The Elijah to come - man or message?

The last chapter of the Old Testament contains a remarkable prophecy. It is remarkable not only be cause it is God's final warning message to His ancient covenant people but be cause it contains the basic elements of a last warning message sent also to us. His new-covenant people. Thus we may read it and study it with solemn regard for our own fate:

"'For behold, the day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

"'Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse' " (Mal. 4).*

Little wonder that the reading of these verses can bring a solemn hush to a congregation, for they contain the elements of high drama, beginning with a crisis for the people of God that comes just before the " 'great and terrible day of the Lord.' " A messenger is sent to save God's people from that day in which the wicked will be burned up in a destruction so complete that neither " 'root nor branch' " shall be left (verse 1). Reception of the message is critical: If it is rejected God will " 'smite the land with a curse.' " If it is received families will be united with God in a covenant that brings blessings to their land.

If the message points to the second advent of Jesus Christ and the final judgment of all mankind as the Protestant Reformers understood then it would seem imperative that we understand it. What does it say to us? Who is this Elijah to whom it is entrusted? Is he the same prophet who addressed Israel during the crisis of Baal apostasy? Does the message appear in this or some other form in the Apocalypse, that book that seems to major in persecution and apostasy?

Elijah—man or message?

Throughout history a number of messengers have claimed to be Elijah, as do some in our day. For this reason, as well, it is important that we understand the meaning of this remarkable and intriguing prophecy of Elijah's return. Unless we do we shall not be able to distinguish between the true and the false Elijah.

To Malachi and his contemporaries, the historic Elijah the Tishbite (1 Kings 17:1) was an "ancient" prophet. He lived more than four centuries before Malachi, and some eight or nine hundred years before Christ. The book of Kings reveals that Elijah was called to be a prophet to Israel in a time of great apostasy. Israel had fallen into Baal worship, and Elijah's message called God's covenant people to revival and reform.

Thus, when God says to Malachi, "I will send Elijah again," we may assume that God's people again have apostatized. And Yahweh, the covenant God who chose Israel and disclosed Himself to them, may be assumed to be sending, again, a saving message.

On superficial reading, the promise would seem to indicate that the prophet himself would return. I believe, how ever, that the prophecy points us to a two-fold repetition of the message of Elijah rather than to the return of the actual prophet. First, we may look for a message of revival and reformation similar in spirit and nature to that of Elijah, designed to prepare the way for the first advent of Jesus. Second, we may look for a further message, similar in spirit and nature to that given by the ancient prophet, the purpose of which is to prepare the way for the second advent of Jesus. The Elijah message, then, does not point to the reincarnation or reappearance of the literal prophet, but rather is a call to prepare for the advent of Jesus.

My conclusion is based on a conversation between Jesus and His disciples found in Matthew 17:10-13. The disciples and the rabbis apparently were disputing over the identity of Jesus. The rabbis argued that Jesus could not be the Messiah, because Elijah must come be fore Messiah appears. The disciples evidently had no ready answer, so they did the right thing: They went to Jesus and asked Him, What about it, Lord?

Jesus replied, " 'Elijah does come, and he is to restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of man will suffer at their hands.' Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist" (verses 11-13).

To say, then, that Elijah is not to return in person, is simply to follow the interpretation that Christ Himself gave us. He interprets Malachi 4 this way. And Christ is, to me, the key to all interpretation. Jesus makes it clear that the prediction of Elijah in Malachi 4 is the prediction of a message, a message carried before the first advent of Jesus by John the Baptist.

When asked whether he was Elijah, John replied " 'I am not' " (John 1:21). John here rejects the reincarnation idea that had permeated rabbinical theology from Greek Hellenism. His response further strengthens our understanding that we must look for a message rather than a man. Again John emphasized: " 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord," as the prophet Isaiah said'" (verse 23). He turns to another prophecy and declares "'I am the voice.'" The voice is not the person; it is simply the message.

To put the final stamp on this conclusion we may turn to the explanation of John's mission given by the angel Gabriel in Luke 1:17. There the angel ex plains to John's parents what his mission is to be: " 'He will go before him'—that is, be sent by the God of Israel—'in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.' "

Here the very words of Malachi 4 are quoted by Gabriel and applied to John's mission. So in saying that the Elijah message is a message of preparation for Christ's advent Gabriel interpreted the Old Testament christologically.

Thus the New Testament itself provides the key to understanding the original prophecy also in relation to the sec ond advent of Christ. It is to this event that the ancient prophecy most directly points, as we may note by its emphasis on the " "great and terrible' " day of judgment. The Old Testament prophets used this phrase to focus on the final day of ultimate judgment, which in the New Testament is said to occur in connection with the second advent of Jesus. The apostles call the day of judgment the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (See 1 Cor. 1:7, 8; 5:5; 2 Cor. 1:14.)

