Who is Michael? Who is Michael? The name means, “who is like God?” Paul presents Jesus as “being in the form of God” (Philippians 2:6), “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) and “the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3). He is the only being that is like God. He is not created. Jesus is the Creator Himself. “Jude (verse 9) declares that Michael is the (definite article indicates that there is only one) Archangel. This word signifies ‘head, or chief, angel,’ and in our text Gabriel calls Him ‘one (the margin reads, the first) of the chief prin¬ces.’ There can be but one archangel, and hence it is manifestly improper to use the word in the plural as some do. The Scrip¬tures never so use it. In 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, Paul states that when the Lord appears the second time to raise the dead, the voice of the archangel is heard. Whose voice is heard when the dead are raised?-The voice of the Son of God. (John 5: 28.) Putting these scriptures together, they prove that the dead are called from their graves by the voice of the Son of God, that the voice which is then heard is the voice of the Archangel [no creature has power over death], proving that the Archangel is the Son of God, and that the Archangel is called Michael, from which it follows that Michael is the Son of God. In the last verse of Daniel 10, He is called “your Prince,” and in the first of Daniel 12, “the great Prince which stands [see Acts 7:55] for the children of thy people,” expressions which can appropriately be applied to Christ, but to no other being.” Uriah Smith in The Prophecies of Daniel, page 129. In Greek, the word archangel appears only twice and in both cases is called the archangel, indicating that there is only one. Archangel means ruler of the angels. There are three Hebrew words translated as angel. The First one, mal’âk (pronounced mal-awk’) is also the most common. It means messenger and also a prophet, king or angel. The second is elôhîym (pronounced el-o-heem’) and means God, great, judge, and mighty. This one is translated for angel only in Psalm 8:5. The third one is ‘abbîyr (pronounced ab-beer’) and it is translated as angel, mighty one, strong (one). Is it a coincidence that Jesus is called prophet, king, God, judge and mighty one also? The word angel, from the Greek angelos (aggelos) means messenger. In the Old Testament, there were occasions when an angel appeared to some people and was worshipped or treated as Deity. If this were a common angel, he would not have accepted any homage from man. When John was so impressed by an angel that wanted to worship him, he was not allowed to do it: “And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See [thou do it] not: I am thy fellow servant…” (Revelation 19:10). Let’s see Exodus 3:2, 4-6. “and the Angel of the Lord appeared to him [Moses] in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush…God called to him out of the midst of a bush…And He said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover He said, I am the God of Abraham…” at first, we see the Angel of the Lord, but when He speaks, reveals himself as God. Let’s see Joshua 5: 13-15 where Joshua thinks that he sees a soldier, but He identifies Himself as the leader of the angels: 13 “And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went to him, and said to him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said to him, What saith my Lord to his servant? 15 And the captain of the LORD’S host said to Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.” Here we can see that Joshua worshipped Him and called Him Lord. Also, the ground was called holy. Only the presence of God himself can make a place holy. The captain of the host is the Archangel, one that can be worshipped and is called Lord, one that makes holy the ground where He appears. We can see that this Archangel is not a creature. He is the Lord, the Creator. Then, we have Manoah asking the name of the Angel (it was a common pagan belief that knowing the secret name of a deity, gave power over that deity, sort of like a genie). “And the angel of the LORD said to him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret? So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock to the LORD: and the angel did wonderously; and Manoah and his wife looked on. For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground [an act of worship]. But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD.” And Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God” (Judges 13:18-22). First, Manoah was told that the mane of the angel was “secret.” The word for secret in Hebrew is pâlîy’ and can be translated also as wonderful. Where else did we see that word? In Isaiah 9:6 where the Messiah is called “wonderful (Hebrew ‘pele’).” Both words are from the same root. The angel was saying “I am the one whose name is Wonderful, Admirable.” Second, Manoah and his wife worshiped Him and they were not prohibited from doing so. Third, and more important, He was called God. Genesis 16:7-13 presents the Angel of the Lord talking to Agar. Let’s read verses 10-13: “And the angel of the LORD said to her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. [can a simple angel, a creature, make such a promise?] And the angel of the LORD said to her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the LORD that spoke to her, Thou GOD seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?” She called the angel God. If this were a mistake, the Bible would have omitted it. God would not allow it to be registered so we could be misled. That specific angel was Jesus pre-incarnated. Malachi 3:1 says that “the Lord will come to his temple, even the messenger [Hebrew angel] of the covenant, whom ye delight in.” The Hebrew word for messenger in this verse is mal’âk, and we already presented that it means angel. In other words, the Angel of the Covenant is called Lord. When Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, the angel talked to the father of the faithful in first person and called himself The Lord (Genesis 22:15,16): “And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son…” Now, why is Jesus presented as an angel? That’s easy to answer. Remember Hebrews 1:1,2? “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son…” Jesus is the spokesman of the Trinity. That is why He is presented as an angel. It is a matter of role playing and not a matter of status. He is also presented as a lion and a lamb for the same reason. Michael is Jesus, “who is like God.” Jesus is not an angel, but the commander of the angels. “The president of the United States is the ‘chief’ of the armed forces of his country. That does not make him a soldier. The fact that the archangel is the chief of all of the angelic host does not imply that He is a created being.” Henry Feyerabend, Daniel Verse by Verse page 154.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:50:41 +0000
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