Evolution of the Spirit of Elijah

By: J. Stapley - February 23, 2005

I’ve always been fascinated how Mormons use the term “Spirit of Elijah”. What is it exactly that we are talking about? I took a look in the The Words of Joseph Smith, Journal of Discourses and Collected Discourses and found only four instances of “Spirit of Elijah” and three of them were not how we used them today:

Joseph Smith commented on it in his translation of Malachi:

WOJS pg. 317 (emphasis added)
The Bible says “I will send you Elijah before the great & dredful day of the Lord Come that he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the Children & the hearts of the Children to their fathers lest I Come & smite the whole earth with a Curse,” Now the word turn here should be translated (bind or seal)

He later elucidated in his discourse on election (i.e., calling and election):

WOJS pg. 327-329
Now for Elijah, the spirit power & calling of Elijah is that ye have power to hold the keys of the revelations ordinances, oricles powers & endowments of the fulness of the Melchezedek Priesthood & of the Kingdom of God on the Earth & to receive, obtain & perform all the ordinances belonging to the Kingdom of God even unto the sealing of the hearts of the hearts fathers unto the children & the hearts of the children unto the fathers even those who are in heaven…

This spirit of Elijah was manifest in the days of the Apostles in delivering certain ones to the buffitings of Satan that they may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, they were sealed by the spirit of Elijah unto the damnaton of Hell untill the day of the Lord or revealtion of Jesus Christ Here is the doctrin of Election that the world have quarreled so much about, but they do not know any thing about it, The doctrin that the Prysbeterians & Methodist have quarreled so much about once in grace always in grace, or falling away from grace I will say a word about, they are both wrong, truth takes a road between them both. for while the Presbyterian says once in grace you cannot fall the Methodist says you can have grace to day, fall from it to morrow, next day have grace again & so follow it, but the doctrin of the scriptures & the spirit of Elijah would show them both fals & take a road between them both for according to the scriptures if a man has receive the good word of God & tasted of the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away it is impossible to renew them again, seeing they have Crucified the son of God afresh & put him to an open frame shame, so their is a possibility of falling away you could not be renewed again, & the power of Elijah Cannot seal against this sin, for this is a reserve made in the seals & power of the priesthood”

Orson Pratt Concured:

Orson Pratt JD 15:53
It is a dispensation to restore all things, it is the dispensation of the spirit and power of Elias or Elijah, “to seal all things unto the end of all things” preparatory to the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It was not until the turn of the century that what we would consider the current popular usage emerged.

James E Talmage CR April 1912 pg. 126
The temple-building spirit manifested among the Latter-day Saints is the spirit of absolute unselfishness; it is the spirit of Elijah, the spirit by which the feelings of the children are turned toward the fathers, and the feelings of the fathers are directed toward the children; for no man stands upon this earth alone.

Walter P. Monson CR April 1915 pg. 51
Now I wonder where they got that from! Surely the spirit of Elijah has spread out over the world, and it is “turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest the earth be smitten with a curse.”

It seems to have ballooned from there forward. The current usage esteems the “Spirit of Elijah” to be similar to the Holy Ghost but it is Elijah and he only has one job: Geneology. It could also potentially be viewed as the Holy Ghost inspiring within us a version of “Team Spirit” – Team Elijah.

It is at least interesting that Joseph Smith did not have a conception of such things (probably because of his translation of the word “turn”).

8 Comments

  1. J,
    I’ll get to more later, since things are slowing down for me, and I remember our earlier conversations on this point, in which I decided that the spirit of Elijah was on one hand simply the keys of the sealing power, and on the other a sort of urge to geneology. We could assume that that urge would be much stronger, if inspired by the spirit once there was power restored to make that work effective in providing ordinances. I think the most radical idea that we came up with was that perhaps Elijah himself was running around inspiring people. As I said, I’ll say more later.
    What I want to say now is that we are far too uncomfortable in the church with the mutable nature of language. That is to say, what we call the Spirit of Elijah now may have been simply an urge to do geneology at one point. That wouldn’t, it seems to me, de-legitimize calling it the Spirit of Elijah, if we have given that as the name for the phenomenon, perhaps based on statements like Elder Talmage’s. Certainly, based on his comments, we wouldn’t come to ask whether there was a “Spirit of Unselfishness” running around inspiring people to be unselfish, so perhaps what we are describing is simply the phenomenon that God is very interested in our doing family history work, and has directed the efforts of the Holy Ghost so strongly in this direction that it appears to us as a separate phenomenon.
    That said, I realize that your purpose is not to evaluate the legitimacy of the use of the phrase, but to figure out what we mean when we say it. What I am suggesting is that it may mean several things at several times. Language is never static.

    Comment by S. Hancock — 2/24/2005 @ 2:32 pm

  2. Here is another reference to Elijah from Wilford Woodruff. The phrase “Spirit of Elijah” doesn’t appear. I am taking this from The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 156. It cites the material as coming from the Millenial Star 56:335-339, May 28, 1894. Woodruff described this matter as a change revealed to him.

    “I was adopted to my father, and should have had my father sealed to his father, and so on back; and the duty that I want every man who presides over a temple to see performed this day henceforth and forever, unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is, let every man be adopted to his father. When a man receives the endowments, adopt him to his father; not to Wilford Wooruff, nor to any other man outside the lineage of his fathers. That is the will of God to this people. I want all men who preside over these temples in these mountains of Israel to bear this in mind. What business have I to take away the rights of the lineage of any man? What right has any man to do this? No; I say let every man be adopted to his father; and then you will do exactly what God said when he declared he would send Elijah the prophet in the last days. Elijah the prophet appeared unto Joseph Smith and told him that the day had come when this priciple must be carried out. Joseph Smith did not live long enough to enter any further upon these things. His soul was wound up with this work before he was for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ. He told us that there must be a welding link of all dispensations and of the work of God from one generation to another. This was upon his mind more than most any other subject that was given to him.

