Jesus Is the God of Bethel

The Identity of the Angel of the Lord in Genesis 28 and 31

We've got ourselves in this state here. All right, Genesis 31. Actually, I'm gonna begin reading in chapter 28. Chapter 28, I'm gonna read from verses 10 all the way to the end, and then we are going to go to 31.

Genesis 28. This is a related topic to this morning sermon. This is about the identity of the angel of the Lord. Jacob left Beersheba and went to Haran, and he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set.

Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and laid down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.

And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac.

Excuse me.

I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.

And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place. I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, how awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

So early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first.

Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house.

And of all that you give me, I will give a full tenth to you. And if you turn over to Genesis 31, we'll read verses 11 through 13. Genesis 31, verses 11 through 13. Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, Jacob, and I said, here I am.

And he said, lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and modeled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me.

Now arise, go out from this land, and return to the land of your kindred.

Amen.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you would give us wisdom as we go to your word and we understand the events that you have described here. We know that these things are not to be glossed over, but to be understood, so we pray that you would help us to understand them.

We pray that they would be comfort to our souls. In Jesus' name, amen. So this is a question a lot of Christians have. Who is this angel of the Lord in scripture? Sometimes called the angel of God, sometimes not even called an angel at all, but clearly some messenger from the Lord, and Joshua is called the commander of the Lord's armies.

Who is this figure? The traditional interpretation, which I believe to be the correct interpretation, is that this is the pre-incarnate son. This is Jesus Christ, prior to being named Jesus, prior to being the Christ, the anointed one, as man.

He is appearing and being sent from God is guiding and directing his people. Now, the reason for this, or the reason for this message is multiple. However, one of the things that really struck me in my reading, I mentioned this morning that I read a lot of works on angels in the past two weeks.

Among the modern works that I read, I was surprised at how many, including some of the most scholarly and learned men, who rejected that the angel of the Lord is the son. Seems that this is a sad trajectory that learnings from older authors, a full-orbed understanding of the word as opposed to a narrow, specialized one that would not be able to see some of these truths because of so narrowly considering the facts.

If there are any today who are not sure, I would love for you to have confidence. The angel of the Lord is the son, and this should cause you to give glory to the son, and even rightly to appreciate angels better than you would otherwise.

The Angel of the Lord as the Son in Genesis 28 and John 1

So what has happened here in Genesis 28? In Genesis 28, Jacob is headed toward Laban in order to be with these relatives of his, in order to find a wife. And he has gone there, he desires to return to his father's home.

He has this dream, the angels going up and down this ladder. He sees the Lord, he awakes, he realizes that God is in this place. So he names the place Bethel, meaning the house of God, Beth meaning house, El meaning God, so Bethel, house of God.

Names the place the house of God. You see later that God even confirms his name, speaking, saying that he is the God of Bethel. He confirms that name, that that is his, that is a place where he was, where he was present.

And so Jacob, leaving his father's house, wanting to return to his father's house, makes a vow to the Lord that he will give a tenth of what he has to the Lord, that he will follow him all his days if the Lord brings him back to his father's house.

Then jump forward to Genesis 31, what is happening? Lord appears to him in a dream and tells him that it's time to return to his father's house. He is the same God that he, that appeared to him in that dream, he is the same God that he made a vow to, and now God is telling him that he can return to his father's house.

This passage is what I believe to be the clearest passage about the identity of the angel of the Lord. It was the angel of the Lord who appears to him in the dream, and the angel of the Lord tells him very plainly, I am the God of Bethel.

There is no God but one. This one is distinguished from God, so he is sent from God, and yet he is God. Who is it that is with God and is God? It is Jesus Christ himself. You see in John 1 what it says about this.

And just to explain the position more, the idea is not that every single time the phrase the angel of the Lord is used, that this refers to Jesus Christ. There are some times where the Bible introduces an angel of the Lord and later calls that angel the angel of the Lord.

In that case, that was just an arbitrary angel that is later described as the angel that had been referred to later. It is when you have a figure introduced as someone you should already be aware of. Someone who is a central figure that transcends this one incident, this one event, that you are to recognize that something special has happened.

