Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Mark Petersen using "Angel" in the sense of "Messenger" for Elijah


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).