What the Bible says about Spirit and Power of Elijah
(From Forerunner Commentary)

1 Kings 18:19-21

Elijah is quite instructive here. He began to prophesy in a time of immediate crisis, one that would become far worse before it ever improved. There was tremendous evil to overcome. His ministry took place about 150 years before Israel was to fall, becoming the Lost Ten Tribes, so God was beginning to make a powerful witness to them. Elijah's work was to reveal the true God to Israel in a time of growing national crisis. Elijah prepared the way for Elisha, who had a double portion of Elijah's spirit and did many more miracles. In this regard, Elijah was a type of John the Baptist, and Elisha, a type of Christ. God's pattern is being established. He sends someone long before the real crisis reaches its peak, while it is building.

Elijah says disturbing things. This is a prophet's job, a hallmark of a prophet of God. People like to feel comfortable. The only trouble is that people like to feel comfortable in moral mediocrity. They become "settled on their lees," as it says in Zephaniah 1:12. The prophet comes along and troubles people by awakening them to their sins, making them feel guilty about their relationships with God and each other. He awakens them to their spiritual and moral responsibilities. These Israelites were lethargic in terms of true, spiritual matters.

When a person is freezing to death, he feels a pleasant numbness that he does not want to end. He just goes to sleep as he is freezing to death. But when heat is applied, and the blood begins rushing into the affected areas, pain immediately occurs. Though it hurts, the pain is indicative of rescue and cure. God sends a prophet to people who are cold in their relationship with God—spiritually freezing to death—though they want to stay that way. The prophet turns the heat on, and they become angry with him when he is actually working to make them better. He is often accused of causing their pain.

A prophet's life is not a happy situation. Perhaps the clearest example of this is Jeremiah, who moaned and complained to God, "This is more difficult than You ever told me it would be. You tricked me." He did not like the position God put him in. He wanted people to like him, which is understandable. Nevertheless, he was still faithful, and he did his job. Yet, he was in trouble his whole life, from his teenage years on.

There are several ideas as to exactly what Elijah meant by "How long will you falter between two opinions?" One idea is that he means, "How long are you going to hop from branch to branch?"—like a bird in a tree. The bird cannot make up its mind where it wants to settle down, so it just keeps hopping around. Another idea is that it pictures a person shifting his weight from one foot to the other, indicating a degree of lameness. A third is that he is describing somebody teetering on a tightrope and trying to maintain his balance. Whatever the case, there is no doubt about Elijah's intent: "How long will you keep shifting from one opinion to the other?" Their spiritual lethargy for the true God made them uncommitted. Their commitment went one way, and then it went the other way.

Once Elijah began preaching, their conscience pricked them, and it encouraged them to worship the true God. But their carnality and their fear of men persuaded them to worship Baal, because they wanted to be friends with their fellow Israelites. They were straddling the fence in a precarious state of imbalance, attempting to combine the worship of God with the more popular worship of Baal and Asherah. This is typical Israeliltish syncretism, but it will not work.

At one point in A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton, he deals with soldiers who left the service of their army—either the Confederate army or the Union army. These soldiers would surrender themselves to the other side to be given a bit of favor and put into prison. In exchange, they would offer information about their unit. For a while, both sides—the Confederate and the Union—accepted those turncoats and took their information. However, before the war was over, both sides were summarily executing anybody who did this because those traitors could not be trusted. Most of the information they gave turned out to be wrong, to be lies. Most of them were just saving themselves and making themselves comfortable in their situation. They were not committed to the side that they were supposed to be on. Elijah was dealing with the same thing here, albeit spiritually.

When Elijah preached his message, it put the people in a bind because they knew their conscience was telling them that they had to commit themselves to God or to Baal. It disturbed them. Only the individual could decide which side he would be on, because Elijah made it clear, "God does not want you the way you are. Either you are going to be committed to Him or not. If you will not be committed to Him, you are going to die."

Baal, of course, could not talk to them, but if he could, he would probably have said basically the same thing, so the people were in a very uncomfortable situation. The lesson for us becomes clear, because Jesus says the same thing (Matthew 6:24; 12:25). The Sovereign Creator is not a God who allows His favor to be bought with crumbs. He is a loving Master who only is to be obeyed and served—and only on His terms.

Elijah was sent by God, and he was fulfilling the responsibility of a prophet, to prod the people to whom he was sent to their responsibilities. He was to be an aid in getting them from their state of being merely "churched" to that of being truly religious and servants of the Most High God.

Some become discouraged with the church because we are always being told—to some measure anyway—disturbing things about ourselves. But church is where we come to have our minds stretched and measured against Christ's standard. For one to keep on coming to services and leaving, like a theatergoer, without his options, opinions, or decisions resolved but deferred, is an erosion of character. "Whatever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23).

