Dialogue with Trypho
Chapter 49: Addressing Those Who Argue that Elijah Has Not Yet Arrived, Explaining He is the Forerunner of the First Coming
And Trypho said, "Those who claim he was a man, chosen and anointed, and then became Christ, seem more reasonable to me than you who express these opinions. We all expect that Christ will be a man born of men, and that Elijah will anoint him when he comes. But if this man appears to be Christ, he must certainly be recognized as a man born of men; yet because Elijah has not yet come, I conclude that this man is not the Christ."
Then I asked him, "Doesn't Scripture, in the book of Zechariah, say that Elijah will come before the great and terrible day of the Lord?"
And he answered, "Certainly."
"If therefore Scripture compels you to acknowledge that two advents of Christ were foretold,—one where He would appear suffering, dishonored, and without beauty, and the other where He would come glorious and as Judge of all, as has been made clear in many of the previously mentioned passages,—should we not believe that the word of God has announced that Elijah shall be the forerunner of the great and terrible day, which is His second advent?"
"Certainly," he replied.
"And, accordingly, our Lord in His teaching," I continued, "proclaimed that this very thing would happen, saying that Elijah would also come. And we know that this will take place when our Lord Jesus Christ comes in glory from heaven; whose first appearance was preceded by the Spirit of God in Elijah as a herald through John, a prophet among your people; after whom no other prophet appeared among you. He cried, as he sat by the river Jordan: ‘I baptize you with water for repentance; but He that is mightier than I shall come, whose shoes I am not worthy to carry: He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire: His fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean His threshing floor, and will gather the wheat into the barn; but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire.’ And this very prophet your king Herod had imprisoned; and when his birthday was celebrated, and the niece of the same Herod by her dancing had pleased him, he told her to ask for anything she wanted.
Then the mother of the girl prompted her to ask for the head of John, who was in prison; and having asked it, [Herod] sent and ordered the head of John to be brought in on a platter. Therefore also our Christ said, [when He was] on earth, to those who were claiming that Elijah must come before Christ: ‘Elijah shall come, and restore all things; but I say to you, that Elijah has already come, and they knew him not, but have done to him whatever they chose.’ And it is written, ‘Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them about John the Baptist.’"
And Trypho said, "This statement also seems paradoxical to me; that the prophetic Spirit of God, which was in Elijah, was also in John."
To this I replied, "Do you not think the same thing happened with Joshua the son of Nave (Nun), who took command of the people after Moses, when Moses was ordered to lay his hands on Joshua, and God said to him, 'I will take some of the spirit which is in you and put it on him?'"
And he said, "Certainly."
"As I say, just as God took the spirit from Moses and placed it on Joshua while Moses was still among men, God was also able to let Elijah's spirit come upon John. This was so that, just as Christ appeared humble at His first coming, the first coming of the spirit, which remained pure in Elijah like that of Christ, could also be seen as humble. For the Lord said He would fight against Amalek with a hidden hand, and you cannot deny that Amalek was defeated. But if it is said that only in the glorious coming of Christ will war be waged with Amalek, how great will the fulfillment of Scripture be, which says, 'God will fight against Amalek with a hidden hand!' You can see that the hidden power of God was in Christ the crucified, before whom demons and all the rulers and powers on earth tremble."