The Bible is clear: there are three people from Old Testament times who are in heaven today: (1) Enoch, who "was translated that he should not see death" (Heb. 11:5) for he had "walked with God" (Gen. 5:24). (2) Moses, who was almost translated but who had to die on Mt. Nebo but was specially resurrected by "Michael, the archangel [Christ]" (Jude 9). (3) Elijah, who was also translated without seeing death (2 Kings 2:11). All the others in Old Testament times who died are "asleep" in their graves awaiting the first or second resurrections. Some were resurrected when Christ was resurrected (Matt. 27:52, 53).
Moses and Elijah were sent on that special mission to converse with Jesus before His crucifixion (Matt. 17:1-5).
But why is Elijah, and not Moses or Enoch, sent to "us" before "the great and dreadful day of the Lord" (Mal. 4:5, 6)? Ancient Israel was the corporate "body" of Christ in Elijah's day and they had fallen into a grievous apostasy without knowing it; the True Witness" says modern Laodicea (also the corporate "body of Christ") has also unknowingly fallen into a serious state of "you know not" your true condition before God and before the universe--a condition of pitiable "nakedness" of soul (Rev. 3:14-21).
Elijah had had a unique experience of contending with the Baal worship of Ahab's day; it seems obvious that the Lord has sent "the prophet Elijah" to lead out in our struggle today with modern Baal worship. This struggle is unmasked in the message of the three angels of Revelation 14:6-12 that prepare a people to meet the final test of the mark of the beast and the close of probation.
Whether Elijah will direct this struggle personally, we cannot say; the message of John the Baptist accomplished that same work just before the coming of Christ the first time. Now, just before His second coming, the same bold exposure of Baal worship must be proclaimed--"come out of [Babylon], My people," God says. "Elijah" will be loyal to the church, but loyalty also requires fidelity to truth, humbling as it may be. Let's be sure we know the Holy Spirit personally, how to recognize His presence, and how to tell when He is absent.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 2, 2006.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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