Category: Trinitarian Commentary

We’re back to continuing our look at the Trinity. I urge readers to be at Exodus 24 for this week. This is a passage that I have used in a sermon before as it is another one of those that we are prone to skip over as we fail to realize just what is going on. 

Verse 1 starts us off, as it usually does.

Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance,

At this point, some of the rabbis were wondering “Why didn’t God say ‘come up to me’?” Some of them answered that the one who was speaking was Metatron and was telling them to come up and see YHWH. Metatron was said to be an angel who was a lesser YHWH who bore the name of God.

If you ever saw the movie Dogma, now you can see that that name wasn’t just made up.

It’s an interesting interplay though as once again, we can have a possibility of at least two persons being called God properly. What gets interesting though is when Moses and Aaron and all the others go up to the mountain to approach the Lord. Let’s see what the text says starting at verse 9.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up

Okay. Sounds good so far.

and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire,  clear as the sky itself.

Now we’re getting to something truly awesome. At this point, they have a theophany of some sort where they see the God of Israel. I, again, think this could be a reference to the Son in his pre-incarnate state. The picture is one meant to give the reader a sense of the glory and awe of approaching God.

On to verse 11.

But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God,

God allowed these leaders to live. The text is clear as if it doesn’t want to see us miss the point again. They saw God. I have left off the last part of verse 11. Let’s see what happens in response to seeing God.

and they ate and drank.

What?

Yeah. They ate and drank. As a friend of mine once humorously put it when I pointed out this passage to him. “Hey look! It’s God! Yo Moses! Pass the bread and wine!” It strikes us as humorous in a sense and indeed it should.

However, I’d like to point out that I think this is also natural in one sense. We sometimes see the Christian worldview as anti-pleasure. Instead, I think the opposite is true. The Christian worldview is meant to be the most pleasurable worldview of all.

I would say that pleasure makes the most sense at the foot of God. If the Christian worldview cannot account for pleasure, we have a problem. We should be having the lives that are filled with the most pleasure for we serve a God of pleasure.

Are we?

There are sometimes that I get comments that I think deserve addressing in another blog and such is the one in this case in asking about God’s use of Jacob. Was it really fair? Why did God use someone like Jacob?

I think for many of us Christians, we have two parts to us. Part of us does think that God shouldn’t use people like that. He should use the best of the best. On the other hand though, we look at that and think, “He used Jacob with all of the wrongdoing that he did in his life? Maybe he can use me as well.”

The Romans 9 passage also tells us that Jacob was chosen before he had done any thing. Only one of these two could carry the line of Messiah. I’d also add that I’m one who believes that Jacob was chosen for service and not necessarily for salvation, although I do believe he is among the saved.

Now our questioner is fair in admitting that Esau was hardly a saint either. Esau was easily taken advantage of for his own sinful tendencies. The Hebrews writer tells us that he despised his birthright and warns us to not be like him. (Is it really likely that he was dying when he spoke to Jacob and wanted something to eat?)

It cannot be denied though that Jacob is hardly a saint. However, as always, the covenant rests not on the faithfulness of the followers of God, but on the faithfulness of God. None of us can condone the lying and cheating of Jacob. It was wrong and the Bible never condones it either. It paints the pictures of the heroes of the faith with all their faults and failures.

However, Jacob does get back some of what he dished out.

We all know the story of how he worked to marry Rachel and then lo and behold, this time Jacob had the wool pulled over his eyes and there was Leah. After another 7 years of work, Jacob is given Rachel to marry.

It’s doubtful this was a happy home either. We see a rivalry building up between Leah and Rachel as they each try to have kids and Rachel blames Jacob for what happened. (Ironically, being the wife he wanted, Rachel was the one that got Jacob into the most trouble.)

Meanwhile, his own father-in-law tries to cheat him again out of the sheep. Jacob implements a plan that only works by the grace of God. When Jacob finally gets away, his father-in-law chases him down trying to get the family idols back. Rachel seems to have inherited some duplicitous nature though and lies to her own father-in-law. (Imagine what would have happened had the idols of the family been found?) 

What else happens? Well his oldest son decides that Dad’s concubine is the key to a good time, and probably at the same time making a statement about how he views his Dad. By trying to claim his Dad’s concubine, he’s in essence saying that he considers his father non-existant. 

