Gwen Frangs / Corrandulla / 1 September 2022
The Word of God appeared to Abram in Genesis 15:
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”
Genesis 15:1 ESV
In the original Hebrew it says that the word of Yahweh came to Abram – Genesis 15 (Reading tip: Hebrew is read from right to left).
The verse says that Abram had a vision. This means that he saw the word of Yahweh. He could see the word of Yahweh because the word of Yahweh is a supernatural Being. In Genesis 15:5 we are told that ‘he’ brought Abram outside. The pronoun ‘he’ is used in verse 5:
5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Genesis 15:5 ESV
There are no capital letters in ancient Hebrew. If there were capital letters the verse would have said that Abram saw the Word of Yahweh.
In the New Testament the apostle John tells us that this supernatural Being became flesh and lived with them:
The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
John 1:1-18 NIV
In Exodus 6: 2-3 we are told what the Name of this Supernatural Being is:
2 And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the Lord.’ 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob in El-Shaddai but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.
Exodus 6:2-3
Although commonly translated as God telling Moses that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, this is not what the verse actually says. The correct translation of the verse says that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in El Shaddai. I have corrected the Interlinear translation above to read ‘in’ El Shaddai because the preposition on the word ‘el’ is בְּ which is the preposition ‘in’ in ancient Hebrew.
In Exodus 6:2-3 the preposition בְּ is attached to the beginning of the word אֵ֣ל forming the word בְּאֵ֣ל. The word אֵ֣ל is the ‘El’ of El Shaddai. If you look at the blue parts of speech under the original Hebrew text the preposition is listed as Prep-b. Prep-b, according to the Hebrew parsing, means ‘in’ (https://biblehub.com/hebrewparse.htm). It does not mean ‘as’ because כְּ is the preposition which means ‘as’ (8af3842462324e4d5443b28852f9368b3e9aa672.html). Therefore, the verse does not read:
….. I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai…
Rather, the verse reads as:
….I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob in El Shaddai…
Jesus confirmed this when He came to earth. He told His disciples that the Father was ‘in’ Him:
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me…
John 14:11a
In Genesis 48, Jacob tells us that El Shaddai is an Angel:
In Genesis 48 Jacob speaks about El Shaddai, Who appeared to him at Luz (Genesis 48:3):
(Reading tip: Hebrew is read from right to left)
Twelve verses further on in the chapter, in Genesis 48:15-16, Jacob continues to speak about El Shaddai and describes El Shaddai both as God and as the Angel:
15 Then he blessed Joseph and said,
“May the God before whom my fathers
Genesis 48:15-16
Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully,
the God who has been my shepherd
all my life to this day,
16 the Angel who has delivered me from all harm
—may he bless these boys.
May they be called by my name
and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,
and may they increase greatly
on the earth.”
Hosea 12:4-5 confirms that Jacob saw this Angel:
And, yes, he struggled with the Angel and prevailed. He wept and sought favour from Him. He found him in Bethel and there He spoke to us, that is Yahweh God of Hosts. His memorable name is Yahweh.
Hosea 12:4-5 Interlinear
It was the Angel that found Jacob at Bethel and spoke to him. In speaking to Jacob, the Angel was also speaking to all of the Jewish people because they are Jacob’s descendants. This is why Hosea says that the Angel spoke to ‘us’. This verse confirms that the Angel is also called Yahweh. There are two Yahwehs in the Old Testament, Yahweh the Father and Yahweh the Angel. In Exodus 23, Yahweh the Father speaks to Moses about Yahweh the Angel, saying:
20 “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. 22 If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. 23 My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.
Exodus 20:20-23 NIV
This Angel is called the Angel of His Presence:
In all their affliction He was [a]afflicted,
Isaiah 63:9
And the Angel of His Presence saved them;
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And He bore them and carried them
All the days of old.
Yahweh, the Angel, was called the Angel of His Presence because Yahweh, the Father, was present in Him.