John's message

The Elijah message is to be repeated, then, before the second coming of Jesus Christ. It will prepare a people to meet God in judgment. We may understand better the purpose of the last Elijah message by noting what John the Baptist did to prepare people for the first advent. The Scripture says that he was to "re store all things" (Matt. 17:11). He was doing what Elijah had done, calling the people to revival and reformation. The message was ill-received, for the people saw themselves as righteous. Imagine their reaction when John told them, "You have to repent and be baptized with the baptism of repentance to wash away your sins." In the truest sense, this call was to restore the covenant relationship, to walk in repentance, sensing anew the sinfulness of human nature and our dependence upon God.

He presented the message in its unadorned candor to King Herod, pointing out without a stutter the king's illicit relationship with his brother's wife. John stood before one who had the power to kill him and said, "The Lord forbids you to continue to violate the holy covenant of God, the seventh commandment" (see Luke 3:19). This faithful presentation of his message cost John his life. Herod's wife, Herodias, became angry; John was put in prison, and finally be headed because he had the courage to stand for God's commandments. He sacrificed himself for the Heaven-born message, for the restoration of God's covenant of grace, of law and gospel (see John 1:29).

Is such a courageous message needed today? Never have men trampled more insolently on God's commandments. Never has sin spoken more permissively nor pervasively. Never has God been more widely rejected, never His Word more disregarded. Never, we may conclude, has the Elijah message been more needed. That's why God calls us to understand the message and to sound it again in "all power" from one end of the earth to the other. God is sovereign over this world, and He cannot tolerate sin forever.

Many signs—as, for example, in Mat thew 24 indicate that judgment is at hand. The Elijah message itself is the seal on this understanding, for it witnesses that Christ is coming back soon. No man knows the hour or the day (see Matt. 24:36), but in the same discourse Jesus cautioned us to learn a lesson: " 'As soon as its [the fig tree's] branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates'" (verses 32, 33).

The Elijah message adds to our sense of Christ's imminent return, because the message must come at the right time. John the Baptist did not come ages be fore the first advent; he introduced it. Likewise, the proclamation of the Elijah message introduces the Second Advent. It is a message of worldwide impact, calling God's people, wherever they are, out of apostasy and back to the right covenant relationship with God.

To understand the meaning of the message for our day we must examine more closely the essentials of the mes sage as first given by Elijah. By doing this, we will be safeguarded from basic misinterpretation.

Elijah's message

In 1 Kings 16:30-33 we read of the marriage of King Ahab and "Jezebel the daughter of Eth-baal king of the Sidonians." Marriage to a pagan was forbid den Israel's kings because with the marriage partner often came a pagan religion. And so it was. Baal worship was introduced, amalgamated with the true worship of Yahweh, and imposed upon the people.

Baal worship is explained more fully in 2 Kings 23, where it is revealed as a form of sun worship. Under this system, the people worshiped "all the host of heaven," burning "incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven" (verse 5). Baal worship in Israel, how ever, was an amalgamation, blending tenets of the Hebrew faith and Baalism into one system. The result was that the ten northern tribes "left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal" (chap. 17:16).

Elijah's mission was to call Israel out of apostasy, back to God and His commandments. God cannot be separated from His commandments; it is through them that He expresses His will. Thus to reject God's will is to reject God Him self.

As the sign of Israel's apostasy, God withheld the rain (see Deuteronomy 11). For three and one-half years, a disastrous period for the nation, no rain fell. One might expect that after a year the Israelites would go to their knees to dis cover what was wrong with them religiously. Instead, Ahab and Jezebel hardened their hearts and the people suffered terribly. At the end of the three and one-half years God sent Elijah back to the apostate leaders with a final appeal.

As a boy, I always trembled when the preacher read of Elijah's appeal on Mount Carmel. In the best sense of the word, I felt "fear" of the Lord, which, of course, means far more than to be frightened of God. It is, on the one hand, to sense the infinite distance between the holy God and sinful man, and on the other, the infinite closeness of One who offers love and salvation. Fear of the Lord in all the Old Testament is intimately connected with heartfelt obedience to God's commandments. And it is to obedience that Elijah calls the Israelites in the dramatic Mount Carmel appeal.

