Jesus Is Michael

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Jesus Is Michael

Post #1

Post by DavidLeon »

For some reason, which I could never quite understand, it seems extremely difficult for some people, especially skeptics, to understand that Jesus and Michael are the same. Lets look at the facts regarding Jesus and Michael.

1. Jesus existed in heaven before he came to earth. Proverbs 8:22 / John 1:1,3, 14; 3:13; 8:23, 58; 17:5 / Colossians 1:15-17 / 1 John 2:13 / Revelation 3:14 all speak of Jesus’ existence before the world began, in fact before anything was created Jesus was created. Before Heaven, the heavens, the Earth, and of course, man. He is the firstborn of creation, the beginning of creation, he came from somewhere other than this world, he descended from heaven. There can be no doubt that he had a pre-human existence in heaven before he came to Earth as the man Jesus Christ.

2. Jesus’ position in heaven before he came to the earth must have been an important one, considering he was the first of Jehovah’s creation and all things were created through him and for him. (Proverbs 8:22 / John 1:3) That means not only the heavens and earth as we know them but the angels and heaven as well. Jesus is referred to as the "word of God," this means he is the spokesperson. (John 1:1) As the spokesperson for Jehovah God we can assume that when an angel performed some important task on earth, like guiding and protecting the early Israelites from Egypt or taking the physical form of men in performing an important task, it was likely Michael as he existed before he came to earth as Jesus.

3. The term archangel means chief of the angels. Arch means chief or principal. The term is only applied to one angel in the Bible. Michael. It is always used in the singular. There is only one archangel. The term archangel itself only appears twice throughout Scripture. At 1 Thessalonians 4:16 Paul writes of Jesus as having the voice of the archangel, and Jude 9 indicates Michael disputed with Satan over the body of Moses. So there is a connection with Jesus as well as an indication that Michael was connected in some way with the people of the exodus of Egypt.

4. Other than Jehovah God himself only two people in the Bible are said to be in charge of or over the angels. They are Michael and Jesus Christ. The name Michael appears only five times throughout Scripture. At Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1 / Jude 9 and Revelation 12:7.

5. Are there any others who believe Michael and Jesus are the same? Yes, there are many. Joseph Benson, E. W. Hengstenberg, J. P. Lange, Butterworth, Cruden, Taylor, Guyse all wrote that Michael and Jesus were the same.

Clarke's Commentary (Adam Clarke) - "Let it be observed that the word archangel is never found in the plural number in the sacred writings. There can be properly only one archangel, one chief or head of all the angelic host .... Michael is this archangel, and head of all the angelic orders .... hence by this personage, in the Apocalypse, many understand the Lord Jesus."

W. E. Vine - the "voice of the archangel" (1 Thessalonians 4:16) is apparently "the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ" - An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p. 64.

The 1599 Geneva Study Bible: Christ is the Prince of angels and head of the Church, who bears that iron rod."

The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia: - "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 Daniel" – vol. 3, p. 2048, Eerdmans Publishing, 1984 printing.

John Calvin: "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.

Brown's Dictionary of the Bible - on 'Michael' and 'Angel,' both these words do sometimes refer to Christ; and also affirms that Christ is the Archangel.

The NIV Study Bible - "The Angel of the LORD .... Traditional Christian interpretation has held that this 'angel' was a preincarnate manifestation of Christ as God's Messenger-Servant. It may be ..., the angel could speak on behalf of the One who sent him." - footnote for Gen. 16:7. Zondervan Publishing, 1985

Smith's Bible Dictionary (says of Michael) - "Angel of the Lord. ... Christ's visible form before the incarnation. p. 40"

Today's Dictionary of the Bible - "Angel of the Lord [angel of Jehovah] - occurs many times in the Old Testament, where in almost every instance it means a supernatural personage to be distinguished from Jehovah .... Some feel the pre-incarnate Christ is meant." Bethany House Publ., 1982, p. 39.
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Re: Jesus Is Michael

Post #2

Post by The Tanager »

I have some questions that could affect one's interpretation of these passages that I would love to hear your thoughts on.

1. Why do you think Proverbs 8:22 refers to Jesus rather than is a personification of wisdom? Who is prudence (Prov. 8:12)? Who is insight (Prov 7:4)? Folly (9:13)?

