In this post I will cite some early evidence, statements form the very disciples of the Apostles and those coming after them, showing that the Church has always proclaimed that Jesus will return physically, bodily to the earth. All emphasis shall be mine.

PAPIAS

Fragments of Papias

IV

As the elders who saw John the disciple of the Lord remembered that they had heard from him how the Lord taught in regard to those times, and said]: The days will come in which vines shall grow, having each ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in every one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five-and-twenty metretes of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, ‘I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.’ In like manner, [He said] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear would have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour; and that apples, and seeds, and grass would produce in similar proportions; and that all animals, feeding then only on the productions of the earth, would become peaceable and harmonious, and be in perfect subjection to man. [Testimony is borne to these things in writing by Papias, an ancient man, who was a hearer of John and a friend of Polycarp, in the fourth of his books; for five books were composed by him. And he added, saying, Now these things are credible to believers. And Judas the traitor, says he, not believing, and asking, ‘How shall such growths be accomplished by the Lord.’ the Lord said, ‘They shall see who shall come to them.’ These, then, are the times mentioned by the prophet Isaiah: ‘And the wolf shall lie, down with the lamb,’ etc. Isaiah 11:6 ff..]

V

As the presbyters say, then those who are deemed worthy of an abode in heaven shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of Paradise, and others shall possess the splendour of the city; for everywhere the Saviour will be seen, according as they shall be worthy who see Him. But that there is this distinction between the habitation of those who produce an hundred-fold, and that of those who produce sixty-fold, and that of those who produce thirty-fold; for the first will be taken up into the heavens, the second class will dwell in Paradise, and the last will inhabit the city; and that on this account the Lord said, In my Father’s house are many mansions: John 14:2 for all things belong to God, who supplies all with a suitable dwelling-place, even as His word says, that a share is given to all by the Father, according as each one is or shall be worthy. And this is the couch Matthew 22:10 in which they shall recline who feast, being invited to the wedding. The presbyters, the disciples of the apostles, say that this is the gradation and arrangement of those who are saved, and that they advance through steps of this nature; and that, moreover, they ascend through the Spirit to the Son, and through the Son to the Father; and that in due time the Son will yield up His work to the Father, even as it is said by the apostle, For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26 For in the times of the kingdom the just man who is on the earth shall forget to die. But when He says all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. 1 Corinthians 15:27-28

IGNATIUS

Epistle to Polycarp

Chapter 1. Commendation and exhortation

Having obtained good proof that your mind is fixed in God as upon an immoveable rock, I loudly glorify [His name] that I have been thought worthy [to behold] your blameless face, which may I ever enjoy in God! I entreat you, by the grace with which you are clothed, to press forward in your course, and to exhort all that they may be saved. Maintain your position with all care, both in the flesh and spirit. Have a regard to preserve unity, than which nothing is better. Bear with all, even as the Lord does with you. Support all in love, as also you do. Give yourself to prayer without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Implore additional understanding to what you already have. Be watchful, possessing a sleepless spirit. Speak to every man separately, as God enables you. Bear the infirmities of all, as being a perfect athlete [in the Christian life]: where the labour is great, the gain is all the more.

Chapter 2. Exhortations

If you love the good disciples, no thanks are due to you on that account; but rather seek by meekness to subdue the more troublesome. Every kind of wound is not healed with the same plaster. Mitigate violent attacks [of disease] by gentle applications. Be in all things wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove. Matthew 10:16 For this purpose you are composed of both flesh and spirit, that you may deal tenderly with those [evils] that present themselves visibly before you. And as respects those that are not seen, pray that [God] would reveal them unto you, in order that you may be wanting in nothing, but may abound in every gift. The times call for you, as pilots do for the winds, and as one tossed with tempest seeks for the haven, so that both you [and those under your care] may attain to God. Be sober as an athlete of God: the prize set before you is immortality and eternal life, of which you are also persuaded. In all things may my soul be for yours, and my bonds also, which you have loved.

Chapter 3. Exhortations

Let not those who seem worthy of credit, but teach strange doctrines, 1 Timothy 1:3, 1 Timothy 6:3 fill you with apprehension. Stand firm, as does an anvil which is beaten. It is the part of a noble athlete to be wounded, and yet to conquer. And especially, we ought to bear all things for the sake of God, that He also may bear with us. Be ever becoming more zealous than what you are. Weigh carefully the times. Look for Him who is above all time, eternal and invisible, yet who became visible for our sakes; impalpable and impassible, yet who became passible on our account; and who in every kind of way suffered for our sakes.

Ignatius’s exhortation to be watchful and sober is a clear from reference to our Lord’s words in the Synoptic Gospels. Case in point:

“Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” Mark 13:35-37 – Cf. Matthew 24:42-43, 25:13; Luke 21:36

Since Ignatius is writing around 107 AD, this means that he did not think for a moment that our Lord’s words refer to his coming in judgment against Jerusalem in 70 AD. Rather, Christ’s statements must be a reference to his second coming when he shall descend from heaven in his physical, glorified body. This is apparent from Ignatius’s explicit belief that the risen Lord still possessed a body flesh:

Chapter 3. Christ was possessed of a body after His resurrection

For I know that after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh, and I believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit. And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced both by His flesh and spirit. For this cause also they despised death, and were found its conquerors. And after his resurrection He ate and drank with them, as being possessed of flesh, although spiritually He was united to the Father. (Epistle to the Smyrnæans)

Chapter 7. Beware of false teachers

For some are in the habit of carrying about the name [of Jesus Christ] in wicked guile, while yet they practise things unworthy of God, whom you must flee as you would wild beasts. For they are ravening dogs, who bite secretly, against whom you must be on your guard, inasmuch as they are men who can scarcely be cured. There is one Physician who IS possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first passible and then impassible — even Jesus Christ our Lord. (Epistle to the Ephesians)

POLYCARP

Epistle to the Philippians (Polycarp)

Chapter 5. The duties of deacons, youths, and virgins

Knowing, then, that God is not mocked, Galatians 6:7 we ought to walk worthy of His commandment and glory. In like manner should the deacons be blameless before the face of His righteousness, as being the servants of God and Christ, and not of men. They must not be slanderers, double-tongued, 1 Timothy 3:8 or lovers of money, but temperate in all things, compassionate, industrious, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who was the servant Matthew 20:28 of all. If we please Him in this present world, we shall receive also the future world, according as He has promised to us that He will raise us again from the dead, and that if we live worthily of Him, we shall also reign together with Him, 2 Timothy 2:12 provided only we believe. In like manner, let the young men also be blameless in all things, being especially careful to preserve purity, and keeping themselves in, as with a bridle, from every kind of evil. For it is well that they should be cut off from the lusts that are in the world, since every lust wars against the spirit; 1 Peter 2:11 and neither fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, shall inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 nor those who do things inconsistent and unbecoming. Wherefore, it is needful to abstain from all these things, being subject to the presbyters and deacons, as unto God and Christ. The virgins also must walk in a blameless and pure conscience.

