Yes, he is speaking God’s words verbatim. Human Prophets used to deliver such messages by saying “This is what Jehovah has said”....and quoting what God told them to say. But this angel delivers God’s messages in person. No human can see God and survive the experience.
Prophets aren't identified as God and don't speak as if they are God. As you say, there is something in the text that shows us that it is Jehovah speaking.
The Angel of the Lord is different however because He is identified as both and angel and as God.
Nobody has seen the invisible God, the Father, but people have seen this messenger angel who is also God. The angel in the burning bush is God and Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and the 70 elders gazed on God and lived,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,is that a lie or can an angel/Messenger from God be actually God also? Ex 24:9-11
Jesus is God’s appointed Mediator.....the one through whom this reconciliation is made possible. Sin is the barrier between us and God, so can you tell me why we don’t need a mediator between us and Jesus, if he is God?
I think part of the answer at least is in the following passage.
Heb 9:16 In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19 When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20 He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” 21 In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
For the New and eternal covenant which takes away the sins of many (not just covering them) a much better sacrifice was needed. God sent His Son (equal in nature to Himself) to become a man and be that sacrifice (once) and a priest forever and the King forever. Jesus, being both God and man is the perfect mediator between God and men and is also the real King of Israel, being both descended from God and from David.
But also when we look back at the Mosaic Covenant we see that Jesus was there also and was the one who spoke to Moses in the bush and was seen by 70 elders etc. Jesus is Jehovah, the Son of God who is equal to God and in whom the Father dwells. Nobody has seen the only true God, the Father, but people have seen the Mediator, the Son, who came from the Father and is in His Father.
The oneness of a man and his wife is physical.....the oneness of Christ with his God is the same as the oneness of Christ with his disciples....not the same at all. This is a spiritual unity of belief and purpose. Not an appropriate comparison IMO.
Deut 6:4 has a number of translations and here is the NWT
4 “Listen, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.
Gen 2:24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
2 human persons can be one body.
God can also be one even though more than one person.
God is spirit so the 3 persons of the trinity are one Spirit. That is how Jesus could say that the Father was in Him and He is the Father. That is how both the Father and Son come to be with and in each of us through the Holy Spirit we are given.
When it comes to the oneness of Christ with His disciples, the church, we have been given the Spirit of Adoption through which we call God our dad. (Romans 8:15)
The Spirit of Adoption is the Holy Spirit and it unites us to Jesus spiritually just as a man and woman are united physically. Here is a relevant reference.
1Cor 6:16 "Or don’t you know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17
But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit."
Collectively the whole Church is united to Christ spiritually.
But of course this does not apply to any JWs except the 144,000 even though there is nothing about another way in the Bible, it all comes from the imagination of the Governing Body. So you are probably not familiar with these things.
Please feel free to provide them.
I have provided some "angel of the Lord" material already. It also appears in places that the Messiah is divine (Isa 9:6,7) and comes was around before creation. (Mic 5:2) and that the Holy Spirit feels things. (Isa 63:9,10) and that the one who went with Israel in the wilderness was Jehovah, but it was the Holy Spirit and Christ, the Rock who went with them,,,,,,,,the angel of His presence. (Isa 63:9,10)
I'm sure that is enough for now.
“Seems to” is not the same as an actual clear statement. Not one exists.
Isa 9:6,7 is as clear about the Messiah being God as it is clearly Messianic and the Jews deny both.
To have any other personage put on equal footing, or in place of the true God, was a breach of the first Commandment. No other gods meant exactly that.
It is not a breach of the fist commandment if the one who is exactly like His Father (Isa 46: 5 “With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?) and is compared with His Father in the New Testament, is actually part of the same God, Jehovah, and is in His Father.
JWs want Jesus to be "a god" when it is that which completely contradicts the OT and the NT.
The Jews accused Jesus of claiming to be a god, in saying that Jehovah was his Father.....that was enough for the accusation of blasphemy! Imagine if he had claimed to be God!?
The Hebrew Scriptures have the possibility of more than one person in God and even point in that direction, as I think I have shown. The Jews knew Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God, the type of Son who has the same nature, the Son from His Father, and so to be equal to His Father.
Actually claiming to be a god would not have been blasphemy because of Ps 82 and other parts of the Hebrew scriptures. Claiming to be a son of God was not blasphemy since the Jews also said that God was their Father. It was claiming to be the real Son of God with the same nature as His Father, which we all share with our fathers, is what was blasphemy.
If Jesus can address his Father as “the only true God” and separate himself as the one that Jehovah “sent” (John 17:3)....and say that ‘knowing both the true God and his representative’ were essential for everlasting life, but he makes no mention of knowing the supposedly equal third party in the trinity, then please tell me where there is a threesome? The holy spirit is almost never mentioned when Jehovah and his son are spoken about together.
But He is mentioned however and is given personality and knows the mind of God and is not created and is living (living waters) and is referred to as God and as the Lord. eg 2 Cor 3:17
John 7:37-39
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Isaiah 44:3
‘For I will pour out water on the thirsty land
And streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring
And My blessing on your descendants;
John 4:14
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
1 Corinthians 12:13
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
The trinity is suggested into scripture where there was never even a hint of this concept at the time that they were written.
That is what we do with the scriptures. We read them and get a little bit of information here and a little bit there and join it all together into one doctrine.
I believe that the trinity is one of the principle beliefs that divides the true Christians from the ones whom Jesus will reject at the judgment as “workers of lawlessness”. The trinity breaks God’s law of having only “one God”. (Matthew 7:21-23) The God of Israel did not have three heads, but the god of Roman Emperor Constantine certainly did. You have to know where the trinity came from.
I can see where the Trinity came from in the Bible, I don't need to look elsewhere.
The Word was not created because by the Word ALL THINGS came into being. JWs have to add to and change scripture to see a created Word there. An uncreated Word is the Son who was with God in the beginning and was like God completely.
Isa 46: 5 “With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?
The Jews knew that the Son is equal in nature to His Father and the Son is compared to the Father through the NT.
