The Angel Who Is God

Then I said: I mean to go through the Scriptures with you. I am in no hurry to put on a display of words got up by skill alone; I have no such power. All that has been given me is grace from God, to understand his Scriptures — and I urge everyone to share in that grace, free of charge and without my grudging it, so that I may not on this very account be found guilty in the judgment that God, the Maker of all things, is going to hold through my Lord Jesus Christ. [a]

And Trypho said, “This too you do in a way worthy of the worship of God. But you seem to me to be putting on an act when you say you have no gift for skilled speech.” And I answered again: If that is how it looks to you, let it stand so; but I am persuaded that what I say is true. Now give me your attention, so that I can get on with the rest of the proofs. And he said, “Go ahead.”

And I said: Moses has written again, my brothers, that this one who appeared to the patriarchs and is called God is also called Angel and Lord — so that from this too you may recognize him as one who serves the Father of all things, as you have already agreed, and, convinced by more evidence than this, may stand firm. So when the word of God, through Moses, sets out what happened to Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, it says this:

“And it happened, when the flocks were breeding and conceiving, that I saw them with my own eyes in a dream. And look — the he-goats and the rams mounting the sheep and the she-goats were streaked with white and speckled and dappled ash-gray. And the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob, Jacob.’ And I said, ‘What is it, Lord?’ And he said, ‘Lift up your eyes and see the he-goats and the rams mounting the sheep and the she-goats, streaked with white and speckled and dappled ash-gray. For I have seen everything Laban is doing to you. I am the God who appeared to you at the place of God, where you anointed a pillar for me and made a vow there. Now then, get up and go out of this land, and go to the land where you were born, and I will be with you.’”

And again, in other words, speaking about this same Jacob, it says: “And getting up that night he took his two wives and his two servant girls and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and crossed the stream and brought over everything he had. But Jacob was left behind alone, and a man wrestled with him until morning. And he saw that he was not prevailing against him, and he touched the broad part of his thigh, and the broad part of Jacob’s thigh went numb while he wrestled with him. And he said, ‘Let me go, for dawn has come up.’ But he said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ And he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ And he said to him, ‘Your name will no longer be called Jacob. Israel will be your name, because you were strong with God, and with men you will be powerful.’ And Jacob asked him and said, ‘Tell me your name.’ And he said, ‘Why are you asking this, my name?’ And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place the Form of God — ‘for I saw God face to face, and my soul was glad.’”

And again, in other terms, reporting about this same Jacob, it says: “And Jacob came to Luz in the land of Canaan, which is Bethel, he and all the people who were with him. And he built an altar there and called the name of that place Bethel, for there God appeared to him when he was running away from the face of his brother Esau. And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried below Bethel under the oak, and Jacob called its name the Oak of Mourning. And God appeared to Jacob again at Luz, when he came from Mesopotamia in Syria, and blessed him. And God said to him, ‘Your name will no longer be called Jacob. Israel will be your name.’” He is called God, and he is God, and he will be God.

And when they had all nodded their agreement, I said: I think it necessary to give you the words that report how this one — Angel and God and Lord, who appeared to Abraham in the shape of a man and who wrestled with Jacob himself in human shape — was seen by Jacob when he was running away from his brother Esau. They are these:

“And Jacob went out from the Well of the Oath and traveled toward Haran. And he came upon a place and slept there, for the sun had set. And he took some of the stones of the place and put them under his head, and he slept in that place and dreamed. And look — a ladder set firm on the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were going up and coming down on it, and the Lord was set firm above it. And he said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and of Isaac. Do not be afraid. The land you are lying on, I will give it to you and to your seed. And your seed will be like the sand of the earth, and it will spread out to the west and the south and the north and the east; and in you and in your seed all the tribes of the earth will be blessed. And look, I am with you, guarding you on every road you take, and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done everything I have said to you.’ And Jacob woke out of his sleep and said, ‘The Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ And he was afraid, and said, ‘How fearful this place is! This is nothing else than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ And Jacob got up in the morning and took the stone he had put there under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil over the top of it. And Jacob called the name of the place House of God; and the name of the city before that was Ulammaus.”

When I had said this I went on: Bear with me while I show you from the book of Exodus how this same one — Angel and God and Lord, a man and a human being, who appeared to Abraham and to Jacob — appeared in a flame of fire out of the bush and talked with Moses. And when they said they would listen gladly and tirelessly and eagerly, I went on: These are the words in the book that is titled Exodus. “And after those many days the king of Egypt died, and the sons of Israel groaned because of their labors” — and the rest, down to: “Go and gather the council of elders of Israel and say to them: The Lord, the God of your fathers, has appeared to me, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, saying, I have watched over you closely, and over what has happened to you in Egypt.” And on top of this I went on: Gentlemen, have you seen it? The one Moses calls an angel who spoke to him in the flame of fire — this same one, being God, makes clear to Moses that he himself is the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. [i]

Then Trypho said, “That is not what we understand from the words you have quoted. We understand that the one who appeared in the flame of fire was an angel, but the one who talked with Moses was God — so that there were two of them together in that vision, an angel and God.” [k]

And I answered again: Even if it was so then, my friends, that both an angel and God were present together in the vision that came to Moses, still, as has already been proved to you from the passages set out above, the God who told Moses that he was the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob will not be the Maker of all things. He will be the one who was shown to you to have appeared to Abraham and to Jacob, serving the will of the Maker of all things and serving his purpose in the same way in the judgment on Sodom. So even if it is as you say, that there were two, an angel and God, no one who has even a little sense will dare to say that the Maker and Father of all things left behind everything above the sky and became visible on a small patch of earth.

