THE END TIME ELIJAH
A conviction strongly adhered to by many in the end time Church of God is that Herbert W Armstrong fulfilled a role supposedly prophesied in Matthew 17:10-11, that of the so-called "end time Elijah", as seen for instance in this article. I realise not all Churches of God hold to this doctrine, and some put a different spin on it, but it is nevertheless a widely held belief.
The author of this website himself held this belief virtually unquestioned for some 25 years.
The full passage in question reads:
Matthew 17:10 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
11 Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things.
12 But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands”.
13 Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist.
Most of those who adhere to the "end time Elijah" doctrine explain verses 10-11 as applying to Herbert Armstrong, and verses 12-13 to John the Baptist.
Very few in the Church of God realise that Herbert Armstrong was influenced by the writings of a former Seventh Day Adventist minister named G. G. Rupert, who understood the truth about the validity of God's law, including the annual holy days. Rupert believed that he himself was the "end time Elijah" and mentions others before him who believed that they were the "end time Elijah".
Click here to read the G. G. Rupert article from 1919 that shows these things.
So the concept of and belief in an "end time Elijah" did not originate with Herbert Armstrong.
Although the words of Christ, "Elijah is coming first and will restore all things", do not say what "all things" refers to, this Scripture has usually been explained as pertaining to Church doctrines; G. G. Rupert thought so too.
If this is correct, it raises an enormous problem: Ministers from the Church that Herbert Armstrong (HWA) attended for many years, the Church of God Seventh Day (COG7), say that most of what HWA taught after he left them and went his own way, was already taught by them. Taking into account the teachings of the COG7 and G. G. Rupert, how many doctrines were actually "restored" to the Church by HWA?
Herbert Armstrong himself claimed that the Sabbath keeping brethren he began to fellowship with early on, people he incorrectly labelled as "the Sardis era", had lost most Biblical truth. In an article written late in his life he states, "By the early part of the 20th century much of God's purpose and truth had been lost - but the struggling true Church still had the name Church of God, the Ten Commandments including the Sabbath, and also tithing" ("Recent History of the Philadelphia Era of the Worldwide Church of God" - June 24, 1985).
However, a little bit of research into old Church writings paints a very different picture. The author was able to compile a list of 40 beliefs the Church of God had prior to the time of Herbert Armstrong:
1) The Ten Commandments
2) The seventh day Sabbath
3) The name "Church of God"
4) Tithing
5) Baptism by immersion
6) Non-baptism of children
7) Physical circumcision is replaced by spiritual circumcision
8) The Great Whore of Revelation 17 is the Catholic Church
9) Catholic doctrine originated in Babylon
10) The dead do not go to heaven or hell
11) Mortality of the soul / the dead are asleep
12) The resurrection of the dead
13) Christ was in the grave three days and three nights
14) The days Christ was in the grave ran from Wednesday till the Sabbath
15) Christ died in the middle of a "week" as prophesied by Daniel
16) Sunday is the Mark of the Beast
17) The Mark of the Beast concerns the forehead (seat of intellect) and the hand (sign of labour)
18) Rejection of the symbol of the cross
19) Rejection of Christmas
20) Rejection of Easter
21) The Christian is to keep the commandments by the power of the holy spirit
22) Clean and unclean foods
23) Christ is the Mediator between God and man, not Mary or someone else
24) The existence of a "True Church"
25) The Church is the Bride of Christ
26) The Church is the Family of God
27) The keeping of Passover on the 14th of Abib
28) The keeping of Pentecost
29) The validity of the annual holy days (G. G. Rupert, Clarence Dodd)
30) British Israelism (various identifications of tribes taught by different individuals, e.g. G. G. Rupert, D. Paul Ziegler)
31) The belief that the return of Christ is imminent
32) The rejection of military service
33) Knowledge of the "day for a year" principle of interpreting prophecy
34) Knowledge that a prophetic year is 360 days
35) Knowledge that a "time" in prophecy equals 360 days
36) The "seven times" mentioned in Leviticus 26 picture 2520 years of the treading down of Jerusalem, a period known as "the times of the Gentiles"
37) The "time, times and half a time" mentioned in Daniel 7:25 equals 1260 years of persecution by the Papacy
38) Knowledge of the identity of the nations that constitute the Daniel 2 statue
39) The four beasts of Daniel 7 are the same four world ruling empires of the statue of Daniel 2
40) The "little horn" of Daniel 7 is the Papacy
Since drawing up this list it has been pointed out to the author that it is by no means exhaustive.
