Michael and the Battle Over the Body of Moses
But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
Jude 9-10
The matter of this second extra-biblical source should be dealt with first so as to remove the distraction. The book in view is called the Assumption of Moses. As with Enoch, so in this case. Jude’s use of the extra-biblical sources neither implies their canonicity, nor conflict with what is canonical. He uses them for what they are useful for, as surely as Paul made use of Greek poets and philosophers (e.g. Aratus,1 Epimenides2), and the Old Testament histories had cited still others (e.g. the Book of Jashar,3 the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia4).
Of course we should consider the number of times that the Bible quotes the devil. Would anyone take this to be an endorsement of the devil’s viewpoint? If we can see that clearly enough, then there should be no trouble understanding how the inspired author is reporting or using the words of one who is not of the people of God, or else (in those cases that they are) the original speech that is connected to it, is not therefore inspired. For instance, the final synopsis of the Council of Jerusalem is recorded in Acts 15. But should we infer that an archeological find of its whole minutes should be added to the canon? No doubt some will still struggle with such things. But they ought to do a basic study on the canon of Scripture.
Of course the biblical narrative where we find the burial of Moses is in Deuteronomy 34:5-6. And its concluding words say that “no one knows the place of his burial to this day.” Linking that text to the many mysteries of the angelic realm is the fact that the Hebrew has “And he buried” (וַיִּקְבֹּ֨ר), which only makes grammatical sense as the LORD being the One who buried Moses. This is less problematic when we consider the role of angels as mediators for God’s activity at such key moments in history. Nevertheless, the LXX and even Philo commenting upon it, sought to more modestly say,
“they buried (ἔθαψαν) …”
and,
“immortal angelic powers buried him.”5
If one follows the idea reconstructed from the Assumption of Moses, then the dispute is legal concerning the sin of Moses. He is not buried properly, says the devil, because he sinned. So the devil is the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), just as he accused everyone from Job (1:10-11; 2:5-6) to Joshua the priest (Zech. 3:1). Kelly adds to the probable accusation the dimension that Satan saw himself “as lord of the material order,”6 and thus the corpse was rightly his property.
Calvin saw this episode through the lens of the war against superstition. So the dispute over the body of Moses had to do with its whereabouts: “And the reason for concealing his grave is evident to all, that is, that the Jews might not bring forth his body to promote superstition … And doubtless we see that Satan almost in all ages has been endeavoring to make the bodies of God’s saints idols to foolish men.”7 These thoughts are interesting on many levels, not least because Calvin himself insisted on being buried in an unmarked grave to prevent any idolatry.
Michael and Christ
In the Old Testament, Michael is called “one of the chief princes” (Dan. 10:13) and “the great prince who has charge of your people” (Dan. 12:1). Kelly makes mention of later tradition conceiving of Michael as “the guardian angel of the Jewish people,”8 and points to Revelation 12:7 in the same vein. Since we have already mentioned 1 Enoch, we may as well say that there, “he was one of four (or seven) angels who bore this rank.”9
It should be pointed out that many have believed that Michael is simply another revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even Jonathan Edwards (at least at one time in his preaching) did so, in his sermon Christ Exalted, said “This Michael is Christ.”10 The most straightforward argument that Michael is not the Lord seems to be that he defers to the Lord in this passage. But does that end the debate? Zechariah 3 was mentioned above. Right after we are told about Satan accusing Joshua the priest, what are the next words? “And the LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, O Satan!’” (v. 2) This would seem to nullify the argument from deference in Jude 9. Bauckham writes, “Jude’s source must have read מלאך יהוה ‘the angel of the Lord’ for MT יהוה ‘Lord’ in Zech 3:2.”11 Junius was said to be the first (at least among the Reformed) to have suggested that Jude’s reference is the same event as that recorded in Zechariah, though evidentially he took that back.12
Though Calvin may also be interpreted this way in saying, “What Jude relates as having been said by Michael, is found also in the book of Zechariah.”13 He is even more open in his commentary on Daniel 10:21,
“and then Michael, whom some think to be Christ. I do not object to this view, for he calls him a prince of the Church, and this title seems by no means to belong to any angels, but to be peculiar to Christ.”
Though, of Daniel 12:1, Calvin says, “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.”14
Manton gives rationale for both sides. On the one hand, the name Michael “means ‘strong God,’ or ‘like the strong God’” and that, “in many places of Scripture [He] is set out as the head of the angels (see Genesis 48:16; Exodus 3:2; Daniel 10:13; 12:1). On the other hand, he says,
“it is not absolutely necessary to interpret those verses as referring to Christ; much less is it intended here, as it would be beneath his dignity to contend with the devil. While Christ did contend with the devil during his humiliation (Matthew 4), he would not have done so before then. Besides, the phrase did not dare to bring is not applicable to Jesus Christ.”15
Christ is also distinguished from the archangels in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, even as his voice is likened to one.
Others have also held Michael to refer to Jesus. Spurgeon very succinctly preached, “Michael is the Lord Jesus, the only Archangel,” and elsewhere, “You remember how our Lord, who is the true Michael, the only great Archangel, said at the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel, ‘I beheld Satan as lightning falling from Heaven’”.16 In John Gill’s commentary on Jude 9 we read, “Yet Michael the Archangel … By whom is meant, not a created angel, but an eternal one, the Lord Jesus Christ.”17 Henry does not address it in the comments on Jude, but of Daniel 10:21 he reasons, “Christ is the church’s prince, angels are not,”18 and he is even more emphatic of the identity in the comments of 12:1.