2. Your case for Jesus being created seems to rest on Col 1:15-17 and Rev 3:14. Why do you think Col. 1:15-17 refers to Jesus being created rather than having positional supremacy over others? Why does it talk of Jesus creating all the rest, but in other passages it speaks of God as the creator (such as Gen 1, Mark 13:19, Rev 4:11)?

Why do you think Rev 3:14 refers to Jesus being the 'beginning' versus the 'ruler' of God's Creation?

Why do you think 1 John 2:13 means that Jesus was made in the beginning rather than, say, Jesus has always been around and fulfilling what God started long ago?

What do you make of John 1:3 possibly countering your conclusion? It says nothing that has been made was made without Jesus. If Jesus was made, then one thing that was made would have been made without Jesus.

3. Why do you think 1 Thess 4:16 shows Paul writing of Jesus having the voice of an archangel rather than the archangel (and a trumpet and possibly a separate loud command) accompanying Jesus' coming?

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Re: Jesus Is Michael

Post #3

Post by Overcomer »

Only Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is the archangel Michael. What I find interesting about it is this: There are 1000 verses in the Bible attesting to the deity of Jesus Christ and the reality of the Triune Godhead. Yet JWs choose a few verses and read into them that Jesus and Michael are the same thing.

I will sit down and look at each of your "proof" texts and return when I have more time. Right now let me explain why Jesus HAD to be both man and God in order to atone for our sins and provide salvation for us.

In the Old Testament, people sacrificed animals to atone for their sins. However, those sacrifices covered there sins temporarily so they had to repeat them over and over and over again.

Only a human sacrifice could atone for the sins of humanity once and for all. But here's the catch: Just as the lamb sacrificed in O.T. days had to be unblemished, so too did the man who was sacrificed for our sins. By unblemished, I mean "sin-free". However, all of us are born with sin natures that we cannot eradicate for ourselves. Therefore, none of us could provide atonement.

Enter Jesus. As both God AND man, he and he alone could atone for our sins. He is the only sinless man to have walked the earth and what made him sinless was the fact that he was God Incarnate. If he had not been God Incarnate, he would not have been sinless and he would not have been able to atone for our sins. If he had only been an angel like Michael, a being created by God, but not deity and not human, he could not have effected our salvation.

I can back all of that up with Scripture, but, as I said, I'm short on time today so I will leave it at that and, hopefully, within the next few days be able to return.

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Re: Jesus Is Michael

Post #4

Post by DavidLeon »

Overcomer wrote: Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:21 pm Only Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is the archangel Michael.
Read the OP.
Overcomer wrote: Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:21 pmWhat I find interesting about it is this: There are 1000 verses in the Bible attesting to the deity of Jesus Christ and the reality of the Triune Godhead. Yet JWs choose a few verses and read into them that Jesus and Michael are the same thing.

I will sit down and look at each of your "proof" texts and return when I have more time. Right now let me explain why Jesus HAD to be both man and God in order to atone for our sins and provide salvation for us.

In the Old Testament, people sacrificed animals to atone for their sins. However, those sacrifices covered there sins temporarily so they had to repeat them over and over and over again.

Only a human sacrifice could atone for the sins of humanity once and for all. But here's the catch: Just as the lamb sacrificed in O.T. days had to be unblemished, so too did the man who was sacrificed for our sins. By unblemished, I mean "sin-free". However, all of us are born with sin natures that we cannot eradicate for ourselves. Therefore, none of us could provide atonement.

Enter Jesus. As both God AND man, he and he alone could atone for our sins. He is the only sinless man to have walked the earth and what made him sinless was the fact that he was God Incarnate. If he had not been God Incarnate, he would not have been sinless and he would not have been able to atone for our sins. If he had only been an angel like Michael, a being created by God, but not deity and not human, he could not have effected our salvation.

I can back all of that up with Scripture, but, as I said, I'm short on time today so I will leave it at that and, hopefully, within the next few days be able to return.
Try doing some unbiased research on the trinity before Christ, in pagan religious beliefs, disagreement on the trinity at council Nicea, Constantine's pagan religious as well as political positions, how he persuaded the council, whether the early Christians believed the trinity and read the scriptures with an open mind.
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Re: Jesus Is Michael

Post #5

Post by Overcomer »

David Leon wrote:
Try doing some unbiased research on the trinity before Christ, in pagan religious beliefs, disagreement on the trinity at council Nicea, Constantine's pagan religious as well as political positions, how he persuaded the council, whether the early Christians believed the trinity and read the scriptures with an open mind
.

