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Introduction to the Christian Faith: Jesus Priceless Treasure - The Angel of the Lord

Three: Angel of the Lord

The Son of God appeared many times in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord. God created angels to be His messengers and servants, so we know there is a great difference between a created angel and God the Creator. An angel speaks in the name of God but is not God. In the same way, an ambassador speaks for the President of the United States but does not call himself the President. An ambassador will say, “The President has decided to do this.” He does not say, “I am the President.”

For this reason we can see from the very words of Scripture that the Angel of the Lord is not a created being but God. He is called God and calls Himself God. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the form of a burning bush that was not destroyed by its fire.

Exodus 3:2

3:2 And the 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.

The Angel of the Lord called Himself God.

Exodus 3:6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

When Moses asked for the name of the name of God, he received this answer:

Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

 The name of God, I AM, is used by Jesus to identify Himself and to show that He has always existed.

John 8:57

John 8:57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? 58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

As we will see later in this book, the I AM passages in the Gospel of John are very important for all believers to study, understand, and believe. This particular verse, John 8:57, identifies Jesus with God in the burning bush. The Angel of the Lord revealed in the burning bush is the Son of God before He came to live among us.

 When we start to recognize the Son of God in the Old Testament, many more passages take on new meaning. To show this, I capitalized The Word in the following passage.

Genesis 15:1

Genesis 15:1 After these things The Word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

The Word is the name for Jesus in John 1:1. In Genesis 15:1, The Word of the LORD said, “I am thy shield.” Knowing that the Bible is one unified truth, we can see:

1.        God promised Adam and Eve a Savior.

2.        The Savior spoke to Abram (Abraham) in a vision.

3.        The Savior appeared to Moses as a burning bush and spoke to him.

When we read the Old Testament, we should not think of it as a long prelude to the New Testament Gospel of Jesus. Instead, we should read the Old Testament as the first part of the Gospel of Jesus, filled with promises, blessings, comfort, love, mercy, and forgiveness.

 The Savior’s appearance as the Angel of the Lord is worth special consideration in the story of Abraham and Isaac. The Lord promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. In fact, as the first believer of modern times (after the Flood), Abraham became the father of all Christians across the earth. But when Abraham and his wife Sarah were considered too old to have children, they were promised a son.

Sarah laughed, so the baby was named Isaac, a pun on the word for laughter in Hebrew.

 Have you ever known a man who had his first child in old age? It is obvious how deeply Abraham loved his only son with Sarah. Nevertheless, God commanded him to sacrifice his only son on a distant mountain. Abraham obeyed and took his son Isaac with him on a three day journey to Mount Moriah. When the boy noticed wood and fire for the sacrifice, he wondered why he saw no lamb to be slaughtered. His father said, “God will provide Himself a lamb for the sacrifice.”

 Abraham left his servants and took his son up on the mountain. He tied Isaac and placed him on the wood on the altar. Any father who loves his only son can imagine the unbearable pain felt by Abraham as he lifted his knife over Isaac, obedient to God’s command. The Scriptures indicate no struggle from the son, who obeyed his father. Then the Angel of the Lord called out his name twice:

Genesis 22:11-13

22:11 And the Angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. 12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

 The almost-sacrifice of Isaac remained a mystery to everyone until the Father sent His only-begotten Son to be a sacrifice for all sins. The Son obeyed the Father’s will and laid down His life to redeem the world from sin. Once the apostles understood and believed in the cross and resurrection, the ancient story became clear. God intended that Abraham and Isaac would help all people identify with the Father sacrificing the Son. Although the story of Abraham and Isaac turned out well, just as the sacrifice of Christ did, both events are filled with agony and wonder. We can appreciate the cross of Jesus better by understanding how this story of Abraham and Isaac was told with agony and wonder for centuries before the baby Jesus was born.

 The Angel of the Lord stopped the sacrifice. He was not a created being, because He identified Himself as God. Abraham feared God and did not hold back his only son from Me. 

Genesis 22:12

And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me.

The Savior was present to give Abraham a substitute for the sacrifice. The substitute was a ram, representing the Man Who would be our substitute through His atoning death. 

The God of Abraham Praise

The God of Abraham praise;

All praised be His name Who was and is and is to be And still the same!

