Jesus in the Old Testament?

[faithymom]

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.

Michael is one of many.
Jesus is one-of-a-kind.

[JWDisciple]

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.

Michael is one of many.
Jesus is one-of-a-kind.

# 1 :

The fact that Daniel 10:13 in An American Translation and Moffat's translation uses the expression 'one of the archangels' is irrelevant, because the original Aramaic does not say 'archangels,' but rather 'chief [or first] princes'.

# 2

The fact that Michael is “one of the chief princes” (Daniel 10:13) does not rule out his being Christ in his prehuman existence. It does not even preclude his being unique, as some critics claim! Why should all princes have equal rank? England's Prince Charles doesn't have the same rank as Prince Andrew or Edward! 'Princes' (plural) implies at least two. Since God himself is called “the Prince of the host” and “the Prince of princes” (Daniel 8:11, 25), there is no reason why the two “chief princes” should not be God and Christ.




# 3

The word 'archangel' means "chief angel" and this term is only used in the singular - in connection with Michael and Christ.


lastly :

The fact that Strong's Dictionary calls Gabriel an 'archangel' is neither here nor there, because the Bible doesn't!

An exhaustive study on this issue here :

http://www.jehovah.to/xlation/ar.html

http://www.jehovah.to/exe/general/archangel.htm

Don't take my word for it ( don't believe me )...Examine the evidence for yourself . Any honest truth seeker , will easily see that the JW belief in Michael being the preincarnate Jesus , is not as arbitrary and unfounded , as Evangelicals would like us all to believe ...

[faithymom]

This evangelical HAS examined the evidence and studied...and I have found it arbitrary and totally unfounded.
The Jesus=Michael doctrine must be forced into the clear reading of Scripture.
And since JWs consistently claim that the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible they should use their own criteria and dismiss this hogwash as well.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say "Jesus is Michael" and many times states the opposite: Jesus is NOT an angel. Jesus is above the angels.
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
Hebrews 11In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
5For to which of the angels did God ever say, <---- [that's a rhetorical question...the answer is God said that to NONE of the angels]
"You are my Son;
today I have become your Father"? Or again,
"I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son"? 6And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,
"Let all God's angels worship him." 7In speaking of the angels he says,
"He makes his angels winds,
his servants flames of fire." 8 But about the Son he says,
"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,
and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy." 10He also says,
"In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
12You 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." 13To which of the angels did God ever say,
"Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet"? 14Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
Hebrews 2:5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6But there is a place where someone has testified:
"What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
7You made him a little lower than the angels;
you crowned him with glory and honor
8 and put everything under his feet."
In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. 9But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

[JWDisciple]

You wrote :

This evangelical HAS examined the evidence and studied...and I have found it arbitrary and totally unfounded.The Jesus=Michael doctrine must be forced into the clear reading of Scripture.
And since JWs consistently claim that the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible they should use their own criteria and dismiss this hogwash as well.

I and other JWs I know , do not reject the notion of Jehovah being a Trinity or plurality of persons on account of a particular word not being found in the Bible ( there's a lot more to it than that ..) ..However , as pointed out in the study which you probably didn't go over ...Both Michael and Jesus are the only persons identified as Archangels , there are no others ..And not only do JWs see this , but the reformers , well known protestant biblical commentators , likewise see this connection .


More , your assumption that the JW position on Michael and Jesus , solely stands on a mere semantic correlation or identification , demonstrates that you have not gone over the evidence .. .Anyways whoever is truly interested in the truth , will visit those two links , read the studies and see for themselves , that you are wrong .



So , your charge that it is nothing more than arbitrary semantics is it self arbitrary .

You wrote :


Nowhere in the Bible does it say "Jesus is Michael" and many times states the opposite: Jesus is NOT an angel. Jesus is above the angels.

The above objections , are dealt with and systemically torn apart , in the JW study I provided in my previous post .

