A recent video by Yehuda Yisrael deals with the subject of the Angel of the LORD and essentially tries to deal with the Christian arguments that Jesus is that angel. This will not be like the last article in terms of structure and listing points but there are certainly a number of points that need to be addressed nevertheless.
You can find the original video for context: A JEW DEBUNKS THE TRINITY! The BEST WAY to PROVE JESUS IS NOT G-D IN THE FLESH! @LFTV @SOBEIT32AD
So let us get into the matter at hand.
Preface
Certainly the argument of could God appear in a shape has to be treaded very carefully (I admit this was something I have failed before at in the past.)
I say it has to be treaded carefully because too often, Christians "panic" for a lack of better term when challenged on the Trinity, the Deity of Jesus Christ etc. There is no need to panic.
When it comes to whether or not God could do this or that, that again has to be treaded carefully.
To give an fictional example, let us use Doctor Who as an example and one of it's most famous concepts, regeneration, a Time Lord's ability to change their bodily form upon the death of an incarnation. The earliest example being the episode, "The Tenth Planet."
MrTardis in his review of "The Tenth Planet" wondered if the episode would have been nearly as memorable without the Cybermen and Regeneration ending but he acknowledged it was a reductionist way of looking at the episode as it has those things and is an iconic story for those reasons.
In other words, with the TANAKH and New Testament as real examples, we have to deal with what is written rather than hypotheticals of whether or not God could take the form of a man, a calf, a goat or as Tovia Singer mentions "a cottage cheese sandwich." which he obviously said that God wouldn't.
The question among Jews and Christians should not be "Could God become a man?", really it should be "Did God become a man?"
The contention is whether or not this actually happened or not is what will be discussed. Do forgive the jumping all over the place in this article.
The Three Deuteronomies
Though late in the video, Yehuda talks about bringing Christians to deal with these passages.
The passages that ought to be dealt with here are the three passages from Deuteronomy 4, 5 and 13 and with respect to Deuteronomy 13 particularly, I am somewhat disappointed that Yehuda has brought that passage as an argument to the table again but some arguments do need addressing more than once.
Deuteronomy 4:10 how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ 11 And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. 13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments,[b] and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.
15 “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. 19 And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. 20 But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.
Deuteronomy 4 as it appears does require a fair amount of unpacking.
There is a warning for all time not to make an image in anything and not even worship a man or a woman though create by God's hand.
However, the passage in question doesn’t preclude the idea of God appearing in visible shapes, be it Moses beholding the image of God or as found in Isaiah 6 when God is seated on the throne. The warning against idolatry still stands but the command doesn’t stop God appearing in a visible shape albeit temporarily, as he did that in Genesis 18 and Exodus 24. (More on the passages later.) It also doesn't suggest that God is promising never to appear in an incarnation down the line (Raised in the comments, not the video)
Deuteronomy 5 says the following, similarly to that of the previous chapter:
5 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5 while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain.
Once again it repeats the reference to the previous incident at Horeb and talks of the people talking to God intimately (Which is what face to face means, a valid point. which is found in Exodus 33:20, more on Exodus 33 later.)
The passages of Deuteronomy 4 and 5 (and 13) shouldn't be ignored as commandments and the point that Yehuda made is that the commandments of God take precedent over any appearances of the angels.
While a valid point, the commandments do not override and refute the Christian point of God appearing visibly as a man nor do they refute "The Great Angel Hunt" nor is it circular reasoning.
Moreover, it is not as simple as saying Jesus is not a manmade creation as Yehuda mentions the fact that Adam himself was not a man made creation (as with the sun and the stars.) which he is right in pointing out the rashness in the argument made.
However, When Jesus' deity is properly argued for, There is no justification for the worship of the sky, sun, moon, stars and other things as verse 19 is also an exhortation not to bow down to them. Rightly It is not bowing to idols only that is forbidden, but also bowing down to what is in the sky and the seas below. Even in the book of Revelation, John bows to an angel and this is what he is told.
Revelation 22:6 And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”
7 “And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, 9 but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”
Even in the New Testament, heavenly bodies and even the angels and ordinary men cannot and must not be worshiped.
Does this refute Jesus being the Angel of the Lord? No.
As for Deuteronomy 13, we read the following:
13 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil[a] from your midst.
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace[b] or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.
