Scriptural instances when the Angel of the Lord speaks as if He were God:
Genesis 16:9-12, "The Angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.” Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.” And the Angel of the Lord said to her: “Behold, you
are with child, And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; His hand
shall be against every man, And every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren"
Exodus 3:2-4, "And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush
was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”
Judges 2:1-2, "Then the Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this?"
(There are more, but I'll stop here.)
The Angel of the Lord explained who He was.
Exodus 3:2, 6, 7, "And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush
was not consumed. Moreover He said,
“I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.
And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who
are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows."
Verse 14, "And God said to Moses,
“I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel,
‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
There are many more passages in the Bible that demonstrate that the Angel of the Lord is, in fact, God Himself.
The Angel of the Lord Identified With God.
Judges 13:21-22, "When the Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He
was the Angel of the Lord. And Manoah said to his wife,
“We shall surely die, because we have seen God!”
The Angel of the Lord also accepts worship:
Worship belongs to God and Him alone. Yet the angel of the LORD was worshipped by Moses and Joshua (
Joshua 5:13-15).
The Angel of the Lord has the authority to forgive sin.
Genesis 48:16, "The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, Bless the lads; Let my name be named upon them, And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”
Exodus 23:20-23, “Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off."
Zechariah 3:3-4, "Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel. Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, “Take away the filthy garments from him.” And to him He said,
“See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.”
The Bible says that only God can forgive sin.
The Angel of the Lord as protector of Israel
Exodus 14:19–20, "And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness
to the one, and it gave light by night
to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night.
The Israelites might have escaped Egypt, but they were still incredibly vulnerable. In
Exodus 13:21–22, we’re told: "
And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night
from before the people.
The pillars of cloud and fire that had been leading the Israelites were linked to the Lord, but then it’s identified with the angel of the Lord. This is another clear example where the two identities are used interchangeably.
The Angel of the Lord Is Jesus.
First, we know the Godhead is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but in
John 6:46, Jesus says,
“ Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father.” Since no one has seen the Father, and since people
did see the Angel of the Lord, we can, therefore, know that the angel of the Lord cannot be the Father.
Second, the Holy Spirit never takes human form, and rarely does the Spirit take any form. He took the form of a dove when Jesus was baptized (
Matthew 3:16), and as tongues of fire at Pentecost (
Acts 2:3-4), but He is never shown in scripture to assume the form of man. Therefore, we have no reason to assume these OT appearances of the Angel of the Lord are the Holy Spirit.
Finally, Paul says that Jesus has always been the
"image of the invisible God" in Colossians:
Colossians 1:15-20, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased
the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross."
Consequently, the Angel of the Lord is the image of the invisible God in the days before Jesus took on flesh (pre-incarnate Christ). Furthermore, the Angel of the Lord never appears in the New Testament, once Jesus took on flesh, nor after His resurrection. The only mention of such a person in the New Testament is described as
“an” angel of the Lord, but never
“the” Angel of the Lord. Once God the Son appeared as flesh (incarnate Christ), there was no longer a need for Him to appear in any other form as
“the Angel of the Lord”.
Finally, it's interesting to consider that the word
“angel” means messenger. A messenger is one who is sent from someone else to deliver a message, and of course, Jesus fits this perfectly. He says in
John 8:18,
“I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.” Just as the Father sent Jesus, so also did He send the Angel of the Lord. Based on all the above, we conclude that Jesus was the Angel of the Lord.