There is a special messenger of God who likewise is God. John 1 says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

This speaks of Jesus Christ. He is the word. In the beginning he was with God, and he was God. Jesus Christ is with God and is God. He both has, he shares that one being with the Father, and yet at the same time is of the Father, comes of the Father.

And so when we see a figure in the Old Testament who is both sent by God and is God, who are we supposed to identify him as being? He is the word, he is the Son. Now, the theology of that is plain enough, but consider that Jesus himself interprets that passage.

Now, recall that back in Genesis 28, it had said that he saw the Lord standing above it. Now, you'll see a little footnote in your Bible if you look in Genesis 28 that it could mean beside him. Well, it could mean above it, above him, beside it, above it, right?

Like all four of those options are options. And so where are we to imagine him seeing the Lord? I think it's right to think of him as seeing the Lord above himself. Not so much above the ladder, but above himself.

Why?

Consider Jesus Christ's own interpretation of this event. He says in John 1, remember John 1, verse 1 says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The final verse of John 1 says this.

And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. Jesus himself interprets the scene in Genesis 28 as being a scene of him.

That the angels ascend and descend on him. And so what is Jacob seeing as he sees the Lord above? He is seeing the Son. The Son being that gateway to heaven. The Son being the ladder upon which you could have any communion with the angels.

The ladder on which you could have any access to heaven. The Son is that access. You know, I intentionally avoided making this point earlier so I could spend time on it here. We have that union with the angels in the Son.

I explained the sense in which we have that union and communion. What it means for that to be through our union in the Son. This is the most direct illustration of that. Jesus Christ is the one on whom the angels ascend and descend.

We have our communion with them through being in him because he is the ladder. Because he is the one who is above Jacob and speaks to him. And says very plainly, I am the God of Bethel. There are a number of devices and things that are called Jacob's Ladder.

There's a kid's toy. It's made out of, I think usually, rubber bands or lace and blocks of wood that kind of descends down like an infinite ladder. That's called Jacob's Ladder. There's the science device with the two prongs and the arc of electricity that travels up.

You know what I'm talking about? That's called Jacob's Ladder. Maybe each of the time you see those things you can remember, wow, it is in the Son. Me being in the Son that I have communion with the angels.

But this is not the only proof. There are countless proofs. And this is what blows my mind with why people are rejected. There are countless incidents that demonstrate that this is the Son. Consider that when he speaks, the angel of the Lord appears to Hagar and speaks and it says that it is God speaking to Hagar.

The angel of the Lord appears to Moses in the burning bush and it says that the Lord speaks to him out of the burning bush. Jacob wrestles with the angel. And then he says afterward that he saw the face of God.

And lived.

Manoah speaks to the angel of the Lord and afterward says that he saw the face of God and is terrified. Gideon speaks to the angel of the Lord and says afterward that he saw, he doesn't say the face of God, he says the angel's face, but he's terrified that he saw that.

Why?

Not because there's any consequence for seeing the face of an angel, but there's a consequence for seeing the face of God. It's not something men are made to see in this condition. Now God, whenever he demonstrates himself in these ways, he is always veiling himself to some extent so that we can endure it, just like when he passes in front of Moses, you know, behind a rock, et cetera.

But the reason that these men are afraid is because they know there is a consequence to seeing the face of God. And when they have encountered the angel, afterward they recognize that that was God and they say, I have seen the face of God.

Joshua, when he sees the commander of the Lord's armies, worships, bows down in worship of the commander of the Lord's armies. Angels in scripture reject worship. You see that in Revelation. But the commander of the Lord's armies receives Joshua's worship.

Likewise, when the angel of the Lord appears to Manoah, Manoah is Samson's father, by the way, if you don't know that name. When he appears to Manoah, Manoah offers him food and he refuses the food, but instead requires a sacrifice be made to the Lord.

And when the sacrifice is made, fire comes, he accepts it, et cetera. He is accepting worship in those incidents. When he speaks, it's identified as the Lord. People who've seen him say that they've seen the face of the Lord.