When his daughter gets raped, his two oldest boys decide a good plan of revenge would be to trick the town into getting circumcised and then killing everyone. One can imagine the neighboring towns were pleased to hear that. I wonder where Jacob thought they got that duplicitous nature from…..

Then later, his favored son Joseph is out trying to find his brothers and they decide to sell him into slavery and convince their father that he’s dead, which brings about Jacob’s great sorrow over the death of his son. How many years did he lose over that?

Something else to note though. By the time he died, Jacob had definitely become a worshipper of God and was committed to following him. God was with Jacob not because of what he did but in spite of what he did.

That’s good news for all of us. 

I was asked if how Jacob was treated was fair.

I say “Thank God he doesn’t give us what we deserve.”

After all, if God is seeking to use only perfect people, none of us have a shot. Seeing the heroes of faith though always reminds me that just as much as I have failures and limitations and my own sins of the past, so did they.

Now do I fully understand why God does the things he does? Of course not. Nor do I expect to.

I just look and see his grace and realize that if he had some for Jacob, there’s hope for sinners like me.

My thanks to Miko for his comment! I really do appreciate it! I know for a lot of readers this is stuff they’ve known about for awhile, which is why sometimes I have a hard time deciding what to blog on. There are things I think “everyone knows that,” but I have to take time sometimes to realize that it could be not everyone does. I am also reminded that Luther said we need to preach the gospel to each other every day, and that, I believe would include reminding us of the glorious truth of Trinitarianism. 

We’re moving ahead to Exodus. A little over 400 years has passed and Israel who we left last time has had his descendants develop into a nation and that nation is exceedingly numerous. All those people are also being slave labor for the Egyptians. A man named Moses who grew up in Pharaoh’s household has been on the run having murdered an Egyptian. While shepherding a flock, a bush catches on fire near him and yet, it is not consumed. (Note this so many skeptics: Even if they didn’t have Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion in those days, they could also recognize scientific anomalies like bushes on fire that aren’t consumed, virgin births, and resurrections.)

Also to be noted is who appeared to him in that blazing fire in the middle of the bush. It’s the Angel of the Lord again. However, when we get to verse 4, the term “angel” becomes absent and again, we are immediately hearing about “The LORD.” 

The LORD calls out to Moses and tells him to take his shoes off for he’s on holy ground. In verse 6, the LORD declares who he is:

Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Let’s look at the end of this first. Moses hides his face because he’s afraid to look at God. Obviously, this must be some visible manifestation and who do we know of that’s in the bush but the Angel of the Lord?

Now we come to how he identifies himself. I find something amazing about this. Let’s think about all the things he could have said. 

“I am the God who created the heavens and the earth.”

“I am the God who created you.”

“I am the God who flooded the world.”

“I am the God who enabled Sarah to become pregnant in her old age.”

“I am the God who rained down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Instead, he identifies himself by the covenant. In speaking of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I believe he is telling not just that he was their God, but he was the one who made a covenant with each of them and is now saying that he is about to fulfill that covenant. Moses would have known about the promise to redeem Israel.

Keep in mind though this was the verse Jesus used to refute the Sadducees in that by saying he was their God, he was treating them as if they had existence on some level. He is not the God of the dead but the God of the living.

Interestingly, after the LORD reveals his plan, Moses answers but it says that Moses answered to God. The words are used interchangably. When the LORD speaks of the covenants, we find that the name YHWH is used. When it comes to his power to fulfill the covenant, it’s Elohim used, which is the word for God. This is probably not a hard and fast rule, but it seems to hold true. 

At this point, we have God saying who it is who is sending. He is to be identified as “I AM.”

We often think of this as being God’s name. A name in the ancient mindset was more than just a collection of letters put together. We often will look through a baby book today and come up with a name we think is cute.

For the ancients, a name was the way your identity was established. This is why names were often given by God in the Bible to people. This is why he changed their names also. He was giving them identity and changing their identity. 

In this sense, we cannot really say God has a name as we think of it. Who would give it to him? Did he go from having a name to not having a name if it gave it to himself? However, we can speak of him as always having a nature and this name describes that nature. This is a God of pure actuality. He is in the fullest sense of the term.

And in the fullest sense of the term, he is going to bring about his covenant in a Trinitarian style.

