Gwen Frangs / Corrandulla / 15 September 2022
In John 17:11 Jesus says:
11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of[a] your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.
John 17:11 NIV
Notice that Jesus says that God the Father gave His own name to Him. In the Old Testament the name of the Father is Yahweh. Therefore, Jesus is saying that the Father gave Him the name Yahweh.
However, nowhere in the New Testament do we hear of Jesus being called Yahweh. I assumed for many years that Jesus was referring to receiving this name after His death. I thought that Jesus was able to see ahead to when, after His death, He was given the name above all names spoken of by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians:
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
Philippians 2:9-11 NIV
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
However, you will notice that these verses are not talking about Jesus being given the name ‘Yahweh’. Rather, these verses are speaking about the name ‘Jesus’ being made to be above every name.
Therefore, the question remains, when was Jesus given the name ‘Yahweh’ by the Father?
The Old Testament provides a possible answer to this question. In Exodus 23 Yahweh the Father tells Moses:
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 23:20-23 NIV
Therefore, we see in verse 21 that Yahweh’s name is in the Angel.
In Hosea 12:4-5 the prophet Hosea says:
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
The verse is saying that the Angel, called Yahweh God of Hosts, found Jacob in Bethel and spoke to the Israelites. The Angel’s memorable name is Yahweh. Possibly Hosea is saying that this is the name by which the Angel is remembered.
In Isaiah 30:27-28 we read:
27 See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar,
Isaiah 30:27-28 NIV
with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke;
his lips are full of wrath,
and his tongue is a consuming fire.
28 His breath is like a rushing torrent,
rising up to the neck.
He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction;
he places in the jaws of the peoples
a bit that leads them astray.
This seems to be a description of a mighty angel who is called ‘the Name of Yahweh.’
Therefore, we have three scriptures in the Old Testament telling us about an Angel Who was called by the same name as Yahweh the Father.
We know that Jesus pre-existed in some form before He became Jesus. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he wrote, immediately before he wrote about Jesus being given the name above every name, that Jesus had pre-existed before He came as Jesus:
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
Philippians 2:5-11 NIV
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, we see that Jesus pre-existed as another Being prior to coming to the earth as Jesus. Does it not make sense that the Being Who Jesus pre-existed as is the Angel spoken of in Exodus 23:20-23, in Hosea 12:4-5 and in Isaiah 30:27-28? The Angel has the name Yahweh, which is the same name as the Father. In John 17:11 Jesus said that He has the same name as the Father. Surely, Jesus is identifying Himself as the Angel Who shared the name of Yahweh in the Old Testament?
The apostles Paul and Jude believed that this was the case. In 1 Corinthians 10:9 Paul identifies Jesus as this Angel Who was with the Israelites in the wilderness when he says:
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? He does this because he knew that in Exodus 23 Yahweh the Father tells Moses that the Angel of His Presence will go with the Israelites.
He also knew that in Exodus 33, Yahweh tells Moses that He Himself will not be in the midst of the Israelites on this journey because He might kill them on the way:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ 2 I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 3 Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”
Exodus 33:1-4
If one reads these verses in the original Hebrew, Yahweh actually says to Moses that He will not go up in the midst of the Israelites (Exodus 33:3 Interlinear Bible). Therefore, Paul knew that Yahweh, the Father was not in the midst of the Israelites on the journey. The Father was not present in the midst of the Israelites, because He did not want to kill them. It was the Angel of His Presence Who was with them. Paul identified this Angel, Who is called Yahweh in Numbers 21, as Christ in 1 Corinthians 10:9.
Jude also identified this angel as Jesus. In Jude 5, Jude describes what happened in Numbers 16 at the time of the rebellion of Korah:
5 Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord[a] at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.
Jude 5
Jude is speaking about Jesus in this verse because the word ‘Lord’ in the original Greek text is Ἰησοῦς» which means ‘Jesus’. It is clear from Jude 5 that Jude also recognized Jesus to have been the Angel of His Presence, Who destroyed the rebellious Israelites in Numbers 16. Just like Paul, Jude would have known that the Father was not in the midst of the Israelites on the journey to the promised land. He would have known that this meant that every time that Yahweh is mentioned during the journey, it has to be the Angel Who was being referred to.
