What They Got Right

What They Got Right

Mark 9:11 – Then the three disciples asked Jesus, ‘Why do the teachers of God’s rules say that Elijah must come first?’ 12 – Jesus said to them, ‘Elijah does come first. He makes everything ready. But the bible says that people will cause many troubles for the Son of Man. People will do the worst things to him. 13 – But I tell you that Elijah has already come. People did to him whatever things they wanted to do. The bible says that those things would happen to him.

Who was the Elijah who made everything ready?

Look in the Scriptures to the gospel of Luke and remember when the angel came to visit the priest Zechariah as it was his turn to minister in the temple.  Zechariah was told that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son and they were to name him John.  Concerning John the angel declared “He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go as forerunner before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.” – Luke 1:16-17.

John the Baptist was the Elijah who came first, before Jesus.  The ‘teachers of God’s rules,’ known as the scribes, were right in teaching that Elijah must come first. Sometimes we are like that.  There are truths that we get right.  We correctly understand that the scriptures testify about Jesus but we must go further.  We must come to Jesus so that we may have life – John 5:40.

The Apostle Paul explains it like this:

I do all these things because of the gospel, so that I can be a participant in it. Do you not know that all the runners in a stadium compete, but only one receives the prize? So run to win. Each competitor must exercise self-control in everything. they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run uncertainly or box like one who hits only air. Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified. – 1 Corinthians 9:23-27.

The scribes were so knowledgeable in the law that they were able to correctly predict that Elijah would return – but they ignored his message and had him killed. We can’t just teach the gospel and refuse to participate in it or else we will be disqualified from heaven.

Let’s participate in the gospel together so we can all receive the prize of eternal life Jesus wants to give us!