IRENAEUS

Against Heresies

Book IV, Chapter 22 

Christ did not come for the sake of the men of one age only, but for all who, living righteously and piously, had believed upon Him; and for those, too, who shall believe.

1. Now in the last days, when the fullness of the time of liberty had arrived, the Word Himself did by Himself wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion, Isaiah 4:4 when He washed the disciples’ feet with His own hands. John 13:5 For this is the end of the human race inheriting God; that as in the beginning, by means of our first [parents], we were all brought into bondage, by being made subject to death; so at last, by means of the New Man, all who from the beginning [were His] disciples, having been cleansed and washed from things pertaining to death, should come to the life of God. For He who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body, and rendered it clean. For this reason, too, He administered food to them in a recumbent posture, indicating that those who were lying in the earth were they to whom He came to impart life. As Jeremiah declares, The holy Lord remembered His dead Israel, who slept in the land of sepulture; and He descended to them to make known to them His salvation, that they might be saved. For this reason also were the eyes of the disciples weighed down when Christ’s passion was approaching; and when, in the first instance, the Lord found them sleeping, He let it pass — thus indicating the patience of God in regard to the state of slumber in which men lay; but coming the second time, He aroused them, and made them stand up, in token that His passion is the arousing of His sleeping disciples, on whose account He also descended into the lower parts of the earth, Ephesians 4:9 to behold with His eyes the state of those who were resting from their labours, in reference to whom He did also declare to the disciples: Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see and hear what you see and hear. Matthew 13:17

2. For it was not merely for those who believed on Him in the time of Tiberius Cæsar that Christ came, nor did the Father exercise His providence for the men only who are now alive, but for all men altogether, who from the beginning, according to their capacity, in their generation have both feared and loved God, and practised justice and piety towards their neighbours, and have earnestly desired to see Christ, and to hear His voice. Wherefore He shall, at His second coming, first rouse from their sleep all persons of this description, and shall raise them up, as well as the rest who shall be judged, and give them a place in His kingdom. For it is truly one God who directed the patriarchs towards His dispensations, and has justified the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. Romans 3:30 For as in the first we were prefigured, so, on the other hand, are they represented in us, that is, in the Church, and receive the recompense for those things which they accomplished…

Chapter 33 

Whosoever confesses that one God is the author of both Testaments, and diligently reads the Scriptures in company with the presbyters of the Church, is a true spiritual disciple; and he will rightly understand and interpret all that the prophets have declared respecting Christ and the liberty of the New Testament.

1. A spiritual disciple of this sort truly receiving the Spirit of God, who was from the beginning, in all the dispensations of God, present with mankind, and announced things future, revealed things present, and narrated things past — [such a man] does indeed judge all men, but is himself judged by no man. For he judges the Gentiles, who serve the creature more than the Creator, Romans 1:21 and with a reprobate mind spend all their labour on vanity. And he also judges the Jews, who do not accept of the word of liberty, nor are willing to go forth free, although they have a Deliverer present [with them]; but they pretend, at a time unsuitable [for such conduct], to serve, [with observances] beyond [those required by] the law, God who stands in need of nothing, and do not recognise the advent of Christ, which He accomplished for the salvation of men, nor are willing to understand that all the prophets announced His two advents: the one, indeed, in which He became a man subject to stripes, and knowing what it is to bear infirmity, Isaiah 53:3 and sat upon the foal of an ass, Zechariah 9:9 and was a stone rejected by the builders, and was led as a sheep to the slaughter, Isaiah 53:7 and by the stretching forth of His hands destroyed Amalek; Exodus 17:11 while He gathered from the ends of the earth into His Father’s fold the children who were scattered abroad, Isaiah 11:12 and remembered His own dead ones who had formerly fallen asleep, and came down to them that He might deliver them: but the second in which He will come on the clouds, Daniel 7:13 bringing on the day which burns as a furnace, Malachi 4:1 and smiting the earth with the word of His mouth, Isaiah 11:4 and slaying the impious with the breath of His lips, and having a fan in His hands, and cleansing His floor, and gathering the wheat indeed into His barn, but burning the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17

Irenaeus wrote elsewhere that the antichrist prophesied by Daniel and Paul had yet to arrive.

Book V, Chapter 25

The fraud, pride, and tyrannical kingdom of Antichrist, as described by Daniel and Paul.

1. And not only by the particulars already mentioned, but also by means of the events which shall occur in the time of Antichrist is it shown that he, being an apostate and a robber, is anxious to be adored as God; and that, although a mere slave, he wishes himself to be proclaimed as a king. For he (Antichrist) being endued with all the power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous king, nor as a legitimate king, [i.e., one] in subjection to God, but an impious, unjust, and lawless one; as an apostate, iniquitous and murderous; as a robber, concentrating in himself [all] satanic apostasy, and setting aside idols to persuade [men] that he himself is God, raising up himself as the only idol, having in himself the multifarious errors of the other idols. This he does, in order that they who do [now] worship the devil by means of many abominations, may serve himself by this one idol, of whom the apostle thus speaks in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians: Unless there shall come a failing away first, and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God. The apostle therefore clearly points out his apostasy, and that he is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped — that is, above every idol — for these are indeed so called by men, but are not [really] gods; and that he will endeavour in a tyrannical manner to set himself forth as God.

2. Moreover, he (the apostle) has also pointed out this which I have shown in many ways, that the temple in Jerusalem was made by the direction of the true God. For the apostle himself, speaking in his own person, distinctly called it the temple of God. Now I have shown in the third book, that no one is termed God by the apostles when speaking for themselves, except Him who truly is God, the Father of our Lord, by whose directions the temple which is at Jerusalem was constructed for those purposes which I have already mentioned; in which [temple] the enemy shall sit, endeavouring to show himself as Christ, as the Lord also declares: But when you shall see the abomination of desolation, which has been spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let him that reads understand), then let those who are in Judea flee into the mountains; and he who is upon the house-top, let him not come down to take anything out of his house: for there shall then be great hardship, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be.

