IT is scarcely to be expected that a casual reader of this scripture will be able to seize at once either its diameter or character, for the grand occasion which sheds light and glory upon its entire circle is, that Elijah and Elisha, who were previously together, have just parted company-one for the heavens, and the other for this earth. The chariot and horses of fire, and the whirlwind, have carried off the prophet Elijah, by way of Bethel, and Jericho, and the river of Jordan. Nor would Elisha "tarry" at either of these places, important as they were in the ways of God, but said, " As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee; and they two went on." He was instructed by these steppingstones of an earlier faith and experience at Bethel, where God wrote upon Jacob the covenant name of Israel; and at Jordan, where " the ark of the testimony stood firm," when the tumultuous waters of death retreated in a heap, till the twelve tribes had safely crossed to the other side, under the leadership of Joshua. He was taught at Jericho that its walls had given way before the priests and the rams' horns-yea, had fallen down flat before the shoutings of the people, and he was thus prepared for any greater wonder from a wonder-working God.
" And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said to him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace." The master and the scholar were in this way strengthening each other in the secret things of God, and could not abide the intrusion of lookers-on, as such. And now that these early lessons were concluded, Elijah says, " What shall I do for thee before I be taken from thee?" And Elisha said, " I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit rest upon me." Elijah had failed, through fear of Jezebel and Ahab, in his service, and of what avail could it be for his successor to require anything less than "a double portion of thy spirit," for greater exploits, or for prolonged endurance? And Elijah said, " Thou hast asked a hard thing; nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so." The departure of Elijah by ascension into heaven, yet in connection with all these mystic associations in the earthly places, was witnessed by Elisha, who cried, "My father, my father! the horsemen of Israel, and the chariot thereof. And he saw him no more."
The subsequent action of Elisha is as significant, and as much in keeping, on his part, with his anointing at Abe-meholah, as when " Elijah passed by, and cast his mantle upon him." What could Elisha do afterward, when he had received the mantle that fell from the ascended prophet, but refuse everything that was unlike it? so Elisha " took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces." He had learned that separation to God as the son of Shaphat, and from his father's house, was necessary for association in this new testimony with Elijah; and he perfects himself in this " school of the prophets," by refusing to own himself as according to the flesh, or belonging to things as they were around him, and he casts off his former raiment.
It was a great moment for faith in Israel too, for Elisha was come back with a double portion of his master's spirit, to complete, by a ministry of grace in the power of life, what Elijah had begun in righteousness against idolatry.
Identified with all that Elijah had been, and associated with new supplies from the heavens to which the master had ascended, Elisha returns to the land in a time of dearth, and into the midst of Israel in its apostasy and ruin. He is the witness of resources which come from above, where Elijah has departed, and takes his place more as " endued with power from on high," though not exactly resurrection-power, for Elijah had not ascended out of death.
It is in this might and power, and in connection with these "upper springs," in their fullness of grace, that Elisha can face any emergency, or prove himself above every difficulty, through the sufficiency of God. What more fitting, as a proof, than that the former condition and state of Jericho, the cursed city, should be not only reversed, but a new one introduced, by the hidden virtues of the new cruse and the salt therein. In the efficacious power of these, "the man of God" for the day went forth unto the spring of waters, and cast the salt in there, with a " Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day."
By this precious and anticipative ministry it is that Elisha brings the circumstances into keeping with the situation of the city, and its pleasantness (even as creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption), and banishes death and barrenness from the land of Israel, and of Immanuel, by the healing power from above, which flows down from the other side of death and judgment, in the life and liberty and beauty of the glorified Son of man in resurrection. Barrenness and death, which were two of the penalties inflicted originally upon creation and the creature by the Creator, are thus met, and finally superseded in type, by the circuit of Elijah and Elisha, on that eventful last day of their communion together, as they trod in the footsteps of the Holy One, with the patriarchs and Israel aforetime. God sealed these mysteries and their application by the chariot of fire and the horses of fire, in which Elijah became united with the heavens as the ascended or departed one; and Elisha as qualified and suited for his ministry below, by the double portion of the spirit, and the mantle which fell from Elijah as he went up.
