Commenting
on the role Elijah played in salvation history after his translation/assumption into heaven, Mark Petersen wrote:
By modern revelation we discover that Elijah
was chosen of the Lord for a special work, not only in mortality but also
following his death. He came back to earth twice as an angel of God, once to the Savior in the Transfiguration and
the second time to Joseph Smith in fulfillment of Malachi’s remarkable
prophecy. (Mark E. Petersen, Malachi and
the Great and Dreadful Day [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1983], 42,
emphasis added)
What is
interesting about this text is that Petersen used “angel” in the sense of “messenger,”
not an ontological category of being, similar to what Joseph Smith did in his
reference to Moroni as an “angel” (see here
for a discussion).
