So back to the story here, it says in verse number 17,
if now I found grace in thy sight,
then show me a sign that thou takest with me.
Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee
and bring forth my present and set it before thee.
And he said, I will tarry,
tarry means I'll wait or stay until thou come again.
And Gideon went in and made ready a kid,
a kid is a young goat,
and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour.
The flesh he brought in a basket,
he put the broth in a pot,
and brought it under him under the oak and presented it.
So he's got broth, and he's got meat, and he's got bread.
He's basically feeding this guy,
the angel of the Lord that showed up.
And the angel of the Lord said to him,
take the flesh and the unleavened cakes
and lay them upon the rock and pour out the broth.
Apparently he wasn't into soup, and he did so.
Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff
that was in his hand and touched the flesh
and the unleavened cakes,
and there rose up fire out of the rock
and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes.
So basically he turns this into like a burnt offering,
just by touching it with a stick,
it just burst into flames,
spontaneous combustion, burnt offering.
Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord,
Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord God,
"for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face,
"and the Lord said unto him,
"Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die."
Now that's a common fear in the Old Testament
of people thinking that if they see an angel of the Lord,
they're gonna die, or if they see,
and the reason why is because God told Moses in the Bible,
"No man shall see my face and live."
No man shall see my face and live.
Because Moses wanted to see God,
and no man could see God the Father.
That's why the Bible says in John chapter one,
no man hath seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,
he hath declared him the Father,
because no one has ever seen God the Father at any time.
The only exception to that, of course,
would be Jesus Christ has seen God the Father,
but of course Jesus Christ is not, you know, mortal man.
He's obviously God in the flesh, he's the Son of God.
That's a different ball game.
But as far as mortal man, human beings,
none of us have ever seen God the Father on this planet, okay?
No man can see God the Father and live.
So I guess we don't know exactly
how much people in the Old Testament knew,
because there were all kinds of prophets
preaching to them all the time orally,
even though they didn't have as much written word.
You know, we've got this big old written word
that explains everything from Genesis to Revelation.
It all fits together nicely packaged.
We get it.
Obviously we don't know everything,
but we have the big picture.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking,
well, they only knew what was written
in the book of Moses at this point.
You know, just Genesis through Deuteronomy
or just Genesis through Joshua.
But that's not true,
because there was a lot of oral preaching that was going on.
You know, the Bible talks about Enoch preaching things
that are recorded in the book of Jude.
So there's a lot of oral preaching
that we don't know what they knew.
We don't know how much they knew.
There was a lot of preaching going on
that wasn't just in those first six books
that they had at this time.
So we don't know exactly how much they knew,
but apparently they seem to have had
some kind of an understanding of God in the flesh,
of God appearing in human form.
Because they're applying this fear of, you know,
I've seen the angel of the Lord, or an angel of the Lord,
and they're saying, you know, am I going to die
because I've seen an angel of the Lord,
even though I didn't see God the Father himself.
Now, here's the evidence for this.
In Genesis, I want to say chapter 32,
Jacob wrestles with a man all night,
and he names the place where he wrestled with that man,
Peniel, which means the face of God.
And he says, I've seen God face to face,
and my life was preserved.
So we see Jacob wrestling with a human,
wrestling with man, and saying,
I've seen the face of God, and my life was preserved.
So here's what I think could be going on in people's minds,
is that they're thinking Jacob wrestled the angel
in Genesis 32, and he said,
I saw the face of God, and my life was preserved,
but that seems to have been a special case.
I'm not Jacob.
Maybe if I deal with the angel of the Lord,
the messenger of the Lord,
which Jesus Christ is also called the messenger of the Lord
or the angel of the Lord.
In Malachi chapter three,
it's impossible to interpret it any other way
than that Jesus being called the messenger or angel there.
And so we see that they think to themselves,
you know, maybe that it's dangerous
because God is so awesome and that, you know,
even his angel or when he comes in human form,
you know, could be deadly.
But of course we know that coming face to face
with Jesus Christ is absolutely not deadly at all.
And no one ever died from that at any time.
No one ever came face to face with an angel of the Lord
or with the Lord Jesus Christ himself and died.
So this is an irrational fear or an unfounded fear.
It's a wrong fear, but you can kind of see
where they're coming from or where the thought process.
And here's the thing, it's easy for us to sit back
and be like, "What's, you know, dude, chill out."
But obviously if you were actually there confronted
by these angels and fire coming out of a rock and stuff,
you might just be kind of freaked out
and who knows what you're gonna say or think, right?
It's easy for us to kind of just be the armchair quarterback
criticizing everything that the Bible characters do,
but we've probably never really been in a situation like this.
We might say something weird too.
