<p>11:14- see on 21:32.</p>
<p><em>And if you are willing to receive it-&nbsp;</em>The same word was used earlier in this section, when the Lord spoke of the apostles being &lsquo;received&rsquo; by those who had initially responded to John&rsquo;s teaching (Mt. 10:14,40,41). If Israel would receive it, John the Baptist was the Elijah prophet. The course of fulfilment of prophecy was conditional upon whether John succeeded in turning the hearts of Israel back to the fathers or not; on preparing them for the great and terrible day of the Lord. The Kingdom&nbsp;<em>could&nbsp;</em>have come in the 1st century had Israel received John as Elijah. But they would not. And so another Elijah prophet is to come in the last days and prepare Israel for her Messiah. &ldquo;If ye are willing to receive him, this is Elijah which is to come&rdquo; (RVmg.) says it all. The Elijah prophet who was to herald the Messianic Kingdom&nbsp;<em>could have been</em>&nbsp;John the Baptist- if Israel had received him. But they didn&rsquo;t, and so the prophecy went down another avenue of fulfilment. It could be that Mal. 4:6 implies that there is still the possibility that even the latter day Elijah ministry may not be totally successful- for the earth / land is to be smitten with a curse unless he succeeds in turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and there is no lack of evidence that the land may well be &lsquo;smitten&rsquo; in the last days.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Some prophecies are fulfilled according to the acceptance of their fulfilment by believers, and therefore have their fulfilments in different ways at different times. Thus for those who received it, Malachi&rsquo;s &lsquo;Elijah&rsquo; prophecies were fulfilled in John the Baptist, for those who accepted him (Mt. 11:14). The implication is that for those who didn&rsquo;t, those prophecies weren&rsquo;t fulfilled. When the Lord stood up and read from Isaiah, He commented that &ldquo;this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears&rdquo; (Lk. 4:21). He didn&rsquo;t mean that His reading those words in a synagogue had fulfilled them. He speaks of &ldquo;your ears&rdquo; as standing for &lsquo;your correct perception / understanding&rsquo; in Mt. 13:16. What He was surely saying was that for those of them who perceived who He was, Isaiah&rsquo;s words were ringing true. For those who rejected Him, of course, they weren&rsquo;t fulfilled, and therefore their complete, universal acceptance&nbsp;/ fulfilment would be delayed until a future day; just as it was with the &lsquo;Elijah&rsquo; prophecy.</p>
<p>The &ldquo;it&rdquo; in &quot;receive it&quot; could refer to the prophetic message of the Law and prophets- hence GNB offers &ldquo;and if you are willing to believe their message&hellip;&rdquo;. It was taken as assumed that every Jew received / accepted the Law and the prophets, but the Lord&rsquo;s point was that if they really received it, then they would accept John&rsquo;s message and now accept Him as Messiah. Likewise the Lord challenges the Jewish scribes as to whether they had ever really read the Old Testament (Mt. 21:16,42; Mk. 2:25)- when they spent their days doing so (Jn. 5:39 RV).&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>This was Elijah that has to come</em>- See on :10. John in humility and self-effacement had denied being the Elijah prophet (Jn. 1:20), and he now had a similar doubt, wondering whether in fact Jesus was the Elijah prophet and the Messiah was still to be looked for. The Lord is saying that John was who he was, the Elijah prophet, despite John's self-doubt. And we again have an example- we are to treat our brethren as whom God sees them as being, notwithstanding their temporary weaknesses and self-doubt. The use of &ldquo;this&rdquo; rather than &ldquo;he&rdquo; could be because the Lord had in mind the Elijah prophet&rsquo;s ministry, and not just John personally. &nbsp;</p>