MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL Ty Gibson Eric Mason (, a prominent Christian preacher and author, recently made a short post on Instagram in which he asserts that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a cult. The first and primary reason he offers to support this claim is because Adventists generally hold that Christ is Michael the Archangel. From this premise, Mason makes the rather massive leap of logic that Adventists must, therefore, believe that Jesus is an angel—a created being—and, therefore, Adventist deny the deity of Christ by claiming He is merely an angel made by God and not Himself God. In this, Mason has drawn gigantic conclusions based on minuscule data. And the matter is quite serious, because his gigantic conclusion is to write off an entire Protestant denomination of his brothers and sisters in Christ as a cult. In this, he has done horrendous damage to the reputation of millions of his fellow Christians. I can only assume that Mason has made this mistake honestly and not maliciously, due to a lack of information on the subject, and that he will offer a public correction once he does have the information, which I will here provide. First, the Seventh-day Adventist Church absolutely and unequivocally holds to the Christian doctrine of the coeternal deity of Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit. By claiming otherwise, Mason has made an extremely unfair and damaging claim against the Adventist Church. Secondly, holding that Christ is the Michael of the biblical narrative does not necessitate denial of the deity of Christ. The Adventist Church does not believe that Jesus is a created angel. Mason simply lacks background theological and historical knowledge on the subject, leading him to draw conclusions that are completely unfounded. The Seventh-day Adventist Church did not originate the idea that Christ is the Michael of Scripture. Rather, the Adventist Church has simply held this teaching consistent with the general position of Protestant Christianity up until relatively recently in church history. The fact of the matter is that John Calvin, the great Protestant Reformer, to whom Eric Mason must look with great respect since he is himself a Calvinist, stated that Michael is Christ. Charles Spurgeon, perhaps the most celebrated Baptist preacher in the history of the denomination, also held that the Michael of Scripture is none other than Jesus Christ prior to His incarnation. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, held the same position. The universally celebrated Matthew Henry Bible Commentary, as well as the Matthew Poole Bible commentary, both hold that Christ is the Michael of the biblical narrative. Is Eric Mason going to declare John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, John Wesley, Matthew Henry, and Matthew Poole all to be cultists because they believed Christ to be the Michael of Scripture? I don't think so. All of these individuals believed in the eternal deity of Christ, while simultaneously holding that Michael is none other than the pre-incarnate Christ active in human history before being born in Bethlehem as God in the flesh. The Adventist Church has simply continued holding this original Protestant position. I provide below the quotations from the above named Protestant thinkers regarding Michael, all of which can easily be referenced by simple Google searches. Now, then, why did the above named Protestant luminaries, as well as Christians in general until relatively recently in church history, regard Michael the Archangel to be none other than the pre-incarnate Christ? Here I will briefly offer the biblical reasoning for the position. First, here are the basic identifying characteristics of Michael: 1. Michael is a Hebrew that means, Who is like God? The idea embedded in the names is that Michael is the one who reveals to us what God is really like. This is precisely the stated mission of Christ in such Scriptures as John 14:9 and Hebrews 1:1-4.

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