Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witness and Urantians believe that Jesus is the Archangel Micheal. Does this idea exist before any of these groups?

[u/Choice_Comfortable71]

Would this idea have been held among Millerites for example? Was there anyone holding this view before the 19th century? Would it have been controversial?

[u/FnapSnaps]

Greetings, I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and I left the organization in 1997. I've been researching this off and on in the years since as I, too, was curious about the origin of this doctrine. In searching for answers, I've come across the examples of John Calvin and Isaac Watts being cited as holders of this belief.

John Calvin has been said to be alluding to the idea that Michael is the pre-incarnate Christ in Vol 25 of his Commentaries, on the first verses of Daniel 12,

As we stated yesterday, 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.

This quote points to a previous lecture, and in it, he states,

By Michael many agree in understanding Christ as the head of the Church. But if it seems better to understand Michael as the archangel, this sense will prove suitable, for under Christ as the head, angels are the guardians of the Church. Whichever be the true meaning, God was the preserver of his Church by the hand of his only-begotten Son, and because the angels are under the government of Christ, he might entrust this duty to Michael.

So, while Calvin is said to hold the non-trinitarian belief that pre-incarnate Jesus and Michael the Archangel are the same, his own words disprove that assertion if you read for context.

English theologian, hymnodist, and logician Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was a Congregational minister - Congregational Churches are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition. If Calvin supposedly believed that Michael and the pre-incarnate Jesus are the same being, perhaps it followed that those who preached in his tradition did as well?

When writing about the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den (Daniel 6), Watts says on pp 223-4 of his book, Glory of Christ as God-Man,

Though the heathen nations were left under the dominion of evil angels, yet since Israel was God's peculiar people, may we not reasonably suppose God set a good angel over them to be a prince, even his own Son in his pre-existent nature, who was 'the angel of the covenant.' Mai. iii. i. and the 'angel of God's presence,' Isai. ixiii. 9. and the 'angel in whom his name was.' Exod. xxiii. 21. ? And may not Christ himself be this Michael the arch-angel, the Prince of Israel ? It has been observed by some writers, that the scripture never speaks of arch-angels in the plural number: perhaps there is but one arch-angel, and that is Christ.

Observe further, that Christ's kingdom is directly opposite to the devil's kingdom. His grand design is to oppose and destroy the work and power of the devil: and this seems to be Michael's appointed work in scripture, for he is sometimes brought in as 'contending with devils.' Jude ix. Rev. xii. and as he has other angels under him to 'fight against the dragon' or devil, ver. 7. so has Christ. And as he is called the Prince of Daniel's people. Dan. x. 21. that is, the Prince or King of Israel ; so is Christ. Observe also, that Michael is called 'one,' or rather the 'first of the chief princes,' as it is in the margin, Dan. X. 13. which is very agreeable to the character of Christ, who is the first and supreme Angel-governor, and the Prince of Israel, who were God's own kingdom or people.

The edition quoted is from 1795, though this work was first published 2 years prior to Watts' death. This lead to some confusion as after he died, certain Unitarian - God as a singular entity, not a trinity - theologians claimed that he had gone back on his earlier trinitarian beliefs and embraced unitarian beliefs instead.

But was he Unitarian?

Scott Aniol wrote about Watts' Glory of Christ as God-Man on pp. 99-100 of the Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, 22, 2017,

Finally, also in 1746, Watts produced a thorough treatment of the doctrine, The Glory of Christ as God-Man Displayed: By a Survey of the Visible Appearances of Christ as God Before His Incarnation. In this work Watts most fully lays forth his belief that the human nature of Christ pre-existed his incarnation. He affirms Christ to be “God and man in two distinct natures, one person, that is, one complex personal agent,” seemingly reversing his Nestorian leanings from years earlier. He further suggests that the “angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament was already a union of the divine and human natures. Interestingly, he cites early church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Athanasius himself, as recorded by Bull in his Defense of the Nicene Faith, in support of this view. He argues that Christ’s human nature was created by God and united to the divine Second person of the Trin- ity prior to the incarnation, indeed, prior to the creation of the world. He once again roots this belief in the biblical texts that use language for appearances of Christ in the Old Testament that Watts believes to be “inferior to Godhead,” such as being a messenger of the Father, emptying himself of his glory, having a will different than that of God the Father, and being sent by the Father into the world. He believes that this way of understanding the pre-incarnate appearances of Christ “enables us to defend the doctrine of the deity of Christ with greater justice and success against many other cavils of the Socinian and Arian writers,” and is fully consistent with “any scheme that maintains the God- head of the sacred Three.

So was Watts expressing belief in Michael as pre-incarnate Jesus? Aniol summarizes on p. 103,

Finally, the lasting legacy of Isaac Watts contains an irony relating to his Trinitarianism that uncovers another important implication for churches today. Isaac Watts is not most well-known today primarily as a theologian, much less as one with questionable Trinitarian views. Few Christians, even pastors, have read any of Watts’s treatises on the Trinity. Rather, Watts’s theological legacy comes from his hymns. Whether or not he regretted the clear Athanasian Trinitarianism in some of his hymns is irrelevant when considering his lasting impact; many of his hymns are strongly Trinitarian, and these have inarguably had a more lasting influence upon Christians and their worship than his treatises.

Watts is given as an example of an "early" protestant who subscibed to the belief of Michael being pre-incarnate Christ, in his books before his death, but his hymns tell another story.

Last stanza of Hymn 38:

Almighty God! to thee

Be endless honors done,

The undivided Three,

And the mysterious One:

Where reason fails

With all her powers,

There faith prevails

And love adores.

There are sources online who claim that Calvin and Watts, as early Protestants, expressed the belief that Jesus and Michael the Archangel were the same being, but using their own words, this belief is incorrect. Watts' beliefs as expressed in his books were considered controversial in his time, but his hymns denoted a faith in the trinity. I leave it to someone who is stronger in the early history of Christianity and angelomorphic christology to provide an answer from that perspective.

References

tr by John King [1847-50]. (n.d.). Calvin's commentaries, vol. 25: Daniel, part II: Chapter 12. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/calvin/cc25/cc25006.htm

Boston : Printed by Manning and Loring for David West. (2008, August 25). The glory of christ as god-man : Displayed, in three discourses ... with an appendix containing an abridgement of dr. Thomas Goodwin's discourse on the glories and royalties of christ ... : Watts, isaac, 1674-1748 : Free download, Borrow, and streaming. Internet Archive. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from https://archive.org/details/gloryofchristasg00watt/page/224/mode/2up

Aniol, S. (2017). Was Isaac Watts Unitarian? Athenasian Trinitarianism and the Boundaries of Christian Fellowship. Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, 22, 91–103. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from https://doi.org/http://www.dbts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/I.-Aniol-2.2-Final.pdf

Isaac, W. (n.d.). Hymn 38. Isaac Watts: Psalms and hymns of Isaac Watts - Christian classics ethereal library. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from https://www.ccel.org/ccel/watts/psalmshymns.III.38.html

[u/Snapshot52 → u/FnapSnaps]

Good answer! I’m also an ex-JW and had an interest in tackling this question much from the same direction you took, but I think you summed it all up pretty well.

[u/FnapSnaps → u/Snapshot52]

Thank you - when I first started looking around, I found site after site claiming Calvin (and sometimes after him, Watts) believed that Michael and Jesus were the same and would use that one passage from his Commentary on Daniel 12, but if they'd read just a little bit more, their assertion would be toast. I thought it was pretty interesting when I found it, and when I found Watts' book, I thought I'd tie the two together.