Sunday, January 01, 2012

Michael the Archangel as Christ?

The information below was once submitted to a yahoogroup that I used to moderate which is now inactive. I have changed the names of those who participated in this discussion; however, I have not edited the material itself.

To help you appreciate the context, a question had been asked regarding Michael's possible identity with Christ.

[BEGIN DIALOGUE]

Quadratus said:

Aurelius, I'd like to take your second question. I don't know of anyone who
says that the Bible EXPLICITLY calls the Christ, Michael.

However, I believe that there are a number of lines of evidence that point
to this conclusion. Here is one.

1) The Resurrection: ONLY ONE VOICE CAN COMMAND THE DEAD TO RISE

a) There is only ONE VOICE that can raise the dead in the coming
resurrection. This authority has been given to the Christ by
his Father. (John 5:25-28).

b) It is the VOICE of an ARCHANGEL that raises the dead during
the unique SINGULAR act of the resurrection at the time of
the end. (1Th 4:16; cf Da 12:2 ).

c) Since the archangel shares the unique characteristic that only
Christ posesses, the authority to raise the dead with his voice,
Christ is an archangel.

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words -- Topic:
Archangel says regarding the character of the Lord Jesus' voice

"In 1 Thess. 4:16 the meaning seems to be that the voice of the
Lord Jesus will be of the character of an 'archangelic' shout."

1Th 4:16 NWT
"because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a
commanding call, with an archangel's voice and with God's
trumpet, and those who are dead in union with Christ will
rise first."

Vines assigns the voice of Jesus with the character of
the archangel, because the grammar demands it.

Thayers calls the voice that raises the dead at John 5:28 "the
Resurrection-Cry" and "Christ's voice that raises the dead" at
1Th 4:16 as "an awakening shout". The Greek for 'with an archangel's voice'
is literally 'EN FWNHi ARXAGGELOU', in the oblique dative case.

In all other occurences of this idiom in the Greek New Testament it
describes the voice of the subject in the clause.

TO ATTRIBUTE THE VOICE OF A LESSER BEING TO CHRIST WOULD NOT HONOR HIM
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It is only logical that the voice expressing this commanding call be
described by a word that would not diminish or detract from the great
authority that Christ Jesus now has as King of kings and Lord of
lords. (Mt 28:18; Re 17:14). If the designation "archangel" applied,
not to Jesus Christ, but to other angels, then the reference to "an
archangel's voice" would be describing a voice of lesser authority
than that of the Son of God.

Protestant Reformer JOHN CALVIN said regarding "Michael" in its occurence at
Daniel 12:1:

"I embrace the opinion of those who refer this to the person of
Christ, because it suits the subject best to represent him as
standing forward for the defense of his elect people." J. Calvin,
COMMENTARIES ON THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET DANIEL, trans. T. Myers
(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), vol. 2 p. 369.


John A. Lees, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1930, Vol. 3,
page 2048 states:

"The earlier Protestant scholars usually identified Michael
with the preincarnate Christ, finding support for their view,
not only in the juxtaposition of the "child" and the archangel
in Rev 12, but also in the attributes ascribed to him in Dnl"

2 comments:

Xibons said...

There are many places where it is implied that Jesus and Michael the archangel are one and the same. That means that we have to use our reasoning ability to unravel Jehovah's sacred secrets and not expect everything to be simply spelled out.

It should be noted that Trinitarians have a very peculiar way of reasoning on the Scriptures. Although they may insist that Jesus cannot possibly be Michael the archangel because the Bible does not specifically say so, nonetheless, the Trinitarian insists that Jesus is God even though, amazingly, there is not so much as one verse in the Bible where Jesus ever claimed to be God—not even one! Neither does the word "trinity" appear in the Bible.

But, the reason we know that Jesus is Michael is because Michael, or an archangel, is ascribed doing all the things that are the sole prerogative of Jesus Christ. For example, Christ is going to perform the resurrection of the 144,000. But in 1st Thessalonians 4:16 Jesus is said to have the commanding voice of an archangel. It reads: "because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel's voice and with God's trumpet, and those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first."

Elsewhere, in Revelation, Michael is depicted as leading all of God's angels in warfare against Satan and his demons. But, in the 19th chapter of Revelation Jesus Christ, the Word, is portrayed leading the angelic armies against the demonic forces arrayed against God at Armageddon.

Also, the book of Daniel contains a series of visions that all end the same way—with God's kingdom taking control. For instance, in the second chapter of Daniel we are told that God's kingdom crushes all opposing kingdoms of the world and it rules to time indefinite. In the 7th chapter we are given a more detailed vision, which depicts "someone like a son of man" being given authority over all the nations—a prophecy that Christ personally applied to himself.

In the 8th chapter we are given yet another vision of God's victorious kingdom. That prophecy ends with the Prince of princes destroying the king of fierce countenance. Finally, in the last chapter of Daniel the king of the north, which is obviously the same political entity as depicted in the other visions, comes all the way to his end when the great prince, Michael, stands up as ruler and destroys him.

According to the overlapping prophecies of Daniel it is obvious that the Son of man, the Prince of princes and Michael, the great prince, are the same person.

Source: Ewatchman

Anonymous said...

The first part of this video, Anthony Buzzard gives some objections to Jesus being Michael.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXEUJ-h0NEk


Also, how would you respond to this objection:

"...in revelation 12 Michael is mentioned--but we are told Messiah has a NEW NAME--ergo he cannot be Michael"

Thanks.