When the Angel of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the
Angel of the LORD. And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God!”
Judges 13:21-22*
There is one God, but He is revealed to us in three separate ways. So teaches the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Christ is the “second person” of the Trinity. He distinguishes Himself from the Father and the Holy Spirit, because He has visible, physical form. Being God, the Lord Jesus has no beginning or end. He always existed. So, what did He do with His time between creating the universe and His advent at Bethlehem? Christ did what we know Him for today: He visited His creation.
The Old Testament describes many physical appearances of God that theologians like to call “theophanies.” Since Jesus is the physical manifestation of the Deity, then we can conclude that Christ came to earth before He was born in the manger. The most common theophany we come across is the appearance of the Angel of the LORD. The title comes up on a dozen occasions in the Old Covenant. In them, He speaks as God and identifies Himself as such.
It was the Angel of the LORD who appeared to Moses in the burning bush when He called Himself the great “I AM” (Exodus 3:2). The very ground where He appeared was Holy, so Moses took off his shoes. When Abraham saw the Angel of the LORD (Genesis 22:11), he named the place “The-LORD-Will-Provide.” Hagar called the spot of her encounter “You-Are-The-God-Who-Sees” (Genesis 16:7-16).
Christ appeared in angelic form to Gideon, David, and others. He was not idle as He waited for the fullness of time to come. After being born of a woman and redeeming the lost creation, He still is not idle. He makes Himself known to men and women today in special ways. Many of them, like Moses, fall down on their knees, for they know that the ground of their meeting is Holy.
*See also Genesis 16:9-13, 22:11, 15; Exodus 3:2; Judges 6:11-14, plus 46 other references
July 5
