(كلمة الله) that man has ever had any communion with God Most High, our Heavenly Father. When, therefore, the Lord Jesus in the Gospel says, 'No ¹ one cometh unto the Father, but by me,' He is not stating a truth which denoted any change or alteration in the way of approaching God the Father: He is merely declaring what had been true from the very beginning of the world.

The term Angel or Messenger (ملك) is often used in the Old Testament in reference to the Word of God when He showed Himself to the patriarchs and prophets. Yet in the same passages words occur which prove that, though appearing in the form of an angel, He was also Divine. The following instances of these Theophanies will make this clear.

In Genesis xviii an account is given of Abraham's intercession with God for Sodom and Gomorrah before their overthrow. There it is written that 'three men' ² appeared to Abraham, and talked with him. In the beginning of the next chapter two of them are called 'angels',³ while in the eighteenth chapter the third is repeatedly called 'the LORD' ( יהןה الربّ ), the incommunicable name of God being given ⁴ Him. The two angels went to Sodom to save Lot from the overthrow of the city, while the LORD, who had at first accompanied

them in the form of a man or of an angel (probably both forms are the same), remained with 'the Friend of God.'

A somewhat similar appearance is mentioned in Genesis xxxii, when Jacob's wrestling with the angel or man is recorded. ¹ The prophet Hosea refers to the same event in the following words, in which it will be perceived that the person who wrestled with Jacob is called 'God', 'the LORD (الربّ)' and an 'angel', for, speaking of Jacob, the prophet says: 'In ² his manhood he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him at Beth-el, and there he spake with us; even the LORD, the God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial.'

In the third chapter of Exodus an account is given of God's first revelation to Moses, and there again it will be noticed that the Divine speaker is sometimes called 'the LORD,' and sometimes 'the Angel of the LORD: for it is written: 'The ³ angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed . . . . And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush . . . . Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of