“What If…”

…a Messenger of the Lord Came.

The other day, in a post, I wrote out the words of Jesus that we find in the gospel of John, in our chapter three (remembering that chapters and verses were inserted into the translations and duplications in order to provide a means for quality control of those processes – they are not aspects of the word of God themselves) verses 16-21 and asked you, as readers to try to not recite that passage but to read it as if for the first time. In order to help facilitate that effort, I purposefully inserted the actual meaning of the word translated as “world” (which is “order or created order”) because it is often thought of as meaning only the people.

If you have read many of my posts, you will recognize that I am prone to provide that level of clarity (though some consider it “correction”) in my efforts, both here and in my longer form writings. For this instance, I received feedback that even that minor change in focus (one warranted by a more definitive understanding of what John was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write in the first place) brought a new level of understanding and “power” to the most familiar of verses.

Our grandson Bruce - 4 years old today!

As I thought on that, I was reminded of a series of short stories that I had outlined way back in the day that I thought of as the “what if’s” of my faith.

Since then I have written and published two books, am in process of completing a third, and have the outline for the fourth and final of that series. I have also posted about 120 entries here at the HisGloriousVictory substack. And had mostly forgotten about the “what if’s”.

After searching through my stacks of notebooks I came across that outline and the scribbles that supported it and realized that much of what I had considered as important there has been woven into the other endeavors I mentioned – but not all of them, or at least not all of them to the level of focus that I believe they are due.

And so…I will be building some of them out going forward. And though I do not foresee them being a series (in the sense of being back-to-back entries), I will demark them by including “What If…in their titles. Thus the title of today’s post: What If…a Messenger of the Lord Came.

Under these circumstances I would also like to reaffirm my absolute conviction that the Holy Spirit inspired the original writings of both the Old and New Testaments. That He also shepherded the process of selecting, securing, and eventually translating the scriptures for the purpose of giving us the story of God’s plan. It is in fact the “open” (or unsealed) version of the contract that God made within Himself that defines how He has chosen to interact with His creation within the confines of time. And therefore, within its pages are the fundamental concepts that definitively communicate His desires for His creation both within time and in eternity.

As I have noted before, William Tyndale was executed for translating the Greek New Testament into English (circa 1526). His being burnt at the stake was because that translation fulfilled the very desire for which Tyndale believed he was commissioned: to put the Word of God into the hands of the People of God – not just in those of the clergy or monarchy.

That there is more than one way to translate the verified, original scrips into any particular language is indisputable; that any of those ways are also refined can also not be denied (in other words, there are multiple “editions” of the New American Standard Bible, for example). The various translations are joined by even more devotional or expositional works that focus more (and maybe exclusively) on application than they do on an attempt to interpret the originals.

I believe the Holy Spirit – despite the variety – will lead us into all Truth, if we submit to His leading as we read and meditate on the written word. (He does, after all, work through flawed and feeble men and women.)

One last observation. Daniel was told that a proof of the culmination of the plan of God will be that “many will go back and forth and knowledge will become abundant.” We have at our disposal tools of knowledge that can be used (as they always have been able) to do good or to facilitate evil. What once required a three foot by six foot desk to hold all the reference books I would use for a project during college, now fit on my iPad; and what took hours to ferret out manually, from the piles of books, can now be done in minutes… at least for those who have laid the foundations of knowing His word. My point is – there is little to no excuse for each of us to study His word and show ourselves fit for His plan and purposes!

And so…What if a Messenger of the Lord Came?

There are some 300 verses in my Bible (I use NASB1995 primarily) that include the word “angel” in the contents of His message to us. That “English” word (first seen in the twelfth century) is used as the meaning of a single Hebrew word and a single Greek word – both of which, in their historical settings, would actually translate to the word “messenger”.

Before we take a look at a number of those verses (though I would encourage you to do your own “random” review as well), I would like to take a paragraph or three to expound on something that I find especially interesting as it applies to this particular “translation”.

When we think of idolatries or idols in general, we tend to think of statues. Molten or carved or molded images that can vary in shape and likeness. In fact, in the New Testament, the primary word for “image” is “eikōn” which is, of course, the Greek word for a statue or representation. If you were to ask just about anyone old enough to hold a pencil to draw an angel, they would image (imagine) in their mind how they believe an angel looks and attempt to draw it, and my experience would suggest that the various drawings would be more similar than different. My point is: we hold a very complete and fairly consistent picture in our minds, of what “angel” is.

However, if we were to ask ourselves about the accuracy of that image (meaning – how truly representative it is of the majority of Biblical text), we would certainly admit that what we envisioned and/or drew is not “really what an angel looks like”. And yet…there it is – popping up in our heads some three hundred times as we read the inspired words of God.

Now I get it. When we read the word king, or prince, or throne, or any other noun, we are likely, at some level of consciousness, to develop a picture in our minds of the thing we are reading about. So, the point about the image of an angel is, strictly speaking, less about the fact that we imagine something and more about that we immediately acknowledge to ourselves that it is an image that is “make believe”. I will leave that thought alone for a bit.

The very first time that I find the word “angel” (and its original Hebrew word) in the Bible is in our chapter 16 of the book of Genesis – the first of the books that Moses was commissioned by God to write. The story being told is that of Hagar, who is fleeing from her mistress, Sarai, because she was expecting a child, having been married to Abram because Sarai was barren. In verse 7, as Hagar has stopped to rest a bit, we are told:

Now the “angel” of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. Gen.16:7

What we are seeing and reading is the retention of the Greek word (as used in the Septuagint) in a slightly modified transliteration. What I mean is, if the Greek word that has the same definition as the Hebrew original here, is directly transliterated we would see “aggelos” or alpha, gamma, gamma, epsilon, lambda, omicron, sigma. Phonetically it would transliterate “angelos” with a very soft “n” sound derived from the double gamma. All of that aside, the Hebrew word that should have been translated (or maybe, at the least transliterated) is the word for “a messenger” (which would look like this “mal’āk”). Of the over 210 times that that Hebrew word is found in the Old Testament, it shows as “messenger(s)” 100 times and as “angel(s)” 110 times.

By the way, the historical definition of the Greek word from the Septuagint, and also behind our New Testament translations (the word “aggelos”) is… “messenger”; though in some modern Bible dictionaries or concordances, the idea of “angel” has been inserted into the definition. (Which, if found in a spreadsheet would be marked as an error because of the circular nature of the formula. Or as my elementary English teacher told us: “never define a word by the word”.)

(Back to my earlier point: if you asked the same group as before to draw a messenger, chances are what they would come up with would be less of an icon and more of a representation of one performing a service. It is the variety, the lack of the iconic implications of the real word, that I believe brings less confusion and greater understanding as we read.)

It is clear then, that how the word “angel” found itself into our Old Testament scriptures has nothing to do with the accuracy of a translation and everything to do with the retention of a concept. But it could not be a concept of a messenger, if that was the goal, then the translation would have been used. So, it is instead a concept that had become associated with the icons and pictures and stories that pre-dated our Tyndale translation. Winged creatures and cherubs that align more with mythology than with recorded descriptions and experiences from the Word of God itself (not to suggest that some of their descriptions are not cause for wonder).

But maybe I am making too much of it…

Returning to the first occasion of the word “angel” in the translation I use. As the story continues, this messenger of the Lord speaks clearly of the future for Hagar and her son, whom she is to name Ishmael (meaning “God hears”). He tells her things that only God (Who abides in the eternal now) would know and tells her to return and submit herself to Sarai. After the encounter, Hagar acknowledges that this messenger was God – calling Him the “God Who sees”, Whom she has seen and yet remained alive!

What if, in that first opportunity, the first time “mal’āk” is used, we had been introduced to the translation “messenger of the Lord” or maybe even “Messenger of the LORD” based on the context? How would that have framed the story differently? What image would be produced in our minds by knowing this person to be a messenger of the Lord? What if, instead of the technically non-sensical term “angel of the Lord” we read what had been said?

Interestingly, we need to get to the story of Jacob’s return to Canaan and his efforts to stage the reuniting with Esau in a way that did not result in he or his family being harmed, to find the first occasion when “mal’āk” is translated “messenger” (see Gen.32:3,6 – with 10 additional uses showing as “angel”). In this case, the messengers are clearly men under Jacob’s service who have been sent and who return with their report. Which may be happenchance or may reinforce that the retention of a concept rather than an accurate translation was the intent.

In between these two passages is the story of the destruction of Sodom.

Now the two “angels” came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw, he rose to meet them and bowed down his face to the ground. And he said, “Now my lords, please turn aside into your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.” They said however, “No, but we shall spend the night in the square.” Gen 19:1-2

It is important to note that at the very beginning of this particular story, we see these two with another man.

When he (Abraham) lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him; and when he saw, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth, and said, “My lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by. Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet and support yourselves under the tree; and I will bring a piece of bread, that you may sustain your hearts; after that you may go on, since you have come to your servant.” And they said, “So do as you have said.” Gen.18:2-5ff

Some translations have some of the early pronouns capitalized, suggesting that Abraham recognized at least one of these “men” as being the LORD. Though that may be the case, the invitation was very similar to the one we saw from Lot and is most likely an expression of the prevailing customs of that culture. What is consistent is that they are referred to as “men” (see also 19:10,12).

The One does, in the course of the conversation, reveal Himself to be the LORD (theologians would refer to this as either a Theophany or possibly a Christophany – meaning a physical manifestation of the Son of God prior to His incarnation). In the narrative of this interaction, He, after Abraham had fed them, declares the coming conception and birth of Isaac and then they (the four of them) begin to walk toward Sodom. It is at the start of their walk that the LORD declares:

“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham will surely become a great and Mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? For I have known him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” Gen.18:18-19

(By the way – I include those verse because of how they resonate the heart of God for all nations and all people; they don’t have a direct implication to the theme here…unless they do.)

Abraham and the Lord then negotiate for the survival of Sodom while the other two men “turned away from there and went toward Sodom.” When the negotiation was finished, and Abraham received the promise that, “I will not destroy on account of the ten”, we are told that the LORD departed, and Abraham returned to his place…while the other two men arrived to Sodom and suddenly became “angels”.

I am sorry if that seems disrespectful, but somehow, with the combination of a chapter break and the retention of a Greek, phonetically transliterated word, the entire characteristics of the story that the Lord had Moses write for our edification is changed. Changed not in the telling, but in our understanding of the tale!

If I were reading this for the first time (and, by the way, I remember trying to explain this more than once to our children as they experienced this phenomenon) I could easily wonder what ever happened to the two men…and how big were the wings on these two “guests”.

What if instead they were referred to as the messengers they were? Ones that quite clearly had accompanied the LORD from the realm of the spirit on a mission or two here on earth. What if we recognized that these were beings that could be treated as men; who needed to wash their feet, eat and even rest? And what if that was our natural perception, not one that we have to reconfigure because our first image was that of an “angel”?

I haven’t even made it halfway through Genesis, so clearly I will not be able to address the other 212 references…

I will point out one more of the more obvious Old Testament selections and encourage you once again to find your own favorite stories that include the messengers of God and determine what, if any, difference it might make to translate the word “mal’āk” instead of retaining a misunderstanding of a Greek transliteration.

In Judges 13 we find the beginnings of the story of Samson. Twelve times in this part of the story the Hebrew word for messenger is used.

There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had borne no children. Then the messenger of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son. Now therefore, be careful not to drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. For behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.” Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the messenger of God, very awesome (fearsome). And I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name. Judges 13:2-6

I am sure you noticed that I swapped the concept for the actual word, seen twice in the five verses. Before we touch on the closing revelation of these encounters, I would like to once again note that to the woman, he was a man. Yes, a man who had the appearance of an awesome messenger of God, but a man (though where he was from or even who he was, she did ask).

Her husband, Manoah, then entreated the LORD saying,

“O Lord, please let the man of God whom You have sent come to us again that he may teach us what to do for the boy who is to be born.” Judges 13:8

Several more times this man of God is referred to as a “man” (the word is “ish”) and several more times he is referred to as a messenger.

As the encounter ends, with Manoah offering a burnt offering with its grain offering to the LORD, the Messenger of the LORD…

…performed wonders while Manoah and his wife looked on. For it came about when the flame went up from the altar toward the heaven, that the Messenger of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw, they fell on their faces to the ground. Judges 13:19b-20

And so they knew that this man, this messenger of God was indeed the LORD. And Manoah expected to die; but his wife reasoned that if He was going to kill them, He would not have accepted their offering, nor shared with them His plans. (Got to love critical thinkers!)

Space is quickly being filled – so I will turn the topic to the New Testament. My premise remains consistent: I believe that there existed a concept that was both a placation to those who were forced to “convert” to christianity (I leave it uncapitalized on purpose here) AND a means of controlling the Christian laity by imposing a superstition on what should be seen as a wonderous and wonderful gift from God.

I will take a very similar approach with the Greek word. The word “aggelos” is used over 170 times; about 10 of which the actual translation is inserted. Meaning that the other some 160 times, it is displayed as the phonetic transliteration of the word.

My request continues to be that you, if the topic is of interest, take a moment or two, at your convenience and search out your favorite or most familiar passages that have within them the word “angel” and try the “what if” exercise. (By the way, doing this together can be especially beneficial. This allows the one reading to insert the translation, while allowing the one hearing to receive the impression without having to reform or reject the image that otherwise comes. And this would be a great time of the year to give it a try.)

The first book/letter written, according to most students of the Canon, was either James or Paul’s letter to the Galatians. For its contextual implications, the first passage that I will recall is from the first chapter of the letter to those in Galatia; in this passage the word is transliterated (I have put it in quotes to call it out).

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or a “angel” from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! Gal.1:6-9

As you likely remember from the series Lessons from Paul, this letter was written after Paul had attended a conference in Jerusalem where the topic was whether or not a Gentile needed to first become a Jew (come under the law of Moses, as evidenced by circumcision) before he could become a Christian and take advantage of Jesus’ ransoming sacrifice. The conference was called because Paul, after having returned from the mission that included him sharing the Good News in the region of Galatia, had confronted Peter. The confrontation occurred while Peter was in Antioch, and concerned his false piety, as demonstrated by his decision to stop eating with the Gentile converts once some converted Pharisees from Jerusalem arrived.

In the passage above, we have Paul saying that even if a messenger came from heaven, declaring a different salvation message, that messenger, that man, is to be accursed (the word means to be offered up as a pagan sacrifice – clearly Paul is not happy!) This may be looked at as a bit hyperbolic, but clearly Paul is working to avoid their freedom in Christ from being stolen away from them. (By the way, we know the definition of the “other gospel” because it is the primary topic of the next three of our chapters of this letter.)

James also has an occurrence of the use of the word “messenger” and it is actually translated as such. In recounting parts of their history as Jews, he reminds his readers of the works of Rahab, works that actually saved the lives of her and her household. In this case the messengers are men of Israel spying out Jericho, whom she hides and then helps to escape. This verse provides us with another example of the selective use of the proper translation which reinforces the intentionality of enforcing a concept rather than being consistent.

In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way. James 2:25

Of the remaining uses of the actual translation, there is only one that might suggest a messenger that is other than a human being. In our second letter from Paul to those in Corinth, in the 12^th chapter and verses 7-10, Paul describes what can, most likely, be understood as a spiritual battle.

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. 2Cor.12:7-10

That some believe this to be a man or woman is certainly suggested by the propensity of the translators who have only used the actual translation when it “clearly” applies to a human. But that very fact again speaks of a decision, even in the earliest English translations, to honor the Latin-based concept when the word “aggelos” is presented rather than translating the word consistently and allowing the context to guide the reader (with the Holy Spirit’s help).

Fittingly and finally, we find, in the Revelation, the very interesting battle that leads us to the beginning of the last three and a half years of the prophecy delivered to Daniel, from the Lord, by Gabriel.

And there was war in heaven, Michael and his messengers waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his messengers waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his messengers were thrown down with him. Rev.12:7-9

These prophetic verses, when it is obvious that the class of messenger being described is of the celestial type, can be especially challenging in the effort to unseat the image that, at best comes from our attempt to grasp the symbolic language used in passages where these are described.

One objection to my assertions is that those same images, that we currently imagine when we read the phonetic transliteration, might eventually accompany our reading of the word “messenger”. And though that is not impossible, it seems to me that it is not very likely. I hold this opinion because “messenger” has meaning apart from these scriptures, were as “angel” as a more or less manufactured (pun intended) word, holds no meaning, separate from these references.

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Our Lord and our Savior has messages that we need to hear (by “need” I mean that we are better off) and He sends His messengers to speak to us. The actual form of these messengers (meaning, where they come from) can be discerned to include God Himself, celestial beings of a spiritual nature, and flesh and blood men and women.

This fact, admittedly, retains the need for patient discernment when reading the word “messenger” just as it would with either the Hebrew or Greek original or retained phonetic transliteration. In other words, the “what if” does not propose an easier or lazier reading of the Word of God. It is more concerned with unseating a concept that neither improves understanding nor has earned respect because of its accuracy when compared to doctrine.

And so for time’s sake I will leave of here, in the hope that I have provided enough impetus for you to do your own digging. Worst case, your response to this “what if” is that nothing changes and you have given yourself an opportunity to discover that for yourself. But: what if your appreciation for the faithfulness of God in allowing us, in this day and age, to diligently present ourselves as approved to Him through, the tools He has made available, brings the power of glory of His Word even more to life?

What if a Messenger of the Lord came?!?