The point brought to the table by Yehuda is this:
"Abraham never prayed to Jesus, Moses never prayed to Jesus, none of these prophets the TANAKH ever prayed to Jesus so Jesus falls into the the category of other gods who Israel has not known. Even if he resurrected himself from the dead which obviously I don't believe but even if that was the case, it would still put Jesus in that category of being another god who Israel has not known and therefore you're to reject that prophet because they are not a true prophet, Resurrection or not, it makes no difference."
I'm sorry but the resurrection does make a difference as I have explained to you in the past and this is an opportunity to dive into that.
First, I agree miracles prove nothing about the genuineness of a prophet for even false prophets can do mighty works.
To highlight a point within Christian circles, John MacArthur raised this concern in his book Strange Fire with respect to Deuteronomy 13:
"The New Testament is relentless in echoing that same warning. Anyone who claims to speak for God while simultaneously leading people away from the truth of God's Word is clearly shown to be a false prophet and a deceiver. Even if such a person makes accurate predictions or performs supposed wonders, he is to be disregarded-since Satan himself is able to perform counterfeit miracles (cf. 2 Thess 2:9)" (John MacArthur, Strange Fire, Pg 107)."
He points out and is correct that even a false prophet can proclaim the name of God and still be condemned if the doctrine he brings is unbiblical and speaks also on the immorality accompanying said prophet.
Resurrection however unlike other miracles is a unique miracle in it's own category.
A prophet who was raised from the dead is an example of God confirming the prophet, his words, his deeds and teachings to be true and vindicating his claims. In the passage of Deuteronomy 13, resurrection of a prophet who had previously died is not treated as a grounds for rejecting a prophet. If anything, a death with no resurrection until the end of days is the nail in the coffin for the prophet.
If Jesus was a false prophet, There is also no reason to think that God is still testing people by raising him from the dead to see whether he is followed or not, that would be nothing more than a cruel cosmic prank, so the only conclusion is that the resurrection really happened as God confirming the message.
Furthermore, As I have said in my response to Yisroel Blumenthal:
The people of Israel would not have needed Jesus to be explicitly seen at Mt Sinai in order for the Christian position to be valid, the main criteria for that would be if Jesus himself told the truth and his claims of himself were accurate, especially the claims he made that no creature could make, which would be blasphemy if Jesus was a mere creature. (https://answering-judaism.blogspot.com/2024/07/what-of-jeremiah-1011-response-to-rabbi.html)
Now as as far as Abraham and Moses were concerned, they were worshipping Ha Shem but them not knowing Jesus directly would not mean Jesus is a separate God that the people have not known, they just simply were not aware of the Triunity of the Godhead as we are now. A lack of awareness of Jesus does not suggest he is a strange god.
The Trinity to be reiterated here teaches there is one eternal God, but this one God exists as Three Divine Persons, The Father, The Son (Who Jesus is) and The Holy Spirit which as James White has noted was revealed in the incarnation of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The resurrection would not only vindicate Jesus, but lends credibility to the Trinity as well.
Furthermore, Jesus doesn't tell the Israelites or the Jews of his day to worship other gods, on the contrary, he calls his people back to the God of Israel, even going so far as to call out the Pharisees for essentially binding the people to traditions of men rather than keeping the commandments of God. So Jesus once again doesn't fall into calling people to "Serve other gods, gods you have not known."
Lest anyone (though the argument wasn't used by Yehuda but this is a preemptive response) think that Mormonism or Islam or any cult group after Christianity can logically be true as a result of the arguments I have been making, the argument of Avodah Zara against Christianity doesn't work.
Muhammad failed this, Joseph Smith failed this and certainly Balaam would have failed this. If Jesus rose from the dead, he ends up being vindicated and having the Father’s stamp of approval. If anyone wants to say it proves nothing, there is no evidence in the TANAKH, even in Deuteronomy 13 that the same false prophet would be raised later to test the people, it simply wouldn’t happen.
If Jesus' claims in the New Testament are false, then this argument could hold some weight.
If Jesus' claims in the New Testament are true, you have no choice but to accept him as Ha Shem, specifically the Second Person of the Trinity, no ifs, no buts.
The Angel of the Lord "Inconsistencies"
Courtesy of Sam Shamoun who was very helpful in this a decade ago, I had written articles on the Angel of the Lord. In PMs on Paltalk, he was instrumental in arguing a solid case for the Angel of the Lord.
https://answering-judaism.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-angel-of-lord.html
https://answering-judaism.blogspot.com/2013/10/more-on-angel-of-lord.html
https://answering-judaism.blogspot.com/2013/10/even-more-on-deity-of-christ-and-angel.html
https://answering-judaism.blogspot.com/2014/07/some-more-on-deity-of-christ-and-angel.html
Are we Christians being inconsistent on the subject of this? Are we being inconsistent on the subject of the Angel of the LORD and do we have to logically say that Isaiah and Moses are God? No.
