Question Corner by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 26, 1902

Question Corner

By Editor

[From time to time we will reply under this head, if deemed advisable, to such candid inquiries as may be sent us. Correspondents wishing a reply to their questions must give their full name and address, not for publication unless they wish, but as an evidence of good faith on their part, and to give us opportunity to reply by letter if deemed best. It is always well to inclose stamp. Let the questions be short and pointed, and such as may be answered in limited space. The questions will be numbered continuously.]

1212.—Elijah.

Please let me ask one question, Why did you say in the Signs of the Times that the prophet Elias will do no wonders or miracles, when he comes? Did you never read or understand the eleventh chapter of Revelation about the two olive trees? Not only Elias, but Moses also will come, as there must be two witnesses before man! And those two will do the greatest miracles the world has ever seen!

We have not said "that the prophet Elias [Elijah] will do no wonders or miracles when he comes." We have not said that the prophet Elijah as a single person is coming. Jesus our Lord told us that John the Baptist was one fulfilment of the coming of Elijah, because he went forth "in the spirit and power of Elijah." He became the lesser, typical fulfilment of that prophecy. Had he been received, he would have been joined by a multitude who would have gone forth in the spirit and power of Elijah, and God would have used that people to give His Gospel to the world. See Luke 1:17; Matt. 11:10-15; 21:28-43. Before Christ comes the second time, God will again send forth His servants in the spirit and power of Elijah, to prepare a people for that coming. Malachi 4. And Elijah then will not be one, but many. But the evidence of their mission and work for God will not be the working of miracles, but the power of divine, simple Gospel truth which saves and recreates men, the mightiest miracle of the Gospel. There will be signs and wonders wrought, both by God's servants and the emissaries of Satan (2 Thess. 2:9; Rev. 13:14; 16:14), but the real test of the true is the truth of God. Isa. 8:20; Matt. 7:21-23.

The two witnesses of Revelation 11 are another thing altogether. They are necessary to every servant of God, but they are not the servant. In brief they are the Word of the Most High in its different manifestations in all ages. It is one of the delusions of the enemy to apply them to men, some to Moses and Elijah, some to John and Elijah, some to James and John, whereas God tells us that the two olive trees are His Word in operation, and all the miracles have been performed by its power. Zech. 4:1-6; Rev. 11:5, 6.

One other thought; the instruments through which God has given His Word in every generation have been, not persons brought from some other age, but men and women who are a part of the generation to which they give God's message. Men are for the generation in which they live; God's Word abideth forever.