First of all, this does not respond to what I wrote about salvation and why Christ had to be God Incarnate to provide it. Can you refute what I have written? Can you prove that Christ did not have to be God Incarnate to atone for our sins?

Second of all, I have done intensive research into this both formally in both at an accredited seminary here in Canada and at an American university as well as informally on my own. Just because someone disagrees with you, that doesn't mean that person hasn't studied the issue.

Third of all, perhaps you could take your own advice and do some unbiased research on the Trinity and the early church's belief and acceptance of it long before Constantine and the Council at Nicea. The early church fathers from the first, second and early third centuries proclaimed Christ to be God, including Polycarp (AD 69-155), Ignatius (AD 50-117), Justin Martyr (AD 100-165), Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 130-202), Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215), Tertullian (AD 150-225) and Origen (AD 185-254) to name a few. You can read quotations from them attesting to this here:

https://www.str.org/w/nine-early-church ... sus-is-god

The early church always accepted the Trinity from the mid-first century onward. However, when a heretic named Arius challenged it, the church then decided they had better formally write down what they knew to be true of Jesus so that people could be instructed correctly in it. We have Athanasius to thank for his work in this area. You can read about him and the Council of Nicea here:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/arti ... important/

You also suggest that I read the Bible with an open mind. I make the same suggestion to you and will go one step further. Read something other than the JW's New World Translation. Proper translation is done by going to the oldest original texts that we have and working from them. That means knowing Greek and Hebrew. The JW translators were not scholars in those languages. They merely took an English Bible and removed or re-wrote statements about Jesus being God to make them fit their belief that he was not deity, not the Second Person of the Triune Godhead. It is, in fact, the only version of the Bible that was written to line up with a specific church's doctrine. As such, it’s a totally bogus translation that no one but JWs use. Use the NIV, NRSV, ESV, or the NASB, but not the NWT. No one outside the JWs will take you seriously at all if you use that translation.

See here:

https://www.gotquestions.org/New-World-Translation.html

Then there's this site:

https://www.neverthirsty.org/bible-qa/q ... anslation/

Please note what it says about the main translator, Frederick Franz. It says:

"Eventually, the list of six translators became known. Frederick W. Franz was the main translator. Raymond Franz, who eventually left the Jehovah’s Witnesses, wrote the following in his book the Crisis of Conscience (1983) about his uncle Fredrick:
.
Fred Franz, however, was the only one with sufficient knowledge of the Bible languages to attempt translation of this kind. He had studied Greek for two years in the University of Cincinnati but was only self-taught in Hebrew.

It should be noted that Frederick Franz was Raymond Franz’s uncle and one of the WTBTS’ presidents. It is reported that Frederick Franz, the primary translator of the NWT, had only twenty-one hours of formal classical Greek training at the University of Cincinnati and only two hours of Biblical Greek or Koine Greek. This information was provided in Frederick Franz’s 1911 autobiography in which he published his own college transcript. It is important to note that Koine Greek is the language taught in theological seminaries for Biblical studies. The normal study course lasts for two years or four semesters. This means that the primary translator of the NWT was inadequately trained to perform the task of Bible translation."

I studied advance Greek at seminary and had to translate a portion of Mark for my final assignment. I can tell you that a person needs more Greek than Franz had to be able to translate the Bible accurately. However, his aim really wasn't to be true to the original Greek, but to make the Bible say what he wanted it to say. That's eisegesis, not exegesis, and it's just plain wrong!

I will post other information in response to you OP separately rather than make one tremendously long post. It will make it easier to respond.

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Re: Jesus Is Michael

Post #6

Post by Overcomer »

When I made the statement that only JWs believe Michael was Jesus, you asked me to re-read the OP. I did and I decided that I would address the list of people that you say agree with the JWs about that and the problems I have with their list.

Let me start off by giving you a warning about JW sites and their arguments against the deity of Jesus Christ. They purposely lie and attempt to deceive their readers. They often do this by citing a Christian scholar, taking a statement he has made out of context, making it look like he agrees with the JW position when, in truth, he doesn’t. You can find this out by looking up the statement in context.

