The Hidden Timeline: Two Private Letters the Accusers Never Acknowledged
- Doug Van Dorn
- Dec 3
- 28 min read
“The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” (Proverbs 18:17)
A Brief Overview of this Post
In the midst of weeks of escalating public accusations of “a new heresy,” “a different Jesus,” and “perverting the person and work of Christ,” I present the hidden timeline the critics never told you about: two detailed, private letters—one sent to Michael Lewis, Brad Kafer, and Jeremy Marshall on November 18, 2025 (three days after their Reclamation Podcast Episode 75), and one co-authored with Jon Moffitt and delivered to the Grace Reformed Network (GRN) board on October 13, 2025—that along with my Nov 7, 2025 “Affirmations and Denials” comprehensively answered every major charge before most of the public attacks even aired. Both letters pleaded for dialogue and were met with silence or outright rejection. They were then omitted from official timelines and ignored as the campaign continued. What follows are the full, unedited letters. Read them alongside the subsequent podcasts, statements, and letters issued by the accusers and judge for yourself who acted in good faith (Proverbs 18:17).
A Record That Cannot Be Ignored
This post seeks to bring to light a timeline that has been deliberately ignored by certain men who have smeared my name under the guise of “orthodoxy.” I will not deal with all of those men here. Jon Moffitt is going to be posting his take on the latter of these events over on his blog, and I fully corroborate his story and am in full agreement with the way he tells it—his thoughts are exactly what I’ve been saying as well. (I’ll link to that when he uploads.) These private letters were not originally intended to become public. They would have remained private forever if basic Christian ethics—love, truth, fairness, charity, and the pursuit of peace—had been chosen over weeks of sustained public accusation, polemical attacks, character assassination, and coordinated smears. For the record, I was going to put this post out even earlier, but Jon insisted that he give the Network one final opportunity before going public with his own blog. His elders sent that post to them in private before posting it publicly, asking them to please come to their senses. This was their response: “Brothers, we stand by our statement as written.”
The ethics above were not and continue not to be chosen. So now I’m going to give you the “hidden timeline” that others don’t want you to know about.
What follows are two private letters—sent in good faith, I believe in obedience to the intended spirit of Matthew 18 (which I have not always followed, to my shame), and in genuine hope of reconciliation—that were deliberately ignored by the men who received them. They should be read in light of Jon’s public statement (Sept 19) addressing these things prior to the GRN and Theocast controversies ever full erupting, as well as my own “Affirmations and Denials” (Nov 7, 2025) which were also publicly written precisely to give answers to the charges. Both groups along with others continued (and in some cases escalated) their public attacks while possessing specific and detailed answers to the very charges they continue making.
The public has been told only one side of the story. Proverbs 18:17 exists for moments exactly like this.
Letter #1 Sent November 18, 2025, directly to Michael Lewis, Brad Kafer, and Jeremy Marshall (with Jon Moffitt also receiving a copy)—three days after Episode 75 of their Reclamation Podcast leveled the most serious charges imaginable against me. I pleaded for a response. Two weeks later and there has only been silence. Meanwhile the same accusations continued to spread from men known to be in private contact with one another, especially via the Grace Reformed Network’s second letter that came out on Tuesday Nov 25 concerning their take on the Theocast situation (here is a link to their first letter).
Letter #2 Sent October 13, 2025, at 8:38 PM — one full month before the Reclamation Podcast publicly accused me of teaching “a new heresy” and “a “different Jesus.” It was co-authored with Jon and delivered privately to the GRN board in an attempt to prevent the coming firestorm. The next day Jon met with the board in person. They dismissed the letter outright and refused to address its contents. It was then entirely omitted from the “official timeline” they later published—the same timeline they presented as the full and honest account of events.
I am placing both letters before you now, unedited and exactly as they were originally sent. Read them. Then read the public statements, podcasts, and letters issued after these dates by the men who received them. You will see for yourself that every major accusation had already been directly, clearly, and privately answered—sometimes weeks in advance—yet the campaign continues undeterred.
I have nothing to hide. Every sermon, podcast, article, and lecture I have ever produced remains publicly available. I have censored nothing. I have deleted nothing. I do not object to disagreement. I do not object to correction—if it comes through honest questions and charitable dialogue without a prejudged sentence having already been pronounced. What I object to is being repeatedly declared a heretic while the men making the declaration refuse to acknowledge answers that have been in their possession for weeks.
This is not about “preferring private discussion over public matters,” which one Twitter account called the act of a “spiritual abuser.” This is about refusing to watch brothers bear false witness while pretending they have no access to the truth.
