If you’ve been reading Matthew 28, then you’re meant to make you think of the transfiguration of Jesus, which appears in chapter 17. We read that Jesus was transfigured before them; his appearance changed; his face shone like the sun; and his clothes became white as light.
They’re both scenes with a dazzling bright appearance, clothing which is white. And so that connection being made here is that the Lord Jesus is the source of all light, and the angel, having come from heaven, is connected to that light. He is like Jesus in that way.
And we could take a step further and say that, according to Jesus being the Christ, the Son of the living God, then his appearance is like that on the mountain of transfiguration because of the fact that he is the Christ who is anointed with the Holy Spirit without measure. Therefore the angel here in Matthew 28, on his business, will look the same, will have the same appearance. Moses had that appearance when he had spent time with the Lord, and Stephen later in Acts—their faces shone. Moses had to cover up his face, and so we would expect the angel to have the same appearance.
They have this appearance back in the beginning of Luke’s gospel, where the angel of the Lord came down and glory shone around them. So this is authentic heavenly appearance, those on business of the God the Father himself, who we met last week in Revelation 4, who has this burning red-orange appearance too. So similar stuff is happening—fire, lightning. This is to do with God.
