In these multiform relations he was the great theme, as he was the lawgiver, administrator and revealer of the ancient dispensations; asserting the same prerogatives and performing the same acts when referred to by official titles, as when specially denominated Jehovah or Elohim. In both cases, from the nature and historical connection of the acts ascribed to him, it is evident that the actor was personally one and the same.
The word Elohim is a general term, employed, it may be presumed, originally, with reference only to the Supreme Being, but subsequently appropriated to imaginary deities. In the Hebrew Scriptures it occurs in several forms, as El, Elohe, Eloah, Elohim, referring sometimes to the Divine Being absolutely, sometimes definitely to the Father, sometimes to the Holy Spirit, but commonly to the Son; as is the case with corresponding and equivalent designations in the New Testament. The radical idea of this word, in its simplest form, is, according to some Hebrew lexicographers, that of interposer, intervener, mediator; derived from the intervention of air and light between all bodies in space, and indicating the universal agency of the Divine Person, primarily designated as interposer or mediator. And undoubtedly the scope of numerous passages implies this special reference, though not always apparent, without reference to other scriptures; as in Psalm xlv. 6: “Thy throne, Elohim, is for ever and ever;” and cii. 24: “I said, El, [with the suffix for my, and rendered O my God,] take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish,” &c. These passages are quoted, Heb. i., as having referred expressly to Christ.
Hengstenberg, in his Christology, p. 160, vol I., introduces his investigation respecting the character of the Angel or Messenger, in which he designs to show that the alleged essential oneness of the Messiah with the Jehovah does not contradict the Old Testament doctrine of the unity, by observing, “that the New Testament makes us acquainted with God, the Father of Jesus Christ, as a Spirit, who, being every where equally present, never manifests himself in a sensible form. But besides this concealed God, it makes known to us also a revealed God, associated with him by the oneness of their nature; the Son or Logos, who has constantly filled up the infinite distance between the Creator and the creation, and been the Mediator in all the relations of God to the world and the human race; who, even before he became man in the person of Christ, was in all ages the light of the world, and to whom especially the whole direction of the visible Theocracy belonged. Although this doctrine was first unfolded with perfect clearness in the New Testament, yet we find an essential distinction between the unrevealed and the revealed God, even in the writings of the Old Testament.”
After examining the principal passages which speak of the Messenger or Angel Jehovah, and showing “that they really contain the doctrine of a distinction between the concealed and the revealed God,” pp. 165–182, he thus concludes, pp. 183–187: “We believe then that we have satisfactorily shown that by the Angel of Jehovah is to be understood the Revealer of God, who being a partaker of his Godhead, and united with him in the same nature, was the mediator in all his relations, first with the patriarchs, and afterwards with the visible Theocracy. This Revealer of Jehovah then was expected as a great Restorer in future times. This is evident from those places in the Old Testament which ascribe to the Messiah Divine names, attributes, and works; for if the Messiah were God, he could stand, according to the whole system of the religion of the Old Testament, in no other relation to the Most High God than that which the Angel of Jehovah was thought to sustain. Further, the passage in Malachi iii. 1 affords the most distinct testimony in favor of the identity of both. There the Messiah bears the name of the Angel of the Covenant, either, according to the general import of the term covenant, the angel who is the mediator in every engagement between God and men, or, according to its special meaning, the angel who established the covenant of Sinai with the people of Israel. From this appellation, therefore, it appears that the Messiah is the same as the Angel Jehovah, whose agency in giving the law at Sinai is not indeed expressly mentioned in the Mosaic account, but it is rendered sufficiently certain by analogy, and by the positive testimony of the prophet. As the Angel Jehovah, in those passages where he is expressly named, bears interchangeably the names Jehovah and Elohim, so must we often suppose him to be intended, where Jehovah only is spoken of throughout. Comp. Gen. xxxii. 24, &c., with Hosea xii. 4–6, and Exod. xx. 3, where the angel is not mentioned, and Jehovah says, ‘I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.’ Allowing it to have been the office of the Angel Jehovah in general to act as mediator in the transactions between the invisible God and men, his mediation must be assumed, in many instances, where it is not expressly mentioned.” “This identity of the Angel of Jehovah and the Messiah was acknowledged also by the later Jews.” “But what renders this identity indubitably certain is the evidence of the New Testament, in which Christ appears as the Mediator of the Old Covenant, and every thing is attributed to him which in the Old Testament is spoken of Jehovah and his Revealer. According to John xii. 41, Isaiah saw the glory of Christ and spake of him; on the other hand, in the passage referred to, chap. vi., Isaiah saw the glory of Jehovah. 1 Cor. x. 9, it is said, ‘Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.’ According to this passage, therefore, Christ was the leader of the Israelites through the wilderness, and was tempted by them. On the other hand, the Pentateuch relates that they were led by the Angel Jehovah; and in Numb. xxi. 5–7, that they tempted Jehovah. 1 Pet. i. 10 declares that the Spirit of Christ spake by the prophets: but the prophets themselves always refer to Jehovah as the source of their predictions. According to Heb. xi. 26, Moses preferred reproach for the sake of Christ, to the treasures of Egypt: the narrative in Exodus informs us that he sacrificed every thing to the service of Jehovah. According to Heb. xii. 26, at the giving of the law, the voice of Christ shook the earth: in Exodus this was done by Jehovah.” “We must in a certain respect distinguish between the Angel Jehovah and the Son of God, and not, with the Fathers and most of the old theologians, venture to say that they are perfectly identical.” “That the Mediator of the New Testament was also, as the Angel Jehovah, the Mediator in all the relations of God to the people of the Old Testament, was, with the exception of the above named Fathers, the unanimous opinion of the ancient Church.”
After quoting a list of authorities, he concludes: “Let us now briefly sum up the result of the preceding investigation. In the prophetic Scriptures, a divine as well as human nature is attributed to the Messiah; and yet every polytheistic idea is excluded by the assumption of his essential unity with the Most High God. It was expected that the Angel or Revealer of Jehovah, who had often before made himself occasionally visible, and acted as the Mediator between God and the people, in all their transactions, would assume human nature in the person of the Messiah, and redeem and bless both Jews and Gentiles.
“Here the question yet arises: If the distinction between the revealed and the unrevealed God was already made known under the Old Testament, wherein is the New Testament in this respect superior to the Old? The preference consists in this: Under the Old Testament the distinction was necessarily kept more out of view, and hence might easily appear to be founded not so much on a relation in the Godhead itself, as on a relation to those to whom the revelation was made. In the Old Testament, the Mediator commonly spoke and acted in the name of God, whom he revealed. Nor could it be otherwise before the Logos had become flesh. Hence the Revealer and He who was revealed in a manner lost themselves in each other. But under the New Testament, on the contrary, they appeared distinguished from each other, as Father and Son. Religion thus gained a two-fold advantage. It became more spiritual, and at the same time more an object of sense: more spiritual, by the exclusion of those limited conceptions of the spirituality, the omniscience, and the omnipresence of God which arose from confounding the Revealer with him who was revealed; more an object of sense, because the Son of God, in his life, sufferings, and death, brought the Divine Being nearer to man than was possible in the transient appearances of the Angel under the Old Testament. But such a condescension of the Deity to fallen man is indispensable to his becoming like God.”
On these passages it may be observed, that in what the