The sum of what Elijah said is actually spiritually dangerous, due to the fact that God is judging. Christ's purpose is to cure, not merely to comfort, so pain will be often involved when dealing with a prophet.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prophets and Prophecy (Part 1)

1 Kings 18:36-38

To his audience, this was the equivalent of a nuclear explosion. Not only did the sacrifice completely burn up, but the altar burned as well. The fire came out of heaven, and "Vhoom!" everything was gone. Even the water in the trenches was gone—there was just a black spot on the earth, a charred hole in the ground. Did God answer Elijah's prayer to reveal who the true God was and who His true servant was? Most spectacularly! God left no doubt in the people's minds who was who, what was what, and how wrong they had been.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Two Witnesses (Part Six)

1 Kings 18:40

What Elijah does in I Kings 18:40 is reminscent of the Two Witnesses—with the power of life and death over any who would go against the true God and against them. Evidently, it was probably on the false prophets' minds all along to kill Elijah. They had killed all the other prophets of God, so that only Elijah was left. And, considering how human beings normally think, they probably thought they would allow Elijah to perform his little act, and after he failed, they would show the people of Israel that he was a "false prophet" and kill him.

This may be very similar to what will happen in the end time. The powers that be will give the Two Witnesses audience to "perform" before the world, they will give them leave to do their "little tricks," and as in Elijah's day, it will come back to bite them because our God is the true God.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Two Witnesses (Part Six)

Malachi 3:1

John the Baptist fulfilled this role before Christ's first coming (Matthew 17:12-13). He was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the LORD, make His paths straight'" (Isaiah 40:3; Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; John 1:23). He brought an urgent message of the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God and the need to

repent, turn from sin, and change one's entire attitude and way of life. . . . But the repentance had to be real and thorough; the repentant person had to "bear fruits worthy of repentance" (Luke 3:8). . . . It was a stern, fiery, fearless warning of imminent doom from which escape was possible only by prompt and genuine repentance matched by thorough obedience to God's will. (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 2, p. 1109)

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
New Name - Same Teaching!

Malachi 4:5

Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: This phrase lures people into interpreting this as occurring just before Christ's second coming. However, the verse does not say "immediately before"—that is an assumption—it only says "before." The apostle John writes that the world was passing away in his day 2,000 years ago (I John 2:17)! In terms of time, verse 18 is even more incredible because John says that by biblical reckoning it was already the last hour (Romans 13:11-12; I Peter 4:7)! It is imperative we learn to consider time as God does rather than men.

The last days began with the arrival of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist, the prophesied Elijah, appeared as one epoch ended and the next began. He was the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets, his preaching turned the hearts of the fathers to the children, and he prepared the way for the Messiah. He most certainly came before the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Elijah and John the Baptist

Matthew 11:11-14

Verse 14 is an interesting statement all by itself. Is there another Elijah to come? What He says very clear, and there is no greater authority than Jesus Christ, who said, "This [John the Baptist] is Elijah."

But did John the Baptist restore all things? Did John turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers? It is an interesting puzzle. Nevertheless, we cannot gainsay what Jesus says: "This is Elijah!"

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prophets and Prophecy (Part One)

Matthew 17:10

Jesus says that John the Baptist was Elijah (see verses 12-13).

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prophets and Prophecy (Part One)

Matthew 17:10

The question, asked by the disciples, is about what the scribes were saying: that the actual prophet Elijah—not the Elijah—must first come. What the scribes believed was in question, not the truth regarding Malachi 4:5-6.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prophets and Prophecy (Part Three)

Matthew 17:11

Jesus responds to the disciples' question essentially by saying He agrees that the scribes are correct in saying, "Elijah must come before the Messiah appears and before that great and dreadful day."

The word "truly" is important to understanding His agreement with the scribes. He is saying they have correctly understood Malachi 4:5-6 to this pointthat "Elijah must come first." He does not say He agrees with them totally, nor is He indicating that another Elijah will come in the future. Jesus says verse 13 in the future tense, because it is the tense in which Malachi 4:5-6 is written, which is a promise to be fulfilled at some later point in time.

He adds a quotation from the prophecy given about John in Luke 1:17. He wants to turn our attention away from Elijah to John.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prophets and Prophecy (Part Three)

Luke 1:17

"In the spirit and power of Elijah" indicates John resembled Elijah in doing a similar work of revealing the true God through a ministry devoted to preaching repentance and the certainty of things contained in the Scriptures regarding Christ. Perhaps it also includes working with a similar zeal, though he accomplished his function without miracles (John 10:41). Obviously, God does not measure a man's greatness by the miracles he does.

