Unity is not a late Christian invention—it is the native air of Scripture, because the one God has always made Himself known through the one Mediator. Today Calvin presses the Old Testament appearances of “the Angel of the Lord” until the reader feels the weight of the claim: this Angel receives divine honor, bears the divine name, and is recognized as God, and therefore cannot be a created messenger. The same Word who would later take flesh was already drawing near to the faithful as Mediator, leading Israel in the wilderness, and receiving titles and works that belong to Yahweh alone. Calvin’s point is not to multiply gods, but to show that Israel’s God is the very God fully revealed in Christ, so that when the apostles confess Jesus as Lord, they are not offering a new deity, but naming the God who has been there all along.

Readings: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 13 (Sections 10–13)

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