In the last article I tried to show that the Comforter of Israel was the Angel of the Presence, whom God sent to Israel to lead them out of Egypt into the wilderness (first to Sinai, where God met His people; and then to guide them through the wilderness until they reached the Promised Land) to come at last to the mountain (Zion) where God had determined to dwell with them – dwell with them, that is, through the Spirit who hovered over the Mercy Seat in the holiest place. The final fulfillment of this purpose came when the glory of God filled the Most Holy Place of Solomon’s Temple.
When, many years later, Israel went into captivity in Babylon, the Angel did not go with them. He had already left the Temple (Eze.10). After 70 years Israel returned to the Land, carrying with her much of the vessels and furniture of the old Temple. A new temple was built – but did the Angel ever return?
There were promises that he would return, if Israel were faithful:
“I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts” (Hag.2:7).
There is, however, no historical record in Scripture of the return of the Angel to this house – no incident is recorded comparable with Ex.40:34, when the Angel rested on the new-made ark; or 2 Chron.5:13,14, when the glory of the Lord moved into the Holiest in Solomon’s newly built temple. And surely such an incident would have been recorded, had it taken place. I assume therefore that the promise of the return of the Angel was not fulfilled in the days of Zerubbabel and Joshua; and remained unfulfilled until Yahweh suddenly returned to his temple (Mal.3:1), revealed in the Lord Jesus.
When the Lord Jesus came preaching to Israel, he dwelt among them, ready to guide, teach and miraculously provide for them, doing the same work that the Angel had done for Israel in the wilderness.
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…” (John 1:14).
But Israel, again disobedient, would not hear, had no faith – and so the spirit of Jesus was grieved, as had been that of the Angel. And in the end the Lord suffered the final horror, and was put to death in the flesh – an experience which the Angel by his very nature could never undergo.
And so, though the Lord offered Israel a new exodus, in the end he went on the exodus journey alone. Nevertheless, even in his lifetime on earth, when things looked worst for him, he looked forward to leading another people on an exodus out of an evil world, to a final end of meeting with God in a great and high mountain, where the whole city would be a Most Holy Place, and no earthly temple would be necessary to house the glory of God.
On the journey to that holy mountain Jesus promised his new people that he would dwell with them, and go with them, as the Angel had walked in the midst of Israel as they went through the wilderness.
The New Angel of the Presence
This promise given by Jesus to his disciples is recorded mainly in John chs.14-16. Once you see the Angel of the Presence as the type of the Comforter in these chapters it is easy to note the likeness of the work of both.
To begin in John 14, it may be noted that ‘my Father’s house’ (v.2) is always a temple or tabernacle on earth, which God inhabits so that He may dwell among men. There is no Scriptural justification for making this ‘house’ heaven, or God’s dwelling place in heaven. A glance at a concordance will show that God’s house is always His dwelling on earth.
Secondly, Jesus’ words “I go to prepare a place…” do not mean “I go to heaven to make a place for you there.” Jesus’ words may be paralleled by his statement in 16:7 – “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” Jesus had to go away to prepare the place, but afterwards he promised to send a Comforter to dwell among them.
But although Jesus promises to send the Comforter in 16:7, in 14:3 he does not say, “The Comforter will come and receive you…”, but “I will come again, and receive you…”. There is an apparent contradiction here which we as a body try to solve by suggesting that “I will come again” refers to Jesus’ second coming at the end of the age. But lower down in John 14 Jesus again makes the same promise, saying “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come unto you.” Now here Jesus is surely speaking of the time when he would be gone to heaven, and his disciples would need comforting, not of the joyous time when he would return in glory; and here he makes a clear promise that he, Jesus, would come to his people.
Unfortunately this passage has been confused for us by the ideas foisted on it by orthodox religion. The Holy Spirit, or Comforter, is seen as an emanation proceeding from the Father (and/or the Son), which while being ‘very God’ is able mystically to enter the soul of the believer and to become ‘Christ’ or ‘God’ within him. The entering in of the Holy Spirit is supposed to cause a real change in the nature of the soul, empowering it to do good and to be obedient to God; it is a ‘miracle’ similar to that of the entering of the Holy Spirit into the Host (according to the Roman religion) making it the real body of Christ. The change in the nature of the soul is unobservable by the senses, or by reason, but is secretly known to the man who is supposedly subject to it.
The Church fathers who formed these mystical ideas did so under the influence of the current philosophic ideas of the pagan world; but we, as believers in God’s Word, and not in man’s philosophy, should look in a different place for our understanding of this discourse of the Lord Jesus – we should look, I suggest, in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament the parallel to this apparent confusion between Jesus and the Comforter is the close relationship between God and the Angel of the Presence. God dwelt with Israel indeed – but through His representative Angel. In the Old Testament there are many examples of language which seem to confuse God with the Angel who represented Him; and the language used is very similar to the language used by John when speaking of Jesus and the Comforter.
