The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

The statements and intimations contained in the Holy Scriptures concerning the celestial beings comprehensively called angels, warrant the conclusion, that the faculties by which they perceive external objects are analogous to those of man. They see and hear, and are seen and heard, in a way similar to that of the bodied human race. They have the faculty of becoming visible to men, and when visible, they have, in all recorded instances, the human form. It is obvious that, in order to be discernible by the human eye, they must have a specific form; and accordingly, both with reference to the Messenger who is Jehovah, and to the created angels, such is the case in each and every instance of visibility. Thus in the case of the three who, in the form of men, appeared to Abraham, prior to the destruction of Sodom. In form, the three appeared alike, and the two were distinguished from the One only by the circumstances which ensued.

To created angels appearing visibly in this manner, it is clear that the same laws of optics and acoustics are available as to men, only in a far higher degree. That they saw objects which are naturally visible to men as clearly as men see them, and heard sounds and voices audible to them as distinctly as they, is evident from every narrative in which such things are mentioned or implied. But their power of visual and auricular perception is not restricted as in the human race. From the nature of the organism in which the spirit of man resides, his natural power in these relations is very limited. In the instance of vision, however, his natural power may, in conformity with the ordinary laws of vision, be, by the appliances of art, immeasurably increased. Telescopes and microscopes are but additions to the natural organ. In angels that organ may naturally as far transcend the optical power of human skill and science, as the latter exceeds the unaided power of vision in man. Moreover, to spirits inhabiting angelic organisms, things which circumscribe human vision probably constitute no obstructions. Material bodies which to the human eye are opaque, may to them be as transparent as crystal or the atmosphere to man. The degree of light necessary to their vision of objects may be as nothing compared with that required by the human eye; and distance, so wonderfully obviated by the effect of optical instruments, may be, and undoubtedly is, proportionally, as nothing to them.

Now, since those beings have a distinct, personal, visible form—visible to the unaided human eye on the occasion of their appearance in the earlier and at the opening of the present dispensation, as at the annunciation and the resurrection—and since their visual perceptions correspond to our law of optics, it is to be inferred that they see each other and all external objects in the same way as they saw men; and doubtless the like, both with respect to the mode and the degree or extent of perception, may be safely inferred in relation to their hearing and feeling.

Whatever else may be true of the organisms in which they dwell, enough is revealed to justify the conclusion, that, being in their attributes as spirits like the spirits of men, they exercise their faculties through the instrumentality of those organisms in the same way as men through theirs. Thus it is certain that by means of those visible forms they exercise physical power. The two angels who came in the form of men to Lot in Sodom, “put forth their hands and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides?... And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, ... and they brought him forth and set him without the city.” Gen. xix.

The established form, then, in which, from the beginning, spiritual beings have visibly appeared, was conformable to that assigned to the human race; insomuch that such beings were never otherwise discernible to the human eye. That form was assumed, with man’s nature, by the Messiah when he became incarnate; and there is therefore nothing incongruous or inherently improbable in the supposition of his having appeared visibly in the likeness of that form at earlier periods, as the Scriptures clearly teach. It is not more unlikely that in those earlier appearances, on occasions when no Divine effulgence was exhibited, his visible appearance should be like that of angelic messengers, than that theirs should be like that of man, or that his should be so when literally incarnate. And if the Deity has ever appeared visibly to man, it was indubitably to the patriarchs and prophets as the Messiah, under the designations and on the occasions heretofore referred to, and publicly in Judea at the period of his literal incarnation.