Here’s an example. A JW web site offers a statement about Daniel 12:1 from John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible. It reads:

And at that time shall Michael stand up . . . The Archangel, who has all the angels of heaven under him, and at his command, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.”

According to this web site, this statement proves that Gill thought that Michael and Jesus were one and the same. However, look at the sentence in context:

And at that time shall Michael stand up,.... The Archangel, who has all the angels of heaven under him, and at his command, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ; who is as God, as the name signifies, truly and really God, and equal in nature, power, and glory, to his divine Father.

When read in context, we see that Gill did not claim that Michael and Jesus are the same. In fact, he states that Jesus is truly and really God being equal in nature, power and glory. He actually proclaims the deity of Christ.

I suspect that you may have taken your list of people who supposedly think Jesus and Michael are one and the same from the web site I have just quoted. Did you? Here it is:

http://searchforbibletruths.blogspot.co ... us-as.html

And here’s John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible if you want to look up the citation in question so that you can see how misleading the JW site is for yourself:

https://www.christianity.com/bible/comm ... &b=27&c=12

Gill, throughout his commentary attests to Christ being the Second Person of the Trinity over and over again. Here is what he wrote in his The Doctrine of the Trinity Stated and Vindicated (1731) in defense of the fact that there is

"but one God; that there is a plurality in the Godhead; that there are three divine Persons in it; that the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God; that these are distinct in Personality, the same in substance, equal in power and glory."

See here for the full article about Gill and his defense of the Trinity.

https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/colum ... e-trinity/

And from that same JW web site there is the statement that you quoted saying that John Calvin regarded Michael as Jesus. But when we look at his commentary on Daniel, he doesn’t say that at all.

https://sacred-texts.com/chr/calvin/cc4 ... .ii.iv-p18

Also note how poorly done the referencing is at that site. Very rarely do the authors of these articles use proper footnotes. I think they purposely make it difficult for people to find the original sources on their own because they don’t want people to see how they have doctored the statements to mislead readers.

For example, the quotation from Vine gives the page number (64), but it doesn’t give us any publishing information such as the edition and year that the quotation is taken from which makes it tremendously difficult to check. So what good is the page number given that there are some two dozen editions of it, each with different pagination? Page 64 in my copy of Vine’s says nothing about Jesus being Michael.

However, when I looked up the word “archangel”, here’s what Vine’s said about it:

“’Archangelos’ is not found in the O.T. and only in the N.T. in 1 Thess. 4:10 and Jude 9 where it is used of Michael, who in Daniel is called “one of the chief princes” and “the great prince (Septuagint “the great angel”). Whether are are other beings of this exalted rank in the heavenly hosts, Scripture does not say. 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.” (Vine, W. E., An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (Seventeenth Impression), Fleming H. Revell Company, Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1966, p.72).

So Vines does NOT say that Jesus and Michael are the same at all. It says that Jesus gives a shout in the manner of an archangel, not that he was an archangel. That statement from the JWs is a complete lie!

Then there are the statements from the NIV Study Bible and Smith’s that Jesus was called the Angel of God in his O.T. appearances. The word “angel” means “messenger”. It refers to his role and his function, NOT to his essence. And nowhere does it say that Jesus was the Archangel Michael. Only the JWs believe that – and they do so erroneously. They misquote and misrepresent Christian scholars who defend the Trinity, trying to make it look like people other than themselves believe what they do -- and many of those people misquoted and misrepresented have taken them to task for it. As I said, those sources are quoted to mislead, not elucidate. Don't be led astray by them.

I don’t have time to go over every single name and source you copied and pasted. But I think I have shown you enough evidence that should make you skeptical of JW sites and their misguided theology. There’s an equally bogus one on the Trinity that one of the JWs here quotes all the time, counting on the fact that very few people are going to bother to look up what he says and discover that it is shoddy scholarship at best and downright lies at worst.

Unfortunately, too many people just go to these web sites and cut and paste the information from them without investigating their truth and accuracy. I never quote something unless I have researched it myself and know it to be true on the basis of three different reliable and valid sources. That comes from my background as a journalist where I was taught to NEVER put anything into print that I hadn’t checked out thoroughly. I advise others to do the same.