Both Paul and Jude would have been aware that the Angel was also called Yahweh in the Old Testament. Both Paul and Jude would have been fully aware that Yahweh the Father told Moses in Exodus 20:21 that the Israelites should not rebel against this Angel because the Angel would not forgive their rebellion. They would have recognized that the Israelites were experiencing this unforgiveness on the part of the Angel of His Presence when the Angel killed some of them with snakes and when the Angel killed Korah and his family. God, the Father, foresaw that this was going to happen and warned Moses about it before it happened.
Therefore, the most simple explanation for why Jesus said that He was given the name Yahweh by the Father is that He pre-existed as the Angel with the name Yahweh. So, why does the church not teach this explanation to believers? The problem seems to arise because of what the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 1, where the writer of the letter (probably the apostle Paul, but we can’t be 100% certain about this) says:
1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son;
today I have become your Father”[a]?Or again,
“I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son”[b]?6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God’s angels worship him.”[c]
7 In speaking of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels spirits,
and his servants flames of fire.”[d]8 But about the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.”[e]10 He also says,
“In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11 They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
12 You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.”[f]13 To which of the angels did God ever say,
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet”[g]?14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
Hebrews 1
The above verses seem to put pay to the idea that Jesus pre-existed as an angel before He became Jesus. They declare that Jesus is the Son of God and that He is far superior to the angels. It seems impossible, in light of these verses, to identify the Son as the angel Who was called Yahweh in the Old Testament.
However, if you explore what the Bible teaches regarding the make up of a human being it becomes clear that it is not impossible. This is because the Bible teaches that human beings are made up of a spirit, a soul and a body. The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that we were all created with three parts—a spirit, a soul, and a body:
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 NIV
The Bible also differentiates between Jesus’ body and soul and His spirit because the Bible teaches that Jesus’ spirit is the Holy Spirit:
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
We see here that the apostle Luke calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Jesus.
As Christians we know that the Holy Spirit was in the prophets in the Old Testament so that they could prophesy. In 1 Peter 1:10-11 the apostle Peter refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ:
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.
1 Peter 1:10-11 NIV
As Christians we know that the Holy Spirit is living in us and that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. However, the apostle Paul tells us that it is Jesus Who is living in us. The apostle Paul called this a mystery:
24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:24-27
Jesus Himself told the disciples at the Last Supper that He would be coming and living in them. In John 14:18-20 He says:
18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
John 14:18-20
In John 17:22-26 He says:
22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you[a] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
John 17:22-26
In John 14:23 Jesus makes it clear that if we obey His commandments that both Himself and 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
The only way that Jesus can live within the believer is in the form of a spirit.
The apostle Paul taught that Jesus is the Holy Spirit because he writes in 1 Corinthians 3:17:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17
Therefore, according to the Bible the Spirit of Jesus is the Holy Spirit. His body and soul are those of a human being, but His Spirit is the Holy Spirit. This is why in churches you hear people say that Jesus is living in them and you hear people say that they are the temple of the Holy Spirit. They are saying exactly the same thing, because the Spirit of Jesus is the Holy Spirit.
However, a number of scriptures in John 14 and 15 in which Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit would seem to render it entirely impossible that Jesus is the Holy Spirit:
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—
John 14:16
26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14:26
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.
John 15:26
It would seem that Jesus is indicating that the Holy Spirit is an Individual entirely separate and different from Himself. However, a similar thing occurs when Jesus refers to the Son of Man.
“The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness.”
Matt. 13:41
“The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men and they shall kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.”
Matt. 17:22-23
“Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Matt. 19:28
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.”
Matt. 20:18-19
“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.”
Matt. 25:31
When Jesus refers to the Son of Man in these scriptures it also seems like He is referring to an entirely different person from Himself. However, in Matthew 16:15 Jesus identifies Himself to be the Son of Man:
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
Matthew 16:13-17
It is clear from verse 15 that Jesus is Himself the Son of Man and that there is no separate or different Son of Man.
It would seem that in the verses in John 14 and 15 in which Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit in the third person that He is doing the same thing as when He referred to Himself as the Son of Man in the third person.
Although He speaks of Himself as the Holy Spirit in the third person, He indicates in John 14, that He Himself is the Holy Spirit. For example, in John 14:7 Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit lives with them:
17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you…..
