The Coming of Elijah

Before the coming of Messiah there must be the coming of His messenger. This is what the prophecies had foretold and this is fulfilled in a wily wilderness preacher around the time of Jesus.

• The messenger will be a desert prophet (wilderness) crying out for repentance in preparation for the coming of the Lord. (Isaiah 40:1-3; 740 BC – 680 BC) ¹ “Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” Says your God. ² “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, That her warfare is ended, That her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the Lord’s hand Double for all her sins.” ³ The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God.“

Matthew, the tax-collector-turned-apostle, tells the reader that John the Baptist is the person of Isaiah’s prophecy. The strange prophet in the wilderness crying out for change, according to Matthew, is the prophesied voice. Look at it! In Matthew’s narrative John is referred to as the voice of one crying in the wilderness: this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 40:1-3). The main idea of Isaiah’s prophecy is that the person crying out is trying to get the people ready for the arrival of the Lord. Now think about what John the Baptist, according to Matthew, was saying to the people:

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:1)

It is clear that John the Baptist is trying to get the people ready and that Matthew, a Jewish man, sees in the ministry of the baptizer the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

• The messenger will confront evil, call for true righteousness, and then the Lord will come to His temple. (Malachi 3:1; 432 BC – 425 BC) ¹ “Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts.

The prophecies foretold a person who would prepare the way before the Lord Himself: Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me (Malachi 3:1). That is what John was doing – preparing the way before the Lord. John’s ministry attempts to ready the common people and priests for the coming of the Lord to His own temple. The baptizer had spoken openly and directly to the scribes and Pharisees about their need for repentance (Matthew 3:7-12). John’s denunciation of their ministry was aimed at helping them avoid an unpleasant confrontation by the Lord of the temple. Why? In the previously mentioned prophecy from Malachi there is a prediction that warns the priesthood (Malachi 3:2-3). It says to the religious leaders that the Lord they claim to be seeking will come suddenly or unexpectedly to His own temple. They did not listen to John and the Lord whom they were seeking suddenly came to His own temple (Malachi 3:1). [What Jesus found was precipitated a physical reprimand by the Lord Himself (John 2:13-17). The response of Jesus to uncleanness in the temple was itself a sign. He cleansed it by removing the corruption and chastening the corrupters. See Malachi 3:2-3.] John the Baptist, is a messenger arriving before the Messiah (Jesus of Nazareth) preparing the people and promoting genuine repentance in the priesthood.

• The messenger will succeed in promoting a revival characterized by a turning of hearts Malachi 4:4-6 (432 BC – 425 BC) ⁴ “Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, With the statutes and judgments. ⁵ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. ⁶ And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

This prophecy from Malachi mentions the return of Elijah. It says that Elijah the prophet would be sent before the coming of the day of the Lord. Both Matthew and Luke provide accounts of Jesus telling people that the Elijah of this prophecy is… John the Baptist (Matthew 11:7-15; 17:1-13; Luke 7:24-29; Mark 9:2-13). In essence, Jesus says that John, if they are willing to receive it, is the Elijah that that was mentioned by the prophet Malachi (Matthew 11:14-15).

¹⁴ And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. ¹⁵ He who has ears to hear, let him hear! (Matthew 11:14-15)

If you are not willing to receive it, as evidence by a refusal to repent, then John is not Elijah to you; John himself would deny being Elijah when asked by the unrepentant religious leadership (John 1:19-21). To those willing to receive the gracious gift of a warning from God through the prophet in the wilderness, John is Elijah. In person? Reincarnation? No, he is Elijah in spirit (personality type) and power (Luke 1:5-17).

The Relevance

God still works this way. That is, Christ does not come casually into a life, a church, or a community. Before His arrival there will be people who will promote preparation. They are Elijahs if you are willing to receive them. These people will speak unapologetically about repentance, reordering priorities, and truth-telling. These things come before revival; repentance precedes renewal. (Among Gentiles repentance is not the same as among the Jews. John the Baptist could say repent because he is speaking to the Jews. They had been tutored by the law. Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles, starts the spiritual conversation differently. As Gentile they are ignorant concerning the law and the prophets. If he had started with “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” they would have had questions? E.g., repent from what and whose kingdom. For the Gentile a repentance is still needed. But it is from believing in things other than Christ for salvation. After receiving Jesus, Gentiles willing to place their faith in Christ must be patiently taught to live for Him. See Matthew 28:18-20). Repentance is not entry-level Christianity. It is ongoing spiritual realism. It is the ongoing the refusal to make peace with sin wherever it is found.

John’s words to the Pharisees also remind the modern Jesus follower that heritage is not a substitute for holiness (Matthew 3:8-9).

In His grip by His grace,
Roderick Barnes