Christophany - Christ Among Us Before He Came As Messiah

 

Throughout the Scriptures we see God interacting with His creation in different ways. He talks with them, does acts and wonders on their behalf and He sometimes shows Himself to them. Some years ago I was introduced to a word that has caused me to more closely examine these appearances of God with His people, because the theory behind this word opens up the relationship of the members of the Trinity of God to our better understanding. This word is Christophany, and it refers to a physical appearing of Jesus the Son of God prior to His incarnation at what we refer to as His first coming, which we will see isn't really His first coming.

I recently wrote about Balaam's life, but for the sake of time, I really glazed over Balaam's journey to see Balak and what happened on that journey. This is where the donkey saved Balaam's life three times, but Balaam was not aware of why his donkey was acting so strangely, the reason for which leads us into the study of Christophanies. We know that an unseen entity has set himself against Balaam, and that entity is referred to as "the angel of the LORD". I hope that this jumps out at you a little bit because it looks odd. The reason it looks odd is because I have typed that in all capitalized letters. But it is most likely that your own Bible also capitalizes all of the letters in the word "LORD", but it looks like "LORD". Do you see the difference? All of the letters are capitalized, but only the 'L' is big, the rest are smaller, yet capitalized letters too. Do you know why the publishers did this? It is intended to catch your attention.

If you look in your Bible, probably in the first few pages in the front, there should be a page with explanations of different markings and types of text that the publisher used to note important things. In this case, when you read the word "LORD", this is a word used for "Master", which is a rendering of the word "Adonai". This is how my go-to Bible renders the word, but in the interlinear Bible, it is indicated that the original language actually says, "the angel of Jehovah"; Jehovah (H3068) being defined by Strong's as "the self-Existant or Eternal", Jewish national name of God; the Lord".

So when we read the word "LORD" in our Bibles, we should understand that this is a reference to God. When we see that the angel of the LORD confronts Balaam, we need to understand that this is God Himself. I believe that the word "angel" is meant to denote the form of His appearance, as in God presented Himself in the form of an angel. Unfortunately, I suspect that many people read this as being an angel, or messenger, sent by God, not as God Himself in the form of an angel.

We know from other parts of Scripture that man cannot look upon God and live, but we also know that Jesus is God incarnate, and men were able to look at Him without risk to their lives. In fact, Isaiah 53:2, in talking about the Messiah to come, says that there is nothing about Him that would draw our eyes to Him. His glory had to have been muted, or subdued so that He could interact with us. My belief is that Jesus often interacted with mankind throughout the Old Testament, as the "angel of the LORD", which we would call a Christophany. In my studying on this subject, I came across an interesting chapter in Judges that can enlighten us on this.

In Judges 13 we read of the announcement of the coming birth of Samson to his parents. In verse two, we read that "The angel of the Lord appeared to" the soon to be mother of Samson. When she went to her husband to tell him what she was told, she described her visitor as, "“A man of God... He looked like an angel of God, very awesome", and we know that He did not tell her His name. At this point, we can assume that this man of God could be just an angel, much like what we read about in the Gospels where the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary to announce the coming birth of the Messiah through her, which was also an awe inspiring sight for Mary. It does seem a bit unusual though, that the woman states that this man "looked like an angel of God". We know that in other instances where men or women had encounters with angels, they were shocked and afraid when they realized what was before them, but I don't think they are ever described as looking like "an angel of God".

After this first encounter with the angel, we see Manoah, Samson's father, pray to God that He would send "the same man of God" back to them in order to teach them how to raise Samson. In verse nine we read that God heard Manoah, and we read that He sent "the angel of God" to the woman a second time. But let's notice that the first time we are told that the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman, while the second time we are told that the angel of God appeared to her. So is this really the same man? We find our shortly that yes, this is actually the same man. We know this because in verse 10 we see that the woman tells her husband that “He’s here! The man who appeared to me the other day!” And this is again confirmed in verse 11 where Manoah asks the man if He is the same man who spoke to his wife earlier, the answer to which is, “I am”.

I will interject here with a little rabbit trail. I have started to watch whenever I read "I am" in the Bible to see if there is a hidden connection to the name of God, "I AM", as He gave to Moses at the burning bush. So in this case, I was hoping to see a direct connection between the "I am" in Judges and the "I AM" in Exodus. In this case, I cannot definitively connect the two linguistically, which I am honestly disappointed about, but I have been able to connect them in other instances, which can open up the meaning of Scripture like you have never seen before. I encourage you to give it a try. I find the lack of direct evidence linking the two here a matter that deserves more thought, since I am about to prove that this is, in fact, Jesus, who is also I AM.

Now going back to our study, in verse 13 we again see the visitor being referred to as the angel of the LORD, as well as in verses 15,16 and 17. So we can infer from this that the angel of the LORD seems to be interchangeable with the angel of God. But as we look at verse 16, after Manoah asks if the man will stay for a meal, the man states that Manoah should offer it as a sacrifice to the Lord, which is followed by a clarification in brackets, which states that "Manoah did not realize that it was the angel of the Lord."

After this we read that Manoah asks the man's name, the reply to which is "Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding", which my Bible notes means that it is "wonderful." Take note that Isaiah 9:6, while talking about Messiah, gives Him the name "Wonderful". Then we see the angel of the LORD ascend toward heaven in the flame of the sacrifice being given by Manoah. It is at this time that they realize that this man was the angel of the LORD. And what is their reaction? They fall down in fear, realizing that this man was not merely a man of God, but God Himself. Their reactions in verse 22 and 23 tell us that they are aware that they should be dead having seen God; they say, "We are doomed to die!” he [Manoah] said to his wife. “We have seen God!” ²³ But his wife answered, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this.”