The watching world is mocking Christ’s church right now. They see men who claim to love the same Savior unable to speak to one another with even the minimal courtesy owed to an enemy—let alone a brother. Our Lord prayed that we would be one, so that the world would know that the Father sent the Son (John 17:21–23).
That prayer is being trampled in real time. I continue to pray for peace and believe in a God who can bring the dead to life, so there’s always hope with the Lord. I still have no personal animosity toward any of these men. I am still willing to talk with those who are themselves humble and wish to engage rather than judge.
But silence in the face of sustained slander no longer remains an option. The two letters that follow remain exactly as they were sent. Read them (yes, I know they are long, this is if nothing else simply a public record). Then decide for yourself who has acted in good faith—and who has not.
Letter I: To the Hosts of The Reclamation Podcast (November 18, 2025)
Sent privately after their November 15 episode. Published unchanged for transparency and full disclosure for the sake of Christ’s church.
A Letter About Accusations
From The Reclamation Podcast: Ep.75 The Theocast Tragedy, Nov 15, 2025
Dear Michael, Brad, and Jeremy,
I’m sorry for the length of this, but I needed it to be thorough and fair. Several brothers and sisters in Christ sent me your recent episode because they were deeply troubled by how my views were represented. As I listened, I found myself grieving more than I expected. I am writing for two reasons: first, to ask you to hear the actual substance of what I believe (with documentation), and second, to respond to you the way I would want to be treated myself — with as much grace and clarity as I can muster, even though some of the things said have been very painful.
A word on tone
I have called several of these representations “slander.” I do not use the word lightly or with joy, and I certainly do not assume evil motives on your part. I use it only because, after listening carefully and checking every source, I do not see how the accusations match what I have actually written and taught — including in the very places you cited. If I have misunderstood or misspoken anywhere, I am eager to be corrected.
I have three brief sections on the quotations you offered, followed by a few of the other charges raised in the episode.
The Reformed Fringe clip
The passage from The Angel of the LORD book
The alleged sermon quotation
(Everything in green below is what you presented as a direct quote.)
From TRANSCRIPT of “What ‘No Other Gods’ Doesn’t Mean, Reformed Fringe
You say: “Let me just read one of his quotes … ‘He is the eternal word of God, who came into this universe that he made to be manifest by his word. And he became one of those creatures so that he could be called the God of Israel. This is different from the incarnation. Totally different because he's becoming an Elohim and not a human. He's becoming Ish, not Adam. He's becoming an angel, not a man … we see that he’s fully God and fully man. And also we would want to say that he has this third thing [paraphrasing earlier]. So he’s fully, fully, and I guess I could add a third fully.’”
REPLY: The beginning and end of this quote is not clearly marked out. I had to go back and listen to the full section quite carefully. In fact, “So he’s fully, fully, and I guess I could add a third fully” part of your quote (which I did say) comes after a lengthy commentary by one of you which makes it difficult to discern what I said from what you are saying that I said. In that section, you admit that I said, “Later, he does say that the incarnation is this analogy for what’s going on here.” That’s extremely important.
Also, as you keep talking, you comment, “So he is saying that we use this language of form and image because it is the language use of Christ becoming a man in the New Testament. However, people want to talk about this, assuming created properties of a human, assuming the form of a male human, becoming a man or whatever. This is the same language we would want to use for him in the Old Testament with regards to an angel. The word became human even as the word became an angel. And so he’s saying that in the same way, Jesus assumed a human nature, that’s the way we would want to talk about him assuming an angelic nature…” But this is your commentary. I didn’t actually say any of that, yet that prefaces the “fully, fully, and a third fully.”
When you actually listen to the entire discussion fairly and with charity, what you discover is that when I say “he became one of those creatures” or “he took the form of a created Elohim” or “he became an ish, not an adam… an angel, not a man” that “became” and “took the form” are change-of-state verbs, not eternal identity statements. I say, “This is different from the incarnation… totally different because he’s becoming an Elohim, not a human,” explicitly contrasting it with the permanent incarnation. I say, “he still nevertheless became those things, and he was one of them” such that the past-tense “was” + “became” means the angelic was time-bound, not eternal. I say the entire context is pre-incarnate appearances (Jacob, patriarchs, etc.), never applying the “third fully” to the post-incarnate Jesus. The “he’s fully, fully, and I guess I could add a third fully because Jesus … has all the communicable attributes of other Elohim” is clearly a communicable attribute, not a third hypostasis/nature. These are attributes, not natures. A charitable reading would see that Jesus the eternal Son (second Person) who temporarily took on the form / communicable attributes of a created Elohim (angel) in the OT while permanently taking on human nature in the incarnation and that he never has three simultaneous, permanent natures.
