Loadicean Heretic

"Is Jesus Christ really Michael the archangel?"

If you have read Ellen Whites "Conflict of the Ages" or Raymond Franz ' 1983 book "Crisis of conscience," then "Laodicean Heretic" is your next must read.
Leslie Barnett, a former Jehovah's Witness, addresses not only revisions made after the events of 1983, but one key dogma that he believes is so ambiguous that 40 million Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) and Jehovah's Witnesses are unaware of its impact on their salvation.
The dogma in question is coined "Michael-ism," and was invented by emperor Constantine the Great who in 325 AD empowered Saint Michael as warrior, healer, and protector to the first Christian Church in Constantinople. Centuries would pass until the nineteenth century when a Mormon prophet named Joseph Smith taught Michael to be an incarnation of Adam while Sabbatarian Ellen White taught him to be the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the focal point of Mr Barnett's book is on Charles Taze Russell, who being influenced by Ellen White's devotee Nelson Barbour, taught a freemasonry view that the fleshly man Jesus wasn't the only pathway to redemption. Russell believed that Jehovah's first born angel Michael was created to help make a "Utopian Society." But when sin caught Jehovah unawares, Michael willed himself out of existence in order that his Spirit life-force be incarnated into another form. This form named Jesus was a temporal materialized body created as a one-off sacrificial offering. Then having no further use Jesus' battered and bruised body was laid dead forever liberating Michael's life-force into other forms during the 40 days leading up to His ascension into heaven. Michael having reoccupied his office as Chief Archangel was then placed into limbo until 1914 when crowned King of Kings.

Russell's hypothesis ends with the battle at Armageddon, whereby he claims that Michael will continue to rule for a thousand years until Satan is completely destroyed at which time he hands back all authority to Jehovah God (1 Corinthians 15:24).In response to Russell's hypothesis Leslie says that the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventist have been deceived by Satan when denoting Christ as Michael. Leslie adds: "To even suggest that Jesus' was a temporal human body for the occasion agrees in principle to the ancient heresy of Gnosticism which says: "Jesus' body was not a real body, but a (spirit) phantom body that appeared to be human and only appeared to suffer."

In his book Mr Barnett stresses that salvation cannot come through an angel or Avatar, but through a divine glorified body having many scars to remind us of whom He is and the purpose as to why His existence is made known to us. To this point Leslie appeals to all congregants of the Seventh Day Adventist and the Jehovah's Witnesses to use their own discernment when making the TRUTH theirs and not others (John 6:53).

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