When angels speak, God speaks; Angels: Day 079

When angels speak, God speaks

When one of God’s messengers speaks, says St. Augustine, the words come from God himself. Angels do not announce anything but what God wills  them to announce.

When the clerk proclaims the words of the judge, it is not usually written in the record, “The clerk said this and this,” but “The judge said this and this.”

When Abraham’s son was ordered to be sacrificed, this is what we read: “After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’

He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mori’ah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the moun- tains of which I shall tell you.’ ” Certainly it mentions God here, not an angel. But a little while later the Scripture has it this way:

“Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from Heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’

And he said, ‘Here am I.’

He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him.’ ” (Gen.

22:1-12) What can anyone answer to this? Will they say that God commanded that Isaac should be killed, but an angel prohibited it? Will they even say that the father himself, against the decree of God, who had commanded that his son should be

killed, obeyed the angel who said to spare him? We must reject such an interpreta- tion as absurd. And low and unsophisticated as it is, Scripture does not leave any room for it: it immediately adds, “for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And what does “from me” mean, except from God who commanded Isaac to be killed? –St. Augustine, On the Trinity, 3.2

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

Do I listen obediently to God when he speaks through his messengers—Scripture and the Church?

CLOSING PRAYER

Father, teach me to obey your word the way the angels obey.

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