Preface note:  The reader may have many more questions relating to this topic as a result of the essay below.  Most of these questions will more than likely center around the definition of "souls" "spirits" "immortal" "heaven" or "hell".  These will be dealt with in my upcoming on-line book THE IMMORTAL SOUL OF SPIRITISM. IS IT TRUE BIBLE DOCTRINE?, which will be ready for publication about January of 2009.  Until then perhaps a perusal of this article about Elijah's return will provide some initial food for thought aimed at pondering on just how much we have been led astray by the pulpit clergy of our nation. --  Ken Lent

   Many Christians are aware that the world is entering into perilous times, yet they are waiting for certain "signs" taught by the clergy that affect their very actions in view of "end time" accountability.  Instead of looking for a closer relationship of obedience to God Almighty as His Saxon Israel household, most white Christians don't even know they are the Biblical Israelites.  Instead of obeying God's Laws and preparing their families for trials that will soon shake the nation, Christians are waiting for the prophet Elijah to return to lead a revolt against the ungodly powers that have ensnared the world.  The below study explains why fundamentalist theology is Scripturally incorrect when it claims that Elijah the Prophet was taken to "heaven" to be with God, and will soon return to work miracles in these last days to fight against "the antichrist". (additional study: click this link for more about Antichrist)

II Kings 2: 9-11

9 "And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.

10  And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.

11  And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven."

  In II Kings 2:11 above where we read that Elijah was taken up to heaven by a whirlwind chariot, it can be describing anything from the power of Yah over nature's wind itself to a vehicle of sorts.  In fact, today many of us  have "been taken up to heaven (the sky)" on occasion by a jet aircraft that has flames and whirlwind in its turbines to lift us up from the ground similar to what we read in that verse. The exact type of "whirlwind" is not specified in verse 11. Likewise we aren't told where Elijah went other than "up into heaven", "heaven" being "sky" (Strong's # 8064 - shawmayim). To extrapolate from this verse, as the fundamentalist futurists do, that Elijah never died and went to Yahweh's timeless infinite realm -- is a reach.  It simply does not say that.  Elijah was taken up.  That's all it says.  Note that this event happened before the reign of evil King Jehoram (compare II Kings 2:11; 3:1).  Yet AFTER Jehoram began to reign in Jerusalem, we see that Elijah writes Jehoram a letter warning him about his wickedness. (see II Chron. 21:4, & 12-14).  Obviously Elijah was still on the Earth at that time AFTER his supposed  ascension into Yahweh's extra dimensional realm of heaven existence.

   No, Elijah never went to "heaven" to live immortally with Yahweh and all the "souls" of departed believers, who are not there either.  The entire "immortal soul doctrine" and the "Elijah never died doctrine" is a non-sense doctrine which repeats the lie of the Serpent in Eden "thou shalt not surely die".  The Bible teaches that ALL MEN (including Elijah, Enoch, and Moses) are sinners, that ALL SINNERS die, and go to the ground where their lives and their thoughts are in a state of non existence.  "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5)    In the grave without awareness of time's passage, the dead await the resurrection promised us in Yahshua/Jesus the Christ.  If Elijah was descended from Adam, he was a sinner.  Was Elijah from Adam?  Yes, most certainly he was.  It is because of the churches' failure to accept the penalty for sin (death), that they strive daily to get their congregations alive into "heaven" at death, instead of teaching the Gospel of the Kingdom (government) for our nation in the "here and now", and properly placing hope in the Biblical promise of life again by resurrection in the age to come.

 Those who cite Hebrews 11:5  "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death", never pause to consider the next phrase,--  "and was not found, because God had translated him:".  Simply put, we are told here that certain people were looking for Enoch , but God "translated" (removed) Enoch that he would not die at that time. This was Enoch's "translation" (see Strong's Greek #3331, metathesis - "removal from one place to another").  Some people were after Enoch to kill him, and God miraculously removed him so he wouldn't be killed.  In the New Testament, Philip was also removed by a supernatural disappearance from the place where he baptized the eunuch, as the Spirit of Yahweh "caught away" Philip. (Acts 8:39)  But in Philip's case nobody teaches he went to heaven forever because Philip quickly appears again at Azotus. (Acts 8:40).  This is similar to Elijah showing up again to write a letter to King Jehoram after Elijah's whirlwind transportation in the sky, but the futurists miss that fact about Elijah's experience.  Only by a predisposed mentality of the Catholic "heaven/hell doctrine" would a person think that these verses about Enoch and Elijah mean they went to God's eternal realm and didn't die.  The fundamentalist doctrine and other Protestant theology was heavily influenced by their former ties to Catholicism.  The truth is that all men sin and all men die.

  Romans 3:23  "For ALL have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;"

Ezek.18:20  "The soul (person) that sinneth, it shall die."

