So just who is this Angel of the Lord that speaks to Manoah and his wife?
We discussed this very question on Sunday in Bible class in connection with
another Old Testament story. The Bible reveals that the Angel of the Lord
is perhaps someone different than you might at first think. He is not a
created angel like Gabriel or any of the myriad others that God made in the
beginning. This Angel is uncreated. That's why in many Bibles, the
"A" for this Angel is capitalized. This is an eternal and divine
Being. Angel literally means Messenger; we might even translate it as
"Word," as in John 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God." You see, this is the Messenger of the Lord, the
Word of the Father, the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity, equal with the Father
and the Holy Spirit. The Angel of the Lord is the Son of God, Jesus,
before He was born among us and became man. Here the Son of God has come
down to man to announce a miraculous birth through which God the Father would
deliver His people, just as centuries later the Son of God Himself would be
miraculously born to bring eternal deliverance to His people.
You can read the rest of Rev. Aaron Koch's sermon here (scroll halfway down).
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