3. Daniel too, looking forward to the end of the last kingdom, i.e., the ten last kings, among whom the kingdom of those men shall be partitioned, and upon whom the son of perdition shall come, declares that ten horns shall spring from the beast, and that another little horn shall arise in the midst of them, and that three of the former shall be rooted up before his face. He says: And, behold, eyes were in this horn as the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, and his look was more stout than his fellows. I was looking, and this horn made war against the saints, and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of days came and gave judgment to the saints of the most high God, and the time came, and the saints obtained the kingdom. Daniel 7:8, etc. Then, further on, in the interpretation of the vision, there was said to him: The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall excel all other kingdoms, and devour the whole earth, and tread it down, and cut it in pieces. And its ten horns are ten kings which shall arise; and after them shall arise another, who shall surpass in evil deeds all that were before him, and shall overthrow three kings; and he shall speak words against the most high God, and wear out the saints of the most high God, and shall purpose to change times and laws; and [everything] shall be given into his hand until a time of times and a half time, Daniel 7:23, etc. that is, for three years and six months, during which time, when he comes, he shall reign over the earth. Of whom also the Apostle Paul again, speaking in the second [Epistle] to the Thessalonians, and at the same time proclaiming the cause of his advent, thus says: And then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy by the presence of His coming; whose coming [i.e., the wicked one’s] is after the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and portents of lies, and with all deceivableness of wickedness for those who perish; because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And therefore God will send them the working of error, that they may believe a lie; that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but gave consent to iniquity, 2 Thessalonians 2:8

4. The Lord also spoke as follows to those who did not believe in Him: I have come in my Father’s name, and you have not received Me: when another shall come in his own name, him you will receive, John 5:43 calling Antichrist the other, because he is alienated from the Lord. This is also the unjust judge, whom the Lord mentioned as one who feared not God, neither regarded man, Luke 18:2, etc. to whom the widow fled in her forgetfulness of God — that is, the earthly Jerusalem, — to be avenged of her adversary. Which also he shall do in the time of his kingdom: he shall remove his kingdom into that [city], and shall sit in the temple of God, leading astray those who worship him, as if he were Christ. To this purpose Daniel says again: And he shall desolate the holy place; and sin has been given for a sacrifice, and righteousness been cast away in the earth, and he has been active (fecit), and gone on prosperously. Daniel 8:12 And the angel Gabriel, when explaining his vision, states with regard to this person: And towards the end of their kingdom a king of a most fierce countenance shall arise, one understanding [dark] questions, and exceedingly powerful, full of wonders; and he shall corrupt, direct, influence (faciet), and put strong men down, the holy people likewise; and his yoke shall be directed as a wreath [round their neck]; deceit shall be in his hand, and he shall be lifted up in his heart: he shall also ruin many by deceit, and lead many to perdition, bruising them in his hand like eggs. Daniel 8:23, etc. And then he points out the time that his tyranny shall last, during which the saints shall be put to flight, they who offer a pure sacrifice unto God: And in the midst of the week, he says, the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away, and the abomination of desolation [shall be brought] into the temple: even unto the consummation of the time shall the desolation be complete. Daniel 9:27 Now three years and six months constitute the half-week.

JUSTIN MARTYR

Dialogue with Trypho the Jew

Chapters 31-47

Chapter 31. If Christ’s power be now so great, how much greater at the second advent!

Justin: But if so great a power is shown to have followed and to be still following the dispensation of His suffering, how great shall that be which shall follow His glorious advent! For He shall come on the clouds as the Son of man, so Daniel foretold, and His angels shall come with Him. These are the words:

‘I beheld till the thrones were set; and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool. His throne was like a fiery flame, His wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The books were opened, and the judgment was set. I beheld then the voice of the great words which the horn speaks: and the beast was beat down, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. And the rest of the beasts were taken away from their dominion, and a period of life was given to the beasts until a season and time. I saw in the vision of the night, and, behold, one like the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven; and He came to the Ancient of days, and stood before Him. And they who stood by brought Him near; and there were given Him power and kingly honour, and all nations of the earth by their families, and all glory, serve Him. And His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not be taken away; and His kingdom shall not be destroyed. And my spirit was chilled within my frame, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood by, and inquired the precise meaning of all these things. In answer he speaks to me, and showed me the judgment of the matters: These great beasts are four kingdoms, which shall perish from the earth, and shall not receive dominion for ever, even for ever and ever. Then I wished to know exactly about the fourth beast, which destroyed all [the others] and was very terrible, its teeth of iron, and its nails of brass; which devoured, made waste, and stamped the residue with its feet: also about the ten horns upon its head, and of the one which came up, by means of which three of the former fell. And that horn had eyes, and a mouth speaking great things; and its countenance excelled the rest. And I beheld that horn waging war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of days came; and He gave judgment for the saints of the Most High. And the time came, and the saints of the Most High possessed the kingdom. And it was told me concerning the fourth beast: There shall be a fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall prevail over all these kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall destroy and make it thoroughly waste. And the ten horns are ten kings that shall arise; and one shall arise after them; and he shall surpass the first in evil deeds, and he shall subdue three kings, and he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall overthrow the rest of the saints of the Most High, and shall expect to change the seasons and the times. And it shall be delivered into his hands for a time, and times, and half a time. And the judgment sat, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom, and the power, and the great places of the kingdoms under the heavens, were given to the holy people of the Most High, to reign in an everlasting kingdom: and all powers shall be subject to Him, and shall obey Him. Hitherto is the end of the matter. I, Daniel, was possessed with a very great astonishment, and my speech was changed in me; yet I kept the matter in my heart.’ Daniel 7:9-28

Chapter 32. Trypho objecting that Christ is described as glorious by Daniel, Justin distinguishes two advents

Trypho: These and such like Scriptures, sir, compel us to wait for Him who, as Son of man, receives from the Ancient of days the everlasting kingdom. But this so-called Christ of yours was dishonourable and inglorious, so much so that the last curse contained in the law of God fell on him, for he was crucified.

Justin: If, sirs, it were not said by the Scriptures which I have already quoted, that His form was inglorious, and His generation not declared, and that for His death the rich would suffer death, and with His stripes we should be healed, and that He would be led away like a sheep; and if I had not explained that there would be two advents of His — one in which He was pierced by you; a second, when you shall know Him whom you have pierced, and your tribes shall mourn, each tribe by itself, the women apart, and the men apart — then I must have been speaking dubious and obscure things. But now, by means of the contents of those Scriptures esteemed holy and prophetic among you, I attempt to prove all [that I have adduced], in the hope that some one of you may be found to be of that remnant which has been left by the grace of the Lord of Sabaoth for the eternal salvation. In order, therefore, that the matter inquired into may be plainer to you, I will mention to you other words also spoken by the blessed David, from which you will perceive that the Lord is called the Christ by the Holy Spirit of prophecy; and that the Lord, the Father of all, has brought Him again from the earth, setting Him at His own right hand, until He makes His enemies His footstool; which indeed happens from the time that our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, after He rose again from the dead, the times now running on to their consummation; and he whom Daniel foretells would have dominion for a time, and times, and an half, is even already at the door, about to speak blasphemous and daring things against the Most High. But you, being ignorant of how long he will have dominion, hold another opinion. For you interpret the ‘time’ as being a hundred years. But if this is so, the man of sin must, at the shortest, reign three hundred and fifty years, in order that we may compute that which is said by the holy Daniel —’and times’— to be two times only. All this I have said to you in digression, in order that you at length may be persuaded of what has been declared against you by God, that you are foolish sons; and of this, ‘Therefore, behold, I will proceed to take away this people, and shall take them away; and I will strip the wise of their wisdom, and will hide the understanding of their prudent men.’ Isaiah 29:14 and may cease to deceive yourselves and those who hear you, and may learn of us, who have been taught wisdom by the grace of Christ. The words, then, which were spoken by David, are these:

