In the December 1846
issue of the Welsh LDS periodical Prophet of the Jubilee, Dan Jones,
a personal friend of Joseph Smith's, wrote the following about
"Elias" (OT Elijah), showing that he understood NT Elias could be
used, as
it was by Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants, to denote a
forerunner while being cognizant of OT Elijah being the same person as NT Elias
ELIAS
There is scarcely
any person who is mentioned in the scriptures, as well known as this one. After
all the interpretation and talk of him, we too are often asked, Who is that
Elias! As we have not been satisfied with any answer we have seen yet, we shall
venture to offer the following as an answer to the question; and if we can only
show clearly the difference that exists between the person and the office or
the character that belongs to him, that will provide a key to the mystery of
understanding that strange office the Elias was to sustain, according to the
prophecy of Malachi, in chap. iv, 5, 6:—“Behold I will send you Elijah the
prophet, before 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 great point at
issue is, Is John the Baptist meant by this Elias? We admit that there is some
difficulty in understanding the scriptures that refer to these persons, that
they seem to be contradictory, and that they are, like some other places, used
by atheists as sweet morsels to disprove the divinity of the prophecies, when,
in fact, the facts are completely the opposite, as we shall endeavor to
explain. The angel Gabriel said to Zacharias, Luke i, 13–17:—“Fear not
Zacharias; for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife shall bear thee a son; and
thou shalt call his name John, and thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many
shall rejoice at his birth, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and
shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy
Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he
turn to the Lord their God. 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.” It
was thought that this angel showed, beyond any doubt, that it is to this John
that Malachi refers above. But, says the arguer, If so, why does John deny that
so fearlessly to the priests and the Levites, in John i, 21?—“And they asked
him, what then? Art thou Elias? and he [John] answered, No.” Which
of the two do I believe? I reply that I believe both completely, and I believe
Jesus Christ too, when he says in Matt. xi, 13,14,—“For all the prophets and
the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this
[John] is Elias, which was for to come.” Well, says the reader, you are making
the subject more complex now than before, through some strange co-mixture of
prophecies and assertions at complete variance with each other; and, to judge
by the number of witnesses, John must be lying about the truthfulness of
Gabriel and the Son of God, for they say yes, and he denies it, and says “No.”
What will you do? Explain his meaning differently from what he says? No, never.
Will you admit that John is lying, or blame the translation? Oh no, that is not
necessary either; and if we cannot reconcile the scriptures without that, we
shall freely admit our ignorance, and say as Paul once did—”Let God be true and
every man a liar.” We do not here admit the infallibility of lawyers either.
And before we evade this dilemma, we shall venture an assertion about it,
however anomalous it may appear, and we give the freedom and the encouragement
to anyone who wishes to improve it; i.e., That John was the
Elias. We say also, That John was not the Elias! Bear
with us, reader, for by making counter-claims like this, we are only repeating
the previous scriptures. And now to the task of proving this to be reasonable,
scriptural, and, of course, divine truths.
The scriptures
speak of the Elias, that is the spirit, power, or office of
the Elias, frequently, rather than of a person by this name. They refer to the
success of that great work to which the first person by that name received the
keys, namely restoration, which Christ proves in Mark ix, 12,
when he says—“Elias verily cometh and restoreth all things,”
&c. So John the Baptist must have been the Elias Christ refers to in what
follows, ver. 13, “But I say unto you that Elias is indeed come, and
they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him.”
But although one
can see more clearly the distinction made between the various persons, and the
connection seen between the same offices in the complete and wondrous restoration which
the wise God planned in the early council, to be fulfilled by degrees, from age
to age, until it is completed, stand back to take a look at the magnificent and
skillful picture that was planned before it was needed, to bring forth the
restoration of all things, yes, before the deterioration of one thing. When
this earth was chaos, formless and empty, covered with water,
and the elements not regulated in their proportionate correspondence, to work
together for the glory of its Architect, and for the benefit and enjoyment of
its descendants; and before God said “Let there be light;” yes, before the
morning stars sang, or the sons of God leapt for joy, the piteous fate, and
complete corruption of all the elements which made up this
little football, and all its inhabitants, were foreseen. And not only was all
this foreseen, but a perfect plan was arranged to bring not only men, but
everything that was corrupted, back to perfection. Yes, the plan was arranged,
or the machinery if you wish, that is the manner in which all this would be
done, in that marvellous council which the Gods held on the morning of the day
they began the work of setting their garden in order, and creating servants to
keep it so. The main spring of this machine, or the
self-motivating axis on which turned all of its wheels is that Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. The plan of Jehovah was as
perfect, and the outlines and axes of the picture appeared to them as clearly
as they do now; and the interstices are being filled up, from age to age, with
the skill of a master craftsman; and he will go on until this world and its
fulness is a facsimile of the picture drawn of it that strange
morning. Nothing in it can be different from the pattern, without the
patternmaker being disappointed. The restoration cannot be an improvement on
the pattern, without proving the imperfection of the pattern, and consequently,
without proving the imperfection of him who made it. But it will soon be seen
that everything is going on according to the rule, and that nothing is an
accident to the omniscient God. He sets a bridle in the mouth of the usurper,
and sets a limit to the chain of the prince of this world. The same finger
guides this globe in its orbits, and overrules the scepters of its emperors, as
started it on its icy poles in the beginning; yes, one day in the future the
only imperial scepter will be seen in the hand where it belongs; and it will
turn into a rod of iron to one part, and a golden scepter to the other part,
when it is held out above our world, and comes to possess the world, to bind
the devilish traitor, to restore the earth and its fulness, and to make the
kingdoms of the world the property of our Lord and his Christ.
This complete restoration of
the earth and its fulness will be brought about through the power of God,
through the agency of that divine staff given by God to all his servants,
namely the priesthood which is according to the strength of everlasting life,
which binds in heaven that which is done by its possessors on earth. And since
the days of the first transgressors, through the ages, those men who have been
clothed with the authority of the priesthood, and with the spirit of prophecy,
to the extent that the curtain was torn, and the doors of the eternal world
opened before their eyes, have been rejoicing in the hope for, and showing in
their turn this strange and glorious restoration. The pious muse struck sweet
songs of praise to this day. This was the favorite subject of the prophets. The
pencil of the portaitist hastened to capture it, the tongue of the learned took
pleasure in its praise, and the writer’s pen kept to this godly loadstone
almost without wavering. The Spirit of God did not fill the souls of the
prophets and the godly saints with more joy when dealing with hardly any
subject than when he showed them the glorious restoration,—when the mountains
should drop down sweet wine, and the wilderness should blossom as the rose;
when the lion cub and the lamb should lie down together; when there should be
nothing to do damage or harm in all the mountain of his holiness, that is the
earth; when the earth should be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea; when Zion should be established in glory, and all nations
flock to her standard; when the temple of God should be reared, and rivers of
the waters of life flow from it; when the inhabitants of Zion should dwell in
peace; when none should say, I am sick, but each should sit under his own fig
tree, and Jerusalem be the throne of the Lord forever.
In the hope of
fulfilling this restoration, the prophets and saints of God agreed and
endeavored, through their faith and their acts, to fulfill the office and task
of Elias, namely restoring. Enoch did what he could in his day
to restore the earth. He walked with God for three hundred years. He had great
faith. He established an excellent church, and taught his people the principles
of righteousness; but nevertheless, the earth was too corrupt, unbelieving, and
disobedient, for him to be able to restore it; therefore, God took him and his
church to himself; hence the saying, “Zion is fled.” Once the salt was removed,
there was not enough goodness left to save the earth; but its face was
overthrown by God with the flood.
Moses also strove
greatly to accomplish some part of this revolution. He drew nigh unto God by
faith, and obtained great promises from God on behalf of his people, such
as—”Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth
is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation,”
&c. Through this he shows that they could be a peculiar treasure, or
instruments, as a nation, in establishing the government of peace in general,
and that knowledge of God, and the principles of peace, would flow through
these channels from the source, bringing about restoration; but all this, like
every other promise, depended on their obeying the conditions, namely, “If they
keep my laws.” Instead of that, they broke his laws, and continued as a
troubled and obstinate nation; then he took the greatest honor, the most
powerful scepter, for bringing this about, namely the Melchizedek
priesthood, away from them; and instead of being a kingdom of priests
together as a nation, they had only one high priest who could go into the holy
of holies into the presence of God, and that only once a year, instead of the
whole nation being able to withstand the presence of the one who is a searing
fire, and eternal flames to the imperfect. Then, because of their imperfection,
they could not bear such blazing glory, and that because of disobeying the law
which was given in order to perfect them. And so they were justly deprived of
the promised blessing, namely that of being a kingdom of priests. Thus Moses
failed to achieve his aim in the restoration, and God took him away too, to
wait until someone else accomplished what he had failed to do, and then he too
would have his part according to what he did. That perverse nation was placed
under a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.
That Elijah of whom
John was a shadow, was a great and wonderful prophet. The Spirit of Heaven
rested upon him in a most marvellous manner. But what did he bring about, poor
thing? What could he do with such a perverse and rebellious nation? God did not
send his servants to force men to keep his laws, but to persuade them; and if they
did not obey willingly out of principle, they left them in the hand of a just
God, warning them that they were clean of everyone’s blood. Thus godly Elijah,
having failed to bring it about, because of the disobedience of the age to his
message, we hear him wailing from the depths of his hiding-place in the
rock—“They have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am
left alone and they seek my life.” He knew no different, but he was quite
unlikely to accomplish that complete restoration at that time, was he not? God
knew that well enough. But that attempt would be testimony against them; and he
sent the chariot of Israel and his riders to fetch the godly old prophet from
their midst, because they did not know his worth, and kept him until the time
he would be sent with a loan of some of his keys to another to fill his circle
as he did, and to bear witness to incriminate some future generation.
John the Baptist
also came in his day as an Elias, or a restorer. The
angel Gabriel said he would come in the “spirit and power of Elias;” and if the
people had submitted to his teaching, and to what Jesus commanded them, the
prohecies about him would have been fulfilled then, and their children would
have been gathered together as the hen gathers her chicks under her wing; but,
says the Savior, you were not willing; thus did he see their refusal of the
Elias, or this restorer, namely John, too. “If ye will receive it, this is the
Elias which was for to come,” says Christ. Yes, if they would
receive it; but at the same time he clearly tells them that they would not
receive it, and that he would not fill this character, or succeed in fulfilling
the office of Elias, by restoring them. He compares this generation to children
sitting in the marketplace—neither his speech and teaching nor those of John
were to their taste, and they did not wish them as teachers. “John came neither
eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating
and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine bibber, a
friend of publicans and sinners.” Thus they rejected John the Baptist
completely, “and did with him what they listed,” namely cutting off his head.
And although he was indeed the Elias, yet, because of their rejection of him,
he could not be so to them; and this is why, when they asked him, “Art thou the
Elias?” he answered, “I am not.” But if their conduct towards him had been as
it should have been, they would have received a completely different reply to
their question. This is the mystery which appears contradictory, namely that he
was referring to the fact of his office, and they to the man. John knew they
were forfeiting their right to the restoration, and refusing to become “a
kingdom of priests, and a nation or peculiar treasure unto the Lord,” this time
again as before, by scorning his message, together with him who sent him, and
the kingdom of God was taken away from them, as Jesus Christ foretold.
We do not hereby
attach blame to the old prophets, as they did the best they could; even so they
failed to bring about this complete restoration, because of the unbelief and
the rebelliousness of their contemporaries, although each had made some
contribution towards bringing it about in its own time. And as the time
appointed by Jehovah had not come, they could not be made perfect without us
also, or us without them as well. And as has been noted previously, the eternal
priesthood, in heaven and on earth, must work together to achieve this
restoration. And insofar as the Latter-day Saints have had the great honor of
receiving the fulness of the gospel at the “dispensation of the fulness of
times” which Paul talks about, when “he might gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.”
Inasmuch as they have been presented with all the previous provisions of
the restorers of former times, with the faith and deeds of
those and these latter servants, as well as the keys to this restored
dispensation, we can say to this nation as they said to their contemporaries,
“If they wish to receive them, and submit to their message, that the Latter-day
Saints are the Elias which was to come before the coming of the Lord’s great
and dreadful day.” Yes, they, if the teaching they preach is obeyed, are the
Elias of this age, and they will “turn the heart of the fathers to the
children, and the heart of the children to the fathers.” If they do not receive
them, then they cannot be an Elias or a restorer for them; but the Lord will
come, and will strike the whole earth with judgment, because they refused to be
restored. But although different from the previous dispensations in this, yet,
if only the Saints are faithful, and make proper use of their valuable talents,
by warning their contemporaries, they will be found innocent of the blood of
all; they shall enjoy their portion and their inheritance which they won among
all the restorers of the past, when they will be rewarded according to the
deeds they performed in the flesh; they shall inherit the resting-place which
still remains for God’s people, to be restored to them; for we too are seeking,
as Paul once did, an eternal city, whose architect and builder is God. Blessed
are those who seek a better country than this, where they can all unite in singing
the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb, when everyone therein will be an
Elias, filled with the spirit and power of the God of Elijah. The times of the
restoration of all things are a fine time, are they not? Who will not say, Hail
to it, let it hasten to its completion!