From the Angel of the LORD…
You say, “Yeah, and even in his book, we have a quote here from the Angel of the Lord on page 246 and 247. He talks about a hypostatic Memra. Here's the quote.
There were some Jews who were clearly viewing the Memra as essentially a divine person. This language has led scholars to say such things as the Memra is the word conceived as a person, the logos or the Memra has a place above the angels, as that agent of the deity who sustains the course of nature and personifies the law, or if words have any meaning, the Memra is a hypostasis. Rabbis as famous as Akiba ben Yusuf have been identified as holding to belief in a hypostatic Memra.’
So later he will, in his affirmations and denials, will say, well, I don't believe in a hypostasis. It's not a hypostatic union, but ... But here he says it is.” This ends your full quote from the pod.
COMMENT: Here’s the actual quote (BOLD is what you chose to cite; I’m also leaving in my footnotes from the book for emphasis):
There were some Jews who were clearly viewing the Memra as essentially a divine person.[1] Consider the following passages. Whereas Genesis 6:6 says, “And the LORD regretted that he had made man…,” a Targum says, “And the Lord regretted in his Memra that he had made man on earth, and he debated in his Memra about them” (Gen 6:6 TgPsJon). Whereas Isaiah 63:10 says, “But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit…,” the Targum says, “But they rebelled and incited to anger against the Memra of his holy prophets...” (Isa 63:10 TgIsa). “I have established my covenant between me and you” (Gen 17:7) becomes, “I have established My covenant between my Memra and you” in the Targums.[2] “They heard the sound/voice of the LORD God” (Gen 3:8) becomes, “They heard the voice of the Memra of the Lord God.”[3]
These kinds of things are found all over the place. What sense do they even make as pure personifications or anthropomorphisms?[4] The idea behind them is clearly to distance God from certain interactions, not simply to find another way of saying he has them. This language has led scholars to say such things as the Memra is “the Word conceived as a person, the logos”[5] or, “The Memra has a place above the angels as that agent of the Deity who sustains the course of nature and personifies the Law.”[6] Or, “If words have any meaning, the Memra is a hypostasis.”[7] Rabbis as famous as Akiba ben Yosef (50-135 AD) have been identified as holding to “belief in a hypostatic Memra.”[8]
Notice, it is the scholars who are calling it a hypostasis. Not me or Matt. Those are literal quotes from other people. It is vital not to take people out of context. The purpose of that chapter is to show that some Second-Temple Jews (Philo, Targumists, certain rabbis) developed mediatorial figures (Logos, Memra, “second power”) that functioned almost as hypostatic intermediaries — precisely to avoid crude anthropomorphisms while preserving monotheism. This is historical theology, not my own doctrinal proposal. We are reporting what certain ancient Jews said, not endorsing it as our Christology!
The exact paragraph you quote (p. 246–247) is embedded in a section titled, “The Targums and the Memra.” We are summarizing scholarly opinion on how some Jews personified the Memra by citing five different scholars (Fossum, Hayward, etc.) who describe the Memra as “the word conceived as a person,” “agent of the deity,” “a hypostasis.” The sentence “if words have any meaning, the memra is a hypostasis” is a direct quotation from Robert Hayward (1981), not our own assertion.
The very next section (immediately after the quote you use) makes our own position crystal clear. We transition straight into “The Rabbis and Two Powers in Heaven” and say: “The Christians were claiming that Jesus Christ come in the flesh was the Second Power, the Word… Because he proved himself by being perfectly obedient to God and being raised from the dead, he is God and therefore worship of him is obligatory.” We are contrasting the Jewish mediatorial figures with full Christian Trinitarianism/ incarnation. We are reporting, not affirming. We explicitly reject the Jewish hypostatic Memra as adequate. That’s literally why we are Christians and not Jews. The point is that Judaism moved away from this after A.D. 70 because Christianity used it against them. We immediately apply it to Trinitarian Christology, not a third hypostasis.
“From a Sermon at his church…”
You say, “Secondly, I want to return back to the point that I made earlier, because we've seen, we've heard in clips, Van Dorn redefined faith from what we have... From a sermon at his church. Yeah, from a sermon at his church, where it's no longer, right? Notitia Ascensus Fiducia. It's Notitia Ascensus and Delight in Being God's Sons.”