John 14:17
As the Holy Spirit only came on Pentecost and Jesus was the One Who was living with them at that time and the One that they knew, this indicates that Jesus Himself is the incarnate Holy Spirit.
In John 14:18-20 He says:
18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
John 14:18-20
Notice that at the end of verse 20 He tells them that He will be in them. Obviously there is no way that He could come and physically climb inside of them to live in them. The only way that He could be in them would be in the form of a Spirit. We know as Christians that the Holy Spirit is the One Who is in us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
In verse 18 Jesus is telling the disciples that He will come to them. This happened on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down and filled the disciples. He tells them that He will come to them in a way that the world cannot see Him. The world cannot see Jesus living in a Christian as the Holy Spirit.
The apostle Paul seems to be the person who fully understood that the Holy Spirit is Jesus Himself. He described it as a mystery:
24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:24-27
This is the glorious mystery that the Holy Spirit is Jesus Himself and that He lives within the Church. Years ago I asked the Holy Spirit what I should call Him because I thought it seemed very formal to call Him Holy Spirit. The answer came back as clear as anything. He said: ‘Jesus.’
In Colossians 1 the apostle Paul distinguishes between Jesus’ physical body and the church as Jesus’ body:
22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—
Colossians 1:22
24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
Colossians 1:24
It is clear that Paul understands Jesus to be living inside the church as the Holy Spirit and that the Church is His body. A few verses earlier Paul described the Son of God:
12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you[f] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
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 into him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Colossians 1:12-20
In verses 15-18 Paul is clearly describing Jesus as He pre-existed as the Holy Spirit. Then In verses 18-20, Paul is describing the Holy Spirit after He became incarnate as Jesus.
Many Christians believe that Jesus was present in the Old Testament as a man, but that cannot be true because the Bible teaches that Jesus was ‘begotten’. If we look at the meaning of the word ‘begotten’ in https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3205.htm. You will see that the word is derived from the word meaning ‘to bear, bring forth, beget’. The word translated ‘begotten’ in Psalm 2:7 means that the Son of Man was begotten.
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:
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
Hebrews 10:5-7
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’”[a]
The Son did not exist as a man prior to that point. The speaker in the verse makes it clear that He sees Himself as separate from the body that was prepared. In other words He is not the body. He is in the body. The speaker is the Holy Spirit. He is in the body because He is the Spirit of Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, is the Holy Spirit made flesh.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 1:2 that the Father made the universe through the Son. This is true, because although the Son was not present in Genesis 1 as a man, He was present in Genesis 1 as the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we see that the Son of God is a new entity composed of the Holy Spirit within the body of a man and with the soul of a man.
Now we need to look closely at Who exactly the Holy Spirit is. In Isaiah 63 we are told that the Holy Spirit is the angel of his presence:
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 ‘his’ spoken of in the phrase ‘the angel of his presence’ is Yahweh the Father. However, in the next sentence the ‘his’ is not Yahweh the Father. Now it is the Angel that is spoken of because it was the Angel Who redeemed the Israelites from Egypt and Who lifted them and carried them through the wilderness and in the Promised land.
Hebrews 1:7 confirms that an angel can become a wind. Hebrews 1:7 reads as:
“He makes his angels winds,
and his ministers a flame of fire.”
In 1 Kings we read about how Yahweh meets with spirits and that one of them offers to be a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab’s prophets:
19 Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’
“One suggested this, and another that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’
22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked.
“‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.
“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’
23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.”
1 Kings 22:19-23 NIV
Clearly, Yahweh Who is meeting with the multitude of Heaven, is the Angel of His presence, Who is meeting with other angels. It cannot be the Father because Jesus made it clear that no one had ever seen the Father (John 6:46).
We see from Hebrews 1:7 and from this account in 1 Kings 22 that it is possible for an angel to enter a human being as a type of spiritual wind and to work within a human being to achieve a purpose, because this spirit was going to be within the mouths of the prophets causing them to lie to Ahab.
Also, we know that Satan, who is an angel, was able to enter Judas Iscariot, so that Judas betrayed Jesus:
27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.
So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.”
John 13:27 NIV
When a person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is able to enter that person and to become one spirit with their spirit (1 Corinthians 6:16-17). The reality of Christianity is that the Angel of His presence, in the form of a spirit, is living within us.
