Gwen Frangs / Tipperary Town, County Tipperary / 22 July 2024
In Exodus 3 Moses sees the angel of the Lord in a bush. When Moses goes to the bush God speaks to him from the midst of the bush. This is how the beginning of the story is described in the New International Version of the Bible:
3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
When I read these verses over the years I always thought that it was God the Father Who calls to Moses from the bush. I thought that the angel of the Lord was in the bush to get Moses’ attention and that when Moses went over to the bush to look, that the Father spoke to Him out of the midst of the bush. The reason why I thought that it was the Father that spoke to Moses is because it says that ‘God’ called to Moses. Therefore, I thought that it must be the Father, because I didn’t think that the angel of the Lord was God. Also, in the original Hebrew text the word for ‘God’ that is used in verse 4 is the word ‘Elohim’. This is the same word that is used in Genesis 1 when it says that God created things. For example, when it says in Genesis 1:3 : ‘And God said let there be light…’ the Hebrew text says: ‘And Elohim said let there be light…’. So, in my mind, when the Bible speaks of ‘Elohim’ I normally associate it with the Father, because I know that the Father (Elohim) created everything.
However, it turns out that in the Old Testament the ‘angel of the Lord’ is also called ‘Elohim’. In Zechariah 12:8 it says:
8 On that day the Lord will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord going before them.
The Hebrew word that is translated as ‘God’ in Zechariah 12:8 is ‘Elohim’.
This means that in Genesis 3:4 when it says that ‘God’ called to Moses out of the bush, it is most probably the angel of the Lord Who calls Moses and not the Father, because this is the simplest reading of the story. It is the angel Who is in the bush, and the angel is also called ‘God’, so it makes the most sense that it would be the angel Who speaks from the bush, rather than that the Father is suddenly introduced into the story.
So, Who exactly is this mysterious ‘angel of the Lord’ Who is being called God? It can’t be God the Father, because God the Father isn’t an angel. We can know this because Jesus said that God is Spirit and that those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth:
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus didn’t say God is a spirit. Angels are spirits, so, if the Father was an angel Jesus would have said that God is a spirit, but He didn’t so the angel is not the Father.
This mysterious angel of the Lord also cannot be Jesus, because Jesus had not yet been begotten by the Father. We can know this because Jesus is the Son of God and in Psalm 2 where it speaks about the Son of God being begotten by the Father it only occurs when there are already kingdoms on the earth:
7 I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
There were no nations present at the creation, because they had not been created yet, therefore the Son of God could not have been begotten before the creation.
In Zechariah 3, the second last book of the Old Testament, the Father is speaking through the Holy Spirit about the Branch. In verse 8 Yahweh says: ‘I Am bringing forth My Servant the Branch….’ Zechariah 3:8. He is describing a future event. He is not describing something that had happened in the past prior to creation. The Son was begotten only at the beginning of the New Testament when Mary became pregnant with Him, as a result of the Holy Spirit overshadowing her. When the Holy Spirit took up residence in the body that the Father had prepared for Him, the Son was begotten. Therefore, it cannot be the Son of God, Jesus, speaking to Moses from the bush because He had not yet been begotten.
This means that there is only one remaining person in the Trinity who the angel of the Lord can be and that is the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah 63 bears this out. In Isaiah 63:9-10 the Holy Spirit is called the angel of his presence:
9 In all their affliction he was afflicted,[a]
and the angel of his presence saved them;
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.10 But they rebelled
and grieved his Holy Spirit;
therefore he turned to be their enemy,
and himself fought against them.
We see that the angel of His (the Father’s) presence is called the Holy Spirit in verse 10. There can be no doubt that the angel of the Lord and the angel of His presence are the same angel. Therefore, according to Isaiah, the angel of the Lord is the Holy Spirit.
The fact that the angel of the Lord is the Holy Spirit is also borne out by both Jesus and Paul. In 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Paul wrote:
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
In John 8: 56-58 Jesus identifies Himself as the angel of the Lord in the burning bush when He says:
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”[a] 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
This is because as the conversation between Moses and the angel progresses, the angel tells Moses that His name is ‘I am’:
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[a] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
Therefore, Jesus identified Himself as the angel of the Lord who speaks to Moses from the burning bush. Because Paul identifies Jesus as the Holy Spirit and Jesus identifies Himself as the angel of the Lord, this means that the angel of the Lord is the Holy Spirit. Which means that every time that the angel of the Lord speaks to someone in the Old Testament, it is the Holy Spirit speaking to them.
Exodus 3:2 makes it clear that the angel of the Lord is a real angel because it says that the angel of the Lord appeared as flames of fire. Hebrews 1:7 says:
7 Of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels winds,
and his ministers a flame of fire.”
The Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost as a mighty wind and tongues of fire. The reason why He came as wind and fire is because the Holy Spirit is the angel of the Lord.
Please see my article Is the Holy Spirit an angel? for more about this.