The Lord said to My Lord, Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Sion: rule also in the midst of Your enemies. With You shall be, in the day, the chief of Your power, in the beauties of Your saints. From the womb, before the morning star, have I begotten You. The Lord has sworn, and will not repent: You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at Your right hand: He has crushed kings in the day of His wrath: He shall judge among the heathen, He shall fill [with] the dead bodies. He shall drink of the brook in the way; therefore shall He lift up the head.’

Chapter 33. Psalm 110 is not spoken of Hezekiah. He proves that Christ was first humble, then shall be glorious

Justin: And I am not ignorant that you venture to expound this psalm as if it referred to king Hezekiah; but that you are mistaken, I shall prove to you from these very words immediately. ‘The Lord has sworn, and will not repent,’ it is said; and, ‘You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek,’ with what follows and precedes. Not even you will venture to object that Hezekiah was either a priest, or is the everlasting priest of God; but that this is spoken of our Jesus, these expressions show. But your ears are shut up, and your hearts are made dull. For by this statement, ‘The Lord has sworn, and will not repent: You are a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek,’ with an oath God has shown Him (on account of your unbelief) to be the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek; i.e., as Melchizedek was described by Moses as the priest of the Most High, and he was a priest of those who were in uncircumcision, and blessed the circumcised Abraham who brought him tithes, so God has shown that His everlasting Priest, called also by the Holy Spirit Lord, would be Priest of those in uncircumcision. Those too in circumcision who approach Him, that is, believing Him and seeking blessings from Him, He will both receive and bless. And that He shall be first humble as a man, and then exalted, these words at the end of the Psalm show: ‘He shall drink of the brook in the way,’ and then, ‘Therefore shall He lift up the head.’

Chapters 69-88

Chapter 69. The devil, since he emulates the truth, has invented fables about Bacchus, Hercules, and Æsculapius

Justin: Be well assured, then, Trypho, that I am established in the knowledge of and faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which he who is called the devil is said to have performed among the Greeks; just as some were wrought by the Magi in Egypt, and others by the false prophets in Elijah’s days. For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by [Jupiter’s] intercourse with Semele, and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that [the devil] has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by Moses? And when they tell that Hercules was strong, and travelled over all the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and ascended to heaven when he died, do I not perceive that the Scripture which speaks of Christ, ‘strong as a giant to run his race,’ has been in like manner imitated? And when he [the devil] brings forward Æsculapius as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ? But since I have not quoted to you such Scripture as tells that Christ will do these things, I must necessarily remind you of one such: from which you can understand, how that to those destitute of a knowledge of God, I mean the Gentiles, who, ‘having eyes, saw not, and having a heart, understood not,’ worshipping the images of wood, [how even to them] Scripture prophesied that they would renounce these [vanities], and hope in this Christ. It is thus written:

Rejoice, thirsty wilderness: let the wilderness be glad, and blossom as the lily: the deserts of the Jordan shall both blossom and be glad: and the glory of Lebanon was given to it, and the honour of Carmel. And my people shall see the exaltation of the Lord, and the glory of God. Be strong, you careless hands and enfeebled knees. Be comforted, you faint in soul: be strong, fear not. Behold, our God gives, and will give, retributive judgment. He shall come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear. Then the lame shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be distinct: for water has broken forth in the wilderness, and a valley in the thirsty land; and the parched ground shall become pools, and a spring of water shall [rise up] in the thirsty land. Isaiah 35:1-7

The spring of living water which gushed forth from God in the land destitute of the knowledge of God, namely the land of the Gentiles, was this Christ, who also appeared in your nation, and healed those who were maimed, and deaf, and lame in body from their birth, causing them to leap, to hear, and to see, by His word. And having raised the dead, and causing them to live, by His deeds He compelled the men who lived at that time to recognise Him. But though they saw such works, they asserted it was magical art. For they dared to call Him a magician, and a deceiver of the people. Yet He wrought such works, and persuaded those who were [destined to] believe in Him; for even if any one be labouring under a defect of body, yet be an observer of the doctrines delivered by Him, He shall raise him up at His second advent perfectly sound, after He has made him immortal, and incorruptible, and free from grief…

Chapter 80. The opinion of Justin with regard to the reign of a thousand years. Several Catholics reject it

Trypho: I remarked to you sir, that you are very anxious to be safe in all respects, since you cling to the Scriptures. But tell me, do you really admit that this place, Jerusalem, shall be rebuilt; and do you expect your people to be gathered together, and made joyful with Christ and the patriarchs, and the prophets, both the men of our nation, and other proselytes who joined them before your Christ came? Or have you given way, and admitted this in order to have the appearance of worsting us in the controversies?

Justin: I am not so miserable a fellow, Trypho, as to say one thing and think another. I admitted to you formerly, that I and many others are of this opinion, and [believe] that such will take place, as you assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise. Moreover, I pointed out to you that some who are called Christians, but are godless, impious heretics, teach doctrines that are in every way blasphemous, atheistical, and foolish. But that you may know that I do not say this before you alone, I shall draw up a statement, so far as I can, of all the arguments which have passed between us; in which I shall record myself as admitting the very same things which I admit to you. For I choose to follow not men or men’s doctrines, but God and the doctrines [delivered] by Him. For if you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit this [truth], and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians, even as one, if he would rightly consider it, would not admit that the Sadducees, or similar sects of Genistæ, Meristæ, Galilæans, Hellenists, Pharisees, Baptists, are Jews (do not hear me impatiently when I tell you what I think), but are [only] called Jews and children of Abraham, worshipping God with the lips, as God Himself declared, but the heart was far from Him. But I and others, who are RIGHT-MINDED Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged, [as] the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare.

