What is Michael the archangel’s role in the end times?

Question 10186.

Michael the archangel has a defined job in prophecy, and once you see what it is, several passages fall into place. He is presented as the prince who stands for Israel, and every appearance he makes in Scripture involves conflict on behalf of that nation.

What Scripture does not give him is the range of activity popular Christian imagination has assigned him. So let me set out what the text says and then draw the line.

Who Michael the archangel is

The name Miykael means who is like God, which is a question rather than a claim, and it is asked in the presence of the one to whom the answer is nobody. He is called one of the chief princes in Daniel 10:13, the great prince in Daniel 12:1, and the archangel in Jude 9, which is the only place in Scripture where that title is applied to a named being.

Michael the archangel is a created spirit and not a divine person. Some groups identify him with Jesus, and that is a serious error which I answer in the article on that claim. Jude has him refusing to rebuke Satan on his own authority and saying the Lord rebuke you, which no divine person would need to say.

He appears five times in Scripture: three times in Daniel, once in Jude, once in Revelation 12. Every one of those appearances is a scene of conflict, and four of the five concern Israel directly. For his general standing among the angels see the article introducing him.

Israel’s appointed prince

Daniel 10 is the clearest window we have into unseen conflict. An angel tells Daniel he was withstood for twenty one days by the prince of Persia until Michael came to help him, and he adds that he must return to fight the prince of Persia, and after that the prince of Greece, and that there is no one who helps him against these except Michael your prince.

Notice the phrase your prince. Michael the archangel is assigned to Daniel’s people. The passage implies that nations have spiritual powers behind their governments, and that Israel’s appointed protector is this one being of high rank.

That assignment explains everything else he does. He is not a general purpose troubleshooter; he has a charge, and he keeps it.

The passage also tells us something about prayer. Daniel had been fasting and praying for three weeks, and the answer had been dispatched on the first day but delayed by opposition. That is not a reason for anxiety, since Michael the archangel was sent to break the deadlock, but it does explain why persistence in prayer is commanded rather than suggested.

War in heaven at the midpoint

Revelation 12:7 to 9 places him at the centre of the end time drama. War arises in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels are defeated and thrown down to the earth. The chapter has just described a woman, plainly Israel, and a male child, plainly the Messiah.

What follows the expulsion is the dragon pursuing the woman with fury, because he knows his time is short, and the woman being protected in the wilderness for twelve hundred and sixty days. That figure matches the second half of the seventieth week.

So Michael the archangel wins the heavenly conflict at the midpoint of the Tribulation, and the immediate consequence on earth is the most intense persecution Israel has known. His victory in heaven does not end the trouble below; it concentrates it.

There is a question about timing here worth flagging. Revelation 12 places the war in heaven alongside the persecution of the woman for twelve hundred and sixty days, which points to the midpoint of the seventieth week, and Daniel 12 places Michael the archangel standing up at the beginning of unequalled trouble. Those two markers agree, and that agreement is one of the quieter confirmations of the pretribulational structure.

Standing up in the time of distress

Daniel 12:1 ties the threads together. At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never has been since there was a nation until that time, but at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.

Three things sit in one verse: Michael the archangel standing up, unprecedented distress, and a delivered remnant. Jeremiah calls the same period the time of trouble for Jacob, and Jesus quoted the language of Daniel when He warned of great tribulation.

The verse continues into resurrection, with many who sleep in the dust awaking, some to everlasting life and some to shame. So his standing up marks the beginning of the end of Israel’s long night. I trace that period in the article on Jacob’s trouble.

Michael and the restrainer

Some suggest that the restrainer of 2 Thessalonians 2, who holds back the man of lawlessness until he is taken out of the way, is Michael the archangel, on the strength of his standing up in Daniel 12. It is not an unreasonable suggestion and I do not hold it.

My reason is the scale of the task. Restraining the full outbreak of lawlessness across the world looks like divine work rather than angelic work, and the New Testament assigns the restraint of evil in this age to the Holy Spirit working through the church. I set out the options in the article on the restrainer.

What is clear either way is that Michael’s activity increases as the age closes. The angel who has held a station for millennia takes the field.

Notice also what Michael the archangel does not do in Daniel 10. He does not explain the vision, he does not receive Daniel’s prayer and he does not take the credit. Another messenger speaks, and Michael simply holds the line. There is a lesson in that for anyone who thinks faithful service requires a platform.

The voice of an archangel at the rapture

1 Thessalonians 4:16 says the Lord will descend with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God. Since Jude names only one archangel, many take the voice to be his, and I think that is probably right.

It does not follow that Michael the archangel gathers the church or that his presence dates the rapture inside the Tribulation. Paul mentions him as part of the escort of a returning King, in the way a herald accompanies a monarch.

Some posttribulationists use the archangel to link the rapture with Revelation 12, and I answer that argument in the article on the trumpets.

It is worth adding that the trumpet in that verse is called the trumpet of God rather than the trumpet of an angel. Whatever the archangel contributes, the summons belongs to the Lord Himself, and the descent is His. Angels attend the King; they do not conduct the proceedings.

What Michael does not do

He does not receive our prayers or our veneration. Paul warned the Colossians against the worship of angels, and John was twice told to stop when he fell at an angel’s feet in Revelation. Michael the archangel is a servant, and he would be the first to say so.

He does not rebuke Satan on his own authority, which is the whole point of Jude 9, and that verse is a standing rebuke to a style of praying which addresses the devil with more confidence than the highest angel dares. If Michael said the Lord rebuke you, we can manage it.

And he is not our personal protector. Scripture gives him a charge over Israel, and gives believers the ministry of angels in general terms in Hebrews 1:14 without naming anyone. I would rather be guarded by an unnamed servant of God than claim a name Scripture has not given me.

The pattern of the whole subject is restraint. Scripture names two angels, Michael and Gabriel, gives each a defined task, and refuses to satisfy our curiosity about the rest. Where God has drawn a line around a subject, crossing it has never yet made anybody more godly.

So, now what?

There is real comfort in this if you take it at face value. A nation God committed to a prince of that rank has never been abandoned, however it has looked for nineteen centuries. God does not forget assignments.

And there is a lesson in how Michael the archangel speaks. Faced with the devil himself he appealed to the Lord rather than to his own standing. When you are under pressure, whose authority do you actually reach for?

At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time.

Daniel 12:1 (ESV)