And Trypho said, “Since it has already been proved that the one who appeared to Abraham, who is named God and Lord, received from the Lord who is in the heavens what he brought upon the land of Sodom, then here too, even if an angel was present with the God who appeared to Moses, we will understand that the God who talked with Moses out of the bush was not the God who is the Maker of all things, but the one who has been shown to have made himself known to Abraham and to Jacob — the one who is also called, and understood to be, the Angel of God the Maker of all things, because he announces to men what comes from the Father and Maker of everything.”

And I said again: Now then, Trypho, I will show that in the vision to Moses this same one alone, who is called an Angel and is God, appeared to Moses and talked with him. For this is what the passage says: “And an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the bush; and he sees that the bush is burning with fire, but the bush was not being burned up. And Moses said, ‘I will turn aside and look at this great sight, for the bush is not burning up.’ And when the Lord saw that he was coming near to look, the Lord called to him out of the bush.”

Now the passage calls the one who appeared to Jacob in his sleep an angel, and then says that this same angel who appeared in the sleep told him, “I am the God who appeared to you when you were running away from the face of your brother Esau.” And in Abraham’s time, in the judgment on Sodom, it said that a Lord brought the judgment down from the Lord who is in the heavens. In just the same way here, when the passage announces that an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses and afterward shows him to be Lord and God, it is speaking of the same one whom, through many of the passages already quoted, it shows to be the servant of the God who is above the world, above whom there is no other.

I will give you one more testimony from the Scriptures, my friends, I said: that before all created things God gave birth, out of himself, to a beginning, a certain rational power, who is called by the Holy Spirit sometimes the Glory of the Lord, sometimes Son, sometimes Wisdom, sometimes Angel, sometimes God, sometimes Lord and Word; and on one occasion he calls himself Commander of the Army, when he appeared in the shape of a man to Joshua son of Nun. He can be named by every one of these titles, since he serves the Father’s purpose and since he was born from the Father by an act of will. [n]

Is this not the same as what we see happening among ourselves? When we put out a word, we give birth to a word — and not by cutting anything off, as though the word inside us were made smaller when we put it out. It is like what we see happening with fire: when another fire is lit from it, the one it was lit from is not made smaller. It stays the same, and the fire lit from it appears to exist by itself as well, without taking anything away from the one it was kindled from.

The Word of Wisdom will bear witness for me — himself being this God born from the Father of all things, and Word and Wisdom and Power and the Glory of the one who gave him birth — when he says this through Solomon:

And the word of God said this very same thing through Moses, my friends, when it told us — about the one it had already pointed out — that God speaks at the making of man with exactly this in mind. These are the words: “Let us make man according to our image and likeness. And let them rule the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and the cattle and the whole earth and all the creeping things that creep on the earth.” “And God made man; according to the image of God he made him; male and female he made them. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Increase and multiply and fill the earth and take charge of it.’” [s]

And so that you may not alter the words I have just quoted and say what your teachers say — either that God was speaking to himself when he said “Let us make,” the way we ourselves, when we are about to make something, often say to ourselves “Let us make”; or that God said “Let us make” to the elements, that is, to the earth and the other things like it, out of which we understand man to have been made — I will go over again the words reported by Moses himself, from which we can recognize beyond argument that he was talking with someone who is another in number than himself and is a rational being. These are the words: “Look, Adam has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”

So in saying “like one of us” he has shown a number of beings in one another’s company, and at least two of them. For I would not say that the teaching of that party which is said to exist among you is true, or that its teachers can prove that he was speaking to angels, or that the human body was the work of angels. No: this offspring, truly put forth from the Father, was with the Father before all created things, and the Father talks with him. The passage made this clear through Solomon: that this same one, whom Solomon calls Wisdom, had been born from God as a beginning before all created things, and as offspring. And God said the very same thing in the revelation given to Joshua son of Nun. So that what I am saying may become clear to you from this too, listen to these words from the book of Joshua:

“And it happened, when Joshua was at Jericho, that he looked up with his eyes and sees a man standing opposite him. And Joshua went up to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us, or for our enemies?’ And he said to him, ‘I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.’ And Joshua fell on his face on the ground and said to him, ‘Master, what are you ordering your servant to do?’ And the commander of the Lord says to Joshua, ‘Untie the sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ And Jericho was shut up and fortified, and no one was going out of it. And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Look, I am handing Jericho over into your power, and its king who is in it, men mighty in strength.’”