However, unlike demonic spirits, who will enter a person without their permission, the Holy Spirit never enters a person unless they ask Him to and He will not remain in a person if they no longer want Him to be there.
The Angel of His Presence is referred to as the Holy Spirit because He is the set apart Angel within Whom Yahweh the Father is present. Because Yahweh the Father lives within the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit inhabits a Christian, the Father also inhabits that person. This is because the Father is in the Holy Spirit. In Exodus 6: 2-3 we are told by Yahweh the Father what the specific name of this Angel is and that the Father is present within Him:
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
This Angel, El Shaddai, appeared to a number of different people in the Old Testament and these people described seeing Him as seeing God:
- In Genesis 16:13 Hagar calls the Angel of Yahweh, 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.
In Genesis 48 Jacob speaks about El Shaddai, Who appeared to him at Luz (Genesis 48:3).
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.”
Paul must have had this portion of scripture in mind when he wrote Philippians 2:6-8:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
Philippians 2:6-8
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Likewise, the apostle John, knowing that in Exodus 6:2-3 Yahweh the Father says that He was in El Shaddai when He appeared to the Patriarchs, recognised that El Shaddai was the Word of God, Who appeared to Abraham in Genesis 15. He, therefore, wrote the phenomenal words found in John 1:
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.
John 1:1-14 NIV
These words are undeniable proof that Jesus pre-existed as El Shaddai, the Holy Spirit, the Angel within Whom the Father is present.
Therefore, the Bible teaches that there is an Angel called the Holy Spirit because He is the Angel that Yahweh the Father is present within and that the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus. This Angel was called Yahweh in the Old Testament because Yahweh the Father had given His own name to this Angel. This is why Jesus was praying in John 17:11b:
Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me…
John 17:11b NIV
This majestic Angel, Who is the tabernacle of God the Father, became a man and walked on this earth as a man. He even went so far as to die on a cross to pay the price for the sins of mankind.
The early church was well aware that Jesus was both man and angel. 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)
You see that Philo is saying here that the Word of God, Who we know to be Jesus, is the great Archangel. He is the eldest of God’s angels. He is also saying that the Word of God became a man.
Another early Christian, Justin Martyr, who lived in the second century, wrote:
I shall give you another testimony, my friends,” said I, “from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a Beginning, a certain rational power from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos.”
– Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, LXI – (“Wisdom is begotten of the father, as fire from fire.”)
Justin Martyr attempted, with these words, to encapsulate the multifaceted identity of this great Angel, Who is the Spirit of Jesus and Who dwells within the church. Although he doesn’t get it 100% correct because the Holy Spirit is never called the Son of God in the Old or New Testaments; rather it is Jesus, the Holy Spirit incarnate, Who is the Son of God, Martyr is correct with regard to everything else.
Because Jesus is both man and angel, He is able to reconcile both men and angels to God. This is why the apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Colossians:
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. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Colossians 1:15-20 NIV
Therefore, although Jesus was a human being with the flesh and blood that we all have and Who was tempted as we all are, His spirit is the Angel within Whom Yahweh the Father dwells. The Father continued to live within Him when He became a man in exactly the same way that He lived within Him when He was an Angel. This is why 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
John 17:11 makes it clear to us that Jesus understood that He was the Angel of Yahweh incarnate. His disciples could not have missed the significance of what He said when He said that the Father had given Him the Father’s name. They would have immediately understood that He was identifying Himself as the Angel of His Presence. He made it absolutely clear to them by telling them that the Father lives in Him. However, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews points out, Jesus Christ is a unique Being. He is not an angel, because He is a man with the spirit of an angel. This is what he means when he says that God appointed Jesus heir of all things, and that God made the universe through Him. He is acknowledging the part of Jesus that is man, His body and soul and he is acknowledging the part of Jesus that is angelic, His spirit.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews would have been well aware of the fact that the Old Testament teaches that the Father created everything through the Holy Spirit. By writing that the universe was made through Jesus, He is saying that Jesus is also the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the author of the letter to the Hebrews points out that the man and the angel are fused together into a unique Being, Who is called the Son of God, and that this Being is considered by God to be superior to the angels.