While God can, and often does, appear to people face to face, he also often employs the use of several types of messengers.
Any child who has siblings knows there is a substantial difference between the following phrases: “Go clean your room” and “Mom says go clean your room.” Any child who hears from their sibling, “Go clean your room,” will undoubtedly say, “You’re not the boss of me!” and carry on with whatever they were doing. If, however, Mom’s name is invoked, a different response is expected. The reason is that Mom’s name carries authority and weight. And it carries the power to make a child change his or her behavior. The sibling carries the power of the message only because Mom gave him or her the authority to do so. This is nothing new. Messages and messengers have been used for as long as humans have been able to write in order to transmit authority from those in power to their subordinates.
At Tel el-Amarna, a great cache of diplomatic letters was discovered in the 19th Century AD. [1] These letters came from the reigns of two Late Bronze Age Pharaohs, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, who reigned in the 14th Century BC. These letters provided scholars with a rare glimpse into the inner workings of international politics during the relatively peaceful and prosperous time of international cooperation. Interestingly, these letters are all written in Akkadian Cuneiform rather than the Egyptian Hieroglyphic writing system, meaning that the Egyptians adopted the Mesopotamian international treaty system wholesale, including for it’s method of correspondence. [2]
When a king wanted to make a treaty, or propose a diplomatic arrangement, he would send an envoy with a trained translator. [3] The envoy would arrive with instructions from the king and would negotiate on the king’s behalf. The translator was multilingual and trained (at a minimum) to read and write in both Egyptian and Akkadian, two highly complex writing systems. This diplomatic team would often stay at the foreign king’s palace for months as the foreign king and the envoy worked through the details of the diplomatic arrangement. Since travel from Egypt to the capitals of Mesopotamia could take months, these diplomatic deals often took close to a year to complete. This meant the envoys often got to know the foreign king quite well. The Amarna letters discuss one translator in particular, Hane, whom the Mitanian king, Tushratta, spoke with at length. The king enjoyed talking to this messenger so much that he requested he be sent back with the Egyptian king’s reply. [4]
For thousands of years in the ancient Near East, this diplomatic system largely remained in place. Because messengers were so important to the running of the bureaucracy in the ancient world, many documents survive the ravages of time and tell us much about how the ancients viewed messengers.
God often chooses to work in a similar way. While he can, and often does, appear to people face to face, he also often employs the use of several types of messengers. In both Hebrew (malak, מלאן), and Greek (aggelos, άγγελος), the word for messenger is the same as for angel. So messenger could mean something like a cherubim or seraphim, or it could mean something like a human being. [7] The point is that God chooses to use both angels as well as human prophets and apostles to act on his behalf and with his authority.
In Judges 13, Manoah and his wife are barren and childless, and the Angel (messenger) of the Lord appears and announces to Manoah’s wife that she’ll have a son along with the rules the child will live by. Manoah wants to hear it from the “man of God” himself, so he prays to Yahweh to send his “messenger” back. When the Angel (messenger) of the Lord returns, he repeats the whole message. When Manoah offers hospitality in the form of a meal for detaining the messenger, the Angel of the Lord turns it into an offering, and Manoah and his wife realize they were not dealing with a human being but something much more. [8]
Later, God chooses to use human prophets to speak his message to the sinful kings of Israel and Judah. In Isaiah 6, God calls and equips Isaiah for service as his prophet. In the vision, Isaiah is brought into the throne room of God and given the special task of speaking God’s word to the people of Israel; then, when Isaiah realizes he is in mortal peril, an angel (a seraphim) comes and purifies his lips with a burning coal from the altar. Once purified, Isaiah volunteers to be the prophetic messenger of Yahweh to the people of Israel. In fact, the prophetic refrain “Thus saith the Lord” is a clue to what the prophets are and are called to do (Isa. 45:1). Prophets are not fortune tellers; they are messengers who speak on God’s behalf with his authority.
In the New Testament, Jesus surrounds himself with disciples whom he spends three years teaching and instructing in the ways of the gospel and the Kingdom of Heaven. At various times he sends out those disciples as messengers. In Luke 10, he sends out 72 of these disciples in pairs, even as the ancient envoys and translators were sent out. Jesus instructs them to take nothing with them; instead, these messengers are to trust in the king (Jesus) who sends them forth to provide for their provisions, even as the ancient messengers received rations from their king. The king indicates that they will receive what they need from the host they stay with in each village and town, just as ancient messengers who were detained received rations from their host. If, however, they are rejected and kicked out, they are to wipe the dust from their sandals in judgment against that town. Such a judgment is not simply their own; it comes with the authority of the king. In the ancient world, to mistreat the messenger could incur the wrath of the king. [9]
When Jesus rises from the dead, he appears to the disciples and makes them apostles (απόστολος), which means “sent ones” in Greek. In John 20:22-23 Jesus says to his disciples: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you...Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” The disciples are now apostles, or messengers from Jesus himself. These messengers have a specific job to do: they are to forgive the sins of others on behalf of Jesus. Just as the ancient messengers in Mesopotamia, this means that they speak with the power and authority of a King for a specific task.
In Matthew 28, Jesus sends forth his disciples to “Make disciples of all nations.” Here Jesus’ audience seems to be the whole church, not just the pastorate. [10] If these messengers are nervous and worried about what to speak, then they should not worry; the king who sent them will supply them with the message of what to say. Jesus comforts his messengers with these words in Mark 13:11: “And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” Jesus’ messengers are never alone, for he promises to be with them (Matt. 28:20) and gives them the words to speak.
Over and over again throughout the Biblical story, God chooses his creatures as his messengers to bear his message of grace, salvation, and everlasting life to the nations. He sends angels, prophets, apostles, and his church as messengers to the world. Like Hane of Egypt, such messengers live with and form relationships with the people to whom the message is to be delivered. These messengers also have their daily needs provided for them by the king [11], and like these Late Bronze Age envoys, they act with the authority of the king. These messengers are not alone; they go with the power and authority of the king, and will never face the hardships of the challenging task set before them alone.