Therefore, we know from Genesis 15:1 that a supernatural Being appeared to Abram and is called the Word of God. We know from John chapter 1 that the Word of God became flesh and dwelt on the earth. We know from Exodus 6:3 that the name of the Word of God is El Shaddai. We know from Genesis 48 that El Shaddai is an Angel. However, El Shaddai is no ordinary angel. There is no other angel like Him. The Father is living within Him and He is the only angel that the Father seems to live within. El Shaddai sits on the throne in Heaven and He is worshipped as God. He is the image of the invisible God. The Father created everything through Him, including the other angels. I believe that this is what the apostle Paul was saying when he wrote to the Colossian church about Jesus Christ, the Son of God:
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:15-17 NIV
In verse 15, Paul calls the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God. Paul was a Jewish scholar, well versed in the Old Testament scripture. He would have been fully aware that an image of God, the Angel of Yahweh, had existed in the Old Testament. The Angel of Yahweh appeared to a number of people in the Old Testament and after seeing Him all of these people said that they had seen God. For example:
- In Genesis 16:13 Hagar calls the Angel of Yahweh, God.
- In Genesis 48:15-16 Jacob calls this same Angel, God.
- In Judges 13:22, Manoah calls the Angel of Yahweh, God.
- In Exodus 3, when the Angel of Yahweh appears as fire in a bush, He is referred to as God by the author, both in verses 4 and 6.
- In Genesis 22:12 the Angel of Yahweh calls Himself God.
- In Zechariah 12:8, God the Father calls the Angel, God.
- Hosea calls the Angel, God in Hosea 12:4-5.
It is not an accident that these people were saying that they had seen God. They were all declaring that they had seen the image of the invisible God when they saw the Angel of Yahweh. So, why does Paul call Jesus the image of God in the New Testament, if he was aware that there was another image of God Who appeared to people in the Old Testament? Wouldn’t he be concerned about causing confusion by calling Jesus the image of God, when the Angel of Yahweh was the image of God in the Old Testament? Or was Paul walking away from his Jewish roots, denying the teaching of the Old Testament about the Angel of Yahweh and setting up Jesus as a new God? I don’t believe that this was the case. I believe that the most simple explanation for why Paul called Jesus the image of God, is that he was identifying Jesus as the Angel of Yahweh. I believe that Paul understood that when Yahweh said that His name was in the Angel, that He was saying that the Angel was His image (Exodus 23:21).
The apostle Paul recognized that Jesus was this Angel and identified Him as such in 1 Corinthians 10:9:
9 We should not test Christ,[a] as some of them did—and were killed by snakes.
1 Corinthians 10:9 NIV
If one reads the account of some of the Israelites being killed with snakes in Numbers 21:4-9 in the original Hebrew, the text says that it was Yahweh Who killed the Israelites with the snakes. So, why would Paul be linking Jesus with this incident? Paul knew that it was the Angel that was accompanying the Israelites in the wilderness and he knew that the Angel was also called by the name Yahweh. He knew that in Exodus 23, Yahweh the Father tells Moses that the Angel of His Presence will go with the Israelites and that the Angel will not forgive their rebellion. This incident with the snakes is an example of the Angel not forgiving the rebellion of the Israelites.
Paul also identified Jesus as the form of God Who appeared to Moses. Numbers 12:7-8 says:
Not so with My servant Moses. He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to Face and even plainly and not in dark sayings and he sees the form of Yahweh…
Numbers 12:7;8 Interlinear
In Philippians 2:5-8, Paul writes:
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a]6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b]7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:5-8 ESV
The apostle Paul knew that the form of God Who appeared to Moses was the Angel of His Presence Who was accompanying the Israelites in the wilderness.
Paul also knew that El Shaddai, the Word of God, the Angel of His Presence, is the Holy Spirit. In Hebrews 1:7, we are told that Yahweh, the Father, makes His angels into spirits and into flames of fire:
In speaking of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels spirits,
Hebrews 1:7 NIV
and his servants flames of fire.
In Isaiah 63, El Shaddai is shown to be the Holy Spirit:
8 He said, “Surely they are my people,
Isaiah 63:8-10 NIV
children who will be true to me”;
and so he became their Savior.