Now let us suppose that Christ Himself defers to “the LORD,” though we believe that He is indeed the LORD. What then? Consider the doctrine of God’s vengeance, if indeed you have such a doctrine. You should because the New Testament certainly does; and it specifically includes Christ as the Leader of His people in the very act of waiting for the final vengeance of God in such a way as to “defer,” whether in words that would otherwise revile (cf. 1 Pet. 2:23), or in the use of power otherwise available (cf. Mat. 26:53). Any paradox would be resolved by noting that the advancing justice of the Lord Jesus (as Man) defers to the eternal justice of the Lord Jesus (as God), which two come together on the Last Day.
In the end, I do not think that the weight of the scriptural evidence is in favor of Michael being the Lord Jesus. The arguments from texts must finally give way to a theologizing of all that the Bible says concerning the distinction between Creator and creature, and of course the deity of Christ. Manton was correct that the Daniel passages are not necessarily equating the names given to the equivalent concepts about Jesus. Although we do not want to be guilty of a genetic fallacy, it is well known that the Jehovah’s Witnesses make this equation an official doctrine. While Seventh Day Adventist differ with Jehovah’s Witnesses on whether Christ is eternally God, nonetheless the SDA tradition still maintains the “Michael” is but one of many biblical names given to Christ. All of that should at least give one pause to consider why. What sort of wooden biblicism is being employed in the treatment of the relevant texts?
Getting back to actual exegesis: Why is Jude bringing this up in this context? Recall the preceding words—how they “reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones” (v. 8). Likewise the following words in verse 10—“But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand.” Whatever the exact nature of the dispute over the body of Moses, Jude is holding the approach of Michael in antithesis to that of the false teachers.
Impertinent Pronouncements
There is such a deference in the highest things, that even the archangel observes its order. That does not mean a deference owed to Satan, but rather to the priority of the Lord being the One to rebuke. It is a way of painting a backdrop for those dreamers’ claims to appear all the more impertinent.
One specific application of this to modern Evangelical religion is surely a rebuke to those who would so easily rebuke the devil. One would think such people are possessed by Legion, so familiar are they in conversation. The arguments against such practices are manifold. I would only content myself with making the argument from Jude 8 through 10. There is indeed a greater to lesser argument, as Manton observed:
“If Michael, so excellent in nature, so high in office, acted with such modesty and awe when he contended with Satan, an impure spirit already judged by God, then what sorry creatures dare despise people invested with the dignity and high rank of magistrate?”19
He seemed to have in his crosshairs those who, in his day, would give religious pretense to railing against any civil or ecclesial authority they pleased.
Moreover, an application to more general religious and theological presumption is not out of order. Perhaps we do not make hasty judgments about angelic beings. However the readiness with which the average churchgoer today will render their judgments on all matter of mysteries is disturbing. There is no fear of God either in worship or in disputation. The language that Jude uses here may seem harsh to our ears, but it must be understood in its strictest analogical sense: ‘all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.’ He had already denied them any understanding. But there is more than mere ignorance. It is like the false teachers of whom Paul described as, “without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions” (1 Tim. 1:7). More than any other age, ours is teeming with those who are self-taught in the worst sense of the term. Recognition of being out of one’s element is almost nowhere to be found. Everyone is an expert by high school and a sage soon after.
When the state of learning and listening in the church descends to everyone flautning their own opinions, we are more like animals than we may think. The words used by Jude here were typical in ages past. And that is not simply because they did not abide by our standards of political correctness. The relationship between man and beast (with respect to reason and morality especially) was a common subject of theoretical and practical thought. It was widely assumed that human beings shared in common with animals the base nature than Plato called “the appetitive” part of the soul. If reason did not play the role of charioteer, then the horses of passion would be driving. And he would be driving man downward to something less than man was meant to be. By reason fixing on what is proper to eternal souls, man is somewhere between angel and beast. When reason is fixed instead to instinct, the truth is that we descend to a place far worse than the lower animals, to the level of fallen angels. Consequently Jude’s words here are a gracious signpost before that cliff.
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1. Acts 17:28b
2. Titus 1:12; Acts 17:28a
3. Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18
4. Esther 10:2
5. Philo, Life of Moses, ii.291.
6. Kelly, A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude, 264.
7. Calvin, Commentaries, XXII:439.
8. Kelly, A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude, 264.
9. Towner, 2 Peter and Jude, 198.
10. Edwards, “Christ Exalted,” from Altogether Lovely (Orlando, Soli Deo Gloria, ),
11. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 65.
12. Manton, Jude, 143.
13. Calvin, Commentaries, XXII:439.
14. Calvin, Commentaries, ????
15. Manton, Jude, 143.
16. Charles Spurgeon, sermons ‘The Angelic Life’ (Nov. 1868); ‘Our Lord’s Transcendent Greatness’ (Dec. 1866).
17. John Gill, Commentary, Jude 9.
18. Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1456.
19. Manton, Jude, 141.