Consistently with these views, the Scriptures, in speaking of him in the various aspects and relations in which he appeared, employ terms which are appropriate to one with attributes and modes of visible action like those of man; of his head, face, eyes, hands, feet; of his sitting down, rising up, standing, walking, working, resting, hearing, speaking, and the like. As leader and defender of his people, “Jehovah is a man [is like a man] of war, Jehovah is his name.” Exod. xv. 3. “And Jehovah went [walked] his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham.” Gen. xviii. 33. “Jehovah looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud.” Exod. xiv. Moses and the elders ascended mount Sinai, “and they saw the Elohe of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire; ... and upon the nobles (Moses and the elders) he laid not his hand: ... they saw the Elohim, and did eat and drink.” Exod. xxiv. “And Jehovah descended in the cloud and stood with Moses, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, El, merciful and gracious. And Moses said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Adonai, let Adonai, I pray thee, go amongst us, and pardon our iniquity and our sin.” Exod. xxxiv. “Melach Jehovah stood in the way for an adversary against Balaam.... Jehovah opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw Melach Jehovah standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand.” Numb. xxiii. “And Joshua looked, and behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.... And he said, As captain of the host of Jehovah am I now come.... And the captain of the host of Jehovah said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.” Josh. v. “Melach Jehovah came up from Gilgal [the place where the ark, the ark of the Adon of all the earth, then rested] to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land which I gave unto your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.” Judges ii. “Thus saith Jehovah, Elohe of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and I said unto you, I am Jehovah your Elohe.” “And Melach Jehovah came and sat under an oak, and said unto Gideon, Jehovah is with thee. And Melach the Elohim said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes and lay them upon this rock. And Melach Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes.” Judges v. “The eye of Jehovah is upon them that fear him.” Ps. xxxiii. 18. “The eyes of Jehovah thy Elohe are always upon it [the land].” Deut. xi. “The eyes of Jehovah are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of Jehovah is against them that do evil. Melach Jehovah encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. They cry, and Jehovah heareth them.” Ps. xxxiv. “Melach Jehovah touched Elijah, and said, Arise and eat.” 1 Kings xix.

The preceding observations concerning the faculties of angels suggest the relation to their acquisition of knowledge of the visible persons, objects and events within their view on earth, and the congruity of that relation with the visibility of the God-man, Messiah, Mediator, Ruler, and Revealer.

Suppose the celestial hosts, with the visual powers and the freedom from the conditions of distance above intimated, from the moment of their creation in the full maturity of their faculties and of their endowments, except in respect to the knowledge to be derived from the evolution and progress of events, to have seen each other, and the visible objects of their own and other spheres; to have seen, among the earliest of events, the rebellion and dejection from their ranks of an archangel, with numerous adherents, followed by the apostasy and degradation of the progenitors of the human race; and, in connection therewith, to have seen the Personal Word walking in Eden, to have heard his voice, and thenceforth to have observed the acts and events connected with our race. It is plain that if they see and hear in conformity with the same laws as men, and acquire knowledge by so seeing and hearing, then it was necessary to them, as well as to man, that all the agents in the scene should be visible, and that their voices should be audible.

The object, on the occasions referred to, was to instruct and influence, by visible and tangible realities presented to the senses. To suppose some of the agents and acts to have been what they are declared to be, and others to have been illusions, unreal, imaginary, is to defeat the object of them, divest them of all certainty, and justify the same inference with respect to the human as to the celestial agents. In numerous instances it is evident that the power of vision in men was so enlarged, that they beheld objects not ordinarily visible to them. Had that augmented power continued, those objects would have continued to be visible, and so far from being less, would have been more free from illusion and uncertainty; and it is absurd, and contrary to all analogy, to suppose that it did not render their vision as certain, and their inference from it as just, in respect to every person and object apprehended by it, as in respect to any one of them. And if, as in the case of the three who appeared to Abraham, and in other cases, they did not see the persons in the likeness of men whom they are declared to have seen, then we have no ground of certainty that they themselves were present, or acted the parts ascribed to them.

It is observed above that in every instance of the personal manifestation of the Messenger Jehovah under the ancient dispensations, he was distinctly recognized in the likeness of man. On many occasions he is expressly called a man; and in various instances acts peculiar to a man are ascribed to him. Thus, at his appearance to Abraham in the plain of Mamre, to Jacob at Peni-El, to Joshua, to Manoah, to Ezekiel, to Daniel, to Amos, and to Zechariah, he is expressly called a man; in Eden and in the plain of Mamre he walked and spoke as a man; to Moses he spake face to face, as a man speaketh with his friend, and of him it was said, “the similitude of Jehovah shall he behold;” to Balaam, Joshua, and David, he appeared with a drawn sword in his hand; when accepting the offering of Gideon, he put forth the staff that was in his hand, and touched the sacrifice; he “touched Elijah, and said, Arise and eat.” Again, in the instances in which it is said that he appeared to Abraham and others, without specifying that his person was visible, and in those in which it is said that he came, or that the Word of the Lord came, to Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, and the prophets, the things said and done are, as to matter and manner, in respect to the persons addressed or spoken of, reference to circumstances of time and place, particularity of directions and details, similar to those in which he visibly appeared as man.