Heb. 9:27  "And as it is APPOINTED UNTO MEN once to die, but after this the judgment:"  (Was Elijah a man?)

28 "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." 

Romans 5:12  "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and DEATH by sin; and so DEATH passed upon ALL MEN, for that all have sinned:"

John 5:28  "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,  And shall come forth ---"

   When Christ says that Elijah will come and restore all things (Mark 9:12), He also immediately said that Elijah has even come already, referring to John the Baptist (next verse 13), who was clearly NOT Elijah the prophet himself (John 1:21), even though Christ referred to John as "Elijah".

John 1:19  "And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?

20  And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.

21  And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No."

 Reincarnationists attempt to use the John/Elijah connection in trying to teach reincarnation from the Bible.  But the Bible explains that John's prophesying and teaching of the "Elijah message" was that John went forth in "the power and spirit (disposition)" of Elijah  (Luke 1:17), not that John was literally Elijah.

  13  "But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.

17  And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, 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 Yahweh"

     The Scriptures in the Book of Kings are specific in calling the individual Old Testament person Elijah, by his whole title and specific name: HIS SERVANT ELIJAH THE TISHBITE. "This is the word of Yahweh, which He spake by: His Servant Elijah The Tishbite" (II Kings 9:36)  see also 1 Kings 17:1; 21:17; 21:28; 2 Kings 1:3; 1:8; 9:36.  Although the term "prophet" is used of Elijah, Yahweh knows this messenger personally as "His Servant Elijah The Tishbite".    We are never promised that "Elijah THE SERVANT, from the town Tishbe" himself will return before the great day of wrath to come, but rather "Elijah the prophet" is to be called (Malachi 4:5).  In the same prophetic meaning, Jesus calls John the Baptist "Elijah" - yet John was not that individual prophet "The Servant from Tishbe" reincarnated again to Earth. (note John 1:21).  Rather John the Baptist was in the "spirit and power" of Elijah.(Lk.1:17) - a type of Elijah.  The Old Testament Servant Tishbite  is dead because he was a man sinner like we all are.  He is in the grave which the Bible says is appointed to ALL men.

   "Prophet" means "spokesman" (see Strong's Heb. #5030), which calling the Holy Spirit has given to the "body of Christ" in these days.  "Wherefore, BRETHREN, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues (different languages)". (1 Corinthians 14:39)  "Now I beseech you, BRETHREN, by the name of our Master Jesus Christ, that YE ALL SPEAK (prophesy) the SAME THING, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." (1 Corinthians 1:10)     "And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and THEY shall prophesy" (Acts 2:18) 

  Eli-jah means "God is Yahweh" and not "God is the Lord" as the Baal churches teach, being that the Hebrew word "Baal",a pagan deity, translates directly to the English word "Lord".  James too compares Elijah the Old Testament individual to the "WE" of the New Testament body (singular).   "Elias was a man subject to like passions as WE ARE, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months." ( James 5:17)

   Since Elijah, himself a descendant of Adam,  was a man sinner and is dead (Rom. 6:23) according to the entire testimony of many Scriptures concerning the penalty for sin, yet Yahweh does promise that "Elijah the prophet/spokesman"  will come before Christ returns, --- it is more than obvious to  individuals who are spiritually aware, that the true remnant body of believers who speak the end time message that "Yah- is -God", THEMSELVES AS ONE BODY comprise"Elijah" that would appear before the "coming day of  Yahweh" in the latter days.  This "spokesman" is the Israel Kingdom message and its collective messengers as we know it today, and has arrived just prior to the end time coming judgment exactly as Yahweh has ordained should happen.  Likewise Mystery Babylon the Whore is not an individual solitary female whom we must seek out and destroy, but "she" is a consortium of many antichrist individuals and Earthly powers combined. We would be silly to try to find some woman who is fornicating with many kings, in order to stop her evil in the Earth. (Rev.17:1-5)

  Of course the Baal preachers can't see the Christian Israel Kingdom message as truth since they are blind. What they teach is not sound doctrine and they are causing many to be distracted in waiting for Elijah's return, that an individual Antichrist is to rule, and a so called mass Christian conversion of Jews will take place.  None of this will happen.  Bible Prophecy is being fulfilled right now, America is at the center of it, and the Elijah Ministry (spirit and power of Elijah, that Yahweh is God of Saxon Christian Israel) has been calling for American national repentance for several decades now.  Those who have ears to hear let them hear, as it is this "Elijah spirit/power" which has called out the remnant already.

   Elijah the person is not coming.  Don't be fooled into waiting for him in order to act on the calling into obedience and preparation for the trying times ahead.  The victory is ours.  Let no one who is of Christ be discouraged!!  Blessings to the Remnant!! (More answers about "souls" "death" "immortality" coming soon in the on-line book THE IMMORTAL SOUL OF SPIRITISM: IS IT TRUE BIBLE DOCTRINE?  )