Comment: I have searched every sermon I have ever preached or posted and can find no such statement. I hold the classic Reformed understanding of faith as knowledge, assent, and trust. I actually wrote a book on the five solas called The Five Solas of the Reformation, which includes an entire chapter on sola fide. I would be grateful for a date or title of this sermon so I could search it and repent if I ever said that faith is “being God’s sons.”
Next, I would like to move to other accusations found throughout the podcast episode.
Covenant Theology:
You say, “The key piece here that our listeners need to hear is that for Voss and Kline, right, they remain within the reformed camp, and they understand that the covenants of God form the backbone of redemptive historical reality … But the mistake comes, we believe, when you make the move that Heiser made, which is to begin to read the redemptive historical context into like in light of the Divine Council. So you're basically switching out a covenantal framework for the redemptive historical narrative … They are fitting this evidence that you see of a divine council into the redemptive historical framework. What Heiser seems to be doing, and where it seems that Van Dorn is going with him, and really taking it even further than Heiser ever dreamed of doing, because I have sharp disagreements with Heiser, but not to the level of the stuff that we're going to talk about today. What Heiser is doing is kind of reversing that, where he's trying to fit the redemptive historical narrative into the doctrine, the hermeneutic of the divine council. So it's almost like the divine council becomes this magic key that unlocks scripture.”
Reply: You repeatedly stated that I have replaced covenant theology with a divine-council hermeneutic. As with the Five Solas, I also wrote a book called Covenant Theology: A Reformed Baptist Primer which long ago was positively reviewed by none other than the guys at IRBS. I also wrote another on baptism from a Reformed Baptist Covenantal Perspective called Waters of Creation: A Biblical-Theological Study of Baptism. I have no desire to downplay or replace the covenants; they remain the backbone of how I read Scripture. The council is complementary not contradictory to covenant theology.
Using Trinitarianism to Denigrate Creedal Orthodox
You say, “Van Dorn is also using some of the categories of Trinitarianism and Christology to denigrate creedal orthodoxy… he’s denigrating classical Trinitarianism while using categories from classical Trinitarianism.”
Reply: Believe it or not, I wrote a book on the creeds too: The Creeds: Christian Faith Essentials. Did you bother to read it? Did you even know that any of these books existed?
Angels as the image of God:
You say, “Now, that being said, where I would fault Heiser, and I think Van Dorn has taken this and run with it, Heiser came up with this… angels are the image of God in heaven… angels are our siblings, they’re the image in heaven, we’re the image on the earth.”
Reply: Heiser hardly “came up with this,” brothers. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Jewish Targum said, “And the Lord said to the angels who ministered before Him, who had been created on the second day of creation, ‘Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness…’” Thomas Aquinas said, “The image of God is more perfect in the angels than in man, because their intellectual nature is more perfect” (Summa Theologiae 1.93.3). The great Puritan William Perkins said, “The inhabitants of the world are reasonable creatures, made according to God’s own image; they are either angels or men” (The Order of Salvation and Damnation). Meredith Kline says, “In the creative fiat addressed to the heavenly council, ‘Let us make man in our image,’ angels are identified as sharing in the image-likeness to God. The lines of likeness connect not only God and man but God and angels, and man and angels. Agreeably, in the reflection of Genesis 1:26ff. in Psalm 8:5ff., man’s likeness to God is expounded in a comparison of man and angels.” Though it might be a new thought to you, you really should have done more homework on this one.
Jesus Died for Angels (Implied)
You say, “…Heiser came up with this… this idea that just as mankind… images God on earth, that the angels are the image of God in heaven… …that’s problematic because scripture never says that. We are never told that angels are in the image of God. And that’s going to end up really causing a lot of problems for our soteriology if we accept that.”
Reply: The direct insinuation is that I teach that Jesus died for angels. Has anyone ever taught that? I’ve never even thought of that idea. I’ve never taught that or said that, nor do I believe that.
We become Elohim
You say, “His eschatological hope seems to be that the humans are going to be elevated back up into this divine council… one of the Elohim… our hope is not that we will be divine council members.”
Reply: I never said we will become “one of the elohim.” It isn’t in the transcript, nor have I ever taught that. We will be glorified human beings.
Hyper-Literalism and the Angel
You say, “There’s a hyper-literal interpretation there, a trying to eliminate mystery, which is what heretics typically do.”
Reply: The insinuation is that I’m a heretic. My question is, so the angel didn’t really eat? It didn’t really wrestle with Jacob? It didn’t really have its feet washed? You should know that John Owen, Peter Allix, and Gerard DeGols (two more Reformers who came after Owen), each of whom in their books that I published, take this view. It isn’t heretical to say that the Angel really had those things.
