator between God and man, even before He assumed human flesh. God has never spoken directly to mankind, but only and ever through the Son. John Calvin wrote:
Holy men of old knew God only by beholding him in his Son as in a mirror (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). When I say this, I mean that God has never manifested himself to men in any other way than through the Son, that is, his sole wisdom, light, and truth. From this fountain Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others drank all that they had of heavenly teaching. From the same fountain, all the prophets have also drawn every heavenly oracle that they have given forth.[1]
Some have concluded from Hebrews 1:1-2, that God only started to speak to humanity through His Son when He came to this world. However, these verses are not saying that until God sent his Son into the world, the Son did not speak to us. Rather, the Apostle is contrasting the indirect way the Son spoke to us through the prophets in the Old Testament, with the direct way He spoke to us in His earthly life.
Another possible objection is the baptism of Christ (Matt. 3:17), where the Father’s voice was heard. This is one of the very rare exceptions to the rule of God’s normal way of working, probably due to the unprecedented and unrepeatable occasion of Christ beginning His public ministry. The exceptional nature of some other similar occasions can also be easily proved. But these rare exceptions do not undermine the biblical presupposition we began with: the Son of God is the usual way God speaks to humanity (Update: see here for another helpful explanation of these “exceptions”). So, we can preach Christ from the Old Testament, by highlighting that it is His Word; it was He who communicated it from God to man. The Old Testament is as much Christ’s message to us as the New Testament. As the Apostle John wrote: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10). 3. The Son of God is the usual way God appears to humanityJust as the Son of God is the usual way God speaks to humanity, so also the Son of God is the usual way God appears to humanity. As no man can see God the Father and live (Ex. 33:20), no one has seen Him at any time. Rather, the Son makes Him known safely (John 1:18). We must, therefore, conclude that every appearance of God in the Old Testament was the Son of God, the pre-incarnate Christ. This is confirmed by John 12:38-41, which expressly identifies the appearance of God in Isaiah 6:1 as the Son of God. The form of the divine appearance varied – sometimes it was in angelic form, sometimes in human form, sometimes in the form of fire, etc. But each time it was the Son of God who was appearing. Not only was the second person of the Godhead the audible voice of God, but He was also the visible face of God, the Father and the Spirit remaining invisible to man. He is the way Moses saw “him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27). Jonathan Edwards explained:
And therefore, when we read in sacred history what God did from time to time towards his church and people, and what he said to them, and how he revealed himself to them, we are to understand it especially of the second Person of the Trinity. When we read of God’s appearing after the Fall, from time to time, in some visible form or outward symbol of his presence, we are ordinarily, if not universally, to understand it of the second Person of the Trinity…He is therefore called, ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col. 1:15), intimating, that though God the Father be invisible, yet Christ is his image or representation, by which He is seen, or by which the church of God hath often had a representation of him that is not invisible, and in particular that Christ has after appeared in a human form.[2]
The early Church Father, Tertullian, put it like this:
It was the Son who judged men from the beginning, destroying that lofty tower, and confounding their languages, punishing the whole world with a flood of waters, and raining fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord pouring it down from the Lord: for he always descended to hold converse with men, from Adam even to the patriarchs and prophets, in visions, in dreams, in mirrors, in dark sentences, always preparing his way from the beginning: neither was it possible, that God who conversed with men upon earth, could be any other than that Word which was to be made flesh.[3]
Again the only exception to this was at that unique event of Christ’s baptism when “the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove” (Luke 3:22).
