In the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, God often interacts with creation through intermediaries - or middlemen. perhaps better said as “middle-angels”:
And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Genesis 22:10-12
Here in Genesis, “the angel of the Lord” speaks in the first person. Note he does not act as the prophets and switch speaking voice when representing God, he is speaking as God.
Paul even says as much about intermediaries and angels directly:
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
Gal 3:19-20
Intermediaries - ‘Good, bad, and ugly.’
The Good
God gets explicit about what sort of engine is at work when he uses an intermediary:
Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.
But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
Ex 23:20-22
Here in this passage, God says he will have a representative which has this descriptor: “my name is in him".
This spiritual technique God uses to administer his presence to Israel in the Exodus appears to be something similar to a diplomat who is so unified with the prime minister or president that he never has to radio home for instructions…
The Bad
Occasionally, the rulers whom God appoints decide for some unknown reason to rebel against his authority. Hence we have cryptic passages which begin like so:
God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
Psalm 82:1
And yet this assembly of “the mighty” described as elohim or gods are rebuked!
How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
Psalm 82:2-5
Yet despite the fact that God is talking to an assembly of mighty “gods” we do not need to jettison our monotheism at this point.
These creatures (a word I use deliberately), have an origin, and despite being “mighty” and “elohim” or “gods” they have an origin…. and they have a destination.
The text bears their destination out clearly:
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.
Psalm 82:6-8
As these rebel elohim, called to at least do kindness to the poor in their fallen state as rulers of the nations, are rebuked they are told “ye shall die like men.”
Thus these elohim are created creatures with a beginning and a definitive end.
The Ugly

It is interesting that when Jesus addresses the 7 churches of Asia Minor in John’s Apocalypse, he writes each letter to “the angel of the church of…” and then the name of the church. Most of my life I have been told to interpret “angel” in this text as “pastor” but I find no reason to, Jesus could have used the word “presbyter/elder,” (πρεσβύτερος) but he uses “angel” (ἄγγελος).
Much of what Jesus says to the angel of this or that church is not pretty…. In fact it seems that the angel of this or that church becomes a sharer in the sins of the humans of this or that church.
Hence, it appears that these angels of the churches were like the angel of exodus, they were supposed to represent Christ to local assemblies.
But when what Paul in 2 Thessalonians describes as “the mystery of lawlessness” is unleashed in time, these angels with dirty garments become devils (or “devilish”) or antichrists… and local assemblies that used to be churches become dens of devils.
The Solution
When it comes to the problem, what we are really describing is not a defect “in God” though I have titled this article "Problems ‘in God’” because the bible confesses “in him we live and move and have our being.”
Really this is a problem with angels, sometimes described as “elohim” or “gods” who were called to represent God faithfully, but for one reason or another, decided to serve their own appetites and desires instead of the scriptures.
This is a problem of the mechanism that God has set up for interacting with creatures and creation. The problem is angelic, and ultimately the angelic authority being used to rebel… is God’s.
We can say it this way: in the sense that all authority belongs to God, when there is rebellious authority God is “divided.” Or maybe specifically “God’s authority is divided.”
The Coming Union of [the authority of] God
In Zechariah, he has a peculiar passage:
And the LORD [divine name] shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD [divine name], and his name one.
Zec 14:9
Here God through Zechariah, says the problem clearly: his authority is divided, his name is in some sense divided (in the sense that it describes God as an ultimate ruler whose decisions we can’t yet see in totality).
Nevertheless, the Shema is true: The LORD our God is one. One day we will not simply say the Shema by faith, we will SEE IT. As the above text says:
“The LORD shall be king over all the earth” and as the Psalms passage says above, “the LORD will inherit the nations” [aka visibly].
So it makes sense why Hebrews says the next world God will establish will not be an angel dominant world:
For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking.
Heb 2:5
and why he gives formerly mere mortals the right to “judge angels”
Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?
1 Co 6:3
Because we all suffered under their domain. One day merely mortal things in the past will replace angelic things that never ruled justly.
Maranatha.
Nate.