Obedience is not legalism

God never brings a curse of a judgment to wound only; His purpose is to heal. He appeals to Israel not with an admonishing finger wag that says, You are wrong. Rather in love He pleads with them to find, through repentance, a saving relationship with Him, their true and only Saviour and Redeemer, the Creator, the covenant God. Here is not the legalism some attach to appeals to keep God's commandments, but rather a love relationship that produces loving obedience. The New Testament pleas " 'If you love me, you will keep my commandments' " (John 14:15); and "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3) are but an echo of Elijah's loving plea to his countrymen. Legalism is reliance for salvation on one's own obedience, on one's own works of righteousness. Legalism misuses the law by the endeavor to establish righteousness by works. It is a distortion of a proper relationship with God and His law.

There is a tendency today among some to identify legalism with the religion of the Old Testament. But the Old Testament too was trying to bring God's children to the covenant of grace. While we rightly condemn Phariseeism, we must not identify it with the Old Testament as if the two are one and the same. To do so is to devalue and to debase the basic text of Christianity. There would be no Christianity today, but rather some form of gnosticism, had not the church at tested to the Old Testament's status as the source book for Christians.

The New Testament cannot be under stood without the Old. And the Old can not be unlocked without the New. Consider the Elijah message. We could not understand it without the Old Testament. We would not even understand how to prepare a people for the Second Advent if it were not for this message of revival and reformation that called God's people to prepare for His first advent.

How was the message received in Elijah's day? The record of a meeting be tween Elijah and Ahab, king of Israel, reveals the answer. When Ahab saw Elijah, he said to him, "'Is it you, you troubler of Israel?'" (1 Kings 18:17). Elijah answered: "T have not troubled Israel; but you have, and your father's house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and fol lowed the Baals'" (verse 18).

Here we see that true worship centers in divine revelation. Worship is obedience, never disobedience. It is to this decision that Elijah wishes to lead God's people. The Elijah message, then, brings to God's people the hour of decision: "And Elijah came near to all the people, and said, 'How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him' " (verse 21).

What a dramatic hour! And what a sad result. The people, says the Scripture, "did not answer him a word." But Elijah presses ahead. As the Scripture says, he is to "restore all things" (Matt. 17:11). The true religion of Israel must be re stored according to the original pattern. So we read, "And he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down" (1 Kings 18:30).

Here we get a glimpse of what Baal worship had done. It had distorted and rejected the worship of Yahweh and the way of salvation. Elijah takes twelve stones and builds an altar. By so doing he revives salvation by grace (see Lev. 17:11), and emphasizes the unity of the twelve tribes, making no concession to their division into ten northern tribes and two southern tribes. Surely here is a message of unity and of the restoration of law and gospel.

John the Baptist's message, as we might expect, contained the essentials of the Elijah message. He called the people back to God's commandments and to true repentance by faith in the Lamb of God (see John 1:29). They signified their acceptance of the message by their baptism for the forgiveness of sins (see Luke 3:3). So it was that John fulfilled his commission to prepare the way for the first advent of Jesus.

And so it must be in our day. As disciples of Jesus we must call modern man back from apostasy, back from whatever sophisticated form such "idol worship" may take today: from the Baals of materialism, the occult, false concepts of the gospel of God. Elijah's message is a call to come back from legalism on the one hand and permissiveness on the other, back to the true worship of Yahweh, back to the original pattern of law and gospel. That has been the purpose of God in all ages: to bring mankind back to His covenant. And so God sent the embodiment of His law and gospel in the Messiah, Jesus, to walk among us, that we might know what God is like, and seek to walk with God.

The message for our day

The Elijah message for our day is found in Revelation 14:14-20. The set ting, as in Elijah's time, is judgment. John sees a "white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand." An angel calls to the One on the cloud, " 'Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.' So he who sat upon the cloud swung his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped."

The verses themselves should impress us that here is a symbolic portrayal of the second advent of Christ. He comes with a crown—as King of kings—and with a sickle—as judge. The final hour of judgment pointed to by all the prophets is now at hand. The imagery of these verses comes from Joel, which is, as it were, a capsule apocalypse of the Old Testament. Joel pictures Yahweh standing in the valley of Jehoshaphat judging the nations that have persecuted His covenant people. In Joel 3:13 appears the phrase, "Put in the sickle." Here is our bridge from the book of Joel to Rev elation 14:14-20. John the Revelator takes his imagery from the book of Joel. We must conclude, then, that John interprets Joel's ancient apocalypse of Yahweh as the day of Christ's judgment. And Christ Himself declares in John 5:22 that His Father " 'has given all judgment to the Son.' " Christ returns not only as Saviour but as judge of the world.

But as in Elijah's day, and as in John the Baptist's day, He will not come without first providing a call for repentance, a call to return to true worship, a call to preparation for judgment. And just such a call appears in Revelation 14, where three angels sound an apocalyptic message.