“In the Same Way”
You say, “So he's saying that in the same way, Jesus assumed a human nature…”
Reply: I come now to a section that is even more troubling that those I’ve already mentioned, because I dealt with this explicitly in my Affirmations and Denials a full week before your podcast came out, and you even recognize that I had this document out at one point in you podcast. “Statement #9 … I categorically deny that this was univocal to the Word becoming flesh (John 1:14). Rather, it was analogous, merely a type.” Given that I’ve directly refuted this in other places written explicitly to reject these accusations and that you knew about this very document but disregarded it, brother, this is slander.
Three Natures
You say, “Now he has three natures… he’s fully, fully, and I guess I could add a third fully to quote him.”
Reply: Yes, I dealt with this above. However, let me add on here that I dealt with this explicitly in my Affirmations and Denials. “Statement #8: “I therefore deny that Jesus Christ has three natures: God, angelic, and human.” Again, more slander.
Hypostatic Union
You say, “It’s a hypostatic union with an angelic nature… he will later deny that that’s what he means, but that’s exactly what he’s doing here.”
Reply: I dealt with this explicitly in my Affirmations and Denials. “Statement #8: “This was not a hypostatic union by definition, as the hypostatic union is the permanent union of human flesh to the eternal Son of God.” Again, more slander.
Heresy
You say, “This is a new heresy… a different Jesus… a different Christ… alien to the creeds.”
Reply: I dealt with this explicitly in my Affirmations and Denials. “Statement #14: “I affirm my commitment to the historic Christian faith as expressed in the ecumenical creeds… I fundamentally deny any accusation that I am a false teacher causing division.” Statement #13: “I deny that the eternal uncreated subsistence called the Son of God becoming an angel is a resurrection of the Arian heresy… There is no ontological change in the essence of the Son of God.” Again, more slander.
Heresy: Pervert the Person and Work of Christ
You say, “This has perverted the doctrine of the person and work of Christ… when you pervert that, that’s where you wander into this heresy.”
Reply: Again, I’ve dealt this this partially above. However, in saying this, you are directly accusing me of damnable heresy because you think I’ve corrupted the doctrine of the Person of Christ by allegedly giving Jesus a third permanent nature, which I’ve explicitly denied, by alleging that the incarnation is no longer unique, which I’ve gone to great pains to say exactly the opposite, which undermines the sufficient of Christ on the cross by inferring that Jesus died for angels, which I’ve never said nor taught. In my Affirmations and Denials I state, Statement #9: “I deny that this angelic nature was permanent, but was rather simply a temporary manifestation of soma (not sarx) until the coming of Christ in the flesh (sarx). This was not a hypostatic union by definition, as the hypostatic union is the permanent union of human flesh to the eternal Son of God. I therefore deny that Jesus Christ has three natures: God, angelic, and human.” You call this a “new heresy” in your podcast. I will agree, it is new. But I’m not the one who is teaching it. It is you and others in previous weeks that are accusing me of something newly made up I do not believe or teach.
Gentlemen, I know you said (both online and in the episode) that you hoped this podcast would bring clarification to what happened at Theocast. Jon and I both assumed it would be about Jon and Justin. It turned out to be an hour-long treatment of my teaching — things I simply do not hold and have never taught.
I have repeatedly used the word “slander” in this letter. I do not say it lightly, and I certainly do not assume evil motives on your part. I say it only because, after checking every source you cited, I do not see how the accusations match what I have actually written or preached. The same thing can be said of a lot of things you didn’t bring up that others have, which I tried to clarify in my Affirmations and Denials. If I am wrong — if I have ever said any of these things meant the way I am being accused— I will repent publicly and immediately.
I’m seeking to take this to you privately, the way I wish I had been contacted before the episode aired. (That is exactly what the brothers at Remnant Radio did — they reached out to me personally first.) It isn’t right, brothers, to treat a fellow believer this way. I’m a Christian. I’ve pastored the same church for 24 years. I’m a member in good standing in a 1689 Baptist network, and the men there know exactly what I believe (many wrote to thank me for the Affirmations and Denials). We are not supposed to level first-order heresy charges against a brother based on internet summaries and out-of-context clips.
I need this to stop. What was said has wounded me deeply and has the potential to do lasting harm. Yet I also believe you thought you were protecting the flock and serving the truth. If I believed even one of the things you attributed to me, I would repent. But I don’t — because they are not what I teach.
