The Corporate Elijah Part Two
In the Spirit and the Power
This is the second installment in a two-part series. Part One established the biblical identity and mission of Elijah as a type of prophetic forerunner. Part Two asks the deeper question: who fulfills that role before the second coming of Christ?
________________________________________
A Voice That Must Cry Out
The prophet Isaiah heard it centuries before John the Baptist ever opened his mouth:
Thunder in the desert! “Prepare for GOD’s arrival! Make the road straight and smooth, a highway fit for our God. Fill in the valleys, level off the hills, smooth out the ruts, clear out the rocks. Then GOD’s bright glory will shine and everyone will see it. Yes. Just as GOD has said.” — Isaiah 40:3–5 (The Message)
And Malachi, writing at the close of the Old Testament canon, carried the same theme forward with startling specificity:
“Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me…” — Malachi 3:1 (NLT)
“Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the LORD arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the hearts of children to their parents. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.” — Malachi 4:5–6 (NLT)
The Voice and the Highway
The Corporate Elijah is, first and foremost, a Voice. There must be a sound that breaks the silence of the wilderness, a calling out that demands the road be made straight. This work of preparation—the leveling of hills and the clearing of rocks—is the fruit of repentance and brokenness.
The goal of this preparation is the revealing of a glory that the “former house” could never contain. In the Old Testament, the “house” pointed to a physical temple, but in the New Testament reality, a “house” is a Family. Through the Cross and Resurrection, God moved from Visitation (a temporary guest) to Habitation (a permanent resident).
As members of God’s household (Ephesians 2:19-22) and Living Stones (1 Peter 2:4-5), the Body of Christ has become the dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
The prophetic vision is consistent: before the Lord arrives in glory, there is a voice. There is a forerunner. There is one who declares that Yahweh is God, who calls for repentance, who levels the hills and fills the valleys of the human heart so that the highway is made fit for the King. The glory that will be seen at His coming will surpass anything that has come before.
The question this series presses toward is this: Who is that forerunner today?
________________________________________
“In the Spirit and the Power” — What Does That Mean?
To understand the “Spirit and Power” of Elijah, we must contrast the first Elijah with the second (John).
When the angel announced the birth of John to his father Zechariah, the description given was precise:
“8 One day Zechariah was serving God in the Temple... 11 While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him... 13 But the angel said, ‘Don’t be afraid... your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son! And you are to name him John... 15 for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord... and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. 16 And he will persuade many Israelites to turn to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’” — Luke 1:8-17 (NASU)
But what exactly does it mean to come in the spirit and power of Elijah?
The Message renders it this way: “He will herald God’s arrival in the style and strength of Elijah.” The TEV puts it: “He will go ahead of the Lord, strong and mighty like the prophet Elijah.”
The Greek word translated “in” in Luke 1:17 is a primary preposition denoting fixed position — in place, in time, in state — and by implication, instrumentality. John was not merely stylistically similar to Elijah. He was the God-appointed instrument for his age, operating in the same spiritual position and by the same divine power as the first Elijah. He was placed in a fixed point in redemptive history to fulfill a specific and irreplaceable function.
But this raises a pointed question: what exactly did the first Elijah do? The record is remarkable:
He multiplied the flour and oil of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:14–16)
He raised her son from the dead (1 Kings 17:17–24)
He foretold the seven-year drought (1 Kings 17:3)
He called down rain after seven years (1 Kings 18:41–45)
He exposed Baal as nothing before the God of all the earth — by the consuming fire and the destruction of his priests (1 Kings 18:36–38)
He foretold the destruction of Ahab and his household (1 Kings 21:17–29)
He called down fire to destroy the soldiers of Ahaziah (2 Kings 1:10–12)
Did John the Baptist do any of those things? Not literally. He performed no recorded miracles. He called down no fire. He raised no dead. Yet Christ Himself said of him:
“If you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come.” — Matthew 11:14 (NASU)
And more astonishing still:
“Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!” — Matthew 11:11 (NASU)
The reason is clear: John was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15). He entered the world already equipped to fulfill his call. He was positioned in the fixed moment of the first coming of Christ and served as the divine instrument to prepare the way — not by replicating Elijah’s specific acts, but by functioning in the same prophetic spirit, authority, and power.
John served as the bridge between two periods of spiritual timing. He was the end of the old prophetic age and the beginning of the new. Just as Samuel was the end of the ruling prophets and the bridge to the kings, John was the transition point. Yet, Jesus declared that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he (Matthew 11:11).
________________________________________
The Forerunner Question: Is There to Be Another?
Here is where the argument deepens.
After the Transfiguration, the disciples came down the mountain with a pressing theological question:
“Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” — Matthew 17:10 (NASU)
Jesus replied:
“Elijah is coming and will restore all things; but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” — Matthew 17:11–12 (NASU)
The disciples understood He was speaking of John the Baptist. But note carefully what Jesus said: Elijah already came — and — Elijah is coming and will restore all things. The first statement is past tense, referring to John. The second is future tense. Both cannot refer to the same person.
This is confirmed by John himself, who explicitly denied being the fulfillment of the Malachi 4 prophecy:
“Are you Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” — John 1:21 (NASU)
If John was, by Christ’s own testimony, the Elijah of the first coming — yet John himself denied being the Elijah of Malachi’s ultimate prophecy — then the logic is inescapable: there is a forerunner yet to come for the second advent.
________________________________________
The Prophecy in Threes
This leads us to a pattern that runs through Scripture: the prophecy in threes.
