THE PAROUSIA IN THE GOSPELS
THE PAROUSIA PREDICTED BY JOHN THE BAPTIST
THERE is nothing more distinctly affirmed in the New Testament than the identity of John the
Baptist with the wilderness-herald of Isaiah and the Elijah of Malachi. How well the description of
John agrees with that of Elijah is evident at a glance. Each was austere and ascetic in his manner of
life; each was a zealous reformer of religion; each was a stern reprover of sin. The times in which they
lived were singularly alike. The nation at both periods was degenerate and corrupt. Elijah had his
Ahab, John his Herod. It is no objection to this identification of John as the predicted Elijah, that the
Baptist himself disclaimed the name when the priests and Levites from Jerusalem demanded: 'Art
thou Elias ?' (John i. 21.) The Jews expected the reappearance of the literal Elijah, and John's reply
was addressed to that mistaken opinion. But his true claim to the designation is expressly affirmed in
the announcement made by the angel to his father Zacharias: 'He shall go before him in the spirit and
power of Elias' (Luke i. 17); as well as by the declarations of our Lord: 'If ye will receive it, this is
Elias which was for to come' (Matt.. xi. 14); 'I say unto you that Elias is come already, and they
knew him not.... Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist' (Matt..
xvii. 10-13). John was the second Elias, and exhaustively fulfilled the predictions of Isaiah and
Malachi concerning him. To dream of an 'Elijah of the future,' therefore, is virtually to discredit the
express statement of the word of God, and rests upon no Scripture warrant whatever.
We have already adverted to the twofold aspect of the mission of John presented by the prophets
Isaiah and Malachi. The same diversity is seen in the New Testament descriptions of the second
Elias. The benignant aspect of his mission which is presented by Isaiah, is also recognized in the
words of the angel by whom his birth was foretold, as already quoted; and in the inspired utterance
of his father Zacharias: 'Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go
before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by
the remission of their sins , (Luke i. 76, 77). We find the same gracious aspect in the opening verses
of the Gospel of St. John: 'The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men
through him might believe, (John i. 7).
But the other aspect of his mission is no less distinctly recognized in the Gospels. He is
represented, not only as the herald of the coming Saviour, but of the coming Judge. Indeed, his own
recorded utterances speak far more of wrath than of salvation, and are conceived more in the spirit
of the Elijah of Malachi than of the wilderness-herald of Isaiah. He warns the Pharisees and
Sadducees, and the multitudes that crowded to his baptism, to 'flee from the coming wrath.' He tells
them that 'the axe is laid unto the root of the trees.' He announces the coming of One mightier than
himself, 'whose fan is in his hand, and who will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into
the garner, but who will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire' (Matt. iii. 12).
It is impossible not to be struck with the correspondence between the language of the Baptist and
that of Malachi. As Hengstenberg observes: 'The prophecy of Malachi is throughout the text upon
which John comments." (1) In both, the coming of the Lord is described as a day of wrath; both
speak of His coming with fire to purify and try, with fire to burn and consume Both speak of a time of
discrimination and separation between the righteous and the wicked, the gold and the dross, the
wheat and the chaff; and both speak of the utter destruction of the chaff, or stubble, with
unquenchable fire. These are not fortuitous resemblances: the two predictions are the counterpart one
of the other, and can only refer to the self-same event, the same 'day of the Lord,' the same coming
judgment.
But what more especially deserves remark is the evident nearness of the crisis which John
predicts. 'The wrath to come' is a very inadequate rendering of the language of the prophet. (2) It
should be 'the coming wrath;' that is, not merely future, but impending. 'The wrath to come' may be
indefinitely distant, but 'the coming wrath' is imminent. As Alford justly remarks: 'John is now
speaking in the true character of a prophet foretelling the wrath soon to be poured on the Jewish
nation.' (3) So with the other representations in the address of the Baptist; all is indicative of the swift
approach of destruction. 'Already the axe was lying at the root of the trees.' The 'winnowing shovel'
was actually in the hands of the Husbandman; the sifting process was about to begin. These warnings
of John the Baptist are not the vague and indefinite exhortations to repentance, addressed to men in
all ages, which they are sometimes assumed to be; they are urgent, burning words, having a specific
and present bearing upon the then existing generation, the living men to whom he brought the
message of God. The Jewish nation was now upon its last trial; the second Elijah had come as the
precursor of 'the great and dreadful day of the Lord:' if they rejected his warnings, the doom
predicted by Malachi would surely and speedily follow; 'I will come and smite the land with the
curse.' Nothing can be more obvious than that the catastrophe to which John alludes is particular,
national, local, and imminent, and history tells us that within the period of the generation that
listened to his warning cry, 'the wrath came upon them to the uttermost.'
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