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.

Do angels have wings?

Everyone knows that angels have wings.  Every picture we see of angels shows them with wings.  However there is one problem.  Some of the things said about angels in the Bible seem to contradict this belief.

Before God destroyed Sodom he sent two angels to take Lot and his family out of the city.

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.”

They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.”  But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house.  And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.”

Genesis 19:1-5

The men of Sodom thought the angels were men and tried to attack them.  Don’t you think that if they had wings the men would have known they would have realized there was something different about them and they wouldn’t have been so anxious to harm them?

The four living creatures

Revelation chapter 4 describes John’s being carried in the spirit up to Heaven, into the throne room of God.  Among the sights he sees there are four living creatures that surround the throne.

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
Revelation 4:6-8

Many believe these creatures are cherubim because their description resembles that of of the cherubim that appeared to Ezekiel.

As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle.
Ezekiel 1:10

Both descriptions include similarities to a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.  But there is one difference.  Each individual cherub resembled all four of these; each of the living creatures was like one of them.