The Isaiah 40 declaration — “Prepare for God’s arrival, Yah is God” — echoes across redemptive history in three movements:
The first Elijah — Tishbite, prophet of fire, who confronted Baal and called Israel back to Yahweh
John the Baptist — who came in the spirit and power of Elijah, functioning as the forerunner of the first coming
A third expression — still coming, the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3–5 at the return of the Lord in glory
The ultimate fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy is not the humble birth in Bethlehem — it is the coming of the Lord in glory to receive His Kingdom. That coming also requires a forerunner.
________________________________________
Corporate, Singular, Corporate: The Biblical Pattern
To understand who this third Elijah is, we must grasp a critical hermeneutical pattern in Scripture: the movement from corporate to singular to corporate.
Consider Isaiah 42:
“Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” — Isaiah 42:1 (NASU)
This passage has rightly been understood as a prophecy of the Messiah. Yet the ancient Jewish interpreters and the translators of the Septuagint saw it as a reference to national Israel — they rendered it “Jacob is My servant” (cf. Isaiah 41:8). Both readings carry textual warrant. The servant is simultaneously corporate Israel and the singular Christ.
The same pattern appears in the Hosea quotation: “Out of Egypt I called My son.” Originally, this referred to the Hebrew nation in the Exodus. Matthew 2:15 applies it to Jesus Himself, returning from Egypt after the death of Herod. But there is a third corporate reality — a people called out of Egypt again, entering into the land of promise.
This is not interpretive confusion. This is the structure of biblical prophecy: the pattern moves from a corporate figure to a singular fulfillment, then expands again into a corporate application.
________________________________________
The 42nd Generation
Matthew’s genealogy in chapter 1 makes a striking mathematical observation:
“So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.” — Matthew 1:17 (NASU)
Three groups of fourteen: that is forty-two named generations. But count the actual names in Matthew’s list — you arrive at forty-one, not forty-two. One generation is missing.
This is intentional. The forty-second generation is not listed because it had not yet been born when Matthew wrote. The forty-second generation was to issue from the first coming of Christ. It is the generation that springs from His death, resurrection, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit — the Church. And from within this generation, Scripture envisions a corporate Elijah arising to prepare the way for the second coming.
This is why Jesus made this stunning statement:
“Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” — Matthew 11:11 (NASU)
The Bridge Between Epochs
John the Baptist stood at the hinge between two ages. He was the terminus of the old prophetic order — as Samuel was the end of the era of ruling prophets and the bridge to the age of kings. But the least citizen of the new covenant Kingdom that Jesus inaugurated was to be greater than John. What then of those who will usher in the second coming?
________________________________________
The Corporate Elijah: Who Are They?
Jesus Himself promised, post-Transfiguration, that an Elijah would come who would restore all things (Matthew 17:11). This points to a forerunner movement that precedes the second advent — one that operates in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, born from within the womb of Israel (the root of faith from which the Church emerged), functioning in the same “fixed position and instrumentality” that characterized both the first Elijah and John the Baptist.
They are those who:
Come in the spirit and power — the place and instrumentality — of Elijah
Have been born from within their mother: Israel, the womb of the Church’s calling
Operate in the fullness of the Holy Spirit as John did from his mother’s womb
Declare, as Elijah did: “Prepare for God’s arrival — Yah is God”
Turn hearts, level hills, fill valleys, smooth the road for the King’s return
They are not a single individual. They are a corporate people — the sons and daughters of the Most High, His anointed, His Church. Bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. His Bride.
This is the Church in her highest calling. Not merely gathered, not merely worshiping in private devotion — but sent, as a prophetic forerunner company, operating in the spirit and power of Elijah, preparing the nations for the coming of the King.
________________________________________
The 42nd Generation!
The genealogy ends with a blank line — a generation yet to be filled in. We are that generation.
The 42nd generation is the “Generation of the Christ”—it is the Corporate Body issuing forth from His first coming. This is the Ultimate Fulfillment of the Elijah mandate. While John the Baptist was the forerunner of the First Advent in the “style and strength” of Elijah, the 42nd Generation is the Corporate Forerunner of the Second Coming.
This is the goal toward which all of scripture has been moving. From the moment the gates of Eden closed, God has been moving to establish a people who would facilitate the merging of Heaven and Earth once again. This is the Great Eschatological Plan to restore and surpass what was lost.
The Universal Garden
In the beginning, the first Garden was a limited, geographical place—a local sanctuary for God and man. But the end-time fulfillment is far greater. We are moving toward a Universal Garden, where the boundary between the spiritual and the human is permanently dissolved. Through the 42nd Generation—the Corporate Elijah—that union is realized on a cosmic scale.
We are not just announcing a return; we are being formed as the Bride who is ready for her Husband. We are the “Living Stones” being fitted together to form the Temple that will never be destroyed. This is the ultimate intention of God: a people who are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, a Church that functions as the Corporate Elijah to welcome the returning Christ to an Earth that has finally become His home.
All of history, all of prophecy, and all of the Spirit’s work leads to this: a 42nd Generation that will not only see the King but will rule and reign with Him in a Universal Garden that covers the face of a redeemed earth. The “style and strength” of Elijah has found its final, eternal resting place in the Body of Christ.
This is the Climax. This is the 42nd Generation.
Bishop G
The road must be made straight. The valleys must be filled. The hills must come down.
Then GOD’s bright glory will shine, and everyone will behold the King!
________________________________________
Part One of this series is available [here]. To receive future articles directly in your inbox, subscribe below.