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Re: Jesus Is Michael

Post #7

Post by Overcomer »

So let's look at the rest of your post, DL.

RE: Jesus being a created being:

In Rev. 3:14, the word that the JWs understand as “beginning” is “arche” in Greek. It can be translated that way, but as Arndt and Gingrich noted in their Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, it means “first cause.” For that reason, the word used here means the “origin” or “source” of God’s creation. It does NOT mean that Christ was the first creation of God. It means he was the origin of the creation.

The word “arche” is used several other times in the Book of Revelation to refer to God as the beginning and the end (Rev. 1:8;21:6:22:13). We certainly don’t understand God to be a created being. So why use the word to mean that of Jesus? And given that Jesus is also called the beginning and the end (alpha and omega), that represents one more item of proof that he is divine and always has been.

Secondly, “arche” is also used to mean “ruler” (see 1 Cor. 15:24, Eph.1:21, Col. 2:16). Therefore, the word carries a double meaning re: Jesus. He has authority over creation.

The JWs also misinterpret Col. 1:15, 16. When Paul calls Jesus the “firstborn”, he isn’t referring to the first-created being. The word Paul uses is “prototokos” which means “the first in rank, preeminence, supremacy or sovereignty”. The Greek word meaning the first to be born is “protoktisis”. Paul would have used that word if he meant that Jesus was the first created being. See here:

http://biblehub.com/str/greek/4416.htm

http://biblehub.com/greek/2937.htm

Look at it this way: In Psalm 89:27, David is called the first-born. But we know he was the eighth of Jesse’s sons. So it couldn’t be referring to his birth order. It was referring to his pre-eminence as the King of Israel, greater than any other king on earth. The same applies to Isaac who is called the first-born and we know his brother, Ishmael was 13 years older. It means unique, favoured, specially blessed.

And if we read further in Colossians, we see that in v. 18 of the first chapter, Jesus is called the head – which further indicates that we are talking about position, not order of creation.

Then there’s the phrase “only begotten Son”. Again, we go to the Greek and see that it comes from the word “monogenes” which means “the only one of his kind”. In other words, it means that Jesus is unique. It does not mean that he was a created being. And given that he calls himself “I AM”, meaning that he has always existed, we can see that he definitely is not a created being, but the eternal God.

https://www.compellingtruth.org/only-begotten-son.html

https://www.gotquestions.org/only-begotten-son.html

As for the passages in Thessalonians and Jude, I have this to say:

Those verses do NOT show clearly or even remotely that Michael is another name for Jesus Christ. Here’s what 1 Thess. 4:16 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."

Jesus is the one coming down from heaven. But do the words “voice of the archangel” mean that Jesus is an archangel, let alone THE archangel Michael? Not at all. If I said my sister sings with the voice of an angel, would you assume she’s an angel? And if Jesus comes with the trumpet call of God, why doesn’t the JW assume that he’s God? After all, if the one clause tells us Jesus is an archangel then why doesn’t the next clause, structured exactly the same way, mean that he’s God?

And no, I’m not using this as a verse to prove that he is. There are hundreds of other verses that show that. I don’t have to read into that verse to try to use it to prove Christ’s deity. But JWs have to read something into that verse to make it seem like Jesus is Michael the Archangel.

Then there's Jude 9. "But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

Michael can't rebuke the devil but has to have the Lord do it. Jesus rebuked the devil many times. One example is Matt: 17:18: Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

How do you explain that?

And then there's the fact that people worship Jesus when the Bible states clearly that no one is to worship an angel. That constitutes idolatry.

“When I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God’ ” (vv. 8b–9).- Revelation 22:8-9.

See here:

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotion ... ip-angels/

Yet people worshiped Jesus. The blind man worshiped him in John 9:38. A leper worshiped him in Matt. 8:1,2.

How do you explain that if Jesus wasn't God Incarnate?

See here for more:

https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don ... rt_213.cfm

That's all I have time for today. Hopefully, I have provided some food for thought. I leave you with this statement from the first chapter of the Book of Hebrews, correctly translated in the NIV:

The Son Superior to Angels
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,

“You are my Son;
today I have become your Father”[a]?

Or again,

“I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son”?

