The Angel Gabriel announced to Zecharias that his son's name would be called Yohanan in Luke 1:13, not Eliyahu.
So what?
Jesus also took a new name when He entered the world.
He goes on to say in verse 15 that he will be great in the sight of the Lord and “shall drink no wine or strong drink and will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb.”
And your point is what?
Verse 17 says of Yohanan, “he will also go before Him in the Spirit and power of Eliyahu...”
Thank you.
Exactly as I have said.
John went before the Lord, not in a newly created spirit, but in the spirit of Elijah.
John's spirit and the spirit of Elijah were one in the same.
To claim that Eliyahu is Yohanan is to teach reincarnation.
This has been explained to you.
The Lord knows that many, such as yourself, will bristle at the thought of a man living two lives (even if he didn't die during the first life).
Pretend for a moment that you never heard me or anyone like me expound on the concept of John being Elijah.
Now read for the first time, as it were, without prior prejudiced, the words of Christ.
"Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist."
"For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept
it, John himself is Elijah who was to come."
Now - if you still cannot receive what the Lord clearly taught - I take it from what He said parenthetically on the subject that it's no really big thing to God.
You are in good company in so resisting the Lord's teaching.
But, as all know, being in the company of a great many doesn't always make a person's theology right.
By the way - do you believe, as Nicodemus should have known as the teacher of Israel, that fallen mankind is spiritually dead and needs to be born again?
Perhaps you don't understand that. Or perhaps you just think that John was conceived without sin and escaped that curse.
Either way you must deal in some way with the fact that John was so spiritually alive in his mother's womb that he recognized his creator when he was in His presence..
I choose to believe that the explanation is to be had in believing what Jesus said about John rather than by subscribing to the idea that John was born sinless just as was the Lord was or some such special case and had no need of being born again as did the rest of mankind.
That's he kind of thing I was alluding to when I spoke of those who have understanding receiving more and those who do not having even what they think they have taken away from them.
Of course if you choose not to explore the scriptures in such a systematic way that's up to you.
There are theologians and then there are theologians.