The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-1, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.

Question

My question is from Exodus 3:2, "And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed." My question is, Why do some people, older in the Lord, say that the "angel of the Lord" is Jesus Christ?

Answer

I have to reach back and pull together so many things. There are many places in the Old Testament where the "angel of the Lord" is mentioned. In many of those places He appears in a form and accomplishing a mission that is so unique to deity that it appears as if He must be deity. And if, in fact, He is deity, then He must be that person of deity who is manifest in some element--maybe in fire, maybe in a human body, or whatever. It is due to the fact that His appearances seem to be the manifestation of deity rather than a created being, even an angel, and the unique holiness, the unique deliverance mode. The "angel of the Lord" is often seen as a savior or a deliverer, and there are some passages that may be even more explicit than that. 

Those are what we call "Christophanies" that's a technical term, but it means a preincarnate appearance of Christ. Now, we shouldn't have a problem with that because we believe that Jesus Christ is the second member of the Trinity--and always existed. Right? There is no reason not to believe, that before He was incarnate in human form and came into the world, He was certainly busy doing something. Why not these kinds of things? The word "angel" should not trip us up, because "angel" simply means "messenger." Sometimes it could be used in a technical sense referring to an actual angel, a created angel; but sometimes it can be used in a nontechnical sense, referring to a messenger, such as many believe it's used in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd chapter of Revelation.

So it would just be by virtue of the form, the power, the holiness of this being, that He appears more to be deity than He does to be a created being.