The one eternal God,

Ere aught that now appears;

The First, the Last: beyond all thought

His timeless years.^[1]

---

[1] Thomas Olivers, “The God of Abraham Praise,” The Lutheran Hymnal, #40. 

Preview of May 16, 2016 Issue of Christian News. Reading CN So You Don't Have To

Not much is in Christian News this issue.

Seminex was re-visited for the 293rd time. But at long last, the right conclusion was reached - Seminex won. Even the so-called conservatives in Missouri go along with the apostate trends. And why not?

Otten has been the stealth Seminex cheerleader all along. When Braaten wrote about how the Seminex professors ruined the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Otten defended his St. Louis classmates as rather conservative.

Otten follows the WELS rule that one's seminary classmates are always defended, especially when they are in the wrong. Commit adultery? Leave the Lutheran church? no problem for a classmate - he is still hailed as a great teacher of the Bible.

UOJ is just like the Roman Empire - embracing all doctrines except the One Truth of justification by faith. Therefore, what seems to be a tangle of contradictions in Christian News is simply the outgrowth of UOJ: "Everyone  is forgiven and saved without faith."

LCMS Pastor Flo writes for CN. He is a nice considerate guy, but stuck on UOJ like his badly taught classmates. Does anyone read Luther or the Book of Concord on his own? Or the Bible? These matters are clear to everyone except Synodical Conference graduates post 1932, when Seminex really started because the Brief Statement canonized UOJ.

I paraphrased Romans 4:24-25 for Flo, and he erupted in accusations. This was on FB and copied into this blog. He had challenged me to restate the Gospel, so I did - and he blew up. I asked him to express Romans 4:24, and he said "If we believed in the God who already forgave us..." I am paraphrasing - it was more awkward than that - exactly what happens when Scripture must conform to Halle Pietism.

David Becker is still doing PR for Brock, who claimed to have written a letter to me denying a homosexual encounter, etc. I have no such letter and as the lawyers say, "Just deny it." So I cannot refute a denial. Becker is the one who raised the issue  anew in Christian News. I read it before, looked it up, and linked it. So believe what you want. I can only report what is out there already.

"Husband of but one wife" but never married - Brock.

England has their Ministers without Portfolio, but CN has Experts without Education.

Here Is the Real Problem
No one stands for anything. The pastors are scared to death to disagree with anything, which breeds apathy and flourishing false doctrine.

If someone can come up with grants, no matter how rotten the source, the clergy and the synodical leaders will bow and scrape to get their trotters in the trough.

Through the Faith of Jesus - New Passage - Philippians 3:9

Philippians 3:6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

---

Romans 3:21-26King James Version (KJV)

21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

***

GJ - This is a topic worth studying at great length. The modern translations seem to be universal in translating the clear, plain Greek as "faith in Christ."

But the genitive means the "faith that belongs to Christ." The house of the governor is the governor's house, so the faith of Christ is Christ's own faith. 

I believe that casts a different light on justification by faith, another nail (among hundreds) in the UOJ coffin.

Faith in Christ suggests "my faith in Christ," which is not bad or wrong, but through the faith of Christ emphasizes the human nature in Christ and all He did to redeem us from sin and Satan. The UOJists rave about "faithians" not being "Christians" but Luther identified himself as a "solafideist" virtually the same thing. Too bad he did not study under David Scaer and other Enthusiasts at Ft. Wayne, where they have improved upon Holy Writ and clarified everything via the Great Prophet CFW Walther. 

Sola-fideist!

I am thinking out loud about this, so I welcome emails about your insights or refutations. I posted the graphic below, which I always liked, and it quotes Luther's Galatians Commentary on the same phrasing.

Braaten's Apostate Memories - From 2011 - Warn Us about the Apostasy He Midwifed in the LCA

Carl Braaten enjoyed a charmed life in ELCA academics.
Then they threw him under the bus.

Carl E. Braaten, Because of Christ, Memoirs of a Lutheran Theologian, Eerdmans, 2010, 210 pages paperback.

When Mrs. Ichabod and I were in college at Augustana, Braaten was the boy wonder at the newly merged Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. LSTC included Augustana Seminary, the ULCA Maywood Seminary, a Nebraska seminary, and some easily forgotten promises to the Finns.

