ANGELS AND THE LAW

ANGELS AND THE LAW

It seems clear from Psalm 68 that the display of external glory of fire, etc., on mount Sinai was by the ministration of angels. This was the solemn sanction given to the law and its promulgation. Compare the details, Exodus 19: 16-18. This is fully confirmed by Deuteronomy 33: 2. Compare Hebrews 1: 7, quoting Psalm 104: 4. 2 Kings 1: 10, and 6: 17, afford analogous examples of Jehovah’s making His ministers a flame of fire. So even in the bush, when there was, as to its form, an angelic manifestation of God, the bush burned with fire. Moses spoke with the angel in the bush. What is particularly referred to in the passages we are considering is that the angels were the immediate instruments through which they received the law, the manifest glory which gave it its sanction. Not that they spoke or personally addressed the people. Josephus (Antiq. 15 C. 5 s. 3) says, twsee footnoten me;n JEllhvnwn iJerou;” kai; ajsuvlou” ei\nai tou;” khvruka” famevnwn, hJmwsee footnoten de; ta; kavllista twsee footnoten dogmavtwn, kai; ta; oJsiwvtata twsee footnoten ejn toisee footnote” novmoi” di j ajggevlwn para; tousee footnote Qeousee footnote maqovntwn. That is, the functions of ambassadors are treated as akin to those of the angels, or divine legates. The character of authority attached to the law was angelic, not the incarnation of God Himself whether speaking on earth or from heaven. In Josephus, as we have seen, Herod uses the word angel as God’s ambassador to prove the sacredness of their persons, the Arabs having killed his. This is merely cited to shew the Jews’ apprehension of it. Galatians 3: 19 is, in sense, being enjoined through angels by the hand of a mediator. Eij” diatagav”, in Acts 7: 53, is “at,” “by occasion of”; as, “they repented at the preaching of Jonas,” by occasion of, through the means of. The passages quoted from the Old Testament make the character of their intervention pretty plain. The whole of the first two chapters of Hebrews is to shew the superiority of the Christian revelation to Judaism by that of Christ to angels, first, as a divine person, and, secondly, in the counsels of God as to the exaltation of man.