    “In my prayers the Lord revealed to me that it was my duty to say to all Israel to carry this principle out, and in fulfilment of that that revelation I lay it before this people.”

    Comment by John Mansfield — 2/24/2005 @ 2:44 pm

  3. Steve, thanks for your thoughts. I think that by looking how language changes, we can better understand where we are today, and where we were yesterday. And I agree that it does mean several things at several times.

    I think that the usage, as in “spirit of unselfishness”, is probably the most correct interpretation. It is just easy to conflate it with other meanings because of the peculiarities of how we use it and the fact that Elijah is a real guy.

    John – thanks for the great quote.

    Comment by J. Stapley — 2/24/2005 @ 3:05 pm

  4. I remember, once upon a time, at a stake geneology workshop it was asked of one of the invited “experts” what it meant to turn our hearts to the fathers. He said that we had made covenants in premortal life with those who would be our fathers in motality to do their work for them as they wouldn’t have the opportunity to do it for themselves and that fullfilling such covenants was what it meant to turn our hearts.

    I was dismayed at this definition–almost to the point of anger. I was tempted to ask him a few questions one of which may have been something like: “you mean that my immediate biological father knew that he was going to be a jerk, forsake his family, have nothing to do with the church, etc.? It seems to me that such a “pop-religion” idea about premortal life goes hand in hand with some of the crazy things we hear about the spirit of Elijah nowadays.

    Comment by Jack — 2/25/2005 @ 9:02 am

  5. John,
    this is a great quote. If you read the broader context, it seems that at some point, people were sort of campaigning to have people seal themselves to them because the church did not yet understand that sealings were exclusively for families. They thought that anyone could be sealed to anyone else, as I read the original, and as you point out, at this point it was made clear through revelation that only actual family ties were to be sealed. I’ll try to find the longer discourse. I know it’s on gospel link somewhere because I just sort of stumbled accross it.

    Comment by S. Hancock — 2/25/2005 @ 12:13 pm

  6. S. Hancock, I searched and found a transcript of the complete talk:
    http://emp.byui.edu/SATTERFIELDB/Talks/AdoptionWW.htm

    At the end, there is this:

    Following the remarks of President Woodruff, President George Q. Cannon arose and said:

    I am thankful for what has been revealed. This matter has weighed for a long time on my mind. There has been a disposition since the days of Nauvoo for men to seek to add to their future kingdoms by having dead persons sealed and adopted to them. . . . Now, however, the danger of clannishness and divisions is averted, and we can show respect to the parents which God gave us, and through whom we doubtless chose to come before we were born into this world.

    Comment by John Mansfield — 2/25/2005 @ 12:34 pm

  7. John. Thank you very much. It is sentiments like those reflected by President Cannon that reveal a potential underlying impetus for having alot of children.

    The adjective “clanishness” that he uses is quite descriptive of the hypothetical situations that I invision when people are jockying for others to seal to themselves. Fascinating stuff. Has that practice been studied at all?

    Sidenote: It looks like they copied the text right out of gospel link 2001 and saddly, neither of them give a page number in Collected Works vol. 4 for the talks.

    Comment by J. Stapley — 2/25/2005 @ 12:57 pm

  8. I think there is one other key passage that needs to be mentioned here. The prophet Joeph Smith, in speaking of the differing missions of Elias and Elijah says that Elijah’s mission was to hold the keys of the priesthood. He was to provide the means to perform saving ordinances. Then he goes on to say:

    Now was this merely confined to the living, to settle difficulties with families on earth? By no means. It was a far greater work. Elijah! what would you do if you were here? Would you confine your work to the living alone? No: I would refer you to the Scriptures, where the subject is manifest: that is, without us, they could not be made perfect, nor we without them; the fathers without the children, nor the children without the fathers.

    I wish you to understand this subject, for it is important; and if you receive it, this is the spirit of Elijah, that we redeem our dead, and connect ourselves with our fathers which are in heaven, and seal up our dead to come forth in the first resurrection; and here we want the power of Elijah to seal those who dwell on earth to those who dwell in heaven. This is the power of Elijah and the keys of the kingdom of Jehovah.

    It seems here that brother Joseph is using the term “spirit of Elijah much as it is used today. The priesthood power that Elijah restored, the power to perofrm the temple ordinances for the living and dead, is the main reason that we look to him as special. The spirit of Elijah, then is the impetus to use this power, not only for ourselves, but for our dead as well.

    I think the key scriptural passage here is 2 Kings 2. Elisha receives the authority that originially rested with Elijah. This is described as teh spirit of Elijah resting upon him. Joseph Smith seems simlpy to be saying that when we act to use the priesthood (or to support it through our efforts to reach out to our kindred dead) to create sealing links, then we are acting as Elijah would were he here.

    I’ve also found the following talk by Elder Nelson that discusses some of these issues. The Spirit of Elijah
    It also answers some of our questions about counsel relating to doing the work for only our family members. Most notably, he states, “The Spirit of Elijah will inspire individual members of the Church to link their generations, rather than submit lists of people or popular personalities to whom they are unrelated.” He cites president Benson on this point.
    J,
    If I knew how to “ping back” (I thin that’s the right phrase) to this comment from the other post, I would, but I don’t.

    Comment by S. Hancock — 2/28/2005 @ 12:10 pm

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