On two separate occasions, in Matthew 11:13-15 and again in Matthew 17:10-13, Jesus says John is the Elijah to come. Notice first Matthew 11:13-15: "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" Let him who has ears, listen! Jesus wants His audience to pay the utmost attention. To what? To the fact that John is the Elijah to come! He had fulfilled Malachi 4:5-6.

Notice, too, Jesus' introductory comment in verse 14, "And if you are willing to receive it. . . ." This strongly suggests that He was about to say something different than what His listeners expected. They supposed Elijah would appear in person! This explains why, when John was asked by the delegation from Jerusalem whether he was Elijah, he replied, "I am not" (John 1:21). Though he was Elijah in spirit and power, he was not the literal Elijah they were expecting. The Jews of Jesus' day were just as wrong about Elijah as are many today who are looking for another Elijah to appear before Jesus' second coming. Yet, Jesus gives no indication that anyone will follow John in that office.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Elijah and John the Baptist

Luke 1:17

Why does the angel refer to Malachi 4:6? He is expanding on John the Baptist's responsibility. Jesus summed it up in Matthew 17:11 by saying John would "restore all things." What does "all" refer to? It covers everything necessary to prepare a people for the arrival of the Messiah the first time.

This phrase "restore all things" appears no where else in any connection to the work of either Elijah or John the Baptist. In this phrase, however, Jesus gives us a clear understanding of the mission of John the Baptist. He has turned from considering Elijah to John the Baptist to make a connection between the two.

John restored all things necessary to the fulfilling of his mission, and his mission only, which was to prepare the way before the Messiah. His mission parallels Elijah's, which was to reveal the true God to people who had lost their way. Elijah was a light in his day, and John too was a light in his time, but he was not the Light. John clearly pointed to Jesus as the Messiah so that the people could repent, even as Elijah differentiated the true God from the Baals so the people at that time could repent.

Since Jesus' day, many have done similar restorative preaching, but not one of them was the Elijah of Malachi 4:5-6. If somebody in the future does a similar work, he will not be the Elijah either. Nobody ever will, because John the Baptist already filled that role. We have this on the authority of Jesus Christ, who clearly said that John the Baptist was Elijah, and they killed him (Matthew 17:12).

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prophets and Prophecy (Part Three)

John 1:19-21

When John the Baptist replied, he knew in advance what they were thinking because he knew what the Jews believed in regard to Elijah. This is why he answered, "I am not Elijah." In other words, since he was preaching and doing certain things, they expected that he was Elijah. The definite article is left out: "No. I am not Elijah."

The reason he answers this way is because he probably did not know at this time that he was the Elijah of Malachi 4:5, so he answered honestly the only way he could: "No, I am not the resurrected Elijah."

John W. Ritenbaugh
Prophets and Prophecy (Part Three)

Revelation 11:6

Like Revelation 11:4-5, verse 6 has obvious references to the Old Testament. The first miracle—no rain falling in the days of their prophecy—refers specifically to Elijah's 3½ year drought (I Kings 17-18). The second—waters turning to blood—is an obvious reference to the first plague that Moses brought upon Egypt (Exodus 7:14-25). This seems to be a return to the way God's servants worked before Jesus Christ came—specifically focusing on Elijah's and Moses' works.

The word "power" appears three times in the description of the Two Witnesses, once in Revelation 11:3 and twice in verse 6. When somebody says, "These have power," we think in terms of energy or force or strength to do something. However, the implication of "power" here is authority. God gives them the authority, or the right, to cause these things to happen. In a way, they are given carte blanche to do what needs to be done.

In studying the lives of Elijah, Moses, and others of the prophets, we do not often see them going to God and saying, "Now, what should I do at this point? God, you know our enemies are coming, and I'm not sure what I should do." No, they just do whatever needs to be done. In II Kings 1, when the groups of fifty men and their captains come upon Elijah, the prophet was not sitting there and praying at the top of a hill, saying, "Oh, they're getting close. God, tell me what to do." He just called for fire from heaven and destroyed them. So, the Two Witnesses are given much the same authority at the time of the end. These two will have been trained and prepared by God to such an extent that they will know what to do. They will call upon God, and He will answer with power.

We do not find Jesus, for that matter, beseeching God for instruction about what to do. If someone came to Him for healing, He healed him. If someone needed a demon cast out, He cast out the demon. Once one has God's Spirit—and is in line with God's will—then these decisions are easier to make because, as Paul says in I Corinthians 2:16, "We have the mind of Christ." As we grow, we develop more of that mind of Christ, and we should be able to make decisions as Christ would make them.

So these Two Witnesses will be very much like Christ. They are witnesses of Him, as it says in the literal translation of verse 3. They are, in a way, some of the best representatives of Jesus Christ and His character that will have ever walked this earth. They will act like Christ as much as any two men can, and people in the world will see these two people as like Christ—and eventually treat them as they treated Christ.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Two Witnesses (Part Six)


 

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