He accepts worship. Who is this but God and one sent from God, in other words, the Son. Consider another very direct testimony to this. In Genesis, excuse me, in Exodus. In Exodus 14, 19, it says, "'Then the angel of God, "'who was going before the host of Israel, "'moved and went behind them.

"'And the pillar of cloud moved from before them "'and stood behind them, "'coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. "'And there was the cloud and the darkness, "'and it lit up the night, "'without one coming near the other all night.'".

So the angel of God is going out before them, and now he's going behind them to protect them and camping around them, like we heard in the psalm that was our call to worship today. So the angel of the Lord is leading the people out of Egypt, okay?

He's leading the people out of Egypt. What does Jude 1 .5 say? Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

Jesus saved the people out of Egypt. What is he talking about? How did Jesus save the people out of Egypt? The angel of the Lord that was encamping around them, that was leading them out through the Red Sea,.

Who is that? It is Jesus.

Jesus is the angel of the Lord. Jesus is the God of Bethel. Now there are all kinds of arguments against this. Some of them might be plain by now, people saying, well, he's distinguished from the Lord.

You know, he says he comes from the Lord. Yes, so does the Son. The Son comes from the Father.

Correct.

That has nothing to do, that has no argument against this being the Son. Well, if the New Testament explains all these types and shadows in the Old Testament, why doesn't it explain who the angel of the Lord is?

I can give you a lot of reasons for that. The Old Testament is very large. The New Testament does not explain absolutely everything in the Old Testament. If it were to explain some things and not others, I'm pretty glad it chose to explain other things and not this one because this one was already obvious.

I'm glad it explained the less obvious things to me. Then other people will point out, well, in the New Testament, you have the same phrase, the angel of the Lord describing the angel who comes to Mary and the angel who comes to Joseph when Jesus has already been conceived, so that can't be Jesus.

That can't be Jesus.

Once again, the idea is not that every time the phrase the angel of the Lord gets used that it has to be the Son. Before it talks about an angel of the Lord appearing and then later says the in normal common language using a definite article to refer back to the antecedent that had already been mentioned.

It's not describing some figure that you were already supposed to know. It's describing a figure you're supposed to know beforehand from the previous sentence, but not describing a figure you were supposed to know beforehand before the narrative.

The angel of the Lord that we read about in Genesis, that we read about in Judges, et cetera, Exodus, this is one that you were supposed to know about before. This is the one who is promised. This is the one who would come from the, this is the seed of the woman who crushed the serpent's head.

This is the promised Messiah, this angel of the Lord, the one who would come from him. Now, others would say, well, Jesus is not like the angels. That's the whole point of Hebrews 1, and this makes him like the angels.

The word angel simply means messenger. For him to be called the angel of the Lord does not mean that he is ontologically similar to the angels, that he has the same limitations like they do, that he is not omniscient like they are not omniscient, and all those different limitations.

This is not saying that he is similar in those particular ways, rather saying that he is a messenger. You know, if you look up the word angel in the New Testament, for example, you can find that this is used of John the Baptist, that he's the messenger of the Lord, the Angelos.

You can find that he is the, that his disciples that are sent out are his angels, if you were to interpret it so narrowly. Now, translations recognize, okay, in that context, it just means messenger, so we translate it messenger, but the fact that something might be labeled an angel does not mean that it is ontologically angelic in its being like the same species as an angel, but rather that it is a messenger of the Lord, especially one of heightened status.

Now, others would say that this dilutes the importance of the incarnation, that Christ came in the incarnation, and so if he came before that, doesn't that dilute the importance of the incarnation? I think in a lot of ways, it explains it.

Christ was not absent all these years, only finally coming in the incarnation. Rather, he was encamping around his people the whole time. It was not the father doing all the work and the son just sitting back waiting for his time.

Rather, the son was being sent by the father even during that time. There was a pre-incarnate mission of the son is telling us who he is. There's a saying that mission teaches us of procession, so the nature of the father, son, and spirit, the son is begotten of the father, the spirit proceeds from the father and the son.

These are taught to us. We have no way of knowing that except through the missions of each, how we experience them in their missions, the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, the son, and the incarnation. However, that does not mean that those are the only ways that they interact with man.