These beliefs and practices were all taught by HWA, and most of them can also be found in "A History of the True Religion" by Andrew Dugger and Clarence Dodd, ministers of the COG7.
Click here to read "A History of the True Religion" by Andrew Dugger and Clarence Dodd.
(Please note that the author of this website does not agree with three of the above listed beliefs. I do not believe that the reference to the middle of a week in Daniel 9:27 applies to the day of Christ's death, but rather to the middle year of the 70th "week" of the Seventy Week Prophecy. See the page "FULFILLED PROPHECIES" for an explanation of this. I also believe in a somewhat different interpretation of the Mark of the Beast, i.e. that it is Sabbath breaking, rather than merely Sunday keeping. See the page "REVELATION 13 - THE BEAST" for more about this. I also believe in a significantly different interpretation of the Daniel 2/Daniel 7 "Beast" powers, i.e. that the third beast is Greco-Rome, and the fourth beast is Islam. See the page "DANIEL 2 - INTERPRETATION ERRORS" for a thorough explanation.)
It was claimed by HWA that the brethren he associated with in the COG7 did not accept the annual holy days, however the "Sabbath Sentinel" magazine of September 1988 makes two startling statements on page 8 that refute this:
1) "In the Spring of 1937, Elder C.O. Dodd of Salem, West Virginia, began publishing a paper called The Faith, advocating the Feasts of Leviticus 23".
2) "During the Churches of God (7th Day) Feast of Tabernacles that Fall (1938) in Warrior, Alabama, .........".
So the doctrine of the annual holy days was obviously accepted by enough brethren in the COG7 to warrant organised meetings in the 1930's. The claim that leading Church figures did not accept the keeping of the Biblical holy days is also proved incorrect by the simple fact that the Churches that have continued on from Clarence Dodd still keep these Feasts today.
The then well-known doctrine of British Israelism, with a variety of explanations, was likewise accepted by a number of ministers, including G. G. Rupert and D. Paul Ziegler. This doctrine had been around for a long time, and was already known to King James I of England, of King James Bible fame, who believed that as King of England he had been made King of Israel, and even had coins minted alluding to this. British Israel views were at various times published in the COG7 newspaper, the "Bible Advocate", even though these beliefs were not taught by the majority of ministers. Church doctrines and beliefs were then not as strictly and centrally controlled as they are today.
From all the above information, as well as from many other articles on this website, we can see that HWA's claim that God raised him up to "restore all things" does not stand up to close scrutiny.
The "Elijah" prophecy in Matthew 17:10-11 has been taken by the Churches of God as referring to a prophet who appears just before Christ's second coming. However, when the disciples asked Christ, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?" (v10), Christ acknowledged that "Elijah" was to appear prior to Himself (v12, referring to Mal 4:5), but made it clear that he had already come in the person of John the Baptist.
In addition, if Matthew 17:11 is read as "Elijah indeed comes first" (Green's Literal Translation), "and he is to restore all things" (RSV), which John the Baptist did, this Scripture makes perfect sense in its first century fulfilment.
Also, when we read the parallel account in Mark 9:12: "Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?" (NIV), we can see that the "Elijah" who restores all things appears before Christ's suffering. This suffering occurred, of course, at Christ's first coming. When He returns, He does so in power and glory, not again to suffer.
The Churches of God, however, claim that John the Baptist did not restore any doctrines and therefore rule him out as being the one who fulfilled Matthew 17:10-11. Indeed, I have personally heard it shouted from a Church of God pulpit: "John the Baptist restored nothing!".
This, however, does not align with the Scriptures. John was prophesied to "turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him 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 a people prepared for the Lord" (Lk 1:16-17). Jesus Himself said that John was the greatest man ever born of a woman (Matt 11:11) - greater than all the prophets! Therefore we can be sure he fulfilled what he was prophesied to fulfil.
What exactly did John restore?