We’re going through the OT and looking at the appearances of God and/or the Angel of the Lord. In Genesis 32, we come across an account of Jacob preparing to meet his brother Esau. When he had fled from Esau earlier, it was because Esau had planned to kill him.  

Now he knows that Esau is ahead of him and before too long, he’s going to be reunited with his brother. That death threat is still hanging over his head as far as he knows and so, he sends everyone ahead of him and he stays behind on the edge of the river.

While he is there, a man shows up. We are not told anything about this man. We are just told that he is a man. What happens? Jacob and this man wrestle against each other all night long. As the sun began to rise, the man saw he could not overpower Jacob.

What does the man do then? He touches the socket of Jacob’s thigh and dislocates it. While wrestling all through the night is quite a feat of endurance, the man’s ability to do this by just a touch points to some greater power at work here.

Jacob still keeps a hold on this man though and the man finally asks to be let go. Jacob refuses and tells him that he will not let the man go until he blesses him. I have no reason to doubt that Jacob knew this man was divine in some way.

The man asks Jacob what his name is. It’s a question of identity. It’s quite interesting that this happens the day before Jacob goes to meet Esau. Jacob had to think back to a time when someone else asked him who he was.

It was back in Genesis 27. Jacob was wanting to steal the blessing from Esau and so he went to his father who was blind while he had on some fur to make his Dad think that he was Esau. Isaac asked who he was as he couldn’t see and Jacob had answered “I am Esau.”

This time, he said “I am Jacob.” What does Jacob mean? Deceiver. Cheat. That was what Jacob had done after all and God would certainly know that. This time though, Jacob had lived up to what he had done and admitted his nature. He was a cheat.

He is then told that his name will be Israel, because he had wrestled with God and won. It is at that point that Jacob calls the place “Peniel.” Israel refers to one who struggles with God. Peniel refers to the face of God. Jacob realized that he had seen God face to face, and he had lived.

Do we have any other information on who this guy was?

In Hosea 12:4, we read this:

He struggled with the angel and overcame him; 
       he wept and begged for his favor. 
       He found him at Bethel 
       and talked with him there-

So again, I see this as the Angel of the Lord, and yet, Jacob says he saw God. If you watch and see how our theory is building up, this does fit in with the idea that the Father has not been seen, and yet God is seen. The way to explain this is what the doctrine of the Trinity explains. The Son was there and while pre-incarnate, we will get to the point where the Word does become flesh.

First off, thanks to Kabane for his comment. I really like knowing that the Trinity series going on now is appreciated. Some of my friends know that the Trinity is a strong passion of mine and this is a doctrine that the church needs to reclaim. We are not just monotheists. We are Trinitarian monotheists. That distinguishes us from the rest.

Tonight, we’re going to be looking at Genesis 22. (For those wondering, yes. I am trying to do my blogs earlier and on weekends, they could pop up at strange times. It’s part of my devoting more time to reading, especially with books to go through before class starts.)

Now while I am focusing on the Trinity, I’d like to bring some other aspects out of this passage. There are so many parallels in this passage that I once shared this with someone and it just freaked them out entirely as they didn’t realize the Bible was like this.

Let’s start with Abraham and Isaac going to the mountain. On the way there, they stop and turn to the men traveling with them and Abraham says that he and Isaac will go and that then they will return to go back home.

Did you notice that?

THEY will return?

But do we have any reason to believe Abraham was hesitant?

Somehow, Abraham knew the child of the promise would survive. At this point, resurrection had not even been hinted at, but Abraham figured this God who had been communicating with him would be capable of raising the dead.

Notice as they go up that Abraham is carrying the implements for offering the sacrifice, but it is Isaac who is carrying the wood? Do we know any stories of other sons that went up hills carrying the wood for the sacrifice?

When they reach the place of offering, Abraham binds his son and lays him on the altar. Sound simple? Maybe not. Consider this. This was several years later. It’s believed that Abraham was about 115 and Isaac was about 16 years old.

How many 115 year-old guys do you think could bind and tie up a 16 year-old kid? My guess is Isaac could have at least outran him. In Jewish tradition, the reason this happened is that Isaac was a willing sacrifice.

A son who was a willing sacrifice….

