Mysterious figure is this angel. He is an angel and yet not an angel. He visited Babel and wrecked it. He talked with Abraham. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and all the cities of the plain and saved righteous Lot. He stood at the top of the ladder between earth and heaven and spoke with Jacob, and later the angel wrestled with Jacob all night. The angel walked through Egypt and passed by the houses with blood on the doorposts and entered in at every unmarked door in order to slay all the firstborn of Egypt. The angel appeared to Moses in the mount and gave him the law. The angel wrote the law with his finger! Later the angel came to Joshua as captain of Jehovah’s host. The angel fought for Israel and gave the nation the land of Canaan. He dwelt in the temple and received the sacrifices, burnt offerings, and incense. He arose from off this throne in the days of Hezekiah, so that the might of the Gentile, unsmitten by the sword, melted like snow in the glance of the Lord. The angel appeared in the visions of the prophets. He is an angel and yet not an angel. He is God. He is God who revealed himself to his people and spoke with them in the Old Testament in the form of an angel. God’s name is in the angel, so that he is the full and complete revelation of God, and in him God comes to his people.

And this angel, who was always at the center of all God’s dealings with his people in the Old Testament, God also promised to send before his people. They had just come out of Egypt. This angel had delivered them and had destroyed all the hosts of Egypt. When Pharaoh hardened his heart and pursued the people in order to bring them back into Egypt, then this angel in the cloud of his glory was Israel’s rereward, and this angel took off the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots and mired the feet of his men in the bottom of the Red Sea. At the command of this angel, the waves of the sea drowned Pharaoh and his host, and their dead bodies were seen by Israel on the shore. The angel brought the Israelites to Mount Sinai. There he descended on the mountain, which trembled and quaked so much that Moses said that he feared greatly. And there the angel gave the Israelites God’s law in order to organize them as God’s covenant people.

But many miles and many years and many experiences and much trouble and affliction lay between Sinai and the promised Canaan. Would God leave his people to find their own way? God would send his angel before them! God would keep the Israelites in the way in order with infallible wisdom and power to bring them to their promised land.

And so this angel does for us. In the fullness of time, he cast off the form of an angel, and he took the flesh and the blood of children. He was made man, and he went to the cross to deliver his people from the Egypt of their sins and their cruel Pharaoh, the devil. He is Jesus!

And will he leave us now? Are we to make our own way to the promised Canaan of heaven? God will send his angel before us to keep us in the way and to bring us infallibly to our promised land.

What did Jesus say when he went away before us to heaven? “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly. Amen.