11. Manifestations of God in the Old Testament

In quite a number of places in Scripture it is emphasized that God is invisible (1Tim.1:17; Col.1:15) and that no one has ever seen God (John 1:18; Ex.33:20; 1Tim.6:16; 1John 4:12). On the other hand, we find many passages in the OT in which God does indeed appear. A few examples.

the appearance to Moses

When Moses is tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro in the wilderness near Mount Horeb, “the messenger of JAHWEH” appears to him in a flame of fire in a thorn bush (Ex.3:2). Astonished and curious, he approaches it (3:3) and then JAHWEH speaks to him and says (3:6):

I am the Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

Moses hides his face because he feared to look at God (3:6). In the conversation that follows, it becomes continuously clear that JAHWEH is speaking to him. The question that involuntarily arises here is: who appeared to Moses? Was it JAHWEH Himself? Or was it “the messenger of JAHWEH” who appeared to him? Both answers can be defended. Fifteen centuries later, Stephen declared:

Now forty years being fulfilled to him, A MESSENGER was seen by him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire of a thorn bush.
Acts 7:30

via messengers (angels)

We encounter the same phenomenon when JAHWEH goes before the people in the wilderness in the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire (Ex.13:21). In other places, however, we are assured that it was a dispatched messenger who went before them (Ex.23:20-23; Judg.2:1).

Thus we read on the one hand that JAHWEH gave the law to Moses and the people of Israel (Ex.19:20; 31:18; 34:29). At the same time, we also read that the law was given to the people through messengers (Acts 7:53; Gal.3:19; Heb.2:2).

Only one explanation seems available for these apparent contradictions: God did not appear directly in the OT but through messengers. And in the case of a single messenger, this one is consistently called “the messenger of JAHWEH”. This messenger is identified as JAHWEH because he represents God and speaks on His behalf.

is the messenger of YAHWEH Christ?

Those who assume that Jesus was already the Son of God (or ‘God the Son’) before His birth, usually identify “the messenger of YAHWEH” in the OT as an appearance of Christ. That is understandable from that viewpoint, but the idea that Christ appeared many times as a messenger before His birth finds no support in Scripture. In particular, the letter to the Hebrews firmly refutes that explanation. The key point of Hebrews 1 is precisely that the Son of God is of an entirely different order and “so much more than the messengers” (1:5):

For to which of the messengers said He at any time, “My Son art Thou! I today have begotten Thee”?
Heb.1:5

The Son of God is not a messenger, but a man begotten by God Himself. And since this begetting, He is the “Image of the invisible God” (Col.1:15). Wherever God appears from then on, it is through Him (see Zech.12:10; 14:4).

No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He unfolds Him.
John 1:18

Delen: