According to the word of God? GOD says! i will send ELIJAH again to you people, My beloved! if someone ask you, who is that ELIJAH, what will you say

[DAVID SERVING JESUS]

According to the word of God? GOD says! i will send ELIJAH again to you people, My beloved! if someone ask you, who is that ELIJAH, what will you say

[prophetess JOY Elliott]

Prophet, John the baptist is the one

much love JOY

[BISHOP .T. HOOD]

In the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament there is a prophecy made by Malachi which declares that God will send the prophet Elijah to earth whose mission will be to reconcile families and create family unity before God judges the land.

Mal 4:5-6, 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.

The prophet Elijah never died according to the Bible as he was taken by God into heaven.

2 Kings 2:1,11,And it came to pass, when the LORD would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

The prophecy of Malachi that God would send Elijah back to earth to reconcile families would be a sign that God was preparing to judge the world.

Given this background, one of the more bizarre claims of the New Testament is that John the Baptist was Elijah from the Malachi prophecy.The author of the Gospel of Matthew, who was never shy about embellishing his gospel story, portrays John the Baptist as looking just like Elijah from the Old Testament.

Matt 3: 4, And the same John(the Baptist) had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.

The Old Testament description of Elijah was: 2 Kings 1:8, And they answered him, He(Elijah) was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite.

The allegedly inspired author of the Gospel of Matthew then shows that Jesus claimed John the Baptist was Elijah:
Matt 17:10-13, And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias(Elijah) 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(Elijah) 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.

So here we see the New Testament scripture identifying John the Baptist as Elijah come back to earth.

This creates a problem since John the Baptist denied being Elijah: John 1:19-21

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(Elijah)? And he saith, I am not.

According to the allegedly inspired author of the Gospel of John, John the Baptist denied being Elijah come back to earth. Apparently the authors of the Gospels of John and Matthew couldn't get their act together regarding this critical issue.
John the Baptist also never restored all things as Jesus said he would nor is there anything in the prophecy by Malachi that states Elijah would suffer at the hands of men.

How do Christians get around this problem of John the Baptist denying that he was Elijah when Jesus indicated he was?
They will usually use the following passage to escape the obvious dilemma of the contradiction between the authors of Matthew and John:

Luke 1:13,17 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. 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.

According to the Gospel of Luke, the angel Gabriel tells John the Baptist’s parents that John would come in the “spirit” of Elijah. This is a neat trick used by the author of the Luke gospel. Since this New Testament author has redefined the prophecy so that a man only has to come in the “spirit” of Elijah, that man doesn’t have to be Elijah himself.
In other words, the author of Luke has modified the prophecy and retrofitted John the Baptist into the role of Elijah. This is a dishonest twisting of the actual prophecy by Malachi which says:

Mal 4:5-6? 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.

The actual prophecy says that God will send Elijah himself, and not some spirit filled facsimile or spirit filled imitation of Elijah called “John”. Elijah himself was to come.

Christians will attempt to use the Luke verses to claim that John the Baptist had the spirit of Elijah and so there is no real problem after all. Of course, the problem not only remains but has been compounded by the deliberate twisting of the original Old Testament scripture in order to create an escape hatch to avoid a major problem.

The problems don’t end at this point. Christianity has another problem regarding this issue. If John the Baptist(Elijah) came to restore family unity, Jesus turns right around and states it is his mission to break up family unity and create disharmony.

Luke 12:51-53
Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

The following observations shine a spotlight on the chaotic nature of the Bible:

1) Elijah was supposed to come and establish family unity. However, Jesus said he came to create family disharmony and division, which is exactly the opposite of what John the Baptist(Elijah) was supposed to do.
(So here we have the Bible God sending Elijah to create family unity and also sending Jesus at the same time to create family division and disharmony. Does this sound like an all-knowing,