Angels: Divine Messengers in Redemptive History

"Now, you understand what's going on here: that at this time in history Zacharias was a Levite -- a levitical priest -- and the Jews had a central sanctuary at the temple in Jerusalem; and so it was the lot of local priests from the various districts out in the nation, by lottery, to be selected to have one turn, if they were fortunate enough, in their lifetime at serving in the temple of Jerusalem." [00:02:00]

"And so the first break, as it were, that happened to Zacharias, was that he hit the jackpot. He won the lottery, and for him it would be an unforgettable experience to go up to Jerusalem and to participate in the ministry of the temple -- in this case, going in and offering prayer at the altar of incense in the sanctuary, in the holy place." [00:02:34]

"Suddenly there appears to him an angel, and notice the response that the Scripture records that he has. It said, 'When Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.' Now that's noteworthy for this reason: we've said that the biblical worldview is unintelligible apart from the biblical teaching of the reality of the angelic world." [00:04:20]

"But in our culture and in our times, there is a sense of skepticism about these things because people say the perception of angels is not part of our common experience. And we look back to the Bible, and we sort of telescope these events in the Bible and assume that angels were appearing every 15 minutes all over the Old Testament, and New Testament world." [00:04:57]

"That's not the case; though angels did appear from time to time, the visible manifestation of one of these spirit beings was extraordinarily rare, as we saw in the last lecture, that normally they were invisible, as was the case with Elisha and his servant, where he had to pray that his servant's eyes would be opened in order for him to see the reality was there, but which reality is normally invisible." [00:05:20]

"And when we see that this priest is devastated by fear when the angel appears, that should alert us to the rarity of that kind of experience even then. And so -- in other words -- Zacharias was not accustomed to meeting and speaking with angels every day." [00:06:04]

"And the angel answered and said to him, 'I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings; but behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their own time.'" [00:06:53]

"And notice that the function that the Gabriel has in this setting is, first of all, to be a messenger. He delivers a message. He makes an announcement. He tells Zacharias what is going to come to pass. But not only does he bring a message, but also he speaks the command of God." [00:07:55]

"And the significance of that is that in the Jewish tradition, whoever names someone or something indicates their authority over that thing or over that person. Remember the first task that God gave to human beings in the garden of Eden was to name the animals, showing the dominion of humans over the animal kingdom." [00:09:02]

"And historically, throughout biblical history, when children are born, it is the parents of the child who have the authority to name the child. But on rare circumstances, that authority is withheld from the parent, where God intervenes into the situation, inasmuch as saying, 'This child will serve me in a special way, and so I am reserving for myself the right to give his name.'" [00:09:39]

"Now, of course this is a wonderful story of what happens because Zacharias is dazed by unbelief. He doesn't know what to do, and because of that the angel says, 'And you will be mute until this is fulfilled.' And remember the story that after his wife bears the infant, and the children all come to the -- I mean the family all come together to name this child, and they're obviously talking about different names; and in sign language, Zacharias motions for a tablet of sorts, and he writes on the tablet, 'His name shall be called John.'" [00:10:29]

"And so again, what I want us to see here is not so much about Zacharias, but to see that the angel is a messenger, yes, but more than a messenger. He is a spokesman carrying nothing less than the authority of God, and this isn't the only place in Scripture where we see angels acting in this manner." [00:11:21]