So it seems pretty clear that, in this case, "the angel of the LORD" is God Himself, referred to both as the angel of the LORD and as the angel of God. We also see the acknowledgement that this couple knew that they should be dead having seen God, so why weren't they? It is my premise that this was a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus interacting with His creation, just as was the case with Balaam. And there are many other instances where I believe that Jesus Himself was interacting with man, and not just a messenger angel as many believe.

One such instance that jumps to mind is when Jacob wrestles with a man all night. How does that turn out for him? When the man is unable to best Jacob with physicality, He touches Jacob's hip and displaces it. Even so, Jacob does not relent until he is blessed by the man with whom he has wrestled. Obviously, Jacob recognized that this is no mere man, otherwise why would he have asked for a blessing? The man's reply to Jacob's request is, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” Then we see in verse 30 that Jacob renames that place “because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared", and this was after Jacob also asked the name of the man he wrestled, who answers him in a similar way as Manoah was answered for the same question; "“Why do you ask my name?”

It seems that this is not the end of the matter though, because we do not see Jacob receiving a blessing here. That comes a few chapters later in chapter 35, after Jacob tells all that are with him to get rid of their idols in order to worship God. It is after this that God Himself appears to Jacob, confirms his name change and blesses him (v.9-12). In this case we can't confirm that there was a physical appearance; it could have been merely a conversation, but we do see the confirmations that Jacob wrestled with God, face-to-face, and he did not die, but was blessed.

I want to just touch on a few other instances that you can examine for yourself where I believe that it was Jesus who met with people as the angel of the LORD and not just an angelic messenger. We have the walk and conversation that Abraham had with three men as they discussed Sodom (Genesis 18:1-33), though in this case the visitor is said outright to be the LORD. Then we have the man that Joshua met in Joshua 5:13-15, where Joshua is instructed by the man to remove his sandals because he was on holy ground; the same as we say with Moses as he spoke with God at the burning bush. In this case, we see the man referred to as the "commander of the army of the Lord", and we see again that He is standing with a drawn sword as we saw when He confronted Balaam.

Then we see in Judges 2:1-2 that "The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, ² and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?" The angel of the LORD lead the Israelites from Egypt, and this is who Israel broke covenant with - again, this is God, not a messenger angel. And again in Judges we see the angel of the LORD visit Gideon in verse 11, and this man is referred to as "The LORD" in verse 14, 16 and 17. Then again in verses 20,21 and 23 we see Him referred to as the angel of God, the angel of the LORD, and the Lord. These are all the same person.

There are more instances but I want to draw attention to two more things before I am done. I came across a description or definition of the angel of the LORD from the Lexham Bible Dictionary that both confirms and expands what I have written thus far. It says, "A study of these passages reveals that the Angel of the Lord appeared in human form (cf. Gn 18:2, 22; Heb 13:2) and performed normal human functions (Gn 32:24; Nm 22:23, 31), yet he was an awe-inspiring figure (Gn 32:30; Jgs 6:22; 13:22) exhibiting divine attributes and prerogatives including predicting the future (Gn 16:10–12), forgiving sin (Ex 23:21), and receiving worship (Ex 3:5; Jg 13:9–20). The title Angel of the Lord is particularly striking because it is used in many of these passages interchangeably with the terms Yahweh (Jehovah) and God in such a way as to leave little doubt that the angel is a manifestation of God himself."[a]

 And finally I want to wrap this study up with this item of note. Whereas we see the angel of the LORD appearing and interacting with mankind many times in the Old Testament, there doesn't seem to be any mention of Him in this way during or after the incarnation of Jesus in the New Testament. Instead, we repeatedly see "an angel of the Lord." Joseph was twice visited by "an angel of the Lord" in Matthew 1:20 and 2:13; we also see angels acting in Acts 5:19, 8:26, 10:3, 12:7, 12:23; these are all described as "an angel of the Lord". And please pay attention, just as I have been careful to try to refer to the instances of Jesus being the angel of the LORD throughout this article, in the New Testament, these references are all to an angel of the Lord. Note the difference and remember what I wrote earlier in this article about how your Bible uses specific text to bring attention to something important. In the New Testament, the word "Lord" is not written with all capitalized letters when referring to an angel; these are not manifestations of Jesus in the form of an angel as is noted by the font of the text; these are messenger angels. 

I don't know the reason why Jesus no longer deals physically and directly with man. I could only speculate that prior to His incarnation, it was His duty, His place to directly intervene with man while God the Father remained in Heaven or interacted only verbally with man. This may be due to the holiness of God the Father which was subdued or restrained in God the Son, but after Jesus was resurrected and ascended to Heaven, perhaps due to His sacrifice, His holiness can no longer be subdued and if He would present Himself to man now, perhaps His glory would cause men to die at this time as well. This could actually tie into His second coming when we will be transformed and all of mankind who remain on the earth will die when He comes; maybe because they, and we, could not survive in His glorious presence unless we are first transformed. We'll call this paragraph another thought experiment because I have never before considered this.

I hope that after reading this you might pay more attention to the font of the words that you read in your Bible and glean some additional information from the words that you are reading. If your Bible does not have this difference in text font as I have pointed out here, I would encourage you to get yourself a different Bible. Of all of the Bibles that I own, I only found one version that did not make this differentiation in the text. I use that Bible very sporadically just to get a different take on a verse that I may be stuck on, but I don't know the last time I opened it before today in order to check this exact thing.

 As always, please let me know what you think in the comments section below. 

[a]  Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Theophany. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 2051). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.