The seminary merger was one reason why I never considered going to LSTC.

Braaten was the son of Norwegian Lutheran missionaries to Madagascar, growing up on that gigantic island. He came back to the States in 1946 to attend St. Olaf College (ALC) and Luther Seminary. In between he got a Fullbright Scholarship to study philosophy in Paris.

Braaten graduated from Luther Seminary in 1955 and entered the doctoral program at Harvard University. "Paul Tillich meant a lot to me," he wrote on page 32. Nothing is said about the appalling infidelities of Tillich, whether marital or doctrinal. Tillich's wife published a book about her wandering husband, who liked photos of women crucified, slept with the wives of his students, and behaved like a jerk. For example, he sold the same theology title to two publishers at once. The Fortress Press biography of Tillich, written by one of his academic friends, noted Tillich's bizarre inclusion of pagan myth in his Systematics. Tillich also bragged up his own importance in various ways. He wanted a job in Hitler's Germany because he was instrumental in promoting the cause of national socialism. His biographer said that Tillich did little beyond talking in coffee shops! Similarly, Tillich acted as though Columbia University's philosophers had great respect for him when he taught at Union Seminary (The Devil's Playground) in NYC. In fact, they did not.

But one does not make a dent in academic theology while pointing out these verities, even in class. I dared to mention some details in the Frank Fiorenza class at Notre Dame. Fiorenza (Roman Catholic) and Tjaard Hommes (liberal Dutch) were furious that I dared to say such things, even though I left out the whips, affairs, and girls-on-crosses. Frank said, "Lutherans do not understand Tillich." I responded with, "Lutherans do not understand a Lutheran?"

Tillich wrote from a philosopher's point of view, which must have harmonized well with Braaten's interests. Modern philosophy displaces theology, using the categories while expelling the content. Almost all of modern theology is written that way, providing a nifty income for closet atheists who moan about teaching nine hours a week - if that.

Tillich won many awards, which allowed him to study in Europe. He also heard Karl Barth lecture in Basel. He was thrilled to hear Barth, but Tillich was clearly his favorite. Tillich and Braaten worked closely together, so Braaten was happy to see Tillich emerge as a famous theologian in Germany and in America. Tillich was on the cover of Time magazine at one point. Few theologians can equal that.

Tillich and Barth are in the same boat as intellectual frauds. Neither one was remotely Christian in thought. Both of them borrowed heavily from the labor of others. Barth let his mistress, Charlotte Kirschbaum, do most of the work in the Dogmatics. Tillich let his grad students did an inordinate amount of his work. Graduate students were not going to kick about doing Tillich's work for him, since he had the power to make careers, as he did for Braaten.

Critical thinking is not an attribute of modern theology. To address the theologians' lack of faith in the Word of God is academic suicide. Apostates are quick to put everyone through a quick colloquy. They do not allow believers into their club.

Braaten has nothing but scorn for "Fundamentalists," which is his word for those who still believe in the authority and inerrancy of the Scriptures. Braaten goes back and forth. He condemns his church opponents for not being confessional, but no one opposed Christian theology more boldly than Braaten in his glory years.

He brags about his Braaten/Jenson Dogmatics, which attacks every article of faith in the Apostles Creed. The crucifixion of Christ is compared to a man hit by a truck, an accident meaning nothing. The gigantic two-volume set is a travesty in writing. To borrow from Luther, it is not even a pile of manure served on a silver platter. The serving dish is a garbage can lid, the inept style of closet atheists trying to act important. They wrote about basic Christian doctrine - Luther believed it, we do not.

And they were trying to rescue ELCA from the radicals. Read the paragraph above again, slowly. Add that the Trinity, in that book, is nothing more than "God, the man Jesus, and the divine spirit of the community." (I paraphrased that statement from memory.)

Braaten also helmed a journal called dialog, the lower case title serving as a reminder of how trendy they were - at the time. He enjoyed being a subversive until his troops over-ran his own position, took away his leadership, and kicked him to the curb.

Braaten's Bitter Fruits
Merger was the first game that burned Braaten. The radicals thrown out of their leadership in the LCMS--led by WELS' own Jungkuntz, a UOJ fanatic--were known collectively as the Seminex bunch. They were blooded veterans of many battles, from a synod where vicious in-fighting, kidnapping, and cover stories began with C. F. W. Walther.

