7. Of
the Birth of John, and of His Alleged Identity with Elijah. Of
the Doctrine of Transcorporation.
“And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elijah? and he said, I am not.” No one can fail to remember in this connection what Jesus says of John, “If ye will receive it, this is Elijah which is to come.” How, then, does John come to say to those who ask him, “Art thou Elijah?”—“I am not.” And how can it be true at the same time that John is Elijah who is to come, according to the words of Malachi, “And behold I send unto you Elijah the Tishbite, before the great and notable day of the Lord come, who shall restore the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his neighbour, lest I come, and utterly smite the earth.” The words of the angel of the Lord, too, who appeared to Zacharias, as he stood at the right hand of the altar of incense, are somewhat to the same effect as the prophecy of Malachi: “And thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.” And a little further on: “And he shall go before His face in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him.” As for the first point, one might say that John did not know that he was Elijah. This will be the explanation of those who find in our passage a support for their doctrine of transcorporation, as if the soul clothed itself in a fresh body and did not quite remember its former lives. These thinkers will also point out that some of the Jews assented to this doctrine when they spoke about the Saviour as if He was one of the old prophets, and had risen not from the tomb but from His birth. His mother Mary was well known, and Joseph the carpenter was supposed to be His father, and it could readily be supposed that He was one of the old prophets risen from the dead. The same person will adduce the text in Genesis, “I will destroy the whole resurrection,” and will thereby reduce those who give themselves to finding in Scripture solutions of false probabilities to a great difficulty in respect of this doctrine. Another, however, a churchman, who repudiates the doctrine of transcorporation as a false one, and does not admit that the soul of John ever was Elijah, may appeal to the above-quoted words of the angel, and point out that it is not the soul of Elijah that is spoken of at John’s birth, but the spirit and power of Elijah. “He shall go before him,” it is said, “in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.” Now it can be shown from thousands of texts that the spirit is a different thing from the soul, and that what is called the power is a different thing from both the soul and the spirit. On these points I cannot now enlarge; this work must not be unduly expanded. To establish the fact that power is different from spirit, it will be enough to cite the text, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” As for the spirits of the prophets, these are given to them by God, and are spoken of as being in a manner their property (slaves), as “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets,” and “The spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha.” Thus, it is said, there is nothing absurd in supposing that John, “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” turned the hearts of the fathers to the children, and that it was on account of this spirit that he was called “Elijah who was to come.” And to reinforce this view it may be argued that if the God of the universe identified Himself with His saints to such an extent as to be called the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, much more might the Holy Spirit so identify Himself with the prophets as to be called their spirit, so that when the spirit is spoken of it might be the spirit of Elijah or the spirit of Isaiah. Our churchman, to go on with his views, may further say that those who supposed Jesus to be one of the prophets risen from the dead were probably misled, partly by the doctrine above mentioned, and partly by supposing Him to be one of the prophets, and that as for this misconception that He was one of the prophets, these persons probably fell into their error from not knowing about Jesus’ supposed father and actual mother, and considering that He had risen from the tombs. As for the text in Genesis about the resurrection, the churchman will rejoin with a text to an opposite effect, “God hath raised up for me another seed in place of Abel whom Cain slew;” showing that the resurrection occurs in Genesis.