6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,

“Let all God’s angels worship him.”[c]

7 In speaking of the angels he says,

“He makes his angels spirits,
and his servants flames of fire.”[d]

8 But about the Son he says,

“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy.”[e]

10 He also says,

“In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11 They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
12 You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.”[f]

13 To which of the angels did God ever say,

“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet”[g]?

14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

a Hebrews 1:5 Psalm 2:7
b Hebrews 1:5 2 Samuel 7:14; 1 Chron. 17:13
c Hebrews 1:6 Deut. 32:43 (see Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint)
d Hebrews 1:7 Psalm 104:4
e Hebrews 1:9 Psalm 45:6,7
f Hebrews 1:12 Psalm 102:25-27
g Hebrews 1:13 Psalm 110:1

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Re: Jesus Is Michael

Post #8

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B
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Re: Jesus Is Michael

Post #9

Post by tigger 2 »

re post #6 by Overcomer:
When I made the statement that only JWs believe Michael was Jesus, you asked me to re-read the OP. I did and I decided that I would address the list of people that you say agree with the JWs about that and the problems I have with their list.

Let me start off by giving you a warning about JW sites and their arguments against the deity of Jesus Christ. They purposely lie and attempt to deceive their readers. They often do this by citing a Christian scholar, taking a statement he has made out of context, making it look like he agrees with the JW position when, in truth, he doesn’t. You can find this out by looking up the statement in context.

Here’s an example. A JW web site [not an official JW website, but a personal web site of one who is a JW.] offers a statement about Daniel 12:1 from John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible. It reads:

And at that time shall Michael stand up . . . The Archangel, who has all the angels of heaven under him, and at his command, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.”

According to this web site, this statement proves that Gill thought that Michael and Jesus were one and the same. However, look at the sentence in context:

And at that time shall Michael stand up,.... The Archangel, who has all the angels of heaven under him, and at his command, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ; who is as God, as the name signifies, truly and really God, and equal in nature, power, and glory, to his divine Father.

When read in context, we see that Gill did not claim that Michael and Jesus are the same. In fact, he states that Jesus is truly and really God being equal in nature, power and glory. He actually proclaims the deity of Christ.
[This truly is an example of a quotation where many trinitarians cry foul when anyone else does it. But, like others, it is a true quote and is not misleading. Gill truly wrote that Michael the Archangel ... the Son of God, our Lord Christ Jesus. The fact that trinitarian Gill goes on to say he is truly and really God (as would be expected for trinitarians), does not change the fact he also referred to Michael as Jesus Christ. Why should anyone who is trying to show that Michael was understood to be Christ have to show any thing else that Gill believed? ]
I suspect that you may have taken your list of people who supposedly think Jesus and Michael are one and the same from the web site I have just quoted. Did you? Here it is:

http://searchforbibletruths.blogspot.co ... us-as.html

And here’s John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible if you want to look up the citation in question so that you can see how misleading the JW site is for yourself:

https://www.christianity.com/bible/comm ... &b=27&c=12

Gill, throughout his commentary attests to Christ being the Second Person of the Trinity over and over again. Here is what he wrote in his The Doctrine of the Trinity Stated and Vindicated (1731) in defense of the fact that there is

"but one God; that there is a plurality in the Godhead; that there are three divine Persons in it; that the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God; that these are distinct in Personality, the same in substance, equal in power and glory."

See here for the full article about Gill and his defense of the Trinity.

https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/colum ... e-trinity/
[And that a trinitarian believes in the trinity has nothing to do with the question of who did or did not believe that Michael was another name for Jesus.]
And from that same JW web site there is the statement that you quoted saying that John Calvin regarded Michael as Jesus. But when we look at his commentary on Daniel, he doesn’t say that at all.

