Sermon Tone Analysis

A mighty Angel

Revelation 10 is a hiatus from the trumpet judgments.

The chapter describes a “mighty angel” who holds a scroll that the awestruck John will take from his hand and eat.

This odd language has Old Testament precedent in Ezekiel.

However, it is the angel that has drawn the most attention from scholars.

This angel is simultaneously described with phrases that have occurred earlier in the book—in descriptions of God and Jesus.

Is this confusion on John’s part, or a theological contradiction?

This meeting addresses those questions.

Introduction

we’re in Revelation 10 today.

I actually did have that thought, too.

It’s like, “Wow!

We’re almost halfway!”

So Revelation 10 today.

Let’s just jump in.

This is one of the shorter chapters.

I’m going to read through the chapter, since it is short, and then we’re going to pick our way through it.

But to be honest with you, we’re going to spend most of the time on the “angel” stuff early in the chapter, and a little bit from verses 8 on.

But the “mighty angel coming down from heaven.”

So let’s just jump in

So that’s Daniel… (Or not Daniel.

We’re going to actually get to Daniel 10 at one point.)

That’s Revelation 10.

Again, it’s short.

And we’re going to spend most of our time today on this “angel” language.

We have here in the first verse, “another mighty angel coming down from heaven” (look at the description) “wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire.”

Now allof those elements should sound familiar.

The “wrapped in a cloud” part sort of sounds like Daniel 7 (the son of man), but if you go back and look at Daniel 7, it’s not precise—it’s not exact.

The son of man in Daniel 7 comes “with the clouds” or “on the clouds,” depending on how you translate that.

He’s not “wrapped in a cloud.”

But again, there’s this similarity to it.

You have the rainbow over his head.”

Now that sounds like Revelation 4:3.

So let me read that.

Revelation 4:3 says

Again, it just sounds a little bit like what we’re reading in chapter 10.

But here in Revelation 4, it’s speaking of God.

So to this point, we’ve got one line that sort of sounds like the son of man, who is a deity figure.—the

“cloud rider” motif used only of Yahweh in the Old Testament the other four times it occurs.

The fifth time it occurs it’s in this chapter (Daniel 7), and it’s not used of the Ancient of Days, who is God, but it’s used of the son of man.

But it’s a deity epithet.

But again, you have similar-but-not-quite-the-same.

Here we have “rainbow over his head.”

That sounds like God from the description in Revelation 4:3, but not quite exact.

And if you recall, when we discussed Revelation 4:3, the “rainbow” description is found in the Old Testament in Ezekiel 1:28.

This is the famous vision of Ezekiel in chapter 1, where you have God seated on the throne and you have this “rainbow” language in Ezekiel 1:28.

That’s what John is picking up on in Revelation 4:3.

But it’s God.

So what’s with the “mighty angel” here?

Then you have another line: “face like the sun.”

Again, this is very similar to Revelation 1:16.

So let’s look at that.

Revelation 1:16 (ESV)

In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

Remember, this is the passage where we have Jesus described in Daniel 7 language.

And it’s not only the son of man stuff that you would expect, but the Ancient of Days description in Daniel 7 is transferred to Jesus here.

John does both.

15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.

You have that in Revelation 10 as well, except it’s like a lion.

And here’s the verse

So you get this “face like the sun” in Revelation 10 used of the mighty angel—to describe the mighty angel.

But back in Revelation 1:16 it’s Jesus.

And it’s pretty precise in this case.

And it harkens back to Matthew 17:2—the transfiguration of Jesus.

You get the same kind of language.

“Legs like pillars of fire” from Revelation 1:14 (we just read that) also used of Jesus.

It’s not precise in this case.

Back in Revelation 1:14 it was “his eyes were like flames of fire.”

But again, you get the notion that there’s some relationship here.

You get the “eyes like fire” as well in Revelation 2:8, and later in Revelation 19:12.

So what in the world’s going on here?

We have a “mighty angel” described in the ways that Jesus is described and the ways that God is described.

So how do we reconcile Jesus and God who are uncreated, eternal beings—the Godhead thing—with a “mighty angel” getting described the same way?

Now I’m going to suggest (and this isn’t new to me, this is part of the whole discipline known as Jewish Christology or Jewish binitarian monotheism)... Again, it’s the Two Powers stuff.

But I’m going to suggest that this is a case of what scholars call “angelomorphic Christology”; that is, it is similar to John’s earlier merging of certain Old Testament passages about the son of man and ancient of Days to point to Jesus.

Here, though, in this case, we’re going to see John combine Old Testament theophany motifs that were used to describe three figures in the Old Testament:

(1) God; (2) the Angel of Yahweh (the Angel of the Lord); and (3) the divine man, who is of greater authority than Gabriel and Michael in the book of Daniel

So those three figures: (1) God; (2) the Angel of the Lord, who is God—that’s the Two Yahwehs thing; (3) and then there’s this character in Daniel, the divine man, who is above Gabriel and Michael in the book of Daniel.

He’s never given a name.

He’s just described.

Those three figures are described in certain ways that Revelation 10 uses.

So this is what would be called in scholarly parlance “angelomorphic Christology.”

I would argue that this figure in Revelation 10 is the second person of the Trinity appearing as a man.

He is called an angel here because of the Old Testament angel of Yahweh motifs, hence this category in the study of Jewish Christology or Jewish binitarian monotheism called “angelomorphic Christology.”

Now the point of the category, lest this be misunderstood, is not that the risen Christ was an angel, and therefore, created.

That is not the point in the academic discussion.

It’s not just me, but just generally in the academic discussion that is not the point.

Because this angel… It goes back to the Angel of the Lord, who isYahweh.

He’s not created.

So that would be an amateurish ax to grind “mistake” or intentional error designed to deny the deity of Christ.

That’s not what we’re talking about here (and again, neither do academics that are into this).

Rather, this language (angelomorphic Christology) is to associate the risen Christ with THE angel, who is God.

That’s why the category gets labeled the way it is.

This is easy to get wrong on the part of those who cannot (or will not) see the close association between Yahweh himself and his angel in the Old Testament.

Once you discern the two Yahweh figures… Once you have that in your head, you can parse this language here.

So let’s unpack it a little bit.

Now Aune writes of the description… In the first few verses of Revelation 10, he talks about the mighty angel.

He says, apparently, when it says “another”… Let’s go back to Revelation 10, just so that we can track with what Aune is saying here.

“Then I saw another mighty angel…” That’s the way chapter 10 opens.

Aune says: