Bible Synapse
Was John the Baptist Elijah?
Hard question · Prophecy and its fulfilment · raised by 4 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
God promises to send “Elijah the prophet” before the great day of the Lord, to turn the hearts of fathers and children.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Before John’s birth the angel says he will go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elias”.
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Jesus says of John, “if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come”.
For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.
Jesus says Elijah has come already and was not recognised; the disciples understand he means John the Baptist.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, 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. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.
Asked by priests from Jerusalem whether he is Elijah, John answers “I am not”, and calls himself the voice crying in the wilderness.
And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.
The objection
Jesus says plainly that John the Baptist is the Elijah who was to come (Matthew 11:14; 17:12–13). Yet when the priests asked John, “Art thou Elias?”, he answered, “I am not” (John 1:21). Either John was Elijah or he was not.
The answer
The two statements answer different questions. Malachi promised that God would send “Elijah the prophet” before the day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5). Many Jews took this to mean that Elijah himself, who had been taken up alive into heaven, would return in person. That is what the priests and Levites asked John, and he answered truthfully that he was not Elijah come back. Asked who he was, he pointed them to Isaiah instead: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (John 1:23).
Jesus answered a different question: who was the Elijah that Malachi foretold? Before John was born, the angel said he would go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elias”, to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children”, which are Malachi’s own words (Luke 1:17; Malachi 4:6). John fulfilled Elijah’s role, not Elijah’s person, and Jesus signals this when he adds “if ye will receive it” (Matthew 11:14): this is a fulfilment to be grasped, not a claim that one man was the other.
Other answers Christians give
A further Elijah to come
Some Christians read Jesus’ words that Elijah “shall first come, and restore all things” (Matthew 17:11) as pointing to a further coming of Elijah, or of a prophet like him, before Christ returns. On that view John fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy in part, which also fits his denial that he was Elijah himself.
Still open
Christians differ on whether Malachi 4:5 has a further fulfilment still to come. That does not affect the answer here.
From the classic commentators
not Elias in person, but he that was intended by Elias, that was said should come: hence here is no contradiction to the words of the Baptist, in John 1:21 when he says, that he was not EliasJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Matthew 11:14
He was indeed prophesied of under the name of Elijah (Mal. 4:5), and he came in the spirit and power of Elias (Lu. 1:17), and was the Elias that was to come (Mt. 11:14); but he was not the person of EliasMatthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on John 1:21
Sources
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Matthew 11, at Bible Hub
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible: John 1, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: John 1 (HelloAO)