Their mission didn't begin in the New Testament. The spirit is at work in the Old Testament, hovering over the face of the waters. The son is the word of God by which he created all things. Mission precedes the New Testament.

There are missions that precede the New Testament. So it does not dilute the incarnation. Rather, it prepares us for the incarnation, seeing in a shadowy way that there is one who is of God and is God, and this is the nature of this Messiah that we are supposed to be anticipating.

You know, think about these complaints that, oh, that would dilute the nature of the importance of the incarnation. Consider that Christianity gets a lot of other complaints on the other end, saying, you know, the Jews didn't believe in any kind of divine Messiah that was supposed to come, right?

How are we supposed to expect that Jesus is supposed to be God? Well, he's been telling us this whole time. So if we accept one complaint, the other complaint is invalid. That's not a foolproof argument, but my point is that the, yeah, if the idea is that this adds a weakness to Christianity or something, no, it has a strength.

It demonstrates that this was God's plan all along. He, his prophecies are given in such a way that you cannot understand what he is doing at the time, and this is what we're going through in Isaiah. This is what Isaiah is going to be explaining to us as we continue in Isaiah.

You cannot understand what all his plans are at the time, but afterward, he will have done it in such a way that you cannot deny that that's what he intended. And so this is exactly what he's doing. It's like the billiard player calling his shot, so it's not just, you know, he hit the thing and it went everywhere and one happened to go in.

He is calling the shot. God will become flesh. This is the promise given in Genesis 3 .15.

How do you know?

Because you see this angel of the Lord being sent of God who is God and is leading the people, and the people are anticipating a divine savior. He is calling his shot, and it's not just these. It is all these.

It is not just these incidents that I've mentioned later. All of these incidents you see in Scripture beyond those, consider that the angel of the Lord is the one who rescued Isaac from being sacrificed.

The angel of the Lord is the one who stopped, who halted Balaam. These are all the son. The son is likewise the one who appeared to David at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, the place where he would then make the house of God.

Consider the similarities there. Jacob encounters the angel of the Lord, calls it the house of God, sets up a pillar. David, at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, encounters the angel of the Lord, ends up making the house of God there at that site that Solomon builds.

Are these not supposed to be similar things? The angel being there, him realizing, wow, God is here because I've seen God. The son is the one who strengthened Elijah. The son is the one who defeated Sennacherib.

The son is the one who appears before Zechariah with all the horsemen among the myrtle trees. This is the son. He is such a central figure. To say that it takes glory away from Christ to call him the angel of the Lord and to lower him to make him like the angels, et cetera, is wrong.

This is a central figure in the Old Testament. This is the divine savior. This is the central saving figure, the one that camps around his people. If we were to say that this is a mere archangel, that would be to give a creature way too high a central place in the plan of God.

Rather, this is the son. This is the son. And so, do not make too much of angels. Colossians tells us not to let people deceive us, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels.

Why?

Because it is something that is tempting. It's tempting to think of high angelic creatures. Those who would make this divine saving figure a mere angel are engaging in such temptations. They are blending these identities in ways that are not conducive to honoring God as he is to be honored.

And abide in Christ. Abide in Christ. Know him more. He is the great savior. He is the one that gives you access to the angels. He is the one who establishes your communion with the angels. He is the one on whom they ascend and descend.

If you want those blessings that we spoke of this morning, those great blessings of the ministries of angels in greater measure, how can you have them? The more significantly you are rooted in that ladder, the greater access you have to angels.

And pray. Pray for his assistance. Psalm 35 gives us the following prayer. Psalm 35, verse one. Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me. Fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler and rise for my help.

Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. Let them be put to shame and dishonored, those who seek after my life. Let them be turned back and disappointed who devise evil against me.

Let them be like chaff before the wind with the angel of the Lord driving them away. Let their way be dark and slippery with the angel of the Lord pursuing them. Call for the help of the angel of the Lord.

He is the God of Bethel. Wherever you are headed, he will take you home. He will take us all home because he is the God of Bethel. Psalm 34, verse seven says the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fears him and delivers them.

Why?

Because he is no mere creature. He is the God of Bethel. Amen.