I’m not hard to reach. I am happy to talk about these things in any format you would like. I would very much request a response of some sort from at least one of you though so that I can know how to move forward or if this is the end of the matter. My prayer is that the Lord would use even this painful moment to bring clarity, healing, and peace among brothers.
In Christ,
Doug Van Dorn
Letter II: A Response to Recent Critiques of Doug Van Dorn’s Paper on Impassibility and the Angel of the LORD
Sent privately on October 13 to the board members of GRN.
Cowritten by Doug Van Dorn and Jon Moffitt
Preface
This response is written in the spirit of brotherly clarification and love for the truth. The discussion surrounding Doug Van Dorn’s paper on divine impassibility and the Angel of the Lord has generated concern among those committed to the doctrines of classical theism and confessional Reformed orthodoxy. My intent is not to stir controversy but to clarify misunderstandings and to demonstrate that Doug’s proposal, properly understood, does not violate the foundations of our shared confession but seeks to express them faithfully in biblical terms.
We are united in affirming that the Lord our God is one, simple, immutable, and impassible, and that the eternal Son is the Mediator through whom the Father reveals Himself to His creation. The following sections aim to restate Doug’s position carefully and respond to the major objections raised by several brothers who have read his work with concern.
I. Introduction: The Aim of Doug’s Paper
Doug’s essay attempts to answer a long-standing theological question: How do we reconcile the biblical language of divine emotion and mediation with God’s immutability and impassibility?
The paper explores how Scripture’s own witness—especially through the recurring figure of the Angel of the Lord—reveals the Son as the personal Mediator of divine presence and affection. Doug’s aim is not to redefine God’s essence, introduce a new nature, or undermine simplicity, but to show how the pre-incarnate Son truly engages creation in a way that preserves both divine transcendence and immanence.
The difference between Doug and his critics lies not in the substance of theology but in the mode of description. His analogical and phenomenological language has been misread as ontological, leading to unnecessary alarm.
II. Clarifying the Language: “The Word Became an Angel”
The most repeated concern centers on the phrase “the Word became an angel.” Critics argue that this suggests the Son assumed an angelic nature, creating a “third permanent nature” beside the divine and human. This interpretation misunderstands both Doug’s language and intent.
Doug’s use of “became” is analogical, not ontological. When we say the Angel of the Lord is an analogical manifestation of the Son, we mean there are both similarities and differences between the Angel and the incarnate Christ.
Similarities: In both cases, the eternal Word of God makes Himself truly present through a created medium. The Angel and the man Jesus are both real creatures, yet in and through them the divine Person acts, speaks, and reveals Himself in a way unique among created beings.
Differences: Angels and humans are distinct orders of creation. The angelic form was a temporary mode used for revelation, even if that mode lasted between Adam and the incarnation, while the human nature was a permanent assumption in the incarnation that lasts throughout eternity. Thus, the Angel is a true but temporary analogical anticipation of the incarnation — the same divine Person revealing Himself through a different, non-permanent created medium.
This is consistent with the historic understanding of theophanies or Christophanies—visible manifestations of the invisible God. Doug’s intent is to make this classical doctrine more tangible, not to replace it. The language of “form” and “image” is drawn directly from Scripture and from the incarnational pattern that the Son fulfills. The analogy is pedagogical: the same divine Person who appeared in angelic form is the one who later became flesh. It is not a metaphysical equivalence but a typological correspondence.
Understanding Hypostasis and the Hypostatic Union
In classical Christian theology, the word hypostasis simply means “person”—a concrete, personal subsistence of the one divine essence. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three gods or three parts of God, but three hypostases (persons) who share one and the same divine nature. Each acts personally yet inseparably, revealing the one God in distinct ways. When the Bible speaks of God walking in the garden, speaking face to face with Moses, wrestling with Jacob, or standing before Joshua as the Commander of the Lord’s army, it is not describing a created angel acting independently of God; it is the divine hypostasis of the Son personally revealing Himself in a visible, mediated way. These are acts of personal manifestation, not changes in the divine essence.
By contrast, the hypostatic union refers specifically to what happened in the incarnation: when the eternal Son, this same divine hypostasis, permanently assumed a human nature into union with His divine person. In the incarnation, the Son united two complete natures, divine and human, in one person forever. That is unique and unrepeatable.
Doug’s argument is that the Old Testament appearances of the Angel of the Lord belong to the first category—not to the second. They are acts of hypostasis (the divine Person appearing and acting in creation), not acts of hypostatic union (the divine Person assuming a human nature). When the Son appeared as the Angel, He manifested Himself through created form to reveal God and mediate His presence. The same divine person who would one day take flesh was already making Himself known to His people, not by a change in the Divine Essence, but by the free act of His personal self-revelation.
