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I’m sorry if this is splitting hairs but this question is about the trinity or not.

Gideon has a visitation from an angel. He proceeds to bring him a sacrifice

“Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my מנחתי and set it before you." And he said, "I will stay till you return."” ‭‭Judges‬ ‭6:18‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The angel did not stop Gideon or redirect him to sacrifice to God alone. He receives it and consumes it with fire

Then the angel departs and this brings dread upon Gideon thinking he will die.

“Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face." But the Lord said to him, "Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die."” ‭‭Judges‬ ‭6:22-23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Yet it doesn’t say that the angel responded it says that the Lord יהוה responded v23.

So what is the implication? An angel receives sacrifices/worship reserved for God, does that make the angel God? The Lord who spoke to Gideon is it still the angel? Or are there two distinct persons God and the angel that receives worship?

A) The visible God that manifested in an angelic form such that Gideon did not see the glory of God and die B) and the invisible God that spoke to Gideon after the angel had departed.

How many persons, other than Gideon, are in this passage and is any one or both of them God?

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  • Is the angel God and is the voice still the angel speaking? Or some other combination. And while we are at it, is the angel the Father God? God the Son? Or the Holy Spirit? Are these interchangeable? And why or why not?
    – Nihil Sine Deo
    Feb 16, 2019 at 1:21
  • Interesting question.+1 from me.For further understanding,see these questions and answers.hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/20880/…
    – Bagpipes
    Feb 16, 2019 at 10:26
  • Appreciate it. In the burning bush the Angel of the Lord speaks and is referred to as the Lord. “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” ‭‭John‬ ‭17:5‬ ‭ESV‬‬ it is clear to me that Jesus had a glorified state prior to Creation. My logic would tell me that between incarnation and the glorified state prior to Creation, He existed in a non glorified, non incarnate state. He was in the form of “angels”. Probably one of the reasons why Lucifer felt the right to seek equality to God given Jesus was in form like him but God.
    – Nihil Sine Deo
    Feb 16, 2019 at 12:33

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This is one of the many passages where YHWH (Yahweh or Jehovah) is regularly spoken of as "Angel of the Lord".

The following passages make it clear that the “Angel of the LORD” is almost always, the LORD (Jehovah) Himself, probably Jesus in particular. In each of these passages, either the word YHWH is used directly or we have something that leads to the same conclusion. Gen 16:7-13, 22:11-17, 32:24-30, 48:16, Ex 3:2-6, 32:34, Num 22:22-35, Josh 5:13-15, Judg 2:1-4, 6:11-23, 13:3-23, Isa 63:9, Dan 3:25, 28, Hos 12:4, 5, Zech 3:1-7, Mal 3:1, Rev 8:3-5, 10:1-10, 18:1, 20:1-4. (Some may quibble about one or two of these references but you get the general idea.) Thus, unsurprisingly, Jesus is the messenger to the human race and underlines the importance that the Godhead places upon such messages.

This is not to suggest that Jesus is an angel in the sense that He is less that God; far from it! However, the Greek and Hebrew word for “angel” simply means messenger and it is in this sense that Jesus is the messenger in the above passages.

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  • From your response I gather that there was only one ‘person’, namely the angel and the voice both were God. +1 for the response and the additional passages. Thank you
    – Nihil Sine Deo
    Feb 15, 2019 at 21:12
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    I fully agree. However, it is from the NT that we learn that is YHWH. And since no man has even seen the Father, then it was presumably the second person, namely Jesus. The same is true of the "person" with whom Abraham bargained in Gen 19.
    – user25930
    Feb 16, 2019 at 4:01
  • I will concede that the NT brings into focus the foreshadowing of the OT but the Hebrew scholars were very much piecing together the puzzle of the Elohim. And this using the OT Scripture only, that includes passages such as this. If you negate the NT understanding of the trinity it’s not difficult to see why some Hebrew scholars felt that the voice was the Father God and the angel who received worship was also God. Take for instance the passage in Daniel where God sits in thrones (plural). These scholars were “Easter eggs” hunters and while they didn’t have the full image they got very close.
    – Nihil Sine Deo
    Feb 17, 2019 at 2:29

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