In chapter iv., this "man of God" upon the earth is equally grand in the use of means that are ever so little, so that the pot of oil in the widow's house is as marvelous as had been the new cruse and the salt upon the matter of the barren land, and death, and the curse on Jericho. Nor is the faith of this woman a whit behind the grace and power by which Elisha reverses the occasion of the widow's cry in her distress, and makes it his opportunity for filling every vessel to the brim which she had borrowed from her neighbors, so that her cup ran over, and a plentiful overflow was made, by which she and her sons were to "live on the rest" in peace and assurance.
Indeed all this, and more besides, is but as the light of the morning of that millennial day which is to usher in " the Sun of righteousness that shall arise with healing in his wings (unto you that fear my name), and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall." A morning " without clouds," fresh, and full from the coming forth of the true Bridegroom and that great Prophet, the Messiah of Israel, at the promised thousand years of blessing. That true Servant and Son, who has ascended into the heavens, and has been declared by God to be both " Lord and Christ," will in that day pour out of His Spirit upon all flesh. "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days [a double portion] of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy." We may well ask, what could all this millennial scene be, including the kingdom and the power of the Son of man, in the immensity of its forthcoming glory with Christ and His redeemed people? and where laid up, or prefigured, for " the faith of God's elect" in Israel, but in the fact of the ascended Elijah, united to the heavens with Moses, till they should come forth from thence to meet Him in the day of Christ's glorious trans figuration upon Mount Tabor? The mantle which fell from the departed one upon the anointed Elisha still connected these two prophets, and was a link in carrying on the Lord's work till He come, so that Jesus identified Elias with John the Baptist, saying, " If ye can receive; it, this is Elias which was for to come." But the time was not yet for a nation to be born in a day.
We pass on to the example, in chapter iv,, of the power from on high, brought back from where Elijah is in heaven, and applied by Elisha to the condition and circumstances below, as witnessed in the miracle of the great pot, and the cry of death which the sons of the prophets uttered. "And so Elisha came again to Gilgal; and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not." Elisha had made the secret meaning of Jordan his own, and was now as truly the exponent of its power, as when his master had crossed it just before; for " he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah. And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over." And now that Elisha is come again to Gilgal, will he read its significance as expressing the energy of God's Spirit, on behalf of those who " could not eat thereof," and act as successfully for the glory of God, and the blessing of those around him, by bringing life out of death, so that there should be no harm in the pot?
It would seem, as coming after Jordan and Gilgal, that the remedies and resources which they respectively pre-figure, connected with death and resurrection in Christ, and the accompanying power of the Holy Ghost, sent down from the Father and the Son, do but cast their shadows before them; and enable Elisha to face the wild vine of the earth and its wilder gourds, shred into the great pot, in a time of dearth, and moral alienation from the rights of God He may aforetime, and did, put Moses into the ways of His steps, and hide him in a cleft of the rock, while His glory passed by-or, He may afterward instruct Elijah by other footprints, such as the strong wind, and the earthquake, and by the fire, when in the cave at Horeb, the mount of God-or He may, as in the case of Elisha, go yet further, and teach him by the manifested virtues of the meal, which the man of God cast into the great pot, so that he could say, "Pour out for the people that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot."
"The Son of man which is in heaven" said, when upon the earth, and in the midst of this world field, where the wild vine, and " the boar of the wood," and the wild gourds had found a dwelling-place: " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Another prophet had cried in the midst of the earth and of a rebellious people, " O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction;" and when this prophecy had become matter of fact, by the death and resurrection of Christ into heaven itself, the Holy Ghost came down to bear witness by a newly anointed apostle, of the grand reality that " there was no harm " in the pot. " Therefore let no man glory in men;" he says, " for all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
When sin, and death, and the judgment, and the curse on the pleasant land, are looked at in the light of the fall of Adam, there can be nothing produced or gathered out of the field, but wild gourds from the wild vine, " a lap full." How true it is that those who gathered them " knew them not," as to their nature or quality of alienation from God. When cast into the great pot of pottage, none could drink thereof, and there rose up the bitter cry, " O thou man of God, there is death in the pot." Relief must come in from the meal in the hand of Elisha, or not at all. And so it did, whether in the prophet's day, or much more now that the ascended Lord, and Head of His body the church, is seated at the right hand of God, and that the Spirit is sent down as the seal, and witness, and earnest, of our place and portion as children of the Father, yea, " heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ," in another creation.
