Michael Identified With Christ
4. This Angel-Jehovah bore a name among the angels; namely, Michael, the meaning of which is "Who is like God." He is represented as a person, one who goes and comes, greater and mightier than Gabriel. Dan. 10:13. In fact He is called "Michael the Archangel," the chief of all the angels. Jude 9. It is His voice that raises the dead. 1 Thess. 4:16. But our Lord Himself shows that it is His voice which will raise the dead (John 5:28, 29); therefore, the personal Michael of the Old Testament is identical with the Christ of the New. 5. Seven centuries before Christ a prophet of God foretold our Lord's birth as a human, and His birthplace. Micah 5:2. Out of Bethlehem would come "One . . . whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting"—language that could not refer to an abstract Word. It implies that the "One" referred to is as personal before that time as He was after it. 6. Paul, in speaking of the Son of God's love, calls Him "the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation;" that "in Him were all things created;" and that "He is before all things." Col. 1:13-18. Surely this language applies to a person, and fits that in Genesis, "Let US make." Another writer by inspiration teaches the same thing. "Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands: they shall perish; but Thou continuest." Heb. 1:10-13. 7. One more evidence from among others, the words of our Lord Himself: "And now, Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." John 17:5. "As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent I them." The apostles were persons before they were sent. Even so our Lord was a personal being. As a member of the great Godhead, our blessed Lord stepped down to live a servant of God, an Angel among the angels, a Man among men, filled all vacancies with His fulness of life and character, and triumphed for every sinful soul. But all the mysteries we may not, can not understand, any more than we can understand the process of digestion or creation.