You wrote / cited :

Colossians 1:15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
Hebrews 11In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
5For to which of the angels did God ever say, <---- [that's a rhetorical question...the answer is God said that to NONE of the angels]"You are my Son;
today I have become your Father"? Or again, "I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son"? 6And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,
"Let all God's angels worship him." 7In speaking of the angels he says,
"He makes his angels winds,
his servants flames of fire." 8 But about the Son he says,
"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,
and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy." 10He also says,
"In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
12You 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." 13To which of the angels did God ever say,
"Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet"? 14Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
Hebrews 2:5It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6But there is a place where someone has testified:
"What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
7You made him a little lower than the angels;
you crowned him with glory and honor
8 and put everything under his feet."
In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. 9But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

The objection that Christ can not be called an angel, because Hebrews 1:4 says that he was “made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they” is unfounded. Note that he inherited, obtained the name, not that he always had it. When Hebrews chapter 1 refers to the angels, it means the angels in general. It does not necessarily have to imply that Christ can't be called an angel. When Luke 21:29 refers to “the fig tree and all the trees”, it doesn't mean that the fig tree isn't a tree too. Likewise, when the Bible refers to Christ and the angels, it doesn't have to imply that he's not an angel.


The basic meaning of “angel” (Hebrew, mal·'akh´; Greek, ag´ge·los) is “messenger.” As the “Word” (Greek, lo´gos), Jesus is God's messenger par excellence.


The demons said: “What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?” (Matthew 8:29) “And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep [Greek: αβυσσος, abyssos].” In Revelation 20:1-3, John tells us: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit [Greek: αβυσσος, abyssos]”.

Isaiah 9:6 refers to Christ as 'Wonderful, Counselor'. Interestingly, the Greek Septuagint refers to Christ as 'μεγαλης βουλης αγγελος, megales boules aggelos' - 'Messenger (or Angel) of Great Counsel.'

" Michael may mean an angel; but 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.” - John Calvin. (See Calvin's writings online at http://www.ccel.org/c/calvin/comment...25/htm/vii.htm)

“Michael - Christ alone is the protector of his church, when all the princes of the earth desert or oppose it.” - John Wesley's commentary on Daniel 10:21. (See Wesley's writings online at http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/notes/daniel.htm)

[ApologiaPhoenix]

Jeremiah. I've been doing blogs on the Trinity. You can find my blog in my signature line and I have been going through the Old Testament namely looking at the Angel of the Lord character.

It should help. You can also find my article at Tektonics under "T" for Trinity. "The Angel of the Lord as a Trinitarian Precursor."

I'd also say that if Jesus was firstborn in a temporal sense, I'd think he'd exist in the Old Testament....

[evantisin]

This evangelical HAS examined the evidence and studied...and I have found it arbitrary and totally unfounded.
The Jesus=Michael doctrine must be forced into the clear reading of Scripture.
And since JWs consistently claim that the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible they should use their own criteria and dismiss this hogwash as well.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say "Jesus is Michael" and many times states the opposite: Jesus is NOT an angel. Jesus is above the angels.
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
Hebrews 11In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
5For to which of the angels did God ever say, <---- [that's a rhetorical question...the answer is God said that to NONE of the angels]
"You are my Son;
today I have become your Father"? Or again,
"I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son"? 6And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,
"Let all God's angels worship him." 7In speaking of the angels he says,
"He makes his angels winds,
his servants flames of fire." 8 But about the Son he says,
"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,
and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
9You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy." 10He also says,
"In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
12You 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." 13To which of the angels did God ever say,
"Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet"? 14Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
Hebrews 2:5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6But there is a place where someone has testified:
"What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
7You made him a little lower than the angels;
you crowned him with glory and honor
8 and put everything under his feet."
In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. 9But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 1 and 2 are a testimony to the fact that when the Word was the man Jesus (e.g. "YHWH Saves" or "Jehovah Saves"), he did not live on Earth as "fully God" or as an angel. He was no longer an angel (or, no longer divine, to whatever degree it was before he became a man).

Consider Hebrews 2:7 and Hebrews 2:9. Jesus was not "fully God." As a man, he was no longer an angel or "the angel of the Lord" or "the word of the Lord."

When God set "the Son" or "the Word" to be born through the virgin birth, God "made him a little lower than the angels", which means that Jesus was not "fully God" at all. He was no longer an angel, but a man. A mortal man. Jesus was given authority by God (John 10:18), which Jesus could give to the disciples (Luke 9:1), and could also diminish (Mark 5:28-30).

Hebrews 1:13 is a testimony to the fact that it was a mortal man that was exalted, not an angel. When Jesus came, he was a man. If God made Jesus "a little lower than the angels" (Hebrews 2:9), Jesus could not have been "fully God and fully man."

