Claim. Jesus’s testimony that John the Baptist “was Elijah” should be read as identity-by-mission and spirit-cooperation — JtB inherited Elijah’s unfinished earthly mission and Elijah cooperated from the spirit-world through JtB as his physical instrument — not as literal soul-transmigration of the same person.
Elaboration. Per 2.4. The Sense in Which John the Baptist Was Elijah: “John the Baptist was to inherit and complete the mission which Elijah had left unfinished on earth. As recorded in the Bible, he was born with the mission to go before the Lord, ‘in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared’ (17). Hence, in terms of his mission, John was the second coming of Elijah.”
DP adds a metaphysical layer: “Elijah in fact returned in spirit and was trying to help John the Baptist accomplish the mission which he himself had failed to complete during his earthly life. John the Baptist concurrently served as Elijah’s body, through whom Elijah worked to complete his mission. Therefore, in terms of their common mission, John may be seen as the same person as Elijah.”
This atomic dissolves the ostensible contradiction between Jesus saying “John is Elijah” and John saying “I am not Elijah” — they were both right under different readings (literal vs missional). It also establishes a load-bearing pattern for DP’s broader second-advent doctrine: a second coming is identity-by-mission (with possible spirit-world cooperation), not numerical-soul-identity.
The same logic applies later to how Christ “returns” in the Second Advent (treated in Part II) — a returning identity-of-mission, not a literal reincarnation or descent of the same Jesus.
See also. dp-elijah-mission-incomplete-required-successor, dp-jtb-denied-being-elijah-against-jesus-testimony