The Angel is God - The Son in Exodus 3

Moses met God in the burning bush, but which person? Let's have a look.

Exodus 3:1-6 (HCSB)

1 Meanwhile Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 Then the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. 3 So Moses thought: I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn't the bush burning up?

4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, "Moses, Moses!"

"Here I am," he answered.

5 "Do not come closer," He said. "Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." 6 Then He continued, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Moses sees the Angel of the LORD in a bush and goes and investigates. The LORD sees Moses and God calls out from the bush and says that he's the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God tells Moses to take his sandals off, for this is holy ground he's on. Moses realising who he's looking at hides his face as he, at the very least, thinks that the Angel of the LORD is God. He isn't rebuked for that action.

Is Moses mistaken the Angel of the LORD for God? Or is the Angel of the LORD the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?

Let's see what Jacob says:
Genesis 48:15-16 (HCSB)

15 Then he blessed Joseph and said:
The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,

16 the Angel who has redeemed me from all harm —
may He bless these boys.
And may they be called by my name
and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,
and may they grow to be numerous within the land.

The God of Jacob, whom he says his father and grandfather saw and walked with, is 'the Angel'. The Angel of the LORD, according to Jacob and Moses is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

What about the request to take sandals off? Here's the only other time this request is made:
Joshua 5:13-15 (HCSB)

13 When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in His hand. Joshua approached Him and asked, "Are You for us or for our enemies?"

14 "Neither," He replied. "I have now come as commander of the LORD's army."

Then Joshua bowed with his face to the ground in worship and asked Him, "What does my Lord want to say to His servant?"

15 The commander of the LORD's army said to Joshua, "Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

The commander of the LORD's army is Joshua's Lord - that doesn't mean much though, what's more interesting is the worship - is it because the Commander is God? This strange figure also gives Joshua the same order as God gave Moses. Is this also the Son?

Finally, let's hear who the Angel of the LORD says he is:

First, Exodus 3:16-17 (HSCB)

"Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I have paid close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt.

Moses has seen God - but it was TAOTL in the bush that he saw - Moses has found out the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacobs's name - the LORD, Yahweh (they are the same word rendered differently). There's some plurality of God here - how can the LORD, and something 'of the LORD': the Angel of the LORD both be God - a singular? How can they be the same. You need some form of plurality and unity at the same time.

Secondly, Judges 2:1 (HCSB)

The Angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, "I brought you out of Egypt and led you into the land I had promised to your fathers. I also said: I will never break My covenant with you.

Who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt?

Exodus 20:2-3 (HCSB)

2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

3 Do not have other gods besides Me.

The LORD brought them up about of Egypt and the first command is that the LORD, the God who is theirs, who brought them out of Egypt is the only God they should have. If so, how come the Angel of the LORD says he did. Also, what about that promise: Exodus 6:8 (HCSB)

I will bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD."

I think you'll agree with me that the The Angel of the LORD is claiming to be God, doing the things that God does. Either he is God, everything is very odd or the Angel of the LORD isn't 'of the LORD' but a blasphemer.

Jesus as God wasn't made up by those at Nicea in the early 4th Century. If it was made up at all, and not true, it was made up by Moses as he wrote Genesis, or even Abraham himself! This makes the Pharisees' claims of following Moses to be utter rubbish, this vindicates Jesus' claims about the Law and Abraham witnessing to him.

The Saving Son in the Old Testament

Recently there has been a long discussion on this issue stemming from here.

Is Christianity some upstart 2000 year old thing, or is it the faith of Abraham, Moses and David? Did they just trust God (non-specific about which person), or did they specifically trust the Son? This isn't some theological discussion of little importance, this is an apologetic that is as relevant now as it was in the second Century when Justin Martyr was trying to show the Romans (who disliked modern ideas) that it's the oldest religion. If Christ is there, obvious, in the OT, it debunks the neo-Marcionism that there's a disparity from the God of the OT and the God of the NT; it debunks the idea that Christianity nicked stuff from the Pagans, as the dates for doctrines are pushed back well into the Bronze Age at least; it debunks all the Constantine/Paul made it all up nonsense completely; it debunks modern Judaism's claims to being old; it answers the critics of the NT's weird quoting of the OT; it addresses the problem of other religions; it debunks the type of dispensationalism that teaches that there was a different way to God for the Jews; it vindicates Jesus' rebukes of the Pharisees, scribes and teachers for not seeing him despite knowing the Law.

The Saving Son is PROMISED in the OT

Right from Genesis 3:15, a son is promised, a seed, that will crush the serpent, the deciever,'s head. God promises a solution. The focus narrows as he makes his promise to Abram in Genesis 12, and further still. David is promised a king among his descendants that never stops reigning, narrowing the blood line yet further and giving yet more details about the role of the Seed.

The Saving Son is PICTURED in the OT

There's a great many pictures - not least the Passover, the lamb that is slain to save from death. Also there's the Day of Atonement - one goat is called "the LORD", the other is called "scapegoat". "The LORD" is killed for the sins of the people. Additionally there's the whole load of cool theology in the setting up of the tabernacle (more on that at some point, I promise). Other pictures include various people: Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon as well as various events.

The Saving Son is PROPHESIED in the OT

Isaiah has some of the most obvious ones, not least the song of the Suffering Servant and the 'unto us a child is born' bit. There's of course other prophesies, by other prophets as well that tell us more about the who and what of the Seed.

The Saving Son is PRESENT in the OT

The controversial one - is the Angel of the LORD (TAOTL), God but also distinct from God? Are there times when the Son, the second person of the three, appears? I'll go into this in more detail in another post. However, here's something cool:

The Angel of the LORD also said to her, "I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count." Then the Angel of the LORD said to her: "..." So she named the LORD who spoke to her: The God Who Sees, for she said, "Have I really seen here the One who sees me?" (Genesis 16:10-11a, 13)

She named the LORD "The God Who Sees", however it was the Angel of the LORD that spoke to her. The Sent One of Yaweh - not a sent one, but the Sent One, the God Who Sees. Hagar is confused, naturally - she can't believe God has spoken to her, not that she doesn't think that TAOTL might not be God.

And something else:

The Angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, "I brought you out of Egypt and led you into the land I had promised to your fathers. I also said: I will never break My covenant with you. You are not to make a covenant with the people who are living in this land, and you are to tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed Me. What is this you have done? (Judges 2:1-2)

"I brought you out of Egypt", "I had promised", "My covenant with you", "You have not obeyed Me" - if the Angel was just that, an angel, then he has no right to say this, for it is the LORD who the the is about. If TAOTL was not God, he wouldn't be allowed this terrible blasphemy. There's no "this is what the LORD says" preface - the Messenger of God here is saying what he thinks, because he is God.

I find the footnote in the NIV for Jude v5 amusing - the main translation says that "the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt", with a footnote saying that the earlier manuscripts have 'Jesus', not 'the Lord'. The English Standard Version, New Living Translation, Wycliffe New Testament and the NET Bible are the only ones I could find that have the balls to make it explicit - 'the Lord' is a common New Testament way of saying Jesus and verse 4, calls Jesus 'our Lord' (also calls God 'the only Lord', but the Greek word for Lord is different - thanks Mr Strong and his numbers!)

Even the wimpy translations have 1Cor10:4 as Christ being in the wilderness with Israel after the Exodus. The New Testament proclaims that Christ appeared in the OT, that he is TAOTL.

There's lots more TAOTL passages which mostly raise the question - who is this, if not God? I won't deal with this now, as otherwise I'd have a huge post.