Will Elijah Revisit the Earth – or Has He?

Michael Hardt

Malachi 4:5; Matthew 11:14; 17:11–12; Mark 15:34–36; John 1:21

‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord’ (Mal. 4:5).

The last two verses of the Old Testament contain an interesting prediction: ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah’ (Mal. 4:5–6). The prophet Malachi who penned these words lived, of course, around 400 years before Christ and hence 450 years after prophet Elijah, who was a contemporary of king Ahab. This raises at least two questions:

1. Did Malachi mean that Elijah, as a person, will appear again or a person bearing the character of Elijah?

2. Has the prophecy been fulfilled, or will it be fulfilled in the future?

Before attempting to answer these questions, we should consider some passages that shed light on the matter.

Malachi 4:5 informs us that God will send Elijah before the day of the Lord (which begins with the appearing of Christ). This suggests that Elijah will take the role of a forerunner or herald. The next verse describes Elijah’s role as turning the hearts of the people.

This expectation was still taught by the scribes during the Lord’s time on earth. This becomes evident from the following two occasions:

In Mark 15:34, following the three hours of darkness, the Lord exclaims: ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ (‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’). Some of the bystanders, who appear to have chosen to misunderstand these words, claim that He was calling for Elias: ‘Behold, he calleth Elias …; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down’ (vs. 35–36). Even though uttered in mockery and contempt, these words reflect that the Jews expected a return of the prophet Elijah.
The disciples were aware of the expectation of Elijah’s return. They understood that Elijah’s advent would precede the kingdom, hence their question: ‘Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?’ (Matt. 17:10). They had just seen a preview of the kingdom on the mount of transfiguration and wished to know how the promise of Elijah’s coming would fit into this.

In answering this question, the Lord says: ‘Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed’ (vs. 11–12). This is a clear allusion to John the Baptist, His forerunner. They had imprisoned and beheaded him.

However, this appears to clash with John’s own testimony (but, as we will see, it does not). The priests and Levites likely put the question to John the Baptist, ‘Art thou Elias?’ (John 1:21), because they had discerned a resemblance between John (who was also a herald) and the promised Elijah. They may also have feared that John might claim to be the ‘Elijah’ promised through Malachi. However, John gave a clear-cut answer: ‘I am not’.

How then could John be Elijah, as the Lord stated in Matthew 17, and yet not be him, as John himself declared? The answer is found in Matthew 11, where the Lord says, pointing to John the Baptist: ‘And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come’ (v. 14). The words ‘if ye will receive it’ provide the key. Had they received the message of John the Baptist (and hence Christ as Messiah), the day of the Lord could have dawned and John would have been the Elijah promised by Malachi. Sadly, they did not.

With these scriptures in mind, we can answer the questions above:

1. Did Malachi mean Elijah as a person or a person bearing his character?

Malachi spoke of a person who will bear the character of Elijah. If he did not, John the Baptist could not possibly have been a potential Elijah as set out above. This is confirmed by Luke 1:17: ‘And he (John) shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias’. Here the principle is spelled out: it is not Elijah returning, as such, in person, but a forerunner who would come ‘in the spirit and power of Elias’. Interestingly, the next part of the verse is a clear allusion to the subsequent verse in Malachi 4: ‘to turn hearts of fathers to children, and disobedient ones to the thoughts of just men, to make ready for the Lord a prepared people’ (v. 6).

2. Has the prophecy been fulfilled, or will it be fulfilled in the future?

The prophecy has not been fulfilled. The coming of John the Baptist was a pre-fulfilment. The final fulfilment will take place just before the day of the Lord, i.e. after the rapture, when God will send a messenger[1] to work amongst His people to form a remnant for Himself (Rom. 11:25).

God honours the faithful prophet Elijah by calling the future effective messenger the Elijah whom He will send.

[1] Interestingly, the two witnesses in Revelation 11 bear a striking similarity to Elijah in character: they bear witness and they have the ability to shut the heaven so that it does not rain (Rev. 11:3, 6). This will occur during a period of three and a half years — just as Elijah prayed that it should not rain for three and a half years (Rev. 11:3, cf. Jas. 5:17).

From: Truth and Testimony, 2023