Hebrews 1:7
Hebrews 1:77Now about the angels He says: “He makes His angels winds, His servants flames of fire.”
The Watchtower teaches that Jesus is himself a spirit creature — Michael the archangel before and after his earthly life. A verse that calls angels "spirits" is therefore read as placing Jesus and the angels in one shared category of spirit beings, differing in rank but not in kind. On that reading Hebrews 1 is a chapter about the Son being the highest of the angels rather than about the Son being something other than an angel altogether.
Read the verse in its place in the argument, because verse 7 is one half of a deliberate contrast and it is the weaker half by design. Verse 7 describes the angels; verses 8 to 12 describe the Son. Set them beside each other and the writer's point is unmistakable. Of the angels: they are made — winds, flames, functional servants. Of the Son, four verses later: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever," and then "you, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth… they will perish, but you remain." The angels are among the things that perish. The Son is the one who laid the foundations and remains. The whole chapter is built as a series of contrasts — the name, the sonship, the worship in verse 6, the throne, the creating, and finally the invitation in verse 13 to sit at God's right hand that no angel ever received. If the Son were the chief angel, the chapter would be arguing that Jesus is superior to himself. Ask a JW to read Hebrews 1 straight through in one sitting and to notice how many times the writer says "to which of the angels did he ever say." Compare , , .
The NWT reads "He makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." The Greek word is pneumata, which can mean either "spirits" or "winds," and the quotation comes from , where the parallel with "flame of fire" and the surrounding imagery of clouds and wind points to the natural elements. The ESV, NIV and NRSV all render it "winds." The choice of "spirits" turns the line from a statement about angels being made transient like wind and fire into a statement about what kind of beings they are — which is the reading the Watchtower's identification of Jesus with an archangel requires. Either way the contrast with verses 8-12 stands, but it is worth seeing that the word can be read the other way.