Judges 2:1-3 Christophany

 1Now the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I had promised to your fathers, and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you, 2and you are not to make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall tear down their altars.’

Yet you have not obeyed My voice. What is this you have done? 3So now I tell you that I will not drive out these people before you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”

Guzik’s commentary below is extraordinary and rich! For today we will be focusing on who is the “Angel of the LORD”!

a. The Angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal: It is likely that this was God Himself, appearing in a human form. There are frequent Old Testament appearances of the Angel of the LORD that indicate that it is God Himself.

i. There is a legitimate question as to if every mention of the Angel of the LORD is a divine appearance. As G. Campbell Morgan wrote, “This messenger, referred to as ‘the angel of the Lord,’ may have been a prophet, for the word rendered ‘angel’ may with equal accuracy be rendered messenger. On the other hand, it may have been a special divine and angelic personality.”

ii. Assuming this to be a divine appearance (as the author believes it does indicate), we surmise that this was Jesus Christ appearing to the people of Israel before His incarnated appearance in Bethlehem. We know this is Jesus for two reasons.

· First because the Angel of the LORD here claimed divinity by saying that He was the one who led Israel up from Egypt, who made a covenant with Israel (Judges 2:1), and who personally called Israel to obedience (Judges 2:2).

· Second because this person, appearing in human form before Israel, cannot be God the Father, because the Father is described as invisible (1 Timothy 1:17) and whom no man has seen or can see (1 Timothy 6:16).

iii. The idea of Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, appearing as a man before Bethlehem is provocative, but logical. We know that He existed before Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); why should He not, on isolated but important occasions, appear in bodily form? We see other places where this happened, such as Genesis 18:16-33, Genesis 32:24-30, and Judges 13:1-23.

iv. “Not in such a body as God had prepared for him when he took upon himself the form of a servant, but in such a form and fashion as seemed most congruous to his divine majesty, and to the circumstances of those he visited, this angel of the divine covenant whom we delight in came and spoke unto this people.” (Spurgeon)

I have to admit that I had to read and reread Spurgeon’s comment to fully grasp and understand the full weight of it. Pastor Robert teaches about Christophanies and here we have an example of one. David

“Some Bible commentators believe that whenever someone received a visit from “the angel of the Lord,” this was in fact the pre-incarnate Christ. These appearances can be seen in Genesis 16:7-14; Genesis 22:11-18; Judges 5:23; 2 Kings 19:35; and other passages. Other commentators believe these were in fact angelophanies, or appearances of angels. While there are no indisputable Christophanies in the Old Testament, every theophany wherein God takes on human form foreshadows the incarnation, where God took the form of a man to live among us as Emmanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).” 

https://www.gotquestions.org/theophany-Christophany.html

Blessings