There are no archangels

In addition to creating humans, God has created angels and other beings who are like them. Students of the Bible generally teach that there are at least four classes of such beings: angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim.

Angels are mentioned many times.

Cherubim are first mentioned in Genesis 3:24, “ He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.“

Seraphim are mentioned in Isaiah 6:2, “Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.“

But the word “archangels” is never found in the Bible. The singular, “archangel”, appears only twice.

The first appearance is in 1 Thessalonians 4:16. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. It says the archangel, not an archangel, meaning there is only one. (Some translation use the word an instead of the, but these are in the minority.)

The name of this archangel in found in the ninth verse of the book of Jude. “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.” Michael is the only one in the Bible called an archangel.

Some say that Gabriel in an archangel but he is never called this in the Bible. The apocrypha speaks of an archangel name Uriel, and the fact that many consider the apocrypha part of the Bible has led to a lot of false teaching on this subject.

The term “arch” in the word archangel refers to someone who is in authority. We find this in many English words, such as: monarchy, which means rule by a single person; oligarchy, which means rule by a few; and anarchy, which means a state in which there is no ruler.

God created angels and chose one of them, Michael, to be in charge of all the others. He gave him the title “archangel.” There are no archangels. There is only one archangel and his name is Michael.

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