I believe, as the vast majority of careful students of the course of
Old Testament revelation and its relation to the New Testament
completion believe, that we have here not a record of the appearance of
a created superhuman person, but that of a preliminary manifestation of
the Eternal Word of God, who, in the fulness of time, 'became flesh and
dwelt among us.'
You will observe that there run throughout the whole of the Old
Testament notices of the occasional manifestation of a mysterious
person who is named '_the_ Angel,' 'the Angel of the Lord.' For
instance, in the great scene in the wilderness, where the bush burned
and was not consumed, he who appeared is named 'the Angel of the Lord';
and his lips declare 'I am that I am.' In like manner, soon after, the
divine voice speaks to Moses of 'the Angel in whom is My name.'
When Balaam had his path blocked amongst the vineyards, it was a
_replica_ of the figure of my text that stayed his way, a man with a
drawn sword in his hand, who spoke in autocratic and divine fashion.
When the parents of Samson were apprised of the coming birth of the
hero, it was 'the Angel of the Lord' that appeared to them, accepted
their sacrifice, declared the divine will, and disappeared in a flame
of fire from the altar. A psalm speaks of 'the Angel of the Lord' as
encamping round about them that fear him, and delivering them. Isaiah
tells us of the 'Angel of his face,' who was 'afflicted in all Israel's
afflictions, and saved them.' And the last prophetic utterance of the
Old Testament is most distinct and remarkable in its strange
identification and separation of Jehovah and the Angel, when it says,
'the Lord shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Angel of the
Covenant.' Now, if we put all these passages--and they are but select
instances--if we put all these passages together, I think we cannot
help seeing that there runs, as I said, throughout the whole of the Old
Testament a singular strain of revelation in regard to a Person who, in
a remarkable manner, is distinguished from the created hosts of angel
beings, and also is distinguished from, and yet in name, attributes,
and worship all but identified with, the Lord Himself.
If we turn to the narrative before us, we find there similar phenomena
marked out. For this mysterious 'man with the sword drawn' in his hand,
quotes the very words which were spoken at the bush, when he says,
'Loose thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest
is holy.' And by fair implication, He would have us to identify the
persons in these two great theophanies. He ascribes to Himself, in the
further conversation in the next chapter, directly divine attributes,
and is named by the sacred name; 'The Lord said unto Joshua, see, I
have given into thy hand Jericho and its king.'
If we turn to the New Testament, we find that there under another image
the same strain of thought is presented. The Word of God, who from
everlasting 'was with God, and was God,' is represented as being the
Agent of Creation, the Source of all human illumination, the Director
of Providence, the Lord of the Universe. 'By him were all things, and
in him all things consists.' So, surely, these two halves make a whole;
and the Angel of the Lord, separate and yet so strangely identified
with Jehovah, who at the crises of the nation's history, and stages of
the development of the process of Revelation, is manifested, and the
Eternal Word of God, whom the New Testament reveals to us, are one and
the same.
This truth was transiently manifested in our text. The vision passed,
the ground that was hallowed by His foot is undistinguished now in the
sweltering plain round the mound that once was Jericho. But the fact
remains, the humanity, that was only in appearance, and for a few
minutes, assumed then, has now been taken up into everlasting union
with the divine nature, and a Man reigns on the Throne, and is
Commander of all who battle for the truth and the right. The eternal
order of the universe is before us here.
It only remains to say a word in reference to the sweep of the command
which our vision assigns to the Angel of the Lord. 'Captain of the
Lord's host' means a great deal more than the true General of Israel's
little army. It does mean that, or the words and the vision would cease
to have relevance and bearing on the moment's circumstances and need.
But it includes also, as the usage of Scripture would sufficiently
show, if it were needful to adduce instances of it, all the ordered
ranks of loftier intelligent beings, and all the powers and forces of
the universe. These are conceived of as an embattled host, comparable
to an army in the strictness of their discipline and their obedience to
a single will. It is the modern thought that the universe is a Cosmos
and not a Chaos, an ordered unit, with the addition of the truth beyond
the reach and range of science, that its unity is the expression of a
personal will. It is the same thought which the centurion had, to
Christ's wonder, when he compared his own power as an officer in a
legion, where his will was implicitly obeyed, to the power of Christ
over diseases and sorrows and miseries and death, and recognised that
all these were His servants, to whom, if His autocratic lips chose to
say 'Go,' they went, and if He said, 'Do this,' they did it.
So the Lord of the universe and its ordered ranks is Jesus Christ. That
is the truth which was flashed from the unknown, like a vanishing
meteor in the midnight, before the face of Joshua, and which stands
like the noonday sun, unsetting and irradiating for us who live under
the Gospel.