Now we get to the angel of the Lord showing up. Let’s look at what he says in verse 12:

12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Notice that! The angel says that you fear God, but then says “You have not withheld from ME your son, your only son.” In this case, this person is taking on divine prerogatives as sacrifices were to be made only to God, and yet, he is calling another person God?

Further credence that this is God the Son.

Later he will say this:

15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16and said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Notice again how he speaks. First, the change is made from the Angel of the Lord to “The LORD” and then he speaks in the same blessing language that God spoke to Abraham in. It’s hard to miss this angel taking on divine prerogatives.

But what happened in between that speaking?

Abraham offered another sacrifice.

A ram, an adult male lamb.

And it’s caught.

It’s caught in a thicket, a rather thorny area.

Caught by its horns, which we know, are on its head.

So we have an adult male lamb with thorns on his head being a sacrifice.

It makes you wonder if the Angel of the Lord knew that there would come a time when a son would be sacrificed to God, a son, an only son, and there would be no one to say “YHWH. YHWH. Hold back your hand!”

Maybe….

Tonight, we continue our look at the Genesis passages in relation to the Trinity and we will be looking at Genesis 19. This is the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. We get so caught up in the debate on homosexuality in this chapter, (Which I do think that was one of the reasons the cities were destroyed) that we miss out on some of the actions that are taking place. 

As we left chapter 18, the visitors of Abraham were looking down on Sodom. Although not explicitly stated, the figure known as the LORD stayed behind to talk with Abraham while the other two went ahead to the city. Genesis 19:1 tells us that the two angels came to Sodom, indicating that their other traveler was elsewhere. Keep him in mind. (Considering who he is, let us hope you do.)

Now I’m going to grant that most of us know the story. I’m not going to describe it until we get to the part where fire and brimstone begin to rain down. I’m sure you’ve read the passage, but I wonder how many readers have actually caught what is said in verse 24.

 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.

So now we return to that one visitor of Abraham’s as the people Lot meets are addressed as lords. However, there is a distinction made between them and the LORD. It is not until verse 24 that we see him again. He is referred to throughout Genesis 19, but here we see him in action.

But not only do we see the LORD in action, we also see the LORD in action.

No. I’m not repeating myself.

Notice that there are two persons being addressed in this passage, however, both of them are called LORD. If we were reading it literally, we would take out the word LORD and replace it with YHWH so the passage would read:

 24 Then the YHWH rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the YHWH out of the heavens.

There’s two persons called YHWH? Is this a contradiction? Only if you want to presume that Moses was an idiot. If you’re a unitarian, you can have a difficult time with this passage. If, however, you are a Trinitarian it makes perfect sense.

This gets me back to the identity of the man addressed as the LORD in Genesis 18. I find further confirmation that we were dealing with God the Son there since we have a reference to another YHWH here and he must be one other than the Son. Since the Spirit normally manifests in spiritual gifts and the shekinah glory in the Old Testament, I take this one to be the Father.

Trinitarian thought has no problem here. The Son and the Father are there together in relationship. Two persons and as we will see as we go on, one YHWH, for Moses is no doubt a monotheist and the Jews who interpreted the Torah for ages even before the time of Christ saw Moses as a monotheist. This is a reason this is one of my favorite passages to use on unitarians.

When we continue this series, we shall look at the offering of Isaac and see what happens there.

In our look at the Trinity in Scripture, we will return to the Angel of the Lord, but another encounter comes before the Angel of the Lord returns and for the Trinitarian, it is one of the most intriguing encounters of Scripture and quite amazing considering it happens so early in the Scripture when we wouldn’t necessarily expect highly developed theology. (At least, not from the liberal point of view.)

Tonight, we will look at Genesis 18. In this passage, Abraham is visited by three visitors. However, as Abraham approaches, he does not address them as “My lords”, but rather “My lord.” (For those concerned about my lower-case, I am going by what my translation has at this point and I agree as I do not believe the identity of these men is yet known.) However, when he describes what he plans to do, the men answer as a whole.

However, when we get to verse 9, we see the LORD being capitalized and asking where his Abraham’s wife Sarah is. Now it could be that this was simply something said in discussion sometime on the part of Abraham, but it could be that this is capped at this point in a translation like the NIV because knowing the name of Sarah indicates some divine foreknowledge. To add to that if such is the case, a prophecy is made and a rather remarkable one, that Sarah in her old age will have a son. 

