“I am going to send an angel before you to protect you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. Be attentive to him and listen to him. Do not defy him, because he will not forgive your acts of rebellion, for my name is in him. But if you will carefully obey him and do everything I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The idea of angels is a pretty rich and varied one in human religious history. Nearly every culture has stories of angels in some form or fashion. Angels themselves are portrayed in all sorts of ways. And indeed, the Scriptures present angels in several different forms. Each kind seems to have a different role in the administration of God’s kingdom. Here, in the concluding statement on the first block of law, we find God’s telling the people about an angel that will serve as His representative as they go from Sinai to the Promised land. Let’s talk about a couple of ideas regarding the identity of this angel and the authority God has given to him.

Let me start here, I use the word “him” there at the end of that paragraph because that’s the pronoun Moses reported God’s using in the text. To the best of our knowledge, angels are neither male nor female. They are non-gendered beings. That being said, only masculine pronouns are used of angels in the Scriptures. There are two reasons for this I can think of. Either the angels appeared as males and so the people describing the various scenes were merely reporting what they saw, or else they used masculine pronouns generically because that’s where the culture then was. Personally, I would lean toward the second option because the same thing applies to God. The various authors of the Scriptures and even still normal convention today use masculine pronouns to refer to God even though God is not a gendered being.

What we see being advanced here is the theme of God’s angel going before His people to lead them to the place He plans for them to go. And while it would be really handy if we could positively identify who or what exactly this angel is, the truth is that we don’t know. Various commentators offer different suggestions, but none of these should be taken as more than that. A handful wonder if the angel isn’t Moses himself. Others suggest it could be a preincarnate Christ. Still others think the connection between God and the angel is close enough that the two are really indistinguishable. Ultimately, though, these are questions to which we simply don’t have clear and direct answers.

This angel appears in several other places throughout the Exodus journey including Moses’ call at the burning bush and the Israelites’ escape from the pursuing Egyptian army through the dry seabed of the Red Sea. Each time the people are preparing to take the next major step on the journey God is leading them through, we find reference to this angel.

This theme extends even more broadly than just the Exodus journey. In Malachi, the prophet promises Israel that God will send His angel before the coming of the Messiah. The reference isn’t explicit, but John the Baptist is described as going before Jesus. Jesus describes Himself as going before us to prepare a place with the Father when He returns to Him. This angel reference here is part of a much larger theme of God’s going before His people when He leads them. It is not that the people move and then God goes with them. God moves and then we follow.

After assuring the people of this angel’s presence out front, leading them forward to protect them and shepherd them “to the place I have prepared,” God offers the people a warning and a promise. The promise essentially doubles down on the angel’s mission to protect the people. This is something that will be borne out further in the rest of the passage which we’ll see tomorrow and next week. If the people carefully obey the angel and do everything God says (which hints at this intimate connection of God and this angel such that we really don’t need to think about the two in entirely separate terms), then God – not the angel – will be “an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.” People who oppose God’s people will themselves be opposed by God. Given the power and might God had already displayed for the people, that was a pretty encouraging promise.

The warning that comes before the promise, though, is an uncomfortable one. If the people defy this angel, “he will not forgive your acts of rebellion, for my name is in him.” This should have had the people sitting up and paying attention. This should have us sitting up and paying attention. What does God mean the people won’t be forgiven? I thought He was all about forgiveness.

Well, imagine for a minute if God had told the people, “It’s okay if you ignore the angel, I’ll still forgive you.” What kind of a response do you suppose that might have gotten from them? When we know we’re really in the clear for breaking the rules whatever the posted consequences happen to be, we’re going to feel very comfortable breaking the rules. It’s when we understand there could be severe consequences and that there’s no way to avoid them that we’re going to toe the line.

We find God making warnings like this through the Scriptures including in the New Testament. The author of Hebrews includes four passages that seem to suggest pretty severe punishment for disobedience in the lives of followers of Jesus. Some scholars have taken these to mean a loss of salvation is possible. I am not persuaded that’s the case, but I can certainly see why they develop those arguments. At the same time, when the rubber of disobedience hits the road of judgment, we find God withholding punishment and extending forgiveness over and over and over again. The apostle John assured his readers that if we will only confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Okay, so then does that mean God is just bluffing here? I wouldn’t be so sure. After all, in spite of the fact that God forgives the people for their grievous acts of rebellion (including a major one coming before Moses even finishes getting the law from God in a few chapters), when it comes time for the people to enter the Promised Land and they refuse, God punishes them with 40 years of wandering in the wilderness during which time the entire generation of Israelites 20 years and older die as a judgment for their rebellion. They die by various natural causes, but their deaths are clearly a judgment from God.

The bigger picture for us here through the lens of the new covenant is that God takes our sin seriously. Our acts of rebellion against His sovereignty separate us from Him permanently. Once we are covered in unrighteousness, because of His perfect holiness, we cannot enter His presence again unless our lives are forfeit in exchange for our taking them from Him in the first place. God won’t back down on that standard. Thankfully, though, He is not only just. He is also loving. He is so loving that He sent His only Son to lay down His life on our behalf. With God’s justice thus satisfied, we can go to Him in Christ, receive the forgiveness He earned for us, and enter into the relationship with God we were designed for in the beginning. God declares the punishment and price for sin, and then pays it for us so we don’t have to. That’s the graciousness of the God we serve.