YAHWEH

Click here to read Genesis 18:1-15

The first verse begins: "And the LORD appeared unto..."

If our English translators had translated this passage literally, it would have read as it does in the Hebrew: "And Yahweh appeared unto..."

This is just one of almost 7,000 places where the translators elected to alter the text for us by inserting the two words; "the LORD" instead of transliterating the name that is there in the Hebrew version. Be that as it may, the point to be seen in verse one is that it was Yahweh who appeared to Abraham that day. We can be sure that it was Yahweh because the text includes his actual name in several other places (v13, v14, v17, v19 twice, v20, v22, v26 and v33).

It was Yahweh who appeared to, visited with, sat by, ate with, and blessed Abraham. It was Yahweh who manifested himself in a physical way. It was Yahweh's mouth that moved when Abraham heard him speak. It was Yahweh who heard Sarah laugh within herself. It was Yahweh who promised motherhood to Sarah.

I suspect that many Christians would jump off to some mystical, Catholic lingo of how this was a pre-incarnate manifestation of the second person of the nebulous trinity. Can't we just look at the text instead? Yahweh appeared.

Yahweh appeared, but who is Yahweh?

One of the ways that scripture defines Yahweh can be found in the first three verses of Exodus, chapter six. In that encounter with Moses, Yahweh proclaims his own name, and at the same time tells Moses (and us) that He is "God Almighty" (v3). Yahweh doesn't say that He is the second person, or the first person of the Catholic trinity. Instead, He simply identifies himself as God Almighty, whose name is Yahweh.

My daughter recently pointed me to another delightful passage of scripture; Isaiah 63:16, in which Isaiah calls Yahweh, 'Father'. Take a minute to examine the concordance included in the above link, just to see the actual words in the Hebrew. Isaiah tells us that Yahweh is the Father.

The significance of this passage cannot be overstated. Yahweh is the Father. Yahweh appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18. The Father appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18. The Father took a physical form that Abraham could SEE with his own eyes. This is consistent with scripture as well, in that there is only one God.

This was not the Son of God. The Son of God did not appear to Abraham, nor did the Son of God wrestle with Jacob. This was not some mystical, 'pre-incarnate' mumbo-jumbo. Nor does scripture call this manifestation 'the angel of the Lord'. Yahweh simply came to visit his creation in a form they could see. He created that physical manifestation on the spot, specifically for that encounter.

Consider John 14:7-11 Philip asked to see the Father, and the Father answered;

"Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?"

The Father was there in front of Philip, in yet another physical manifestation, but this physical manifestation was distinct from what we have looked at in the encounters of Abraham and Jacob. This physical manifestation was created in a much different way from those of Genesis 18 and 32. This physical manifestation of the FATHER had been created through physical birth into the human race. That is why this physical manifestation was called the SON.

When Yahweh visited Abraham, He didn't abandon his management of the rest of his creation. As He sat under the tree with Abraham, and while He wrestled with Jacob, Yahweh was still very much present throughout His universe. And, while Yahweh manifested himself in the Son for some 33 years on Earth, He was still very much present throughout His universe. But, there were some differences between this SON manifestation of the Father and those we find in Genesis.