Chapter 81. He endeavours to prove this opinion from Isaiah and the Apocalypse

Justin: For Isaiah spoke thus concerning this space of a thousand years:

For there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, or come into their heart; but they shall find joy and gladness in it, which things I create. For, Behold, I make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and My people a joy; and I shall rejoice over Jerusalem, and be glad over My people. And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, or the voice of crying. And there shall be no more there a person of immature years, or an old man who shall not fulfil his days. For the young man shall be an hundred years old; but the sinner who dies an hundred years old, he shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and shall themselves inhabit them; and they shall plant vines, and shall themselves eat the produce of them, and drink the wine. They shall not build, and others inhabit; they shall not plant, and others eat. For according to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound. Mine elect shall not toil fruitlessly, or beget children to be cursed; for they shall be a seed righteous and blessed by the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call I will hear; while they are still speaking, I shall say, What is it? Then shall the wolves and the lambs feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent [shall eat] earth as bread. They shall not hurt or maltreat each other on the holy mountain, says the Lord.

Now we have understood that the expression used among these words, ‘According to the days of the tree [of life] shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound’ obscurely predicts a thousand years. For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, ‘The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,’ is connected with this subject. And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men would likewise take place. Just as our Lord also said, ‘They shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels, the children of the God of the resurrection.’ Luke 20:35f.

Chapters 109-124

Chapter 110. A portion of the prophecy already fulfilled in the Christians: the rest shall be fulfilled at the second advent

Justin: Now I am aware that your teachers, sirs, admit the whole of the words of this passage to refer to Christ; and I am likewise aware that they maintain He has not yet come; or if they say that He has come, they assert that it is not known who He is; but when He shall become manifest and glorious, then it shall be known who He is. And then, they say, the events mentioned in this passage shall happen, just as if there was no fruit as yet from the words of the prophecy. O unreasoning men! understanding not what has been proved by all these passages, that two advents of Christ have been announced: the one, in which He is set forth as suffering, inglorious, dishonoured, and crucified; but the other, in which He shall come from heaven with glory, when the man of apostasy, who speaks strange things against the Most High, shall venture to do unlawful deeds on the earth against us the Christians, who, having learned the true worship of God from the law, and the word which went forth from Jerusalem by means of the apostles of Jesus, have fled for safety to the God of Jacob and God of Israel; and we who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons — our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage— and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified; and sitting each under his vine, i.e., each man possessing his own married wife. For you are aware that the prophetic word says, ‘And his wife shall be like a fruitful vine.’ Now it is evident that no one can terrify or subdue us who have believed in Jesus over all the world. For it is plain that, though beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession; but the more such things happen, the more do others and in larger numbers become faithful, and worshippers of God through the name of Jesus. For just as if one should cut away the fruit-bearing parts of a vine, it grows up again, and yields other branches flourishing and fruitful; even so the same thing happens with us. For the vine planted by God and Christ the Saviour is His people. But the rest of the prophecy shall be fulfilled at His second coming. For the expression, ‘He that is afflicted [and driven out],’ i.e., from the world, [implies] that, so far as you and all other men have it in your power, each Christian has been driven out not only from his own property, but even from the whole world; for you permit no Christian to live. But you say that the same fate has befallen your own nation. Now, if you have been cast out after defeat in battle, you have suffered such treatment justly indeed, as all the Scriptures bear witness; but we, though we have done no such [evil acts] after we knew the truth of God, are testified to by God, that, together with the most righteous, and only spotless and sinless Christ, we are taken away out of the earth. For Isaiah cries, ‘Behold how the righteous perishes, and no man lays it to heart; and righteous men are taken away, and no man considers it.’ Isaiah 57:1

Chapter 111. The two advents were signified by the two goats. Other figures of the first advent, in which the Gentiles are freed by the blood of Christ

Justin: And that it was declared by symbol, even in the time of Moses, that there would be two advents of this Christ, as I have mentioned previously, [is manifest] from the symbol of the goats presented for sacrifice during the fast. And again, by what Moses and Joshua did, the same thing was symbolically announced and told beforehand. For the one of them, stretching out his hands, remained till evening on the hill, his hands being supported; and this reveals a type of no other thing than of the cross: and the other, whose name was altered to Jesus (Joshua), led the fight, and Israel conquered. Now this took place in the case of both those holy men and prophets of God, that you may perceive how one of them could not bear up both the mysteries: I mean, the type of the cross and the type of the name. For this is, was, and shall be the strength of Him alone, whose name every power dreads, being very much tormented because they shall be destroyed by Him. Therefore our suffering and crucified Christ was not cursed by the law, but made it manifest that He alone would save those who do not depart from His faith. And the blood of the passover, sprinkled on each man’s door-posts and lintel, delivered those who were saved in Egypt, when the first-born of the Egyptians were destroyed. For the passover was Christ, who was afterwards sacrificed, as also Isaiah said, ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.’ Isaiah 53:7 And it is written, that on the day of the passover you seized Him, and that also during the passover you crucified Him. And as the blood of the passover saved those who were in Egypt, so also the blood of Christ will deliver from death those who have believed. Would God, then, have been deceived if this sign had not been above the doors? I do not say that; but I affirm that He announced beforehand the future salvation for the human race through the blood of Christ. For the sign of the scarlet thread, which the spies, sent to Jericho by Joshua, son of Nave (Nun), gave to Rahab the harlot, telling her to bind it to the window through which she let them down to escape from their enemies, also manifested the symbol of the blood of Christ, by which those who were at one time harlots and unrighteous persons out of all nations are saved, receiving remission of sins, and continuing no longer in sin.

FURTHER READING

THE EARLY CHURCH ON CHRIST’S THOUSAND YEAR REIGN

The following is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 2: Like Father, Like Son: Jesus’ Divine Attributes, Chapter 10: The Preexistence of Christ, 198-206. All emphasis is mine.

In my estimation this is THE best and most comprehensive exposition and defense of the biblical basis for the Deity of Christ. Every serious Trinitarian Christian student of the Holy Bible, apologist, and/or theologian must have this book in the library.

Christ with Israel in the Wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:1–9)

In 1 Corinthians, written about 54 or 55, Paul makes two statements about the relationship to Christ of the Israelites in the wilderness following the exodus. Here is the first one:

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. (1 Cor. 10:1–4)

Paul assumes here that his readers have some knowledge of the account in Exodus. The Israelites escaped from Egypt, led by a pillar of “cloud” representing God’s presence (Exod. 13:21–22; 14:19–20, 24), and they “all passed through the sea,” that is, the Red Sea (14:21–29). Paul is speaking figuratively when he says that they “all were baptized into Moses,” comparing the Israelites’ covenant relationship with God through Moses to Christians’ covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ. After the Israelites entered the wilderness, Yahweh’s glory “appeared in the cloud” (Exod. 16:10). On that occasion, God provided manna for them to eat (16:12–36). Soon afterward, God began providing water for the Israelites (17:1– 7). Paul calls the manna and the water “spiritual” food and drink, meaning not that they were immaterial but that God provided them supernaturally. Here is how Yahweh told Moses to get the water: “I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink” 17:6 NRSV). This is the first Old Testament text that uses the word “rock” (ṣûr). Later, the Song of Moses actually calls Yahweh “the Rock” five times (Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, 30, 31). The implication of these texts is that God himself was “the Rock” from which the water ultimately came.