4. The Son of God is the Angel of the LordThe term “Angel of the LORD” occurs 59x in the Old Testament, and “Angel of God” occurs 9x. The word translated “angel” in our Bibles means “a messenger” in both the Greek and the Hebrew. Angels, then, are primarily God’s messengers, sent forth by Him to minister to the heirs of salvation (Heb. 1:14). However, there would appear to be a special Angel who appears from time to time in the Old Testament, an Angel who is given divine titles, performs divine functions, and accepts divine worship. In the light of our previous discussion, we must conclude that this Angel is the pre-incarnate Christ, God’s special Angel, or messenger, for special people at special times. Malachi, who used angelic or messenger language to predict the coming of the incarnate Christ, confirms this (Mal. 3:1; Luke 7:27). This Angel, the Son of God, was sent to reveal God and can equally say with the incarnate Christ, “He that has seen me, has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Also, like the incarnate Christ, the Angel of the Lord is the brightness of the Father’s glory, the express image of his person (Heb. 1:3). Hengstenberg wrote:
Wherever appearances of Jehovah are mentioned, we must conceive of them as effected by the mediation of His Angel. There is no substantial difference betwixt the passages in which Jehovah himself is mentioned, and those in which the Angel of Jehovah is spoken of. They serve to supplement and explain one another.[4]
To prove that this visible and audible “Angel of the Lord” was the pre-incarnate Christ, we need only prove the Angel’s deity. If the Angel was divine, he was the Son of God. For, as we have seen above, God was only made audible or visible through the Son of God. Here are six proofs of this Angel’s deity.
(i) He claims divine authority: He speaks as only God can (Gen. 16:10) and swears by Himself (Gen. 22:15-16), (ii) He is a distinct divine person: At times He is identified with Jehovah. There are other times, though, where there is a clear differentiation, to highlight the distinct individual persons of the Godhead (2 Sam. 24:16; Zech. 1:12) (iii) He exhibits divine attributes: For example, Hagar realized that this Angel had an omniscient awareness of her personal circumstances: her name, occupation, and location (Gen. 16:7-8). He also knew her current status of being pregnant, the gender of the child, and even directed the selection of his personal name (16:11). Consequently, she designates Him as “the God who sees” (Gen. 16:13) (iv) He performs divine actions: He utters curses of divine judgment (Jdg. 5:23), judges and destroys sinners (2 Kings 19:35), redeems sinners (Gen. 48:15-16) (v) He receives divine homage: God says that the Angel is to be treated as God (Ex. 23:20-21). He receives sacrifice from Gideon (Judg. 6:20-21), and is there called Jehovah Shalom, the LORD is peace (v. 24). (vi) He is identified as God: The literal translation of Hagar’s words in Gen. 16:13 is, “Then she called (the) name of the Lord, the one speaking to her ‘You (are) (the) God of appearance’ for she said ‘Have even I seen here after (the) one who sees me?’” In Genesis 22, the Angel of the Lord and the Lord are spoken of as one and the same person (Gen. 22:12, 15-16). In Genesis 31:13 the Angel identifies Himself as God (Gen. 31:13). Manoah confirms this identification (Jdg. 13:21-22) Charles Hodge points out the uniqueness of this Angel:If this were a casual matter, if in one or two instances the messenger spoke in the name of him who sent him, we might assume that the person thus designated was an ordinary angel or minister of God. But when this is a pervading representation of the Bible; when we find that these terms are applied, not first to one, and then to another angel indiscriminately, but to one particular angel; that the person so designated is also called the Son of God, the Mighty God; that the work attributed to him is elsewhere attributed to God himself; and that in the New Testament, this manifested Jehovah, who led his people under the Old Testament economy, is declared to be the Son of God, the λογος, who was manifested in the flesh, it becomes certain that by the angel of Jehovah in the early books of Scripture, we are to understand a divine person, distinct from the Father. [5]
So, as this Angel is God, and as God usually reveals Himself through His Son, we must conclude that this Angel is the pre-incarnate Son of God in angelic or human form. And in answer to our question, the Son of God was very busy throughout the Old Testament. We’ll look at what that tells us about Him tomorrow.
For further study, see the DVD and Study Guide series on the Angel of the Lord from HeadHeartHand Media.________________________________ [1] John Calvin, Inst. 4.8.5 [2] Jonathan Edwards, The History of Redemption (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2003), 23. [3] Tertullian, quoted in Richard Watson, Evidences, Doctrines, Morals and Institutions of Christianity, (New York: T. Mason and G. Lane, 1836), 1:501. [4] Ernst W. Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament (Florida: Macdonald Publishing, 1854) 82. [5] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Originally Published 1872. (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 1:485.