When Sarah asks, we are told that the LORD asked why she laughed. Is there anything that is too hard for the LORD? He promises that he will return at an appointed time next year and that at that time, Sarah will have a son. It could be that the person is speaking of himself in an honorofic sense, or it could be that in saying the LORD, the LORD is referring to another one who is the LORD. 

We are told that the men rose up and Abraham was walking with them as they looked at Sodom and Gomorrah and the view switches to simply, the LORD speaking. He asks himself in the text if he should hide from Abraham was he is about to do and says in verse 19: 

For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

Notice that the LORD says he has chosen him, but yet, there is another spoken of as the LORD. Could it be simply the LORD speaking of himself in a glorious sense, or could it be instead that something else is going on in this text?

 20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

Notice in this passage that the LORD says that the outcry has reached him. This would refer to prayer, so the person speaking here is one who is hearing the prayers of the people who are crying out for help against Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Abraham bargains with God over the cities and our last text here will be 23-25:

23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare  the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

 Apparently, Abraham has some understanding of who this is and points to his holiness and goodness and then indicates that this figure is the judge of all the earth, quite an eschatological statement for our first book of the Bible, and says “Will not you do right?”

What is going on?

Some of this will have to wait till our post on chapter 19, but I do not believe the three men represent the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Instead, I believe that the LORD in this passage is God the Son. I say this because John 1:18 makes it clear that no one has seen God, in reference to the Father, at any time. Further reasons will be brought out as we look at chapter 19.

For now, keep this passage in your mind as it is the necessary predecssor to what happens in chapter 19, where we will see a quite startling text for a monotheistic faith.

I’m returning for now to our look at the Trinity and the character in Scripture I want to look at first is one that appears a number of times in the Old Testament. Since this is a lengthy subject, I will be breaking it down into various posts, as good readers can tell simply by the title of this thread. 

The Angel of the Lord! Some of us can read the text and not notice at times what is so astounding about this figure, something I attribute to the sad tendency that our education in the church can tend to dumb us down even and get only the applicational message out of a text rather than the doctrinal message. Application is important, but it must be rooted firmly in doctrine.

Tonight, I’d like to look at Genesis 16. I’m going to trust that any readers of my blog will have their Bibles open and be looking at the passage. After all, it’d be really annoying for you to have to scroll up and down constantly in this passage to see the text and then come back and see my commentary.

In this account, we have Abraham’s concubine Hagar, in a rivalry as it were with Abraham’s wife, Sarah. Hagar has been able to have a son and because of that, she looked down on Sarah. Back in the ANE, having a child was a great blessing to a lady and to be barren was a curse. This is something that needs to be emphasized in our abortion culture today. 

Sarah sends Hagar away with her son and as Hagar is going, the Angel of the Lord appears to her and asks where she is going. This is the first appearance that we have of Scripture of this figure so let’s note some things from this encounter. 

The angel tells Hagar to return and submit and then makes some promises which are as follows: 

The angel added, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.”

 11 The angel of the LORD also said to her: 
       “You are now with child 
       and you will have a son. 
       You shall name him Ishmael, 
       for the LORD has heard of your misery.

 12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; 
       his hand will be against everyone 
       and everyone’s hand against him, 
       and he will live in hostility 
       toward  all his brothers.”

Notice this first part. The Angel of the Lord does not say that the Lord will do this or that God will do this. Instead, the Angel of the Lord seems to take the initiative on himself and say that he will increase the descendants of Hagar. Normally, the prophets would all say that this is what the Lord will do and the other angels we see in Scripture would do the same. This one doesn’t.

This angel is also making a promise and it is not being prefaced with a “Thus sayeth the Lord.” What will make this more revealing is to look at what happens after this message is given. How does Hagar respond to it?

 13 She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” 14That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

Hagar equated seeing this angel with seeing God. She believed that she had spoken to the Lord and she believed that he was the God who saw her. One might be tempted to think that her view was incorrect, but if we hold to the inspiration of Scripture, we have to ask why did Moses write this in this way with no disagreement unless he wanted us to know something about this figure?

Thus concludes our first look and I urge the reader to keep in mind what is said about the Angel of the Lord as we see him in other passages.