It is in this context of God as “the Rock” that Paul says, “and the Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4b). An allusion here to Deuteronomy 32 is confirmed a few verses later when Paul makes a strong allusion to Deuteronomy 32:16–17 (1 Cor. 10:21–22).³⁷ Of course, as Ben Witherington III comments, “Paul is not discussing an earlier incarnation of the Christ on earth as a rock!”³⁸ In Paul’s day, a Jewish tradition was developing that later described a rock-shaped “well” of water that followed the Israelites around in the wilderness. Scholars debate whether the “well” was an explicit part of the tradition in Paul’s day and whether his statement assumes that idea. We may safely say that Paul was part of the same broader theological community within which the moving well motif developed, but we should probably not read that motif into 1 Corinthians.³⁹

Whatever the precise interpretive tradition concerning “the Rock” known to Paul, what he says in 1 Corinthians 10:4b indicates that Christ was a divine person present with the Israelites in the wilderness. Buzzard vehemently objects to this understanding of the text, mostly on a priori grounds that it would contradict what he claims the Bible teaches elsewhere. However, he also objects that Paul meant only that the “rock” was a type of Christ, quoting (twice) Paul’s statement, “Now these things happened to them as an example” (1 Cor. 10:11a), which Buzzard translates, “These things happened to them typically.”⁴⁰ Here Buzzard has things a bit muddled. Of course, the inanimate, literal rock in the wilderness was a type, as were the cloud, the sea, the manna, and the water. However, “the Rock” in Deuteronomy 32 is not a type but a metaphorical name for God.

When Paul uses the Old Testament typologically or allegorically, he does so in the present tense: “Now Hagar is [estin] Mount Sinai in Arabia” (Gal. 4:25), interpreting Hagar in Genesis 16 as symbolic of the Mosaic covenant enacted at Mount Sinai. That is not what Paul does in 1 Corinthians 10. Instead, he writes, “and the Rock was [ēn] Christ.”⁴¹ Thus, a sound exegesis of the passage leads to the conclusion that Paul was identifying Christ as “the Rock” to whom the Israelites were supposed to look in faith. This conclusion, which for some people will be difficult to accept, is confirmed just a few sentences later, when Paul warns the Corinthian Christians: “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents” (1 Cor. 10:9). Here Paul states in a matter-of-fact manner that some of the Israelites in the wilderness “put Christ to the test,” and he warns the Corinthians not to make the same mistake!

Not all of the extant Greek manuscripts containing 1 Corinthians 10:9 have the name “Christ” there; some say “Lord” instead. The reading “Christ” (christon) has the earliest, most diverse, and most numerous manuscript support (starting with P46, dated about AD 200), and it is also better attested by early translations into other languages (such as Coptic and Latin) and in other early Christian writings. It is the reading given in most contemporary critical editions of the Greek New Testament (notably NA28 and SBLGNT). It was the reading followed in the KJV and is followed by most contemporary English versions (CSB, ESV, LEB, NABRE, NET, NIV, NKJV, NLT, NRSV).

The reading “Lord” (kyrion) does have the support of two major codices from the fourth century (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), which led Tregelles (1879) and Westcott and Hort (1881) to prefer this reading in their critical editions of the Greek New Testament. The recent edition published by Tyndale House (THGNT), which was based on the Tregelles edition, also accepts the reading kyrion. However, the rest of the manuscript support for kyrion is quite weak compared with the evidence for christon. Moreover, while it would be understandable for scribes to change the strange sounding “Christ” to “Lord” here, it is highly unlikely that scribes would change “Lord” to “Christ.”

For these reasons, the reading kyrion is followed by only a few English versions today (NASB, NJB). Manuscript discoveries in the twentieth century, especially P46 (which was rediscovered and published for scholars to study in the 1930s) have convinced nearly all textual critics and other scholars that “Christ” is the correct reading.⁴²

Predictably, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Bible version follows the less likely reading kyrion in 1 Corinthians 10:9 and then substitutes Jehovah there, so that Paul is made to say, “Neither let us put Jehovah to the test” (1 Cor. 10:9 NWT). The Watchtower’s online study Bible cites the Westcott–Hort and THGNT editions of the Greek New Testament in support of the reading kyrion. Of course, no Greek manuscripts of 1 Corinthians use any form of the name YHWH (“Jehovah”). The Watchtower therefore speculates that “the divine name was originally used in this verse and later replaced with the title ‘Lord’ or ‘the Christ.’”⁴³ Even granting the baseless assumption that the text originally had YHWH here, it is extremely implausible to claim that scribes might have replaced that name with “the Christ.” Thus, one must accept three implausible claims in order to defend the NWT rendering: that kyrion is better attested than christon; that kyrion originated as a substitute by apostate scribes for YHWH; and that some scribes would also have substituted christon for YHWH (or even for kyrion).

The Watchtower’s zeal to avoid having Paul say that the Israelites put Christ to the test in the wilderness is understandable. What Paul says here about Christ is what the Old Testament said about the Lord Yahweh: that the Israelites had put him to the test, resulting on one occasion in some of them dying from poisonous serpents (Num. 14:22; 21:5–6; Pss. 78:18–20; 95:9).⁴⁴ Once again, the New Testament not only affirms Christ’s preexistence, but affirms his divine preexistence.

Jesus the Savior and Judge of Israel (Jude 5)

A similar statement appears in the epistle of Jude. He warns his readers about those “who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). Immediately after that warning, he starts giving examples from Jewish history, beginning with the Israelites’ apostasy in the wilderness. This text has come down to us mainly in two forms, with variations similar to what we saw in 1 Corinthians 10:9. We will quote two different translations to illustrate the difference:

Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. (Jude 5 ESV; similarly, CSB, LEB, NET, NLT, NRSV).

