“Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things.” (Matt. 17:11, NKJV)
We are currently discussing the book of Malachi’s Old Testament culmination of warnings to the Levitical priesthood and to Israel, and the interesting link with John the Baptist and the spirit of Elijah.
God’s completion of the covenant with Israel and his serving priesthood will be initiated by “the spirit of Elijah” (Mal. 4:5-6). After this God’s covenant people, Israel and the Levites, no longer hear the voice of God. When God then speaks through John the Baptist, for the first time in 430 years, He powerfully proclaims: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matt. 3:2). The kingdom of Israel is replaced by the kingdom of God. This is confirmed by Jesus, the expected Messiah, He to whom the entire history of Israel was building up towards, when He speaks for the first time, echoing precisely these words: “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Matt. 4:17).
The word that is used here for repent is metanoeō, which means “to change one’s mind” (Thayer), in the strong sense of reforming – John the Baptist and Jesus Christ introduced a new Reformation. Bruxy Cavey aptly summarises it: “Jesus … has successfully replaced religion with himself” (The End of Religion, p. 146). John the Baptist would become a forerunner of this Reformation.
In the light of the history of Elijah and Elisha and the spiritual fatherhood and sonship between them, this covenant relationship becomes the standard of the new covenant.
When Jesus speaks about John the Baptist, He awards him the highest position in the history of the preceding four thousand years of the Old Testament. From Adam till that moment, says Jesus, there was no person with greater spiritual stature and importance than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). Jesus declares this man’s words sanctioned by God.
Malachi prophesied that the spirit of Elijah will introduce this new dispensation (in the figure of John the Baptist), and that it will primarily be concerned with spiritual fatherhood, perhaps the most important responsibility that any priesthood needs to facilitate, in God’s own words: “I will be his Father, and he shall be My son.” (2 Sam. 7:14). [Read Day 363’s teaching on this topic again.]
John the Baptist represents the existence of this new priesthood. Therefore it is so clear that the last two verses of Malachi precede the linking of the spirit of Elijah within John the Baptist. Perhaps the most important mandate of the spirit of Elijah are these words Jesus proclaims in Matt. 17:11: “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things.”
Exactly what this means will be thoroughly discussed in the next couple of teachings.
- Selah: Try to understand what exactly is meant by Elijah coming in the figure of John the Baptist.
(Matt. 17:11).
- Read: 64-66.
- Memorise: 64:4.