9 In all their distress he too was distressed,
and the angel of his presence saved them.[a]
In his love and mercy he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old.
10 Yet they rebelled
and grieved his Holy Spirit.
So he turned and became their enemy
and he himself fought against them.
The apostle Paul understood that the Angel of Yahweh is the Spirit of God. Therefore, he wrote about Jesus as the incarnate Holy Spirit. He wrote:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17
in 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul calls Jesus: ‘the Lord the Spirit’. In Philippians, Paul says: ‘For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance’ (Philippians 1:19 NRSV).
In Galatians, Paul says: ‘And because you Gentiles have become his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, and now you can call God your dear Father’ (Galatians 4:6 NLT). In Romans, Paul says: ‘But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.’ (Romans 8:9, 10 NRSV).
There was a belief in the early church that the Angel of Yahweh is an archangel. Philo, who visited the apostles in Jerusalem, made the following statement in a piece of his writing entitled The Confusion of Languages:
“And even if there be not as yet anyone who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to His First-born Word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for He is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God’s image, and He who sees Israel.”– Philo, “On the Confusion of Tongues,” (146)
Paul seems to have shared this belief, as he wrote to the Thessalonian church:
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NIV
The apostle Luke makes it very clear that he also understood Jesus to be the incarnate Holy Spirit when he says in Acts 16:
Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to .
Acts 16:6-7
The above verses clarify that the Spirit of Jesus is the Holy Spirit. We all have our own human spirits, which are being renewed daily and will go to God when we die, but Jesus, although He had a human body, did not have a human spirit. Jesus’ Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the Angel of Yahweh.
The Holy Spirit is able to take different forms. He appeared at Jesus’ baptism as a dove. He appeared as fire in the burning bush and on Mt. Sinai. The Holy Spirit is also able to appear as two or more different forms simultaneously. In Ezekiel 1:26-28 the Holy Spirit is present in two forms – in the form of a man that is on fire and in the form of a rainbow. At Jesus’ baptism the Holy Spirit was present as Jesus, the incarnate Holy Spirit, and as the dove. Doves were one of the types of animals that could be offered as a sin offering by the Jewish people. By appearing as a dove, the Holy Spirit was signifying that He, through the flesh of Jesus, was going to be offered as a sin offering for the sin of the world. On the day of Pentecost He appeared as tongues of fire on each believer. The fact that the Holy Spirit is able to appear as two or more different forms simultaneously explains why Jesus spoke about sending the Holy Spirit, even though He was Himself the Holy Spirit incarnate. Jesus is the incarnate Holy Spirit, the Word made flesh, but the Angelic Holy Spirit continues to exist as an Angel and inhabits the church as a Spirit, while simultaneously occupying the throne in Heaven as the visible form of God.
When one understands that the Holy Spirit is an Angel, Who can change His form, one begins to understand that in the Old Testament the Word of God was the form that was used by the Holy Spirit when He wanted to talk to a human being. I believe that El Shaddai is called the Word of God because Yahweh the Father spoke through Him. This is because Yahweh, the Father, is an invisible Spirit, Who does not have a body (Colossians 1:15 ; 1 Timothy 1:17 ; Hebrews 11:27). El Shaddai was speaking the words of the Father, Who was within Him, when He interacted with the Patriarchs. When Yahweh the Angel became flesh, Yahweh the Father continued to live within Him, in the same way that He had lived within Him in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament Jesus tells us that He and the Father are One (John 10:30). He also tells us that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him (John 10:38). He tells Philip in John 14 that the Father is living in Him:
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
John 14: 8-10
In Colossians 2:9 we are told that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus in bodily form. In John 14:23 Jesus makes it clear that if we obey His commandments that the Father will come and live in us:
Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
John 14:23
Therefore, when God appeared to people in the Old Testament, a composite Being was appearing to them, which was made up of the Word of God and the Father inside the Word of God. This is probably why the Hebrew word for God ‘elohim’ is plural, rather than because it is a plural of majesty.