There are some fascinating passages in the Bible in which God seems to take on a physical appearance. I am not talking about the physical features of the Son after His incarnation. In His incarnation Jesus didn’t just have a physical body, He was fully human both in His nature and His physical make up. In all of this, the Son was always also fully God. He put on humanity; He did not lose His Divinity.
These events of a personal encounter with God where He appears in an observable way are called a theophany. When the person is Christ, it is called a Christophany. This would be any time prior to His incarnation. The invisible God is seen (Col 1:15). He may take on a physical manifestation as a cloud, lighting, and thunder as in Exodus 19. To Isaiah He appeared as sitting on His throne (Isa 6:1). He appeared to Ezekiel in the midst of the living creatures (Ezek.1 and 10). In Exodus 33 God passes by Moses then Moses sees God’s back. He appears at the beginning after the Fall when God walked in the garden and talked to Adam and Eve (Gen 3:8).
There is a second, very thought-provoking and much debated theophany: the angel of the LORD. In various passages of the OT, this unique angel is mentioned. Unlike any other angel, he does not speak for God, he does not have a message from the LORD but speaks as God. In Exodus 3:2ff, the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in the burning bush. But in verse 4, it states “God called to him out of the bush (Ex 3:4). He says of Himself “And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” (Ex 3:6).
Clearly the “Angel of the LORD” is no mere angel but God Himself. Most likely He is a pre-incarnation appearance of Christ: a Christophany. When I first learned of these appearances, it blew my mind. We will spend time looking at each of these appearances seeking to understand what we can learn about God from them.
From this and earlier posts in this series, we determine the OT is all about Jesus. This was said by Philip (John 1:45) and by Jesus Himself (John 5:39, 46). He even taught the disciples on the road to Emmaus all that the Scriptures said about Him (Lk 24:27).
In the rest of the posts in this series: Jesus in the Old Testament, we will be looking at all the OT has to say about our Lord. We’ll cover passages of typology (pictures or examples that illustrate Jesus), prophesies about the Messiah’s coming and return, and theophanies (appearance of the pre-incarnate Jesus). We will even look at some passages outside of these groups such Genesis 1:1 because in John 1:3 Jesus is the Creator.
I hope you will be as excited about these posts as we are. There is much to learn and discover about our Lord from the most neglected part of Scripture: the Old Testament. Be sure to join us each Thursday as a new post is published especially when it is one in this series on Jesus in the Old Testament.
Until the next time we see you here at CultivatingFaith.org, God Bless! #CultivatingFaithOrg