And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?
The question is asked after Elijah's appearance at the transfiguration and connects that appearance with the teaching that Elijah must come first. It reflects the disciples' expectation that Christ's kingdom would be set up on earth and that heavenly messengers might protect Him from what awaited Him in Jerusalem. That expectation overlooked that His suffering and death were necessary to complete the plan of salvation.
The verse belongs to standing with Christ on the mount of transfiguration, beholding His beauty as chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely until the soul becomes radiant with the glory risen upon it. In that standing the disciple receives the call to arise and shine. That mountaintop standing sends the disciple down into the plain where souls enslaved by Satan wait to be set free by faith and prayer. That freeing work is done by drinking deeply of Christ's self-sacrificing love that seeks not its own and labors and sacrifices even to death for the saving of humanity.
The question is asked after Elijah's appearance at the transfiguration and connects that appearance with the teaching that Elijah must come first. It reflects the disciples' expectation that Christ's kingdom would be set up on earth and that heavenly messengers might protect Him from what awaited Him in Jerusalem. That expectation overlooked that His suffering and death were necessary to complete the plan of salvation.
The verse belongs to standing with Christ on the mount of transfiguration, beholding His beauty as chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely until the soul becomes radiant with the glory risen upon it. In that standing the disciple receives the call to arise and shine. That mountaintop standing sends the disciple down into the plain where souls enslaved by Satan wait to be set free by faith and prayer. That freeing work is done by drinking deeply of Christ's self-sacrificing love that seeks not its own and labors and sacrifices even to death for the saving of humanity.