Why Do Some equate Jesus with Archangel Michael then?

According to the SBC North American Mission Board the Watchtower Society teaches that Jesus is the Archangel Michael:

In His preexistence, Jesus was known as "the Word" (John 1:3,10,14) because He was God's spokesman, according to the Watchtower Society. He is also identified by Jehovah's Witnesses with Michael the archangel. "Reasonably, then, the archangel Michael is Jesus Christ. So the evidence indicates that the Son of God (Jesus) was known as Michael before he came to earth" (Reasoning from the Scriptures [Reasoning] [Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1985], p. 218).

Jehovah's Witnesses View of Christ - NAMB

Thus we know that Jehovah's Witnesses are members of a cult because they deny the deity of Jesus and they deny the Trinity. They are very good readers but if you try to talk with them they constantly change the subject and jump from one Bible verse to another. It is best to let them read aloud whatever you want them to consider. You have to ask them questions because they consider themselves experts. If you pray with them, be sure to do so in the name of Jehovah so that they will pay attention. They sometimes are friendly because they know that they are small in number. It is hard for them to leave their cult because their family and friends inside the cult will shun them forever after.

 

1) The name Michael means "Who is like God."
2) Both Michael (Jude 1:9) and the Angel of the LORD say to Satan "The Lord/LORD rebuke thee." And the Angel of the LORD is called the LORD in Zechariah 3:2.
3) In the appearing of the Lord, "himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, . . ." --1 Thessalonians 4:16. Being interpreted that the Lord is the Archangel who speaks.

 

from Tom Ascol's 'Founders' website:

Founders Ministries • Tom Nettles

"the Angel Michael showed up for his people....Michael is to be understood as an angelic appearance of the Son of God who became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth....Daniel sees this as...a providential intervention of Michael, the savior of his people" —Tom Nettles, PhD., Senior Professor SBTS

 

The Baptist John Gill (1690-1771), "Yet Michael the archangel,.... By whom is meant, not a created angel, but an eternal one, the Lord Jesus Christ; as appears from his name Michael, which signifies, "who is as God": . . ."

 

Ok. Been the view I have long held that the preincarnate LORD God appead to Abraham, John 1:18. And that LORD said in Zechariah 3:2, "The LORD rebuke thee." And that Michael was not the LORD.

 

Gill here misses the point that the Hebrew מי is interrogative; thus "who is like God?" — which then does not comport with Gill's interpretation.

 

Maybe. "Who is like . . ." "Who is as . . ." I chopped his paragraph short:
"Yet Michael the archangel,.... By whom is meant, not a created angel, but an eternal one, the Lord Jesus Christ; as appears from his name Michael, which signifies, "who is as God": and who is as God, or like unto him, but the Son of God, who is equal with God? and from his character as the archangel, or Prince of angels, for Christ is the head of all principality and power; and from what is elsewhere said of Michael, as that he is the great Prince, and on the side of the people of God, and to have angels under him, and at his command, Da 10:21. So Philo the Jew o calls the most ancient Word, firstborn of God, the archangel; Uriel is called the archangel in this passage from the Apocrypha:

'And unto these things Uriel the archangel gave them answer, and said, Even when the number of seeds is filled in you: for he hath weighed the world in the balance.' (2 Esdras 4:36)"

 

Where? Accord to the text, ". . . lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help . . . ." -- Daniel 10:13.

 

Good point.