IN the light of Christian Science the title "Elijah" implies far more than the name of a man who demonstrated the power of God during the reign of Ahab, king of Israel. The significance of Elijah is both timeless and impersonal, for the name stands for that quality of spiritual discernment which beholds the omnipotence of God and is, consequently, fearless and uncompromising. When the man from Tishbeh, who today would be called a rugged individualist, challenged the royally patronized priests of Baal to a test of spiritual power, he alone was able to supply the proof agreed upon. When the people who stood by saw the fire from heaven consume Elijah's burnt offering, they spontaneously exclaimed, "The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God." This enthusiastic expression of awakened spiritual perception apparently became the basis of the prophet's given name, for according to the New International Encyclopedia, "Elijah" in the Hebrew signifies "Jehovah is God." The account of the prophet's ascension is given in the second chapter of the second book of Kings, and thereafter the people of Israel looked for Elijah's return as the forerunner of the Messiah. This expectation is specifically expressed in Malachi 4:5.
When some centuries later John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea proclaiming the coming of the Lord, the Jewish authorities asked him if he was Elias, which is to say, Elijah. John's reply was in the negative, but he added, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias." Again, in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew we read that when Jesus, Peter, James, and John, were on their way down from the mount of transfiguration, where Moses and Elias had appeared to them in a vision, the disciples asked their Master why the scribes said that Elias must first come. Jesus' reply was that Elias had come already. Then it is related that they understood that Jesus spoke of John the Baptist. This, of course, does not imply a belief in reincarnation, but it clearly refers to that quality of prophetic foresight which always precedes a revelation of Immanuel, or "God with us." When all the references to Elijah and Elias which are contained in the Old and New Testaments are pieced together, one can more fully appreciate the meaning of that inspired definition given by our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, on page 585 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which reads as follows:
"Elias. Prophecy; spiritual evidence opposed to material sense; Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold; the basis of immortality.