In light of these distinctions, Doug’s argument stands firmly within the bounds of classical Trinitarian and Christological thought. By framing the Angel of the Lord as a personal manifestation of the Son’s hypostasis rather than as a hypostatic union, he preserves both divine simplicity and the uniqueness of the incarnation. The Son’s appearances in the Old Testament reveal the same unchanging divine Person acting freely through created media to make God known, without division, addition, or alteration in His essence. This understanding not only resolves the confusion surrounding the phrase “the Word became an angel” but also strengthens the continuity of God’s self-revelation from the patriarchs to the incarnation, displaying the same Lord who was with Israel in the wilderness now dwelling among His people in flesh.
III. Divine Simplicity and the Essence–Person Distinction
Another critique alleges that Doug divides God’s essence and persons, making the essence impassible while the persons are passible. Such a division compromises simplicity.
Doug recognizes the classical distinction between the one divine essence and the three personal subsistences within it. His intent was to describe, in line with Trinitarian orthodoxy, how the Son personally manifests the one divine essence to creation without implying change or composition in God. Jesus weeps and yet the divine nature is impassible. As Cyril of Alexandria said, “The impassible God suffered.”
To speak personally of the Son’s mediation does not divide God into parts; it recognizes that God’s actions ad extra are inseparable yet personally appropriated. The Father sends, the Son reveals, and the Spirit applies. This has always been the language of orthodoxy. Doug’s distinction is pastoral and hermeneutical (not ontological in the essence) designed to help readers understand how God can be both impassible in essence and personally engaged in covenantal history, without suggesting any ontological separation.
IV. Divine Impassibility and the Reality of Divine Affections
Many of the critiques worry that Doug’s model compromises impassibility by literalizing divine emotions in God’s essence. On the contrary, his goal is to preserve impassibility while taking Scripture’s emotional language seriously.
Doug builds upon the classical distinction between passions and affections.
· Passions are creaturely responses—changes imposed from without.
· Affections are divine actions—voluntary expressions of the divine will consistent with God’s unchanging nature.
By identifying the Angel of the Lord as the personal mediator through whom God expresses His affections, Doug safeguards both truths: God is unchangeable in His essence, yet genuinely relational in His revelation. When the Angel of the Lord grieves, burns in wrath, or shows compassion, these are not changes in the divine essence but manifestations of the Son’s mediatorial affection within creation.
This framework keeps biblical realism intact. The Son is not a distant abstraction but the personal self-revelation of God. Through Him, the unchangeable God truly engages His people without undergoing change Himself.
V. Jewish Sources, “Two Powers,” and the Memra
Another critique is that Doug leans too heavily on Jewish targums and “Two Powers in Heaven” traditions. These sources, however, are used illustratively, not authoritatively.
Doug never grounds doctrine in these texts. He uses them historically to show that pre-Christian Jewish interpreters recognized a divine Mediator distinct from and yet identified with Yahweh. This parallels the biblical portrayal of the Angel of the Lord and provides cultural context for understanding how early Christians read the Old Testament Christologically.
Such background work is a legitimate part of historical theology. The Reformers themselves used patristic and rabbinic commentary to shed light on biblical patterns. The Reformed Peter Allix, Gerard DeGols, and John Owen each used patristics and rabbis heavily as this talked about this very subject. Scripture remains the ultimate authority; these parallels simply demonstrate that the concept of a divine Mediator was not alien to ancient Israelite thought.
The “Two Powers” language, properly handled, reinforces rather than contradicts Trinitarian faith. It shows that the seeds of plurality within the Godhead were already being discerned in the Old Testament revelation itself.
VI. The Term “Christophany” and Classical Categories
Some critics object that Doug downplays the term “Christophany,” calling it overly abstract or academic. This criticism misses the nuance of his point. Doug does not reject the theology behind the word; he questions its communicative value.
His concern is that “Christophany” has become, for many modern readers, a technical term detached from the concrete narratives of Scripture. By emphasizing the biblical title “the Angel of the Lord,” Doug invites readers to encounter the same reality Christ’s pre-incarnate presence—but in the language of the text itself.
This is not a rejection of classical theology but an effort to make it vivid and accessible. He fully affirms the substance of the term while preferring a vocabulary rooted in the biblical storyline.
VII. Hermeneutical Method and Exegetical Concerns
Some accuse the paper of various hermeneutical errors—such as appealing too strongly to background material or collapsing biblical “word” language into a single concept. These charges misunderstand Doug’s approach.
