This week in Come Follow Me we studied about the ministry of Elijah. I wrote a good blog about him in 2022 that discusses why Elijah was so downhearted after he defeated the priests of Baal.
The question I was wondering about this week is why Elijah is associated with the keys to temple worship. There are several references to this association in the Doctrine & Covenants.
3 If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming. (D&C 27:9 ,110:15, and others have similar language)
These all tie back to a scripture in Malachi 4: 5-6
5 ¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
Both Jews and early church leaders associated Elijah to the linking of fathers to children, but why? What event in the life of Elijah caused later believers believe he had to return in order to link families together?
He caused a famine in the land because of wickedness (1 Kings 17:1)
He was fed by ravens (17:6)
He was sent to the widow of Zarephath (17:9)
Miraculously her food doesn't run out (17:16)
He raises her son from the dead (22)
He challenges the priests of Baal and Asherah. (1 Kings 18:18)
He calls fire down from heaven (18:38)
He runs away and hides under a juniper bush and an angel comes to urge him to eat. (18:4-5)
He travels to mount Horeb and talks with the Lord. (19:8)
He senses the Lord in the Still Small Voice (19:12)
Which of these things ties him to temple work for the dead? I don't know but there are some possible clues.
1. The way Joseph Smith quotes Malachi 4: 5-6 is different from how it appear in the Old Testament. Joseph Smith's version says, "I will reveal unto you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the Prophet." whereas the passage in Malachi says, "I will send you Elijah the Prophet." So priesthood is a key. The miracles Elijah did clearly suggest that he held the Melchizedek Priesthood with the power to command things on the earth (the famine) and in the heavens (the rain on the sacrifices). This is the same priesthood needed to officiate in modern temple ordinances. One of my podcasters even suggested that Elijah was the last Israelite prophet to hold the Melchizedek priesthood, (but what about Elisha?).
2. Elijah did a miracle to reunite a parent and a child and to exercise control over life and death when he raised the Widow of Zarephath's son from the dead. It is a temporal reunion, bringing the child back from death into life, but it might be seen as a type of a spiritual reunion enjoyed by families reunited in the spirit world. (that is a bit of a stretch I admit.)
3. Elijah definitely was trying to turn the hearts of the people back to their spiritual roots or "fathers" Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When he built his alter in the battle against the priests of Baal, he purposefully made it of 12 stones, "according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob." (18:31) This is hardly unique to Elijah. Didn't all the Old Testament prophets try to remind Israel of their religious foundations?
I admit that the connection of Elijah to temple work and eternal families is not clear to me, yet Malachi associated Elijah with tying generations together, and in modern scripture, he is associated with keys to do temple work. Sometimes it is interesting to have an open question like this. Someday I will be studying or listening to podcasts, and I will figure it out. That is always a fun moment when a long standing question is finally resolved.
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