Here in John Jesus promises he will return; but this promise is to be fulfilled by his representative the Comforter. Look at this passage:
“The Comforter. -wham the Father will send in my name…” (v.26).
Does this not recall the words of God to Moses about the Angel of the Presence?
“For may name is in him.” (Ex.23:21).
Look further in John’s record, and you will see that the work of the Comforter is similar to that performed by the Angel:
“He shall teach you all things” (14:26).
“He will guide you (into all truth)”(16:13).
“He acts as judge (of the world)” (16:8).
“He shows things to come” (16:13).
In the exodus the Angel taught Israel the Law, guided them through the wilderness, judged Egypt and other nations, as well as Israel. He also gave them prophecies of things to come (e.g. Deut.32).
Here in this discourse of Jesus he is telling his disciples that after his death and ascension he would send them an angel who would represent him in exactly the same way that the Angel of the Presence represented God to Israel. Through the angel Jesus would be with them, he would come to them, as certainly as God had walked with Jacob their father through the presence of the Angel. He would never forsake them so long as they kept his commandments. And so Jesus gave his disciples the same comforting words as those given to Jacob ”Fear not…” (“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” – 14:27).
The Comforter
It seems to me, therefore, following the Old Testament parallel, that the Comforter of John’s gospel is an angel, sent by God in the name of the Lord Jesus (that is, representing Jesus so completely that he can speak as Jesus), for the purpose of leading a new people on an exodus journey out of the world.
This may seem a new and revolutionary suggestion. Yet I beg you to consider it, for it makes so many passages Christadelphians have always found difficult simple in the extreme. It explains such passages as Acts 13:2 ”Separate me Barnabas and Saul…”. It explains the phrase “In the name of the Father, and of the Son,and of the Holy Spirit” so beloved of Trinitarians. The name? One name for Father, Son and Holy Spirit? But of course: The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, was sent by God in the name of the Lord Jesus, and Jesus came in his Father’s name. One name, Yahweh, is in Father, Son and Angel – not in the Trinitarian sense of three equal Gods, but in the sense that God bestows His name on His Son, who takes as his representative an angel to speak for him. Just as the Son spoke on behalf of the father, so after the ascension of Jesus the angel spoke on behalf of Jesus to the disciples.
In case any think this idea is halfway to the Trinity, I would like to add that I believe that if this idea is properly grasped, it will act as a deterrent to the growth of Trinitarian ideas. Essential to the conception of the Trinity is a mystical ‘Holy Spirit’ which descends into the heart and be becomes ‘God’ within a man. In the interpretation I have suggested, the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ angel, dwells with men in the real sense in which the Angel dwelt with Israel. This was a wonderful, spiritual experience for them; but was not an internal mystical experience such as that suggested by Trinitarians.
It does, however, need to be remembered that while the Angel of the Presence dwelt with Israel, yet in some miraculous way his power entered the minds of certain men chosen to be God’s prophets, and by overruling their consciousness, put God’s words into their mouths. The 1st century Christians experienced the same miraculous indwelling, as Jesus promised them:
“For he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (1)x:17).
I do not properly understand the mechanics of this in dwelling; I only know that Scripture records that it effected manifest evidence to believers and unbelievers alike that it was a powerful, miraculous force. It was in no way similar to the mystical pagan ‘influence’ which supposedly possessed the soul to effect a silent, inward reform which overrode the will of the man who claimed to be possessed by it.
Jesus’ Angel in Revelation
In the book of the Revelation there is a clear record of how Jesus’ Angel acted in 1st century times. Look first at ch.1:1
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he (Jesus) sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.”
Here are Father, Son and Holy Spirit at work. God gave Jesus the knowledge of things to come (see John 16:13), and Jesus in turn sent the revelation by sign by his angel to a prophet, John, who was empowered by the Angel to write the “word of God, and..the testimony of Jesus” (v.2).
This angel, sent by Jesus, appeared to John as a glorious Being called “One like the Son of Man”. If any doubt that this “One”, was, in fact, an angel, let him compare the statement made by this Being in v.11 with a similar statement made in 22:13 by a Being who is actually called an angel (v.8), and called Jesus’ angel in v.16.
However, it is difficult for some to think of an angel saying, “I am Alpha and Omega”. We need to understand that this angel is not speaking of himself. He is speaking on behalf of the Son, who in turn speaks for his Father. Just as the Angel of the Presence could say, “I am the LORD”, so the angel of Christ can say “I Jesus..”(22:16).
“He shall not speak of himself”, said Jesus in John’s gospel of the Comforter, “but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come (16:13). Here in Revelation is the redemption of that promise. Here also is the judgment of the world – “He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (16:8) – and the words of reproof are given to John to pass on to God’s servants.
The One like the Son of Man is not therefore the Son of Man, though he speaks the Son’s words; he is the angel who is Christ dwelling with us, who in those days also dwelt in some of them, inspiring prophets to speak God’s words, and to perform mighty miracles.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One