Saturday, June 12, 2021

The Angel of the Lord, the Preincarnate God the Son

"Jacob left Beersheba and went toward 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 lay 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, 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 you.' Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and 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.'

- Genesis 2810-17

This is a well-known and much-beloved passage. We even have a song based on it: "We are climbing Jacob's ladder." Notice that God is referred to both as "God" and as "Yahweh" ("Lord" in the quoted portion above). So Jacob professes, without correction, that Yahweh is his God. 

Let us continue. 

"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 mottled, 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.'" (Genesis 31:11-13).

In this later passage, Jacob is again visited. This visitor is identified as "the angel of God," but then He identifies Himself as "God," the same God and Yahweh who had visited Jacob in chapter 28. Therefore, the angel of God, called elsewhere the angel of the Lord or the angel of the covenant, is Yahweh, the God of Israel. 

The comparison of these two passages proves three things, contrary to the claims of the anti-Trinitarians: first, it proves that Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh are the same Person; second, it proves the preexistence of the Son; and third, it shows that Yahweh was the preexistent Son, in His mediatorial role. And if Yahweh is God, then the logical necessity is that the Son is God! Thus the claims of the Jehovah's Witnesses on one side and the Oneness sects on the other are shown to be false. 



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