The tiny, fading AELC (Seminexers) were allowed to dominate the ELCA merger talks. They created the gay-feminist quota system that would remove every single person like Braaten from any influence. The radicals opposed the traditional Name of God, but Braaten's book did the same. The memoir sounds like "No fair when you play our game of subversion. We had a blast doing it, but you are going too far." I see a parallel with the current leadership of Missouri, WELS, and the micro-mini sects. What they conceived and carried to term is an ugly little bastard child, who keeps growing and biting his parents.

I went to LSTC for research and also to visit the president of the seminary, Bill Lesher, in discussions about publishing the book. He kept confusing the words "biography" with "bibliography," which made the church history professor roll his eyeballs. Lesher pointed out that they could not keep several Midwestern seminaries going at once. Seminex merged into LSTC and Wartburg has been insolvent, but LSTC (Bergendoff's dream school) is still in deep trouble financially. Nota bene, defenders of WELS schools, this seminary meltdown was discussed 29 years ago. Ba-zing.

Seminex Drives Braaten Out
The Seminex faculty came to LSTC as a team, and they quickly took over. The chapel services conducted worship by avoiding male names or pronouns for the Trinity. Braaten was offended and quit coming to chapel. Boo-hoo Braaten. Did he oppose it at the service? No. Did he organize the other students who opposed this? No. He wrote a letter and quit coming. Does that sound familiar, WELSians? He wrote a letter.

The homosexual issue quickly took over, too. Deppe, as a Seminex professor, was arrested for soliciting a male policeman at a public park in St. Louis. Nevertheless, he still came over with the Seminex faculty. The rogue AELC seminary was also the official seminary of the homosexual Metropolitan Community Church, training and certifying their pastors, male and female, homosexual and lesbian. Did that give LSTC pause? Apparently not.

But Braaten complained about the Lavender Mafia's work at the seminary and in ELCA. Braaten stayed in ELCA but left LSTC.

Here are some quotations and insights, from his book, which perfectly parallel the sects considered more conservative than ELCA. The methods are exactly the same.

Page 121
"The theology that backed up the 'paradigm shift' at LSTC was either antinomian or a close relative." (Everyone is already forgiven - UOJ and Seminex's Gospel Reductionism, led by WELS' own Jungkuntz.)

Page 126
Quotas for Blacks did not increase Black membership in ELCA. (Nevertheless, WELS embarked on multi-culturalism with ELCA and Missouri.)

Page 132:
"Nobody who bucks the system gets elected to any office in the ELCA. This is why only retired bishops dare to speak out against the ordination of gay clergy in partnered relationships and the blessing of same-gender unions in the church. Even theological professors have become muted for fear of appearing out of sync with the rising trends in church and society. So much for the 'here I stand' courage of the founding father of the Lutheran movement. not even faint echoes of that are to be heard in the church establishment and its publications, for example, the Lutheran Magazine, Lutheran Partners, as well as books published by Augsburg Fortress Publishing House. Censorship is massive, complete, and effective, however it works."

Page 140
"From where I was sitting, the handwriting on the wall was so clear, I felt a person had to be blind not to see it."

Braaten also wrote about professors telling him they were too terrified to do or say anything about ELCA's deviancy.

Braaten enjoyed the comforts and prestige of an academic life, the security of tenure, high pay, numerous grants for study tours. He created the foundation for everything that turned the ELCA into a nightmare for anyone with a shred of faith. The extreme radicalism finally stirred up Braaten's memories of Biblical memorization, catechetical instruction, the good old days.

That is how the Word blinds people. The more time and energy they devote to attacking the Scriptures and mocking the Reformation, the blinder they become. One cannot juggle the Word, which always has the divine power of God, and come away unscathed.

The faculties of WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect think they can ignore their own apostasy while saying "Naughty naughty" to ELCA. All Thrivent has to do is toss some money in the air, rent some rooms at the Notell Conference Center, and the Four-letter Synods are there, tongues hanging out.

The Goodsoilers, part of the Lavender Mafia in ELCA...and beyond.

I would have flown to Chicago just to see this chapel service.
The co-founder of Earth Day murdered and composted his girlfriend.

