Mark 9:11

And they asked him, saying. How is it that the scribes say that Elijah must first come?

Several things of great importance surface in this verse: (1) The three were now fully and completely convinced that Jesus is the Christ, a fact that the scribes had been diligently trying to contradict. (2) The opposition of the scribes had made some headway in the minds of the apostles who were unable to answer their arguments. (3) The apostles here sought the answer that would refute the scribes. (4) The argument of the scribes was based on the final verses of the Old Testament which prophesied that Elijah would come and restore all things before the Messiah arrived. (5) The argument of the scribes was false in that they had interpreted the prophecy to mean that Elijah would literally rise from the dead before Messiah came, the same being a false view which thy should have known to be false because of the prophecy that attended the birth of John the Baptist (Luke 1:17), which prophecy had plainly identified John the Baptist as the fulfillment of the prophecy regarding Elijah.