Now I want to remind you, though you know everything once and for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. (Jude 5 NASB; similarly, KJV, NABRE, NIV, NJB, NKJV)⁴⁵

These two translations reflect the fact that many manuscripts have “Jesus” here, while many others have “Lord” (kyrios). A third reading comes from the earliest extant manuscript, a papyrus known as P72 and dated to the third or fourth century. In P72, Jude 5 has “God Christ” (theos christos) instead of either “Lord” or “Jesus.” This is so far the only extant manuscript containing this reading, which is one reason why virtually no one argues that it is the original reading. If it were, of course, it would mean that Jude was explicitly affirming the preexistence of Christ as God! Not only is this an isolated reading, but it appears in a manuscript that scholars regard as particularly unreliable.⁴⁶

Deciding between “Lord” and “Jesus” in Jude 5 is not so easy. On the one hand, most scholars acknowledge that the manuscript evidence for “Jesus” is significantly better than for “Lord.” On the other hand, many scholars find it hard to accept that Jude actually wrote “Jesus” here. In his textual commentary first written in 1971 and revised in 1994, Bruce Metzger, writing for the committee that produced the Greek New Testament for the United Bible Societies, famously explains: “Despite the weighty attestation supporting Iēsous . . . a majority of the Committee was of the opinion that the reading was difficult to the point of impossibility.”⁴⁷ Yet this was a bare majority ruling, with three committee members taking this position and two (including Metzger) dissenting. Normally the more difficult reading is preferred on the grounds that scribes were more likely to amend a difficult reading than to create one, but in this case many scholars think “Jesus” is just too difficult a reading.⁴⁸

Other scholars have defended the reading “Jesus” as difficult but not too difficult, arguing that it is most likely correct.⁴⁹ When Metzger produced the two editions of his textual commentary for the United Bible Societies, their published Greek New Testament, through its fourth edition, reflected the committee’s majority ruling and had kyrios in Jude 5. However, the fifth edition (as well as NA28, which presents the same Greek text) changed its reading to Iēsous (“Jesus”). In addition, the other two main critical texts of the Greek New Testament, the SBLGNT and the THGNT, also both favor “Jesus.” In keeping with this shift in favor of the reading Iēsous, the updated edition of the NRSV changed its translation of Jude 5 from “the Lord” to “Jesus.”

We think that the reading “Jesus” in Jude 5 is more likely to be correct, based on the currently available evidence. If that is true, then Jude 5 undeniably affirms that Jesus preexisted his human life and was involved in Israel’s history. However, even if one prefers the reading “Lord,” in context the statement would still refer to Jesus Christ because in the immediately preceding sentence Christ is called “our only Master and Lord” (Jude 4). Reading the two sentences together (and using a translation with the reading “Lord” in verse 5) should make the point clear:

For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into indecent behavior and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, though you know everything once and for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. (Jude 4–5 NASB)

After speaking of Jesus as “our only Master and Lord,” Jude can hardly have referred immediately to someone other than Jesus as “the Lord” without qualification. The Lord who delivered his people out of Egypt, then, must be the Lord Jesus.

Who Led the Israelites Out of Egypt?

The statements we have just examined from Paul (1 Cor. 10:4, 9) and Jude (Jude 4–5) indicate that Jesus Christ was the divine figure who led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness on their way to the promised land. Yet both authors, of course, in those same epistles differentiated the Lord Jesus Christ from God the Father (e.g., 1 Cor. 8:6; Jude 1, 25). How, then, are we to understand their statements about Christ’s role in the Israelite exodus in relation to the Old Testament narrative? Who is it exactly that Paul and Jude thought the preincarnate Christ was?

When we turn to the book of Exodus, we find a likely answer. It turns out that there is a similar complexity, even paradox, in what Exodus says about the divine deliverer of the Israelites. The divine figure who appeared to Moses from a burning bush is first called “the angel of the Lord” (Exod. 3:2), but the one whom Moses sees and hears in the bush is identified repeatedly by the names “the Lord” (Yahweh) and “God” (3:4–16). Once the Israelites begin their journey out of Egypt, we are told that “God” led them out and that “the Lord went before them” in a pillar of cloud and fire (13:18, 21). When the Egyptian army attempted to overtake the Israelites, “the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them” (14:19). In these passages, the angel of the Lord, also called the angel of God, is both distinguished from and equated with God, the Lord. Elsewhere, the Old Testament tells the people of Israel both that “the Lord” brought them out of Egypt (Exod. 20:1–2; Lev. 11:45; Deut. 20:1; Neh. 9:18) and that “the angel of the Lord” did so (Judg. 2:1). In other places, especially in the early narrative books of the Bible, the angel of the Lord speaks to human beings as though he were the Lord himself, and those who see him confess that they saw God (e.g., Gen. 16:7–13; 21:17–18; 22:1, 11–18; 31:11–13; Judg. 6:11–24; 13:2–23).

These and many other texts evidently refer to a divine person called God’s “angel” who is somehow distinct from God and yet is himself God. Keep in mind that the words translated “angel” (Hebrew malʾak, Greek angelos) literally meant “messenger,” which meant that the word could be used for human messengers, created spirit messengers, and evidently a divine messenger. Perhaps the richest example of this phenomenon comes in Jacob’s prayer for blessing over Joseph’s two sons:

The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,

the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day,

the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys . . . (Gen. 48:15–16a)

As Jewish commentator Nahum Sarna observes, the parallelism of these three lines “strongly suggests that ‘angel’ is here an epithet of God.”⁵⁰ This triadic blessing recalls the famous priestly blessing given later in the Bible:

 The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Num. 6:24–26)

Jacob’s crediting the angel with redeeming him from evil also implies the angel’s deity, especially since elsewhere in Genesis, Jacob prays to God and receives protection from God (Gen. 28:15, 20; 31:3; 32:10–13; 35:3). As Sarna also acknowledges, “no one in the Bible ever invokes an angel in prayer.”⁵¹ That the angel in Genesis 48:16 is God is confirmed by the singular form of the verb barak (“bless”).

Why, then, does Jacob use the term “angel” in his prayer for blessing over his grandsons? The answer is that the “man” with whom Jacob had famously wrestled, whom he then realized was God (Gen. 32:24–30), was the same figure called “the angel of the Lord” earlier in Genesis. The prophet Hosea later stated this explicitly: “In his manhood he strove with God. He strove with the angel and prevailed” (Hosea 12:3–4).

A strong case can be made on the basis of these and other passages that the figure called “the angel of the Lord” (and “the angel of God”) was himself God, yet in some way distinct from God. The traditional Christian view on this matter is that the angel of the Lord was in fact the preincarnate Son of God, and this view has received noteworthy defenses and expositions in recent years.⁵² Two New Testament passages we discussed earlier in this chapter, 1 Corinthians 10:4–9 and Jude 5–7, although they do not actually use the term “angel” for Christ, do seem to allude to Exodus passages about the angel of the Lord, as several scholars have argued.⁵³

Not everyone agrees. On the one hand, some interpreters argue that the Old Testament texts in question refer to created angels who spoke and acted as God’s agents or representatives.⁵⁴ This theory can appear to account for a few of the passages, but it just does not fit many of them, with Genesis 48:16 being one of the most compelling. The created angel interpretation also struggles to make sense of the passages in which a human being, when seeing the angel of the Lord, is afraid that he or she might die because of seeing God (Gen. 32:30; Exod. 3:6; Judges 6:22–23; 13:21–23). The point here is not merely that they feared for their life, but that they feared for their life because they understood that in seeing the angel of the Lord, they had seen God.⁵⁵ In the light of such texts, evidently what the Lord meant when he warned that people could not see God and live (Exod. 33:20) was that they could not see him in an unfiltered or direct fashion.

