Don’t forget Matthew 17 also mentions Elijah AND John the Baptist at the Mount of Transfiguration where Christ is seen in in his true glory speaking with Moses and Elijah.
The pertinant passage::: “As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Do not tell anyone about this vision until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
10The disciples asked Him, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
11Jesus replied, “Elijah does indeed come, and he will restore all things. 12But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him whatever they wished. In the same way, the Son of Man will suffer at their hands.”
13Then the disciples understood that He was speaking to them about John the Baptist.”
I thought it might amplify a most interesting thread!
One more thought regarding Matthew 17 as it relates to the NDE discussion....Jesus is seen speaking to both Elijah and Moses.
Now we know that Moses had died for the Lord had him buried in a place that no one would ever know ‘even to this very day” from the reckoning of scribe that finished Deuteronomy. We also know that there was some sort of dispute over the body of Moses between Michael and Satan. Maybe that story is kept locked up somewhere in the Vatican(lest it blow the whole game plan of the RCC, HA HA !) or in a cave some place until God determines when we shall be able to read it.
So if Moses is “sleeping” in the way we think traditionally of it, well he appeared very wide-awake to the disciples. It makes a little sense now though why Christ said don’t tell anyone until he had been resurrected...at least it makes “heart sense”.
The thief was also to be “with me”(as stated by Christ on the cross) with Christ in paradise suggesting some sort of wakeful consciousness, though “asleep” in Christ as we think of it in the material sense. Also if we think about what happens in sleep, often we dream and the brain is often very active in different ways while we sleep. Perhaps spiritually to be “asleep in Christ is analogous in some way spiritually to what happens in physical sleep. Remember what the Lord says...”I am the God of the Living...not God of the dead!”
NDE’s start to appear more plausible. No one has gone anywhere near the parable yet of the rich man and Lazarus...I suppose that would start the argument that it was only a parable and not really reflective of the truth as it relates to NDE’s...pro or con.
God’s time is always now. I think of it like the person who dies on July 20, 2020 and awakens and finds himself in heaven and after a moment he walks up to the being he already knows from Holy Ghost instinct is Stephen. The person, we’ll call him Mike starts to speak with Stephen and they greet each other with a Holy handshake(they’re all baptists up there...you know that right...just joking). Mike starts asking Stephen about what it was like during the first days of the church and Mike says...”wow...2000 years ago you were stoned and everything”. Stephen stares at him quizzically and states...”2000 years, 2000 years!!!??? Why I just got here about a minute ago myself and I saw you just arriving!”
It makes me wonder just what Moses was into during that 40 days and 40 nights he spent on Sinai....Perhaps the disciples were witnessing a crack or a tesseract in time when Moses,Elijah, and Christ had converged in the Shekinah glory of God that topped Sinai when Israel was gathered at the base of the mountain. The disciples may have been a witness to the “nowness” of the omnipresence of the living God the Father!
Elijah came and got swept up in a chariot, he comes, and also came and was present as John the Baptist(if it can be received), and he comes and is coming again before the dreadful day of the Lord.
Jesus is here ranslating into Greek, and interpreting it to the disciples with figurative-literal language, where Elias (Elijah pronounces as in Greek or in Ger=man) is symbolic of John Baptizer's ministry to which he has been summoned and ordained, for people to turn to God from sin and thus gain a mindset that can accept Jesus as being plain-literally God-come-in-human-flesh Messiah.
You might note that much of Jesus; training in His three-and-a-half year stint with them was accustoming them to the use of plain-literal and figurative-literal language in arriving at a literal interpretation of the Scriptures (not a Romanistic allegorical one).