Will The Real Michael Please Stand Up (Pt.1)?

strugglingchristian | 07/10/2023

At that time Michael shall stand up, The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; And there shall be a time of trouble, Such as never was since there was a nation, Even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, Everyone who is found written in the book. Daniel 12:1

St. Michael in The Fall of the Rebel Angels
St. Michael in The Fall of the Rebel Angels

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists claim that Jesus Christ is also the Archangel Michael. Both of these denominations came from the Millerite movement so it’s no surprise that they believe the same thing. William Miller, the founder of the Millerite movement, wrote in an exposition of Daniel 12:11

Michael, in this passage, must mean Christ; He is the great Prince, and Prince of princes” (Evidences From Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ [1840], pp. 108, cf. p. 209).

When Jesus did not return in 1844 as William Miller predicted, many of the Millerites returned to their previous denominations or abandoned their faith entirely, but one group continued and later on organized themselves and became known as Seventh-day Adventists, while another group became the Jehovah’s Witnesses. These groups shared similar doctrines; aside from the belief that Michael and Jesus are one and the same person, they also believe in soul-sleep2 and annihilationism 3. And while the official position of the Seventh-day Adventist church today is Trinitarian, (there are some groups within SDA who are non-trinitarians) SDAs too started off as sharing the Arian4 belief that Jesus Christ is not co-equal with God. Some of the SDA pioneers who held this belief include5: James White, Uriah Smith, Joseph Bates, R.F. Cotrell and many more. But SDA belief has some differences about the Arian teaching, hence it was called Semi-Arian6. Semi-Arians believe that Jesus is not the Almighty God, but He is a divine being just not equal with the Father and He has a beginning.

Eventually, the SDA church adopted the Trinitarian belief7 (with some notable differences from the orthodox trinitarian position, but that is a topic for another time) while the Jehovah’s Witnesses stayed true to Arianism, or rather a modified version of it.

The Arians have no problem with praying to Jesus Christ but Jehovah’s witnesses would only pray to Jehovah. But even though the SDAs adopted the Trinitarian doctrine, they still retained the belief that Michael and Jesus Christ are one and the same person. The main difference with Jehovah’s Witnesses is that Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Jesus/Michael is a created being and a lesser divinity than the Father, while SDAs on the other hand believe that Jesus/Michael is a member of the Godhead and co-equal with the Father.

But where did this teaching come from? To my knowledge, the presbyter Arius, who founded Arianism in the 4th century did not believe that Jesus and Michael are one and the same person. But that teaching has got to come from somewhere and that’s what we are going to unravel.

Michael in the Bible

The name Michael is a very old Hebrew name. It comes from the Hebrew מִיכָאֵֽל (mī kāʼēl) meaning “Who is like God?” This name according to the Ancient Hebrew Research Center8 is a shortened form of the question that is asked in Psalm 113:5 “Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high.” This is a rhetorical question because there is no one like God (Isaiah 46:9). Michael is one of the many theophoric9 names found in the Bible like Gabriel, Daniel, Joel, Raphael, Ezekiel etc.

The first mention of the name Michael is found in Numbers 13:13 and it mentions Sethur, the son of Michael. Sethur is one of the spies sent by Moses to the land of Canaan. There are 16 occurrences10 of the name Michael in the Bible, 11 of which refers to humans and only 5 refer to the angel. Let’s take a look at these five verses and see if it says unequivocally that Jesus and Michael are one and the same person.

Before we proceed, I strongly suggest that you read first the whole chapter of Daniel 10 in order to understand this in full context. It would be better if you could read chapters 10-12 but it would be best if you could read the whole book of Daniel.

Five verses where Michael the Archangel is specifically mentioned in the Bible

  1. Daniel 10:13 - But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.

  2. Daniel 10:21 - but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince.

  3. Daniel 12:1 - At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.

  4. Jude 1:9 - But Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil and arguing about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him an abusive condemnation, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!

  5. Revelation 12:7 - Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.

There is another reference to the archangel found in 1 Thess. 4:16, It says:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” 1 Thess. 4:16

For many Protestants, they identify Michael as the archangel spoken of in the verse above, and their understanding is that when the Lord returns to the earth, He will be accompanied by myriads of angels as also attested by Jude.

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones, to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Jude 1:14-15.

Interestingly, this passage from Jude is very similar to an earlier non-canonical book called the “Book of Enoch” and is an almost exact quotation.

And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones To execute judgment upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh. Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. 1 Enoch 1:9

Many scholars believe that the Jude passage is referencing the Book of Enoch account or that both of them may have drawn from an earlier unknown source.

Majority of Christians have no issue with identifying the archangel in 1 Thessalonians as Michael but they have in no way identified the archangel as the Lord himself because that is not the orthodox position of Christianity. However for Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists, this verse somehow supports their position that Jesus and Michael are one and the same person.

But plain reading of the verses above does not explicitly state that Michael is Jesus in any way whatsoever. Perhaps this is one of those doctrines like the Trinity which isn’t explicitly stated yet the concept is revealed in Scriptures? We shall see if that is the case when we exegete these verses later. Meanwhile, let’s take a look first at how Michael is viewed in the Jewish tradition.