Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By R.A. Mathews

If you haven’t heard of Nate Bargatze, he’s a rising star among comedians — good clean fun. 

Bargatze often recounts family stories and has one about his father. It goes something like this. 

“He’s used Afrin for 40 years. The back of the bottle,” Bargatze quips, “says no more than three days.”

“Listen,” the comedian continues, “if you don’t know what it is, honestly I’d advise you not to get involved.” 

I always laugh, but the story reminds me of a controversial Bible topic: Did God give Jesus a code name? 

Why would Bargatze’s Afrin story prompt that question? It’s like this, if you’ve never heard about this matter, I’d advise you not to get involved. Just put this newspaper down and walk away.

I first heard this code name from a man in my Bible study. I thought it was something goofy on the internet. Turns out, theologians all the way back to Justin Martyr (110-165 A.D.).

have believed that God’s name for Jesus, hidden in Scripture, is “the angel of the Lord.” 

I expect some of you will do as I did — grab your Bible and quickly try to discern where “angel of the Lord” appears. Can’t be that often, right? 

It’s a lot of times. 

Interestingly enough, Gabriel is called “an angel of the Lord.” Also, “an angel of the Lord” appeared to Joseph in two dreams after the birth of Jesus. 

Clearly, Scripture isn’t talking about Jesus either time. So, I wondered what Justin Martyr and his followers were thinking.

As it turns out, my bad. They weren’t saying Jesus is “an” angel of the Lord. They were saying Jesus is “the” angel of the Lord. 

I had to start over. But surely that narrowed it down. 

Listen, there are a lot of characters in Scripture involved with “the angel of the Lord.” Hagar, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, the wandering Israelites, Balaam, Deborah, Manoah, Gideon, David, Elijah, Hezekiah, Isaiah and Zechariah all encounter the angel of the Lord. He’s mentioned roughly six times with Zechariah, seven times with Gideon, 11 times with Balaam and 12 times with Manoah, except in some of those instances “the angel of God” is used interchangeably with “the angel of the Lord.” So, if you believe these people, Jesus must have been given two secret names.

What could have caused Justin Martyr to go down this road — attaching Jesus to angel names?

In part, it was because of a number of scenes in Scripture which begin with the angel of the Lord and end with God. Remember, Moses saw an angel in a burning bush and then heard the Lord speaking from the bush. Here’s the passage:

“Now Moses was pasturing the flock… (and) came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush… yet the bush was not being consumed. So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burning up!’ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’” (Exodus 3:1-4, NASB).

But turning Jesus into an angel here is like throwing the baby out with the bath. You denigrate the Son of God to find an explanation. And it’s not necessary. 

Here’s a better way to understand what I’ll call duality moments in Scripture — where God and an angel appear at the same time. 

Consider a pilot and a co-pilot. The pilot is in charge of the plane but leaves the co-pilot to direct it. Yet sometimes the pilot steps in. 

That could have happened in every duality moment in Scripture. The angel began the fire in the bush at the behest of God, and then the Lord spoke to Moses. 

Likewise, if you recall when Jacob began wrestling an angel, God eventually stepped in and took over the struggle, speaking to Jacob at the end (Genesis 32:22-32).

Since “the angel of the Lord” and “the angel of God” are used interchangeably in Scripture, if this is indeed Jesus, there can only be one of each. One “the angel of the Lord” and one “the angel of God.” Yet Scripture speaks of “the angels of God” (John 1:51, NIV).

Write to me if you want to know more.

Jesus is your Lord and Savior, at one with God the Father. An angel is not. 

Nevertheless, the heresy that Jesus is “the angel of the Lord” and “the angel of God” remains with us, thriving through centuries of followers. 

In the words of Nick Bargatze, “… honestly, I’d advise you not to get involved.”

Jesus is nothing short of Greatness.  

The Rev. Mathews (BA, MDiv, JD) is a faith columnist and the author of the Reaching to God series and Emerald Coast: The Vendetta. Contact her at Hello@RAMathews.com. 

Copyright © 2024 R.A. Mathews.  All rights reserved.