Is Jesus Really Michael the Archangel?

"The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?"" Zech. 3:2

"But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"" Jude 9

Based on these two texts (and a few others), Jehovah's Witnesses conclude that Jesus and Michael the Archangel must be one in the same person. They reject Jesus as God Himself. In order to make the Bible agree with their corrupt and perverse theology, they have willfully altered several passages so that they read in a manner that suggests Jesus is a created being and not God Almighty. One such passage they alter is John 1:1, where they render the text as "the Word was a God." But in so doing they undermine and contradict their own beliefs because they have just successfully created a second God when they profess to believe in only one.

Another passage they alter in order to try and remove the deity of Jesus is Hebrews 1:6: "And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, "AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM."" In the 1981 New World Translation, the Watchtower Society, the head of the Jehovah's Witness organization, renders this passage as: "But when he again brings his Firstborn into the inhabited earth, he says: 'And let all God's angels do obeisance to him'," despite the 1961 edition correctly having the word "worship."

Nevertheless, the word obeisance means "honor, respect, homage, worship, adoration, reverence, veneration, submission, deference. A gesture expressing deferential respect, such as a bow or curtsy." While the word does not convey the same element as the word worship does, nevertheless it still suggests worship, adoration, and reverence, which undermines the attempt to alter the text by the Jehovah's Witnesses.

In their attempt to turn Jesus into Michael the Archangel, Jehovah's Witnesses have created a huge problem. They believe that only Jehovah should be worshipped, yet by their rendering of Hebrews 1:6, they have Scripture commanding the angels to worship one of their own. According to Scripture in Revelation 22:8-9, angels reject worship: "I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, "Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God."" Interesting how angels reject worship, yet Jesus accepted worship when He was on Earth.

The Greek word in all three verses (Heb. 1:6; Rev. 22:8-9) is the exact same word: proskuneo. Why do the Jehovah's Witnesses retain the word as worship in Revelation 22:8-9, but change it to obeisance in Hebrews 1:6? Interestingly enough, Jehovah's Witnesses did not always reject the worship of Jesus. In the Watchtower magazine from July 15, 1898, on page 216, it reads:

Question: The fact that our Lord received worship is claimed by some to be an evidence that while on earth he was God the Father disguised in a body of flesh and not really a man. Was he really worshiped, or is the translation faulty?
Answer: Yes, we believe our Lord Jesus while on earth was really worshiped, and properly so...It was proper for our Lord to receive worship in view of his having been the only begotten of the Father, and his agent in the creation of all things, including man."

In the book New Heavens and a New Earth published in 1953, on pages 27-28, it says:

For example, to which one of the angels did he ever say: 'You are my Son; today I have become your Father'? And again: 'I shall be a Father to him, and he will be a Son to me'? But when he again brings his Firstborn into the inhabited earth, he says: 'And let all God's angels worship him.'

Even more interesting is the fact how the Answer from the 1898 Watchtower magazine acknowledges that Jesus is the creator of ALL things, yet in the New World Translation for Colossians 1:16-17 and 20, they have added the word "other" after the word "all" five times, making Jesus the creator of "all other things." Somehow, a created being, an angel, has creative powers. Contrary to the false beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus is God Almighty. Jesus created Michael the Archangel. He is not nor will He ever be Michael the Archangel. Michael the Archangel worships Jesus because Jesus is God, the second person in the Godhead, the Trinity.