How John the Baptist teaches us to understand ‘coming’ language
One of the most important principles of biblical interpretation is that Scripture must teach us how Scripture speaks. We should not begin with modern assumptions about what words like coming, appearing, or seeing must mean and then force those assumptions onto the text. Few examples demonstrate this more clearly than the prophecy concerning the coming of Elijah.
Malachi ended the prophetic era with this promise: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD” (Malachi 4:5). Taken in a woodenly literal sense, one might naturally expect the historical Elijah himself to return physically from heaven. Yet that is not how the New Testament interprets the prophecy.
Before John the Baptist was born, Gabriel said of him, “He shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias” (Luke 1:17). John was not Elijah reincarnated, nor had the ancient prophet physically descended from heaven. Nevertheless, John fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy by coming in Elijah’s prophetic character, ministry, and authority.
Jesus made this explicit. Speaking of John, He said, “If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come” (Matthew 11:14). Later, after the Transfiguration, the disciples asked why the scribes taught that Elijah must first come. Jesus answered, “Elias is come already, and they knew him not” (Matthew 17:12). Matthew then adds, “Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist” (verse 13).
Yet John himself, when asked, “Art thou Elias?” answered, “I am not” (John 1:21). There is no contradiction. John was not literally the historical Elijah returned in the flesh. But according to Jesus, he truly was the Elijah whom Malachi had promised. The prophecy was fulfilled typologically, spiritually, and covenantally.
That fact should influence the way we read other prophetic “coming” passages.
If someone in the first century had insisted, “Malachi cannot be fulfilled because Elijah himself did not physically descend from heaven,” Jesus’ answer would have been simple: “Elijah has already come.” The scribes knew the prophecy but misunderstood the manner of its fulfillment.
The same principle appears throughout the Old Testament in references to the “coming of the LORD.” Isaiah 19:1 says, “Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt.” Yet Yahweh did not visibly descend from the sky riding a meteorological cloud. God “came” against Egypt through historical judgment.
Micah likewise declares, “The LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth” (Micah 1:3). The mountains are described as melting beneath Him, yet the prophecy concerns historical judgment upon Samaria and Jerusalem.
Psalm 18 uses equally dramatic language when David describes God delivering him from his enemies: the earth shakes, the heavens bow, God comes down, rides upon a cherub, and flies upon the wings of the wind. Yet the Psalm is describing God’s intervention in history, not a literal visible descent of Yahweh through the atmosphere.
Biblical prophecy therefore establishes a familiar pattern: God “comes” when He manifests His presence in judgment, deliverance, or covenantal visitation.
This background matters when Jesus speaks of “the coming of the Son of man.”
Daniel 7 describes “one like the Son of man” coming “with the clouds of heaven” to the Ancient of Days, where He receives dominion, glory, and a kingdom (Daniel 7:13–14). The movement is toward the Ancient of Days, not from heaven down to earth. The passage concerns enthronement and vindication.
Jesus applies this language to Himself when He tells the high priest, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). His enemies would witness the historical vindication of the One they condemned.
Jesus also placed a manifestation of His coming within the lifetime of His contemporaries. After saying that “the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father,” He immediately added, “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:27–28).
The same is true in the Olivet Discourse. Jesus first predicted the destruction of the temple: “There shall not be left here one stone upon another” (Matthew 24:2). He then described wars, persecution, the abomination of desolation, flight from Judea, and the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds. Finally He declared, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (Matthew 24:34).
Luke makes the historical setting especially clear: “When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh” (Luke 21:20). He calls these “the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled” (verse 22).
John the Baptist himself had warned that this judgment was near. “Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” he asked Israel’s leaders (Matthew 3:7). He said, “Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees” (verse 10), and described Messiah with His winnowing fan already in His hand, ready to separate wheat from chaff.
The New Testament continues to use the language of Christ “coming” in this judicial sense. Jesus warned the church at Ephesus, “Repent…or else I will come unto thee quickly” (Revelation 2:5). He told Pergamum, “Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly” (Revelation 2:16). He warned Sardis, “I will come on thee as a thief” (Revelation 3:3). Few Christians understand these as separate bodily descents of Jesus from heaven. They are historical visitations in judgment.
Yahweh “came” against Egypt without visibly descending through the atmosphere on a cloud. Yahweh “came down” against nations without physically placing His feet on their mountains. Elijah “came” without the historical Elijah returning from heaven. Christ threatened to “come” against first-century churches.
Then why does the modern church insist every NT reference to the coming of the Son of Man automatically be interpreted as a globally observable physical return?
John the Baptist provides an important hermeneutical key. Malachi promised Elijah. Elijah came. Yet he did not come in the physical manner many expected. Jesus nevertheless declared the prophecy fulfilled: “Elias is come already, and they knew him not.”
The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 fits the same prophetic pattern. Jesus foretold the destruction of the temple, pronounced judgment upon Jerusalem, warned His disciples to flee when they saw the appointed signs, and repeatedly placed these events within the generation then living.
Rome supplied the armies, but biblical prophecy teaches us to see divine judgment behind the historical instruments. Jerusalem fell. The temple burned. The sacrificial order ended. The covenant nation that rejected its Messiah experienced the judgment He had foretold.
Prophetic symbolism does not make an event unreal. John was genuinely the promised Elijah even though he was not literally Elijah in the flesh. Yahweh genuinely came against nations even though He was not physically seen riding clouds. In the same way, the coming of Christ in judgment can be real, historical, and covenantally decisive without requiring a visible bodily descent through the sky.
The central question is not whether Christ is real or whether His resurrection was physical. It was. The question is how Scripture itself uses prophetic language.
John the Baptist teaches us the answer.
Elijah was promised, and he came.
Most did not recognize him because he did not come in the manner they expected.
Jesus also promised His generation that the Son of Man would come in judgment and vindication. Within that generation, Jerusalem was surrounded, the temple was destroyed, and the old covenant order passed away. Meanwhile, consistent preterists are condemned for teaching that the same biblical, prophetic sense in which Yahweh had repeatedly “come” in judgment throughout Israel’s history was fulfilled when the Lord came in judgment to signal the end of the OT age, fully commission His everlasting kingdom, and complete His redemptive mission, raising the dead out of Sheol in AD70.
Article posted with permission from Bill Evans