The debate over the identity of the angel of the Lord will continue.⁵⁶ For those who accept the interpretation that the “angel” in the Old Testament is a divine person who is somehow “God” and yet also distinct from “God,” this finding easily correlates with the New Testament revelation that Jesus Christ existed as a divine person distinct from the Father who was active in the history of the patriarchs and ancient Israel.

On the other hand, the view that the “angel” of the Lord was a created angel does nothing to overturn or weaken the evidence from the New Testament for the preexistence of Christ. Our study in this chapter has found passages in four different parts of the New Testament, written by four different authors, that clearly speak of the Lord Jesus as having been involved in the Old Testament history of Israel (Matt. 23:34–37; John 12:37–41; 1 Cor. 10:1–9; Jude 5).

It is especially striking that Paul and Jude—two quite different authors— in different ways both refer to Christ as involved specifically in the judgment of the faithless Israelites in the wilderness. Since Jude (whom everyone agrees wrote after Paul) shows no signs of literary dependence on any of Paul’s writings, both authors evidently were drawing from a common Christian understanding of Christ’s role in the history of Israel. That is an especially significant finding because it shows that Paul did not invent this idea. Together with the evidence from Matthew and John, we may conclude that the belief in a preexistent, divine Christ actively involved in the Old Testament history of Israel apparently had arisen among Christians even earlier than Paul’s epistles.

37. See our earlier discussion (pp. 135–37).

38. Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, Vol. 2: The Collective Witness (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2010), 216 n. 21.

39. For an argument seeking to tie 1 Corinthians 10:4 to the “moving well” tradition, see Peter E. Enns, “The ‘Moveable Well’ in 1 Cor 10:4: An Extrabiblical Tradition in an Apostolic Text,” BBR 6 (1996): 23–37. For alternative views, see Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 727–30, who argues for Wisdom as the dominant tradition of relevance, and Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 494–96, who cautions against reading the moving well into Paul and considered the Wisdom traditions irrelevant.

40. Buzzard and Hunting, Doctrine of the Trinity, 110, 111 (see 108–12).

41. Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, MA: Hendriksen, 2007), 95–96.

42. See Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), 494; Carroll D. Osburn, “The Text of 1 Corinthians 10:9,” in New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger, ed. Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 1–12.

43. NWT (Study Edition), Appendix C3, “Verses Where the Divine Name Does Not Appear as Part of Direct or Indirect Quotations in the Book of 1 Corinthians.” On this issue, see pp. 469–73.

44. Cf. Costa, Worship and the Risen Jesus in the Pauline Letters, 358–59 n. 479.

45. The NWT, as one would expect, presupposes this reading but changes “Lord” to “Jehovah.”

46. See Elijah Hixson, “Dating Myths, Part One: How We Determine the Ages of Manuscripts,” in Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, ed. Hixson and Gurry, 91. Jarl E. Fossum defends theos as the original reading in “Angel Christology in Jude 5–7,” in The Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christianity, NTOA 30 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 41 n. 1.

47. Metzger, Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 657.

48. Notable recent examples include Tommy Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission, ConBNT 43 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2006), 262–66; Herbert W. Bateman IV, “Disarming Significant Textual Issues in Jude: A Text Critical Study and Interpretation of Jude 5 and 12,” in New Testament Philology: Essays in Honor of David Alan Black, ed. Melton Bennett Winstead (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2018), 145–49.

49. E.g., Gathercole, Preexistent Son, 36–41; Philipp Bartholomä, “Did Jesus Save the People Out of Egypt? A Re-examination of a Textual Problem in Jude 5,” NovT 50 (2008): 143–58.

50. Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 328; likewise, Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 599, and others.

51. Sarna, Genesis, 328. Sarna offers several good reasons to understand the “angel” here to be God, but then at the end suggests a possible way around this conclusion (which does not sit well with current Orthodox Judaism) by allowing that the passage “may reflect some tradition . . . concerning an angelic guardian of Jacob,” not otherwise found in Genesis.

52. E.g., Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 134–48; Anthony Rogers, “The ‘Heavenly’ & ‘Earthly’ Yahweh: A Proto-Trinitarian Interpretation of Genesis 19:24, Part I,” in Our God Is Triune: Essays in Biblical Theology, ed. Michael R. Burgos Jr. (Torrington, CT: Church Militant Publications, 2018), 34– 76; Matt Foreman and Doug Van Dorn, The Angel of the Lord: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Study, foreword by Michael S. Heiser (Dacono, CO: Waters of Creation Publishing, 2020); Michael R. Burgos Jr., “The Angel of Yahweh: A Biblical Appellation for the Second Person of the Holy Trinity,” American Journal of Biblical Theology 22, no. 31 (Aug. 1, 2021); Rob Phillips, Jesus before Bethlehem: What Every Christian Should Know about the Angel of the Lord, foreword by Rodney A. Harrison (Jefferson City, MO: High Street Press, 2021).

53. E.g., Fossum, “Angel Christology in Jude 5–7”; Darrell D. Hannah, Michael and Christ: Michael Traditions and Angel Christology in Early Christianity, WUNT 2/109 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 139–42, among others.

54. Perhaps most notably, W. G. MacDonald, “Christology and ‘the Angel of the Lord,’” in Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation: Studies in Honor of Merrill C. Tenney Presented by His Former Students, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 324–35; René A. López, “Identifying the ‘Angel of the Lord’ in the Book of Judges: A Model for Reconsidering the Referent in Other Old Testament Loci,” BBR 20, no. 1 (2010): 1–18.

55. Contra López, “Identifying the ‘Angel of the Lord’ in the Book of Judges,” 10–11.

56. We discuss the question of whether Paul identified Jesus as “the angel of God” (Gal. 4:14) in chapter 19 (pp. 371–75).

FURTHER READING

Jesus Christ: The Lord God Who Saved and Punished Israel During the Exodus

JUDE TESTIFIES THAT JESUS IS YHWH ALMIGHTY!

JW BIBLE ADMITS: JESUS IS ABRAHAM’S GOD PT. 2

UNITARIANS PROVE THE FATHER ISN’T THE TRUE GOD

CHRIST: GOD’S CREATED WISDOM?

A HYMN TO THE DIVINE CHRIST