He is not engaged in lexical theology but in canonical theology. His method traces the unfolding revelation of God’s Word—the memra/logos—across redemptive history. The Targums, ANE backgrounds, and later traditions are used to illuminate that trajectory, not to control it.
Doug’s approach is consistent with a Reformed hermeneutic that honors both the analogia fidei(Scripture interprets Scripture) and the analogia Scripturae (the unity of redemptive revelation). The so-called “background” merely helps modern readers see what earlier generations of interpreters took for granted: that Yahweh revealed Himself personally through His Word, His Angel, and ultimately His Son.
VIII. Orthodoxy, Novelty, and Pastoral Motivation
Finally, some label Doug’s proposal “novel” or “unsafe.” Such language is unfortunate and unwarranted. Doug’s work is not an attempt to revise orthodoxy but to retrieve and restate it. He affirms the Nicene and Chalcedonian boundaries fully.
The “novelty” lies only in his phrasing, not in his theology. He seeks to express ancient truth in a fresh, biblically grounded way. His pastoral concern is genuine: he wants believers to read the Old Testament with wonder, recognizing the personal presence of Christ there.
It is better, therefore, to view Doug’s essay as a retrieval project, not a speculative innovation. It invites the church to rediscover the coherence of God’s revelation from Genesis to Revelation, a God who is both impassible and intimately present through His Son.
IX. Communication and the Need for Charity
Theological precision matters, especially when addressing sensitive doctrines like simplicity and impassibility. But we must also remember that clarity of expression and clarity of intent are not the same thing.
Doug’s intent is orthodox, confessional, and pastoral. The misunderstanding arises largely from reading his analogical language as literal metaphysics. Charity requires that we read one another according to intent, not suspicion. Brothers should not treat every unfamiliar phrase as dangerous. Our confessions anchor us in truth; they also invite exploration of mystery. Doug’s project, rightly understood, is well within that space.
XI. Conclusion: Unity in the Mystery of the Triune God
All of us who engage in this discussion confess the same Lord: the simple, immutable, impassible God who has made Himself known in His Son and by His Spirit. We all stand under the same confessional commitments, and we all desire to see the church strengthened in her worship of the one true God.
The debate over Doug’s paper should not divide brothers who love the same Christ. The Son who appeared as the Angel of the Lord is the same who became incarnate for our salvation. His manifestations in the Old Testament do not threaten divine simplicity; they magnify divine grace. They show that the God who cannot change nevertheless draws near to dwell with His people.
Let our conversations about such profound mysteries be marked by the humility that the mysteries themselves demand. And may we, together, recover a high and holy view of the Triune God who reveals Himself without change, loves without passion, and saves without division.
[1] This is disputed by some scholars. For example, Hurtado, Binitarian Shape of Early Christianity. But it is accepted as fact by others. For example, Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the LORD.
[2] Abelson writes, “It is the Memra who is always the subject of swearing or oathtaking. Either the Memra takes the oath, or God swears by His Memra.” J. Abelson, The Immanence of God in Rabbinical Literature (London: Macmillan and Co., 1912), 157.
[3] There are so many of these that they could take up a book to discuss. In fact, someone has, and long ago. Peter Allix, The Judgment of the Ancient Jewish Church Against the Unitarians, second edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1821). We have republished a portion of this book with the relevant material as a companion to this volume called The Angel of the LORD in Early Jewish, Christian, and Reformation History.
[4] Ableson explains, “The Rabbis personified [Memra], speaking with the greatest freedom of [it] as the visible manifestation of Deity in the objective world … [But] left no stone unturned to prevent any belief in anything but the unique and incomparable unity of God … That there was a danger lest the personification should be carried too far, is clear; that the Rabbis were alive to this danger is obvious from various indications. The official Targum was revised, and in the most dangerous cases Memra was eliminated from the text (as in the creation passages in Gen. 1 ff), and literal renderings were substituted.” Abelson, 161 in Box, 112.
[5] Levy, Wörterbuch, cited in Box, 105.
[6] M. J. Edwards, “Justin’s Logos and the Word of God,” JECS 3 (1995): 263 [261-80], cited in Boyarin, “The Gospel of the Memra,” 254.
[7] Robert Hayward, Divine Name and Presence: The Memra (Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies; Totowa, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun, 1981), 3, cited in Boyarin, ibid.
[8] Samuel Zinner, The Gospel of Thomas: In the Light of Early Jewish, Christian and Islamic Esoteric Trajectories (London: The Matheson Trust, 2011), 40.
Doug Van Dorn
Dec 3, 2025
