Is Jesus an angel?

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Definitely not. However, an ex-Catholic at work convinced himself that Jesus is the “angel of the Lord” mentioned in Genesis and other places in the OT. He came to this conclusion on his own based on his own personal interpretation of the bible. He is not a Jehovah Witness. My question: can anyone provide some rock-solid historical and/or scriptural references that can help to refute his claim that Jesus is some sort of angel?
 
It’s not so much that Jesus is the Angel of the Lord, as that the Angel of the Lord is Jesus. At least, that is an idea that seemed to float nice and freely in the Protestant circles I used to frequent. I seem to remember reading somewhere (maybe in John Henry Newman) that some of the early Fathers believed this too. Could be wrong on that, though.
 
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veddiemo:
Definitely not. However, an ex-Catholic at work convinced himself that Jesus is the “angel of the Lord” mentioned in Genesis and other places in the OT. He came to this conclusion on his own based on his own personal interpretation of the bible. He is not a Jehovah Witness. My question: can anyone provide some rock-solid historical and/or scriptural references that can help to refute his claim that Jesus is some sort of angel?
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This notion is not entirely heretical. It is possible that the angel of the LORD was infact the second person of the Blessed Trinity appearing to the nation of Israel.

There is also a lot of speculation about the identity of Melchizedek.
 
the word angel comes from the greek “angelos” wich means messenger. Jesus was no angel as we know it. Think about messenger of the Lord and it will make sense.
 
Well, let’s put it this way. Jesus claimed to be God.

And Jesus forgives sin a thing only God can do.
 
John 1:1-5

Angels are created beings. Jesus is the begotton Son, the Word that was with God and WAS God for all eternity and all things (including angels) were made through Him.
 
Jimmy Akin says,

“it will be seen that this ‘angel of the Lord’ often speaks and acts as Yahweh Himself and not as His messenger, and that there is no essential difference between the promises made by Yahweh Himself and those made by the angel of the Lord. Hence, many scholars maintain mal’akh Yahweh or mal’akh Elohim is used interchangeably with the divine name Yahweh and is so to be identified with God Himself. However, there are also many others who believe the angel of the Lord implies a heavenly spirit acting as God’s representative, legate, or ambassador. There are only a few scholars who regard the angel of the Lord as the Logos, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity” (Catholic Biblical Encyclopedia [New York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1956], I:70-71).

If the Angel of the Lord were the pre-Incarnate God the Son, then the term “Angel” would be taken in its root sense of “Messenger,” making the pre-Incarnate Word of God “the Messenger of God” (Word = Message = Messenger)."

Also, as Dr. Art Sippo pointed out," the Jews at the time of Christ were speculating about angelic mediators and even believed in a Great Angel which the Talmud described as like “a second god.” The work of Larry Hurtado, Margaret Barker, Charles Geischen, Crispin Fletcher-Louis and others has demonstrated this time and again."
 
Jesus is God and therefore cannot be an angel, a created being. However, since God is outside of time, it’s possible that Jesus could have manifested Himself in Old Testament times and been mistaken as an angel or messenger of God. This is sheer speculation and cannot be proven by Scripture.
 
There are a number of places in Genesis where the “angel of the LORD” seems to be used for God Himself.

For instance, when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac:

10] Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
11] But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”
12] He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

The “angel” seems to refer to himself as God.

Also, the “man” that talked to Abraham, who was first in the company of the two that went down to Lot in Sodom, was God Himself. And the “man” that Jacob wrestled with was God. It might be that these “incarnations” were the Second Person of the Trinity. As noted above, the notion is not heretical.

Also, in a sense, Jesus was a messenger of God, so he is an angelos=messenger. But our Lord is definitely not a member of that class of spiritual beings referred to specifically as angels. That would be heretical.
 
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