Hi whereu
I will give a brief personal understanding to your questions, but I'm hoping to get more insight and understanding from a Christian perspective (hence the title of this thread
. )
From my understanding the Book of Malachi states that the Day of God (meaning the coming of the Messiah) will be preceded by the return of Elijah. Elijah in his first coming was taken up with a chariot of fire into the clouds.
Jesus does say that John the Baptist is Elijah.
If Jesus was the Messiah, then there has to have been a coming of Elijah, but no such descending from the clouds was witnessed. Not a literal one anyway.
So, can we conclude that in the case of Elijah, He didn't literally descend from the literal clouds and that in the case of Elijah, at least, that His return was not a literal return but rather a spiritual, or allegorical one?
From this, we may be able to explore other circumstances in the Bible where a literal meaning was expected but a spiritual experience was the intended meaning.
Kam