Do the messages sound mysterious? Indecipherable? They are not, though much of the Christian world seems to think so. Such a conclusion is denied by the very term apocalypse, which means "unveiling." The angel at the end of the book says, " 'Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book' " (Rev. 22:10). The book of Daniel was sealed (see Dan. 12:4). Until the "time of the end" it was to be a closed book. But the Apocalypse was never sealed. Its imagery of blood and horns and beasts is intended to convey a last-day message to mankind. We must never get so bogged down in the imagery that we fail to see the finger of God painting a rainbow of promise for His church.

The messages of the three angels of Revelation 14 are given to be under stood. They are the Elijah message for our day, calling God's people, wherever they are, whatever they are called—Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Nazarene, Seventh-day Adventist, Baptist—back to total commitment to God's revealed will, back to true worship, back to the footsteps of Jesus.

The name of the church we profess to follow is not really so very important, because a church does not save. And if a church does not save, then surely its name cannot save. What is most important is whether a church hears and is responding to the Elijah message, a message that as in the day of Ahab's apostasy and in the day of John the Baptist calls men to return to "the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (verse 12).

As in former times, the Elijah message for today calls men back from the worship of creation itself to Creator worship " 'worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water' " (verse 7). This places the meaning of the fourth commandment in the focal center. A terrible warning of judgment is sent to those who instead worship "'the beast and its image,'" which Protestant commentators have identified with apostate religion, the systematic deviation from God's holy law and gospel. An angel messenger solemnly declares that Babylon the apostate religious system is "'fallen, fallen.' " It is judged by God (verse 8).

It is significant that God's people are called back to the "endurance" or "patience" of the saints (verse 12). Endurance is perseverance. Here is an appeal not only to become Christians but to remain Christians, even in the face of persecution, which is often the lot of those who sincerely follow the commandments of God. Thus we see that, as in Elijah's day, commandment-keeping is one of the marks identifying true worshipers of God. And, again, a terrible curse is to rest upon those who defy God and His will (see verses 9-11).

Finally, it is to the "faith of Jesus" that mankind here is called (verse 12). So compelling is this faith that those who have it are willing to follow Jesus all the way, wherever He goes. In some cases that may even require following Him right out of the church we profess. As we have noted, the name of the church is not so significant as its message. Is it preaching the commandments of Jesus? Is it calling mankind back to true covenant relationship with God? Is it reflect ing the faith of Jesus in its world mission? Is it reflecting the faith of Jesus in its preaching of, and response to, the Elijah message, which is a call to revival and reformation?

The everlasting gospel

The kernel of the three angels' mes sages is found in verse 6: "Then I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people." All the messages can be summed up in this one comprehensive term: eternal gospel. If it is not the gospel, the ancient, unchanged gospel, that is being preached, the preacher cannot rightfully call himself Elijah. He is not preaching in the spirit and power and truth of Elijah. If a church is not preaching the basic mes sage of the saving gospel of God's free sovereign grace, if it does not preach righteousness by faith alone without works of law, then it is not fulfilling the mission it professes: it is not preaching the one and only gospel of God.

It is significant that the word gospel is here used in connection with the word everlasting or eternal. In no other place in the Bible is gospel thus qualified. I think the qualification is added here because those who preach the message of the three angels are in danger of preaching a different gospel. A gospel that focuses so much on the warnings against Babylon and the beast and the mark of the beast that it condemns rather than saves

The eternal gospel saves. It is the only way from paradise lost to paradise re stored. It spans all dispensations. It is the same gospel message that Isaiah preached. The same message that John the Baptist preached. The same gospel that Jesus preached. The same gospel that Paul preached. The same gospel that also the last generation must proclaim.

The essence of this gospel is, as Paul, the masterful theologian, presents it in Romans 3:28: "We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of law." The Greek reads "without works of law." This safeguards salvation by divine grace, by the undeserved favor of God. Faith in such grace brings rebirth and love for God. The person who loves God loves to keep His commandments. Love produces obedience. Works of love follow the wholehearted reception of the eternal gospel.

The Elijah message—whether in the day of Israel's apostasy or just preceding Christ's first advent or today—calls us back to true worship, a worship that radiates divine love. While the gospel proclamation calls us to be obedient to God's commandments, it is the very antithesis of legalism, for it points us from dependence on works to total dependence on Christ and His works on our behalf. It is this message, preached now, that prepares mankind to stand in judgment, face to face with One who comes with both crown and sickle, as King of kings and righteous Judge.

Now, while He still freely offers His saving grace, the Elijah message calls for our decision: " 'How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him'" (1 Kings 18:21).