The Archangels

There is a very general impression that the Bible asserts the real existence of two chief angelic beings—archangels—named respectively Michael and Gabriel. It may come as something of a surprise therefore to learn that the word "archangel"—chief angel—occurs only twice in the New Testament and not at all in the Old. In point of fact very little is said about these two personalities, the only two members of the celestial world identified by name, although what little is said is full of significance.

Much more is related about these two in the apocryphal Book of 1 Enoch; although it must be remembered that this only enshrines Jewish tradition of the 2nd century B.C., when that book was written, and its value assessed accordingly. In that book—which does not use the term archangel, this being confined to the New Testament—Gabriel is pictured as the messenger of God, standing in his presence continually to receive his commissions and hasting then to carry them out. Michael is the warrior and guardian of Israel, always at hand when danger threatens the chosen nation, to defend and deliver. The Bible, for all its brevity on the subject, supports these positions so that to this extent at least the old Jewish traditions appear to be well founded.

Of the two, only Gabriel is recorded as having actually intervened in human history and held converse with certain human beings, and that on three occasions only. He is said to have appeared to Daniel (Dan.8.16 & 9.21) to convey information to the prophet regarding God's future plans for mankind and the manner in which future world history would be affected; to Zacharias (Luke 1.19) to apprise him of the forthcoming birth of his son, John the Baptist, with details of the mission for which John was destined; and to Mary of Nazareth (Luke 1.26) to tell her that she was to be the mother of Jesus. The veracity of the latter two instances rest on the reliability of that very sober historian, Luke, and the truthfulness of his informants, and on one other factor. That factor is the overriding power of the Holy Spirit superintending the composition of the Book which is the Divine revelation to man. It is unthinkable that God would have allowed two such vital happenings as the birth of Jesus and his herald John to be associated with alleged circumstances which never really happened and it is essential therefore to believe that the conversations related by Luke really did take place and that the messenger really did come from the celestial world and really is known—so far as humankind at any rate is concerned—as the angel Gabriel.

The fact that nobody in modern times can vouch for having been visited by an angel from heaven and the possibility should be denied therefore is irrelevant. No one in Europe in the Fifteenth Century believed that there was another world of intelligent beings on the other side of the Atlantic but it was there all the same and eventually Columbus reached it. The Bible is a very reliable authority on a great many things which lie completely outside the range of present human experience but are not necessarily untrue on that account.

Gabriel is nowhere referred to as an archangel. The reference in 1 Thess.4.16 to the "voice of the archangel" and "the trump of God", which heralds the Second Advent of our Lord, is very generally accredited to Gabriel—from which is derived the expression "Gabriel's trumpet" as applied to the Last Day—but the only foundation for this impression is the general belief that Gabriel is the Divine messenger to men on earth. It may be a true impression: it may well be that there is one particular celestial being high in honour in the courts of God, whose specific duty is the discharge of special commissions to mankind in connection with the onward progress of the Divine plan. If such be indeed the case it might well be that other occasions of angelic visitation recorded in the Scriptures, such as those to Paul and Peter, to Abraham, Balaam, Gideon, Manoah and so on, were examples of the coming of this Gabriel to earth to discharge some specific duty. His appearing in the form of a human being upon such occasions is consistent with the necessity of the case; Gabriel in his normal state would be impossible of perception by human senses, and he must needs temporarily assume a body of human flesh in order to communicate.

Gabriel's most spectacular appearances, to use the term, were to the prophet Daniel. It has long been recognised that of all the Biblical writers Daniel received the most detailed and comprehensive view of the manner in which human history would develop and culminate in the collapse of earthly power and the establishment of Christ's Kingdom upon earth. Fourteen years before the fall of Babylon at the hands of Cyrus of Persia Daniel was the recipient of a Divine revelation relating to the yet future clash between the empires of Persia and Greece, with the triumph of the latter (Dan.8). Gabriel stood beside him and explained the whole matter. Fifteen years later, in answer to Daniel's earnest prayer that the Babylonian captivity be ended and the Jewish people allowed to return to their own land, Gabriel again visited the prophet and extended the foreview of "things to come" to include the coming of Christ, at that time still five centuries future (Dan.9). Two years after that he came again, for the third and last time, to carry the story still farther to the consummation of all things at the Second Advent and the Messianic reign (Dan.10-12).

It was at the time of this last visit that Gabriel passed a remark which represents one of the most intriguing problems of the Old Testament. Daniel had been in prayer session with God for three full weeks, interceding for his people and awaiting the reply. Gabriel now explains the reason for the delay. "The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained (left him) there with the kings of Persia" (Ch.10.13). Who was this "prince of the kingdom of Persia" possessing power to withstand the archangel of God on his way to execute his Divine commission? Who or what is it that can obstruct the answer of God to the sincere prayer of one of his children? This whole subject is so momentous as to require separate treatment; suffice here to say that the general conclusion is that Gabriel was referring to some conflict with unknown spiritual powers behind the scenes of the political stage of Persia and that his involvement in this conflict—which might well have been one for the influencing of the mind of Cyrus king of Persia for or against Israel—had to take precedence over his coming to Daniel. The impasse, he says, was resolved by the coming of Michael, "one of the chief princes", to his aid so that he was able to proceed to the execution of his mission.

Michael was looked upon as the great warrior-champion of Israel, working behind the scenes to defend and deliver the nation from its enemies whenever by reason of loyalty to the Covenant they had merited such deliverance. As with Gabriel, he is mentioned by name only a few times, three times in the book of Daniel and twice in the N. T. Here in Daniel he is pictured in Ch.10 as holding off the enemy forces which would forbid the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian captivity, and then again in Ch.12.1 as "standing up" to overthrow the world forces of evil at the end of this Age which would oppose the incoming Messianic Kingdom. Whilst in Ch.10.13 there is no doubt that Michael is as literally real a personage as is Gabriel, it may be that in the metaphorical narrative of Ch.12 his name is a nom-de-plume for the Person of the Lord Christ who is to take his great power at his Second Advent and bring to an end the powers of this world—unless, of course one can envisage this celestial warrior for righteousness being appointed to some active duty in the whole catalogue of events which are to comprise the end of this world and the beginning of the next.

An unknown incident involving Michael is alluded to in Jude 9. "Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee". No book now extant includes any reference to this incident; according to Origen (De Princip 3.2.1) it was derived from a work called the Assumption of Moses but that book is not now known to be in existence. The Targum of Jonathan, commenting on Deut.34.6, says that Michael was appointed to be guardian of Moses' grave but this is most certainly a Jewish fable. Since, according to the Bible account, no man knew the place of Moses' burial there would seem singularly little point in detaching a celestial dignitary of high rank from his normal duties to look after it. The reason for Michael's reputed dispute with the devil in Jude does not emerge; it has been suggested that the Devil wanted the body to make it an object of idolatry but this looks like another story invented to fit the case. Jude may have had access to some historical document since lost; on the other hand he may merely have been alluding to some popular First Century tradition familiar to his readers without necessarily endorsing it as true history, to illustrate the point he was making.

There is another possible explanation, which involves the conclusion that Jude was not talking about the death of Moses at all.

Moses was on the way back to Egypt to deliver Israel, accompanied by his wife and child, met with some unexplained threat to his life. The narrative runs (Exo.4.24) that in "the way in the inn, the LORD met him, and sought to kill him". His wife took a knife and circumcised their son—apparently the rite had not been carried out—whereupon the threat was removed and the Lord "let him go". Why the Lord should thus seek the death of the man upon whom he had just conferred the responsibility of leading the people of Israel out of Egypt does not appear and is difficult to understand. It so happens, however, that the apocryphal "Book of Jubilees", written about 250 B.C. and from internal evidence believed to be based upon a Hebrew text of the Old Testament differing somewhat from both the Masoretic and the Septuagint, says that it was Satan who thus sought to kill Moses. (It is not unknown in the Old Testament for deeds inspired by Satan to be accredited to the Lord in recognition of his overruling responsibility for all that He permits— compare 2 Sam.24.1 with 1 Chron.21.1). It is usually thought that Moses was seized with some sudden illness which threatened his life. Now if it be surmised that Satan, in the endeavour to frustrate the plan for Israel's deliverance, was the one who sought thus to kill Moses, and was withstood by Michael the archangel "behind the scenes", as it were, maybe this rather perplexing incident would be better understood and Jude's allusion with it. The word in Jude for "body"—soma—means equally well a living body and does not necessarily imply a corpse.

The only other allusion to Michael is in Rev.12.7 where it is clearly metaphorical. After the catching up to heaven of the "man child", away from the gasp of the "dragon", we are told that "Michael and his angels" fought the dragon and his angels, who were in consequence expelled from heaven. The dragon is symbolic of a strong earthly power—Pagan Rome; this much at least is agreed by most expositors—and Michael, with his angels, must be symbolic of the power which engages the dragon in combat and expels him from his position of rule and authority. A complete exposition of Rev.12 would be out of place here; let it suffice to say that here, as in Dan.12, the name of Michael is used as a symbol to convey a definite idea—the uprising of a righteous power to challenge and overthrow the forces of evil at a time of great need.

It is often stated that the meaning of the name "Michael" is "One who is like God" and on this rather slender basis it is sometimes suggested that "Michael the archangel" is in fact identical in person with our Lord Jesus Christ in his pre-human state. This is really not justified. Assuming that the name is of Hebrew origin—which is not necessarily the case—the meaning is an interrogative expression "Who is like God?" the implication being, of course, that no creature can be like God. The prefix "micha" is derived from the interrogative personal pronoun "mi", and appears in other names such as "Micah" and "Micaiah", meaning "who is like Jehovah?"

Jewish tradition held that there were seven archangels. In addition to Gabriel, the messenger of God, and Michael, whose special care was Israel, there were Raphael, who looked after the remainder of mankind, Saraquel, who had authority over the fallen angels, Uriel, who looked after the torrential earth and the nether regions (tartarus), Remiel, the sun and moon, and Raquel, custodian of the five planets. All of this was probably derived from Babylonian mythology. The Babylonians have seven "Watchers" who were the intermediaries between the gods and the human race. These "watchers" are referred to in Dan.4.17 in connection with Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the tree. No trace of this is found prior to the Babylonian captivity, neither are the angelic visitants to earth then distinguished by specific names. The early Israelites were content to recognise the fact that when the occasion so demanded an emissary from heaven would come to earth for some specific purpose. The names first appear in Daniel; perhaps it was from that time that it began to be recognised that there are in the courts of heaven two greatly honoured personal beings, Michael and Gabriel, chief angels among the angels, who have intimate connection with earthly affairs. They may even take a much greater part in the supervision and direction of events in our own day than we realise. The brief glimpses that the Scriptures afford us do at least indicate that there must be great activity going on "behind the veil" in respect to the forces which are working together to achieve mankind's deliverance from sin and death.

AOH