Elijah & John

[Sinner]

Can anyone tell me how John the Baptist is supposed to be Elijah returned? Is John ....John... or is he Elijah? And if he is Elijah.... how does that work? Color me confused about Catholic Reincarnation...jk really, I am confused.

[Adeodatus]

John is not Elijah reincarnated.

John comes 'in the spirit and power of Elijah' (Luke 1.17), wearing a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt, the same attire that Elijah wore (2 Kings 1.8). Like Elijah, John has a fiery preaching style and lives in the wilderness. John worked in the same Spirit and power of the prophet Elijah by calling people to repentance, and he was preparing them for the salvation that Christ would later bring.

Elijah began the whole series of prophets in the Old testament, and John closes that cycle, "For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John" (Matthew 11.13). The last prophetic book of the Old Testament prophesied that Elijah would come to prepare the way for the Messiah (Malachi 4.5). As Jesus is the Messiah, John fulfils this role of 'Elijah'.

So John is like a new Elijah, completing what the first Elijah began.