59) Abraham's Three Visitors: A Pre-incarnate Appearance of Christ? Genesis 18-19 with Troy Salinger, Part 5

We continue our discussion with Troy Salinger concerning the "Pre-incarnate Appearances of the Son of God in the Old Testament". In this episode we examine Genesis 18-19, where Yahweh appeared to Abraham via three messengers.  

No one in the Bible claims that these visitors were a literal pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus, but ever since the mid-second century AD, beginning with Justin Martyr, most of traditional Christianity has held that Abraham was literally visited by the pre-incarnate Christ. 

Salinger leads the discussion examining the pre-incarnate claim and like other Old Testament passages, explains that likewise this appearance of Yahweh is most simply understood as agency. That is, Yahweh God is represented by his agent messengers. When the messengers speaks or act it is Yahweh speaking or acting. And those to whom Yahweh appears via messengers can speak to Yahweh through His messengers.

Schlegel gives biblical evidence that the messengers in Genesis 18-19 were actually human beings, specifically, that one of the messengers was Melchizedek.

Resources: Troy Salinger "Let the Truth Come Out" blog:
https://letthetruthcomeoutblog.wordpress.com/author/troysal/

Articles on supposed pre-incarnate appearances of the Son of God in the OT:

https://letthetruthcomeoutblog.wordpress.com/?s=pre-incarnate