Okay, but what we do,
one thing that's undeniable though
is that Jesus Christ does make Old Testament appearances.
Now we don't always know which time
is an Old Testament appearance of Christ,
except for Genesis 32, I believe is for sure
that's an Old Testament appearance of Jesus
'cause he sees the face of God and lives.
I believe of course that put off my shoes from off my feet,
you know, when the captain of the host confronts Joshua,
that's for sure an Old Testament appearance
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So there are several that you could point to,
maybe five or six where you could say,
"This is for sure actually a pre-incarnate Christ."
Genesis 18 is one of those, of course, you know,
with Abraham.
But sometimes it's just an angel of the Lord,
but sometimes the angel of the Lord is Jesus himself.
And like I said, you can't really know for sure always
which one it is when you're reading scripture.
When we get to heaven, we'll find out.
But the bottom line is Jesus did appear physically
in the Old Testament.
Which is really profound if you think about it
because it proves that Jesus existed before Bethlehem's manger.
That Jesus Christ existed and that he actually existed
in bodily form, you know, showing up and walking among us
a few times.
Now, you know, I personally believe,
and obviously it's hard to understand exactly how this works
because, you know, with our human minds,
it's hard to comprehend some of these things.
Now, I personally believe that that works
is that basically Jesus is outside of time.
Being God, being divine,
He's not constrained by time in the same way.
So even though, you know, He's born physically in the manger
and He, or then laid in the manger,
and then, you know, grows up, lives His life,
He dies, He's buried, He rises again,
and then ascends up into heaven,
obviously He lived that earthly timeline.
But in John chapter 3 verse 13,
"And while He's on this earth, He says to Nicodemus,
'No man hath ascended up to heaven,
but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of Man, which is in heaven.'"
So he's basically saying the Son of Man's in heaven right now.
How does that work?
He's talking to him.
So basically, Jesus Christ is always in heaven.
Because He's basically, He's God,
so He's dwelling outside of time.
And obviously it's hard for us to wrap our minds around that.
So that's how, because you say,
how could Jesus appear in the Old Testament even bodily
before He's even born?
Because basically, He exists outside of time.
He's not constrained by time
in the same way that we are.
He's God.
So when we understand that Christ is divine,
we understand the deity of Jesus Christ,
obviously there are some things that go along with that.
There's some attributes that would go along with that.
And while Jesus was on this earth,
He was obviously limited
because He basically had to learn how to walk
and talk as a baby.
He didn't just come out of the womb knowing everything.
And even when He walked on this earth,
He even said that of that day and hour knoweth no man.
Only the Father knows the day and the hour.
And He said, neither the angels in heaven,
neither the Son knows the day or the hour.
So He even said,
I don't even know the day or the hour in Mark chapter 13,
proving that Jesus was not omniscient
while He walked on this earth.
He obviously was living that time.
And I don't think He was skipping around time
while He's on this earth.
He's not time traveling while He's on this earth.
He was born and He lived a normal timeline.
So in His incarnation, yeah, He lives a normal timeline.
He's not omniscient.
And at times, I don't even believe that He was omnipotent
because of, well, there's evidence for that
because when He died and He's buried and His soul's in hell,
He's saying, thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.
He's relying on God the Father, obviously, there.
Because I believe that the resurrection was enacted
by the collective effort of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
They were all involved in the resurrection of Christ.
It's the only way to make sense of the way the Scripture tells it.
And so the bottom line is that Jesus, in His earthly timeline,
shed off, you know, some of His power, some of His glory,
some of His omniscience and His omnipresence or omnipotence.
And He basically lived as a human being.
Obviously, He had the power to heal and do things and, you know,
through the power of God, through the Holy Spirit,
He's performing miracles and doing these things.
And He, you know, He knew their thoughts and different things.
But He had shed a lot of those things for His earthly existence.
But He also exists as God just eternally.
No beginning, no end.
I mean before the world was even created, He was already there.
He was in the beginning with God.
He was in the beginning.
He was God.
And so He's able to basically pop up a few times in the Old Testament, like in Daniel
chapter 325.
The form of the fourth man in the fire is like the Son of God.
So He appears in the Old Testament.
And so that's where this comes from, like, "Oh man, I'm going to die."
They didn't realize that the death upon seeing God only applies to God the Father.
Which is why when you die and go to heaven, you're not going to see God the Father.
You're going to see Jesus.
It's not until after the millennium, after the great white throne, when death has been
completely eliminated.
You know, the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
When we're in the new heaven and the new earth, there's no death, no sorrow, then we shall
see his face and his name shall be in our foreheads.
At that time, when basically death has been completely eliminated, then we will be able
to actually see God's face and be preserved and live.