To begin with and reiterate a comment made in Contra Blumenthal, While you are free in the matter to suggest that the angel is a representative, this wouldn't undercut Jesus being God and appearing to the people as an angel functionally.
Jesus is Ha Shem, but he is not the Father, however this wouldn't detract from the fact he can function as the Father's agent or his representative. It's one member of the Trinity speaking on behalf of another, like in the examples that were given by Yehuda himself where a representative can speak on God's behalf. If Jesus himself is Ha Shem, then he is worthy of the devotion that is given to God, considering he is in nature God (Philippians 2:5-11) but is a distinct person from the Father. If however he is not God, I think Jews and Christians already know the answer to that one.
Funnily enough in the first article on the Angel of the Lord above and although it has not been recorded, I actually did have a small discussion with Yehuda on the text at least a decade ago.
I will post both Chabad.org's translation AND the ESV and you can read Genesis 18 and 19 for yourself:
Chabad:
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8213
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8214
Bible Gateway ESV:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2018&version=ESV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019&version=ESV
As to whether or not we have a consistent standard to identify the Angel of the LORD as God, that is easy. Not every single occurrence of the Angel of the LORD is God, Furthermore, it is important to remember that even though the Angel of the LORD speaks on behalf of the LORD, that is not what makes him God, it's when someone, identifies himself as such.
Jesus didn't exist as a man before man existed. He didn't take on flesh until 2000 or so years ago. Jesus appeared to Jacob in the form of a man (more on that point), it was temporary and wasn't a true incarnation. It's not until the time of the NT that he had a physical body.
With regards to Genesis 18, There is a difference between taking on flesh and taking on appearance of a man. The angels appeared as men (and are described as men) in Genesis 18, but we know they aren't men.
Although I have said the above regarding Jesus and Jacob and the following: Likewise, Jesus appeared to Jacob, but only appeared as a man, rather than have a true incarnation centuries later. There is some contention with this passage and I would encourage you to reading the original comments, lest I be accused of being inconsistent.
Some of my original wording has been brought here with some changes.
It has been argued that Jacob wrestled with a mere angel based on the word Elohim by Yehuda and others. Why do I say that? The word Elohim can be used of mighty men, angels, judges, kings and false gods and doesn't always refer to the true God. This is true, context determines the meaning.
The contention with the passage is the assertion of whether or not the angel Jacob is did he wrestle with God or did he wrestle with a mere angel.
In Jacob's own words, he says he saw God and lived even if he didn't see the glory of God. He didn't see God's glory obviously if we take this to mean Jacob wrestled with God.
If it is a mere "Elohim" or angel, that is a valid reading of the text. At the end of the day, either side has some validity to their interpretation, even with Hosea 12:4-5 interpreted as a mere angel sent on Ha Shem's behalf.
Regardless of the position you take on Hosea 12, it would not refute other theophanies that occur elsewhere.
But going back to Genesis, One of the angels in Genesis 18-19 doesn't head down to Sodom and Gomorrah, the other two go down there, hence one of the men or angels who appeared to Abraham is God, who stayed with Abraham and spoke with him. The two men were angels ontologically, whereas Christ functioned as an angel.
Two of the men go down to Sodom and Gomorrah but one doesn't and stays near Abraham, then leaves after the conversation. Obviously, angels and prophets are not synonymous with God, however my claim is that there is a particular angel in the TANAKH who functions as an angel, but is in nature God.
Let's take a look at Isaiah 7:10-14:
"6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.” 7 Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“‘It will not take place,
it will not happen,
8 for the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is only Rezin.
Within sixty-five years
Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.
9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son.
If you do not stand firm in your faith,
you will not stand at all.’”
10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”
12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.”
13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[c] a sign: The virgin[d] will conceive and give birth to a son, and[e] will call him Immanuel.[f]"
Isaiah does function as an agent but this is a different context to Genesis 18, since Isaiah himself isn't being identified as God, but in the context of Genesis 18, The angel is identified as God explicitly and Abraham even stood before him and talked with him as a regular person.
Isaiah was merely used as a mouthpiece to convey the words of God to Ahaz and tell him what will transpired. These are two different contexts and do not refute Jesus being the angel of YHWH, nor do they prove that Isaiah is synonymous with God himself. There isn't inconsistency or lack of consistency here.
