ANGEL OF HIS PRESENCE

When Israel has been so long away from the presence of the Lord it is easy to forget what that presence is like. But the Angel of His Presence is that messenger who is well acquainted with the Holy of Holies and He comes to Israel and makes that presence known in such a way that the wayward and distant are brought back. The same Saviour from the bondage of Egypt who ‘bare them, and carried them all the days of old’ will again be Israel’s Saviour in their future calamities. The motivating principle will be ‘his mercies, and according to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses’, Isa. 63. 7.

Dwell on this strange expression: ‘In all their affliction he was afflicted’, Isa. 63.9! The Eternal sympathizes so that He takes what injury is done to them as done to Himself. This is the weight felt in His words to Moses, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows’, Exod. 3. 7. Their cries move Him. He is pained in their pain. The Lord can ask, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ Acts 9. 4.

So we read, ‘the angel of his presence saved them: In his love and in his pity he redeemed them’, Isa. 63. 9. This then is the Person employed in their salvation. It is the Angel of His Face, or Presence. This ‘highly exalted’ One is there in the Father’s presence, at the right hand of the throne of His glory. But see how He is willing to look into our affairs, to sit where we sit and to look into our besmirched faces. The Angel of His Presence comes into our presence, and by so doing can transport us into His Presence.

The Lord Jesus spoke of the vulnerable little ones, whose angels always behold the face of the Father, Matt. 18. 10. The Lord could speak about this because He had been there. Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, is the ‘angel’ whom God spoke about to Moses. Compare Exodus chapter 23 verses 20 to 21 with Exodus chapter 13 verse 21, and chapter 14 verses 21 to 24.

He is called Jehovah, the angel of the covenant, God’s messenger to the world, Mal. 3. 1. As the angel of God’s face, He is the express image of His person.