[https://sacred-texts.com/chr/calvin/cc4 ... .ii.iv-p18]

Also note how poorly done the referencing is at that site. Very rarely do the authors of these articles use proper footnotes. I think they purposely make it difficult for people to find the original sources on their own because they don’t want people to see how they have doctored the statements to mislead readers.
[They have at least given this reference for Calvin's comment: J. Calvin, Commentaries On The Book Of The Prophet Daniel, trans. T. Myers (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), vol. 2 p. 369. And The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia quote: vol. 3, p. 2048, Eerdmans Publishing, 1984 printing. And Jonathan Edwards quote equating "the glorious Michael" with Christ: Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, Ch. 1, “Angels." And the quote by Hengstenberg: Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament and a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, 1836-9, Vol. IV, pp. 304-5 (in the T. & T. Clark publication; p. 269 in the Kregel publication). And Scott's quote equating Michael with Jesus: Thomas Scott, in his notes on the Bible: See Gen. xvi. 9, 10. Chap. xviii throughout. Exod. iii. 2-7. Judg. ii. 1-5, Dan x. 13, 21. Chap. xii. 1, Rev. xii. 7. - But, of course, you ignore these and don't attempt to look up many others who are only quoted by name. That's your privilege of course, but it seems a bit devious.

[Also notice how Overcomer has so 'carefully' referenced Calvin's "Commentary on Daniel" in the above link. It is actually a link to a translation of Calvin's commentary on JUDE.]

....
I don’t have time to go over every single name and source you copied and pasted. But I think I have shown you enough evidence that should make you skeptical of JW sites and their misguided theology. There’s an equally bogus one on the Trinity that one of the JWs here quotes all the time, counting on the fact that very few people are going to bother to look up what he says and discover that it is shoddy scholarship at best and downright lies at worst.
[Why don't you answer it by uncovering the "shoddy scholarship" and lies for us?]
Unfortunately, too many people just go to these web sites and cut and paste the information from them without investigating their truth and accuracy. I never quote something unless I have researched it myself and know it to be true on the basis of three different reliable and valid sources. That comes from my background as a journalist where I was taught to NEVER put anything into print that I hadn’t checked out thoroughly. I advise others to do the same.
[So your perfect habit of never putting "anything into print that you hadn't checked out thoroughly" has allowed you to print in this same post a link to Calvin's commentary on Daniel which is in reality Calvin's commentary on JUDE!! I guess I should scream and shout about your misleading "lies," as you do. But I realize how easy it is to make an honest error.]

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tigger 2
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Re: Jesus Is Michael

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"Michael - There have been very various opinions as to who Michael is. Many Protestant interpreters have supposed that Christ is meant." - Barnes admits this but disagrees with them. - Barnes Notes on the Bible, Rev. 12:7.

The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia: - "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 Daniel" – vol. 3, p. 2048, Eerdmans Publishing, 1984 printing.

John Calvin: "I embrace the opinion of those who refer this [Michael] 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 (Daniel 12:1).

John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity, Book 7 Chapter 5:

“1b2. Another prophecy in Daniel 12:1-3 respects the second and personal coming of Christ; for he is meant by Michael, who is "as God", as his name signifies, equal to him; the ‘great prince,’ the prince of the kings of the earth, and the head of all principalities and powers.”

"Michael ... in Dan. 10:13,21; 12:1, is described as having a special charge of the Jewish nation, and in Rev. 12:7-9 as the leader of the angelic army. So exalted are the position and offices ascribed to Michael, that many think the Messiah is meant." -- International Bible Dictionary -- Illustrated (Plainfield, NJ, Logos International, 1977), p. 35.

Fairbairn’s Imperial Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Patrick Fairbairn, D.D., editor, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing, 1957, Vol. IV, pp. 238, 239; Revised 1997, Vol. Seven, p. 800. (originally published as The Imperial Bible Dictionary, 1891), states this:

“MI’CHAEL … there have in general been two rival opinions, either that he is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, or that he is one of the so-called seven archangels. We hold the former opinion.”

An Exposition of the Bible says of Michael:
 
"It is even itself probable that the Leader of the hosts of light (in Rev. 12:7-9) will be no other than the Captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.... Above all, the prophecies of Daniel, in which the name Michael first occurs, may be said to decide the point." -- publ. in Hartford, CT, 1910, by the Scranton Co., vol. 6, p. 882.

And p. 285, The practical expositor by John Guyse, Edinburgh, 1797:

"Christ, (who, as many good expositors understand it, is signified by Michael)"
or, as actually written by Guyse in this footnote for Rev. 12:7: "Chrift (who, as many good expofitors underftand it, is fignified by Michael)".

You will note that the references are there.
Last edited by tigger 2 on Sun Nov 28, 2021 4:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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