Consider the importance of this issue.

In John 10:11-14, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me…”

If the Watchtower is right, then Jehovah sat safely in heaven and selected someone else to become a man and die a horrendous death to atone for our sins.

But if we are right, then God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, personally came and bore the consequences of his own righteous wrath against sin in order to save us.

The Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 himself came to earth and gave his life for the sheep.

That’s a big difference!

On page 50 of its book What Does the Bible Really Teach?, the Watchtower states its position: “How did Jehovah provide the ransom? He sent one of his perfect spirit sons to the earth. But Jehovah did not send just any spirit creature. He sent the one most precious to him, his only-begotten Son.”

The clear implication of this statement is that Jehovah could have chosen one of any number of perfect angels to come as a man and make the atonement (“ransom”) for our sins.

How many such “spirit sons” would have been possible selections? Literally millions, for Revelation 5:11 shows us a scene John saw in his vision of heaven: “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands…”

According to Watchtower theology, what makes Michael/Jesus unique?

1. He was the first creature Jehovah created.
2. He was the only creature Jehovah created directly.
3. He assisted in the creation of everything else.
4. He was the “son” who was most precious to Jehovah.

Nothing in that list would qualify Jesus to be the only—or even the best—choice to become man and provide the needed blood sacrifice.

Why not Gabriel, who was chosen for many other important assignments?

Why not some other holy and obedient angel?

Let me suggest several reasons why the Savior had to be God himself, not just an angel or archangel.

1 John 2:2 says, “And he is a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, yet not for ours only but also for the whole world’s.”

 The sacrifice had to do far more than counterbalance the sin of one man—Adam.

 Psalm 27:1 says, “Jehovah is my light and my salvation.”

 No created being could be the light of the world and our salvation.

 In addition to making the “ransom sacrifice,” the Savior had to reveal God to us, mediate between God and man, and restore man to fellowship with God.

 “Only someone who was truly and fully God could be the one mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5), both to bring us back to God and also to reveal God most fully to us (John 14:9)” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 553)

Only God could render his old covenant obsolete and replace it with a new covenant.

Luke 22:20: “And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Hebrews 13:8: “In his saying ‘a new covenant,’ he has made the former one obsolete.”

In addition to having their sins forgiven and being in Christ, Christians have an ongoing relationship with Christ in which Christ is in them.

Colossians 1:27: “To them [the saints] God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

No angel or archangel could accomplish that.

 By grace through faith, Christians are now “in Christ,” which means we have become the righteousness of God himself.

2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Christ the sinless One, through identification with us, took sin on himself and died, serving as our sin sacrifice. We the unrighteous, through relationship with Christ, take on God’s righteousness, are reconciled to God, and transformed as newly created, new-covenant people in the world. In other words, because of our identification with Christ, we as the new-covenant people of God are in right standing before God and are an expression of God’s righteousness before the world. (George H. Guthrie, 2 Corinthians: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, p. 315)

No angel or archangel could accomplish that either.