John the Baptist restored true religion to the land of Israel, turning the hearts of many people back to God.
When Jesus Christ began to preach, the Scriptures tell us that "the people heard Him gladly" (Mk 12:37) and that "All things this man (John) spoke of Him (Christ) were true" (Jn 10:41).
Why did the common people respond in this way? Because John the Baptist had prepared them, presenting the truth of God to them with such clarity that they were moved to repentance, and thus greatly motivated to receive their Messiah.
Throughout the centuries after the Jews' return to the Holy Land from Babylonian captivity, much of God's truth had become distorted and misapplied. The Jewish religious leaders were heavily criticised by both John and Christ for turning God's true religion into one focused only on physical rituals and compromised by "the tradition of men" (Mk 7:8). It was this significant departure from correct understanding and practice that John was sent to address.
John the Baptist was given the holy spirit from his mother's womb (Lk 1:15). This is a very rare thing. A very special work is to be expected from such a person.
It is claimed that the man who had the holy spirit from the womb "restored nothing", but he who did not have the holy spirit from the womb "restored all things".
If Herbert Armstrong's restoration work was greater than John the Baptist's, why didn't he have the holy spirit from the womb?
A big part of the problem has been a misunderstanding of the prophecy in Malachi 4:5-6: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse".
The "Elijah" mentioned in this passage clearly refers to John the Baptist, and was understood that way by Christ. Unfortunately, however, the phrase "day of the Lord" has been explained, in the final era of the Church, as being solely applicable to the time of Christ's second coming. A close examination of this phrase in Scripture, however, shows that it is used for a variety of occasions when God intervenes in the affairs of mankind in a major way.
Look, for example, at the book of Joel, where the phrase "day of the Lord" occurs five times without any of them applying to the time of Christ's return. This book was written before Judah went into captivity. In Joel 1:6 it says that a "lion" is going to devour the land. Daniel 7:4 compares the first "beast" power to a lion. Elsewhere in Daniel this power is identified as Babylon. Joel describes this conquest of his people as a "day of the Lord" in Joel 1:15, 2:1 and 2:11. It should not surprise us that Joel uses this phrase, because Jeremiah does the same thing in Lamentations 2:22, referring to it as "the day of the Lord's anger". Jeremiah personally witnessed the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians and describes it graphically in that book. Likewise, Zephaniah speaks at length of this Babylonian conquest, calling it a "day of the Lord". Obadiah refers to it by this term as well.
In Joel 2, God shows that a remnant of the Jews is to be brought back from Babylon to Israel. In Joel 2:28-29 we are given a chronological marker, referring to the time of Christ's first coming and the establishment of the Church: Joel 2:28 is quoted in Acts 2:16-18 with regard to the pouring out of God's spirit. Most of the Jews, however, would reject Christ and so Joel 2:31 predicts another "day of the Lord". This came in the form of the 70AD destruction of Jerusalem. This is the same "day of the Lord" prophesied in Malachi 4:5-6, which would involve striking the "earth" of Israel with utter destruction. It is also referred to in I Thessalonians 5:2 and II Peter 3:10.
Joel 3:1 predicts the restoration of the Jews after their 2520 years of punishment has ended. God says that He will "bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem" and they will never again be uprooted from their land (Amos 9:15). This event is again called a "day of the Lord" in Joel 3:14, encompassing WW2 and the Holocaust, after which the Jews were liberated from their oppressors and were able to return to the Holy Land. This "day of the Lord" is also referred to in Zechariah 14:1.
So in Joel we see the phrase "day of the Lord" used five times without once referring to Christ's return. The misinterpretation of Malachi 4:5-6 by the Churches of God regarding a supposed "end time Elijah" needs no further evidence.
In fact, the Scriptures do not foretell the rise of any true prophet of God between the completion of the New Testament and the second coming of Christ. On the contrary, Zechariah 13:4 states, concerning false prophets, that after Christ’s return “it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied”.
The explanations given in this article show the folly of the doctrine of the "end time Elijah" who “restored all things”. They also clearly expose the Laodicea Church era problem of claiming to be "rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing" (Rev 3:17) when the opposite is the truth. Please see the page "THE TRUE CHURCH ERAS" for more information.