The Levitical type of the offering of "fine flour," by Moses and Aaron's sons, as given forth in Lev. 2 to the children of Israel, may rightly connect itself with " the meal " in the hand of Elisha, "the man of God," when at Gilgal, on the other side of Jordan. " And when any will offer a meat-offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall put oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon. And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons, the priests; (for so the law ran in sanctuary times) and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord." Precious it is to learn, as worshippers in the tabernacle, the perfectness of Jesus in His human nature, as the fine flour, with the oil, and the frankincense, in contrast with the wild gourds of the field, gathered from off the wild vine. Precious too, under a later ministry, when Elisha cast the meal into the pot of pottage, and healed it for the sons of the prophets. Still more precious is it for believers in Christ, as anointed priests to be instructed, that " The remnant of the meat-offering shall be Aaron's and his sons'; it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord, made by fire."
The "fine flour" of the sanctuary belongs to us for communion and worship, in all that suits the holiest, where God dwells-as does also " the meal " in the hand of the man of God upon the earth, in the midst of death in the pot, and because of the wild gourds, and the dearth in the land. For what is this act of the prophet in substance, but this: that "God hath made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." And there was no harm in the pot. If Elisha held the secret power from heaven by which death was thus overcome, as well as dearth and barrenness in the land, in the days of his ministry, what shall be said of the grander victory of Him, who was far greater than Elijah and Elisha, and who descended into death and the grave, " that he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage"? The death of Christ is victory and glory.
Elisha's twofold or double ministry made him more than equal to the dire necessities of the great pot in his day, and all was turned round for blessing, as a type or figure of the work which God gave to His Son to accomplish; so that He could look up to heaven in the hour of His departure and say: "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." Jesus wrought by the penalties of death and judgment, which God inflicted upon the wild men of the field, to put away the sins and iniquities upon which these penalties had fallen, and to reconcile them to God, by redemption through His precious blood. The wild gourd is no more: for "ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit."
The lesson given out to us now by the wondrous mission of the Holy Ghost, come down from the Father and the Son, is to glorify Christ, and bear witness to the " great High Priest passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God." He is also to take of the things of Christ, and show them unto us, till we are caught up, and have put off the image of the earthy man, and have put on the image of the heavenly man. And what are these perfections of the Holy Ghost's mission, but the full embodiment of the two prophets, in all that their varied ministries typified? The wild gourd is gone by the sacrifice of Christ, and there is no more death in the pot.
And they were parted asunder, by the chariot and horses of fire, by which Elijah was carried up into the heavens, and Elisha left alone below, in possession of the "hard thing," or the double portion of his master's spirit, and the mantle which descended upon him for his own pathway down to death, and the sepulcher.
Indeed the characteristics of these two symbolical prophets, and their contrasts in the chariot, and the sepulcher, as prefiguring what "the truth is in Jesus," embrace the whirlwind by which life in heaven was reached by Elijah, on the one side; and on the other side, by the as wonderful sepulcher of Elisha, in which God sealed the great fact, of life out of death, which are the constituent parts of our blessed Lord's victory in the heavens, and His triumph in the lowest part of the earth. " And Elisha died, and they buried him." (See 2 Kings 13:20,2120And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. 21And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet. (2 Kings 13:20‑21).) "And it came to pass as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulcher of Elisha; and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood upon his feet." The translated man in the heavens is displayed by Elijah, in witness of righteous service, on the one hand; and life out of death is reached upon the earth, by the patient endurance of Elisha on the other hand, as sealed and witnessed in the man who " revived, and stood upon his feet."