Countdown for Luther Days (Non-Profit sic) Porn and Open Sex Meltdown. Who Is Holding the Money?

https://www.facebook.com/LutherDays/
Distinctly Church and Change:
Managed by a porn addict - see the Luther Days Twitter lists -
following porn and being followed by porn,
not to mention wife-swapping and "friend for a day" dating.

Why does every WELS meeting, conference, college day turn into a Church and Change extravaganza?

I am looking into relationships in God's Creation and the concept of irreducible complexity. When complex relationships and interactions take place, that must be from design, as the author argues in Darwin's Black Box. The more we know, the more Creation shows God's hand in everything.

Likewise, when people keep doing the same foolish things, there must be a plan, because no one could have such a collection of stupidity, fraud, false doctrine, and peculation without a blueprint, a design, a control freak behind it.

Watch people bail from this conference faster than fleas leaving a newly treated cat. People like Jay Webber will say, "I was never contacted. I don't know why my name is on the list." Some may be telling the truth. That happens randomly in WELS-ELS, but never on purpose.

Remove the Private (sic) Material!
A WELS pastor emailed me last night to say I should take down private material, about Luther Days, from this blog. I thought for a second and wondered about such claims. When the State of Wisconsin publishes a report on the Internet, that matter is not private but public, to protect potential victims of fraud.

I noted the fake non-profit LLC status of this fiasco called Luther Days, because the non-profit claim is a false assertion. There is no such thing listed in the Wisconsin records.

Twitter Is Not Private but Public - Especially When the Link Is Posted on Facebook

1,093 people like this

David Peters

The Twitter account for Luther Days is riddled with porn sites and also (ironically) sites about fighting porn addiction. I tweet my blog posts and FB posts automatically, but otherwise I have no interest in Twitter. When Ski, Glende, and Bishop Katie were tweeting away in Appletown, I found it useful to quote them, because their tweets were public and gave away their nefarious schemes. Suddenly Ski and Glende's accounts went silent while Katie chirped away. Soon she was gone - no problems, no problems. When Ski harassed his next staffer, she was told to resign and say, "No problems. No problems." She said there were problems, and Ski-Glende sued her husband in court.

The WELS teachers admired Ski-Glende's leadership so much that they invited Glende to keynote about spiritual matters.

But I digress. Two Twitter lists for Luther Days are significant.

One is the list of accounts being followed.  Luther Days' Twitter account, listed on their promotional material, is following 2,921 Twitter accounts.  One can tell from the descriptions on the accounts being followed that many are pornography sites and find-a-sex partner sites.

Two - Luther Days also has 572 followers. If people tweet back and forth, they often follow those who are following them.

The Appleton clowns showed that they were in constant contact with the gurus of Church Growth/Emergent Church Enthusiasm. The conferences they attended were exclusively at those interlocking businesses, the Mammon of conference hosting and collecting money for the events.

So with Luther Days, there are porn sites followed and also following Luther Days, a close relationship indeed. My computer does not handle a list of 2,921 accounts with ease, all with photos, but I could scroll the list of 572 followers with no problem. Odd that porn and sleep-with-anyone sites would want to follow Luther Days, eh?

My undergraduate students used Twitter all day to chat with all their friends, even during class and while walking to class. I banned all digital devices and confiscated them with glee. Those who get into tweeting have readers so they can tweet a bunch of friends at once and chat back and forth with those they follow and those who follow them. Twitter is powerful in its ability to send URLs (links to webpages) to a large group at once. In fact, a Twitter account could easily send an entire book to thousands of people simply by linking the PDF from DropBox.

So, as an underground (but public) communication device, Twitter is ideal for nefarious businesses. That is why WELS-ELS should be hitting the panic button in a few more minutes, as people wake up to their coffee and detonations.

Your grandchildren will help you understand if I have gone too fast.

How many "likes"? People can purchase "likes" for social media. That makes them seem very popular. Luther Days probably bought 1,000 likes because only David Peters shows up on the list. A number of Twitter accounts being followed by Luther Days are concerned with selling "likes" to people who like to fool others.

These two jackasses would rather pose on Facebook
with porn singer Katy Perry than with their own wives.
Anyone see a problem with this?