Also, consider the instances in the Old Testament where "the angel of the Lord" and "the word of the Lord" are used.

In the Targum (Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic), the phrases "the angel of the Lord" and "the word of the Lord" are switched in some places and freely used interchangeably.

"The Word" was an angel.

Philo of Alexandria was a Jew who would use terminology from Greek philosophy to theorize over the Old Testament's narratives of the patriarchs. Born in about 20 AD and died in 50 AD, he introduced and developed the concept of "the Logos," which Apostle John applied to his Gospel (c90-100 AD).

For introductory background to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John

Hymn to the Word

This prologue identifies Jesus as the eternal Word (Logos) of God. Thus John asserts Jesus' innate superiority over all divine messengers, whether angels or prophets. Here John adapts the doctrine of the Logos, God's creative principle, from Philo, a 1st-century Hellenized Jew. Philo, in turn, had adopted the term Logos from Greek philosophy, using it in place of the Hebrew concept of Wisdom (sophia) as the intermediary between the transcendent Creator and the material world. Some scholars argue that the prologue was taken over from an existing hymn and added at a later stage in the gospel's composition.

Consider the following examples of Philo's work:
The Works of Philo of Judaeus - Volume II:
http://books.google.com/books?id=z1A...ummary_r&cad=0
Page 44 - The Word was used as God's "instrument" in creation.

Page 31 - The Word is "an archangel of many names," the "eldest of his angels," and "the first-born word."

Page 130, 210 - The Word as the image of God; a "second God."

Page 134 - The Word is given the job of being God's "ambassador."

Page 140 - The Word as a "divider" while God is the Creator.

Page 195 - States that "the Word of God" is an angel.

Page 208-209 - "Let us make" means a plurality of makers. God separates tasks in creation with his servant.

In Exodus 3:2, it shows that "the angel of the Lord" was what God used to appear in a theophany to Moses. Moses never saw God himself, but "the image of God." Moses saw "the angel of the Lord."

The coincidences with Michael the archangel was what led the Jehovah's Witnesses to infer that they are likely the same being. It's an inference. There is nothing in the scriptures that directly states that Jesus is Michael the archangel. That and the idea that Jesus used to be an angel ("the Word") fits and coincides with scripture better than the idea that "Jesus is God."

[ApologiaPhoenix]

I could agree with all that you just said with Jesus being an angel, which simply means messenger, with Jesus being made positionally lower than the angels, and with Jesus being the one through whom creation comes about.

Somehow, you said all that and did not touch ontology once.

[ApologiaPhoenix]

And here I was thinking all along that according to "The Finished Mystery," that Michael is the Pope. Now let's see....

Jesus is Michael...
Michael is the Pope....

Makes me as a Protestant wonder why JWs aren't Catholic.

[IncRus]

H4317
מיכאל
mîykâ'êl
BDB Definition:
Michael = “who is like God”

....He is Jehovah's Salvation , or the means through which Jehovah saves ...In the OT we find that Cyrus was Jehovah's means of deliverance for the Jews , from captivity :

Isa 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;

Isa 44:28 That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.


Neh 9:27 Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.

Oba 1:21 And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD'S.

Jehovah saves , through various means ..including sending "saviours " ...


Michael ( He who is like Jehovah / God ..He who reflects the nature , power and anointing of Jehovah perfectly ...) is the Angelic-Lord of Israel ( all nations have their spirit-lords , and are under the influence of angelic powers/ not all angels are good .. ) ....

He came to His own ( the Jews / Israelites ), becoming a man , uniquely begotten ( mono-genesis ) of a virgin and took upon himself the sin of all of humanity ...He is the glory of Israel , and the archetype and lord of the human race ..He now stands as High Priest before Jehovah , for all humanity .

He is the Prototokos / first born of creation, and holds the highest rank of all creatures ...It is through Him that we approach Jehovah , for without Him , we would remain under the curse of death and destruction .


This is what JWs believe ..

If JWs believe that Jesus was Michael, the "Angelic Lord of Israel," BEFORE becoming the MAN, Jesus, why do JWs TEACH that Jesus is the "word that was WITH God in the beginning and WAS a god" (John 1:1 NWT).

Shouldn't Michael be the "word that was a god" in the beginning?