These lesser intimations are perfect in their season, through the oblation of fine flour and frankincense to us, as priests of the Sanctuary; or, as " the meal" on the other side of Jordan, in the energy of the Spirit at Gilgal; or afterward, when at Jerusalem, " the risen Lord Himself stood in the midst of His own disciples, and said, " Peace be unto you." But more than this, which of us does not rejoice to see the way by which God makes us know, that He has got glory to Himself, through Christ, over and above the malice of Satan, and the wild vine and its gourds, and the penalties of death and judgment-yea, the curse which He inflicted on the very ground? It is God who loves to tell us, that through the Son of man in the glory with the Father, all things shall be reconciled to Himself, whether in heaven or earth. The sting of death, and the strength of the law, or the wild herbs, are gone, and " there is no harm in the pot." And all the promises of God are made yea and amen to us, in Christ, for glory can come out.
On His way up, Jesus reproved His disciples because they were terrified and affrighted at Himself, and at the virtue of His precious blood, as well as the fruits and effects of the healing power, that had gone out of Him, till He said, " Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see." " And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them; and while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." Precious grace, He has made us "His own" forever! The cry had ever been, "O thou man of God there is death in the pot," and rightly too. But now that we are one with Christ by grace and redemption where Christ is, and sealed by the Holy Ghost for the eternal glory, the word and ministry by the Spirit is, " Pour out for the people, that they may eat." We have crossed the Red Sea, and sung the song of deliverance; yea, we have followed the Ark itself over Jordan, and at Gilgal it is, that God has rolled away " the reproach of Egypt " from His people forever. Instead of the cry, "O thou man of God, there is death in the pot," our joy is, "There is no harm;" for death, or the rapture, prefigured in Elijah and Elisha, is indispensable on our way to the glory, where God dwells. No death, no resurrection for Christ, in glory; no resurrection from the grave, there can be no victory, over the whole power of the enemy, No death, and there can be no expiation for sin, and transgression.
Nor is it merely that by means of death, the righteous sufferer for sin found a new path for Himself by resurrection, to " the right hand of the Majesty on high," where lie has been crowned with glory and honor, and all things put under His feet; but the very nature of God, in all that "He is," has been fully met, and brought out into manifestation, " To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The oblation of fine flour, with the frankincense, and oil, for the Sanctuary; or " the meal " on the other side of Jordan, at Gilgal; or, death and life as looked at, and learned in Christ where He is, in contrast with Adam and the fall, is the great secret, or key to the Elijah and Elisha ministries in these chapters, and what they prefigure; and enable us to understand the riddle of " there is death in the pot," and on the other hand, " there was no harm in the pot." Death, as known by us in Christ, is victory, and led to resurrection, and resurrection to ascension, and ascension to glory everlasting, at the right hand of the Father; " To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ."
Accomplished redemption, by death on the cross, and the resurrection of Christ in life, by the glory of the Father, gives occasion to God also for that wonderful outburst, and challenge from the place where the Son of man is exalted: " Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." In the growing consciousness that there is " no harm in the pot," we reply, exultingly: " For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
And Elisha said, "Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot."
These similitudes and contrasts between Elijah and Elisha must now give place to the Person and the ministry of the Word made flesh, who steps into His own circle, and is beyond all comparison as " the Alpha and the Omega," who brought life and light down into the midst of death and ruin and darkness. " In him was life, and the life was the light of men."
The handful of fine flour, in the Sanctuary, as the meat offering, or the manna for the wilderness journey laid up in the golden pot, or the meal, in its healing power, on the other side of Jordan, or "the corn of wheat" that must "fall into the ground and die," or Christ gone up to God, as the first fruits and wave-sheaf from the harvest field, in resurrection-are each and all, like the covenant bow in the cloud, upon which the eye of God rests, as the token and seal of abiding purpose and unconditional blessing. It is there our eyes meet His, on the other side of death, and judgment, and sin; to find life and glory in the ascended Lord and Head of the Church, " the fullness of him that filleth all in all." How delighted He was too, when in the midst of men, to bid them " Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father sealed," adding: " For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh unto me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."
" This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever. These things said Jesus in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum;" announcing that it is " The Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you they are spirit, and they are life." " There was no death in the pot," for even the water will yet be turned into wine, and the best kept to the last, as at the marriage in Cana, when they drew out, and bare to the governor of the feast.
J. E. B.