The God of Resurrection

From: Elijah the Tishbite

Narrator: Chris Genthree

• 11 min. read • grade level: 8

After some time, a dark cloud gathered over the home in Zarephath where God’s goodness was daily experienced, where His word was honored, and where doubtless the voice of prayer was daily heard. The only child of the woman fell sick and died! It was not a sudden death, thus there were days of deep anxiety for both the mother and her prophet-guest. Remarkably, it was the only son of a widow whom the Lord Jesus raised at the gate of Nain (Luke 7:12¹²Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. (Luke 7:12)); it was an only child whom He raised in the house of Jairus (Luke 8:42⁴²For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him. (Luke 8:42)); and it was an only brother whom He called out of the tomb in Bethany (John 11). This character of visitation, which seems to empty the home of its choicest, is always particularly painful; but while we remain here sickness and death are never very far away from God’s saints as well as from others. When the Lord Jesus returns, everything will be changed. Martha was quite right when she said, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died” (John 2:21²¹But he spake of the temple of his body. (John 2:21)). Death cannot subsist in His presence. He is death’s master. How blessed is the Christian’s hope! “Behold, I show you a mystery,” says the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 15:51⁵¹Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (1 Corinthians 15:51). This means that he was about to tell his readers something which had never been told before. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” Then “death will be swallowed up in victory,” and in the light of this hope, we can send forth the double challenge: “O death, where is thy sting? O death” (not “O grave”), “where is thy victory?”

The Lord Jesus set before Martha the power that resides in His person: “I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and he that liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die” (John 11:25, 26²⁵Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: ²⁶And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25‑26)). Whether the sorrowing woman to whom He addressed Himself understood Him or not, in the light of such a revelation as that in 1 Corinthians 15 His meaning is blessedly clear. As the Resurrection, He will raise all His sleeping saints at His descent into the air; and as the Life, He will change the mortal and corruptible bodies of His living ones, and will make them like His own body of glory (Phil. 3:22). These latter will never die at all. Romans 8:11¹¹But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Romans 8:11) speaks of those whom the Lord will find at His return waiting for His coming: “if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” From this wonderful passage we learn that one reason why believers will be changed at the Lord’s coming is that our mortal bodies are the very habitation of the Holy Spirit. Thus they have a sacred character in the eyes of God. Death should not be an object of dread to the Christian; but it wore a different aspect to the saints who lived prior to our Lord’s great victory. “Through fear of death they were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:15¹⁵And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:15)). Our position differs from theirs in that we are able to look back at the empty sepulcher of the Son of God, and then look up to the throne, and behold Him seated there, crowned with glory and honor. To John in Patmos, the Lord said, with His right hand laid upon His trembling servant: “Fear not; I am the First and the Last and the living One; and I became dead; and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and hades” (Rev. 1:17-18¹⁷And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: ¹⁸I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. (Revelation 1:17‑18) Darby’s Translation). Having to do with such a One, we are consciously on the side of victory. “Death is yours,” wrote the Apostle exultingly to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:22²²Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; (1 Corinthians 3:22)); and to the Romans he wrote that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even death! (Rom. 8:38³⁸For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, (Romans 8:38)).

The home in Zarephath was probably quiet and peaceful for many weeks. There was sufficiency there, and a sense of Jehovah’s special interest and care. Then suddenly the cloud arose, Sickness entered the home, which terminated in the death of the widow’s only child. How many homes of believers in the Lord Jesus have had the same painful experience! How often have we said at the throne of grace, “Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick”; then perhaps later we have been constrained to say through our tears, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here—!”

Sickness and death are frequently used by the Lord in a disciplinary way; and perhaps these things have more frequently this character than our dull hearts realize. Certainly, some of the Corinthian saints experienced this; their careless ways brought down the hand of the Lord upon them. “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30³⁰For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. (1 Corinthians 11:30)). These things being true we need spiritual discernment in praying for a sick fellow-Christian. “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give life for them that sin not unto death. There is sin unto death: I do not say that he should pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin; and there is sin not unto death” (1 John 5:16-17¹⁶If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. ¹⁷All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death. (1 John 5:16‑17)). Sometimes perplexed souls ask, “what is the particular sin that is unto death?” No sin at all. Two brethren possibly may err in the same way; yet the Lord, taking into account all the circumstances, may lay one upon a sick bed, and take the other out of the world. There is no question of the salvation of the soul in these dealings; it is divine chastening. But “if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:31-32³¹For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. ³²But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:31‑32)). The latter would be eternal damnation, which can never be the portion of even the most-faulty believer in the Lord Jesus.

We need to exercise ourselves more than perhaps we do with reference to sickness. We are too ready when trouble comes, to send for the physician; and also when a fellow-Christian falls sick, to ask the Lord to heal him. Should we not, first, exercise our hearts and consciences before God, and inquire of Him why these things have come about? There are sometimes moral reasons why we or our loved ones are laid low. The affliction may be preventive in character, as in the case of Job, or it may be corrective. In any case, exercise of heart and conscience before God is good and cannot fail to yield blessed results. Another has said: “As long as life flows quietly, and our daily needs are met, we may live with little exercise as to much that, in God’s sight, calls for self-judgment. But under the exercise of some special trial, conscience becomes active, the vision is cleared, and much that may have been wrong in the past in thoughts, words, habits and ways, is seen, dealt with, and judged in God’s presence.”

This exactly describes what happened at Zarephath. The stricken mother seemed to recognize at once that the hand of God was in the sickness and death of her child. “She said unto Elijah, what have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?” (1 King 17-18). Zarephath means “smelting furnace”; the woman was now experiencing its heat: but, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who only got rid of encumbrances (bands) in the fire, this woman emerged from the affliction a happier soul, and with a fuller knowledge of God. There was evidently something in her past life, or in her innermost soul at that very moment which she was seeking to cover, but God in His goodness to her brought it out into the light in His own way.

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply:

The flame shall not hurt thee: I only design

Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

G. Keith.

Elijah felt the position. He realized that his coming into the house had something to do with this blow. He said to the mother, “Give my thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into an upper chamber, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.” There is a suggestion of tender feeling in his prayer to God. This stern man, who could face an angry king and a wicked nation, and pronounce sentence of judgment, felt deeply for this poor woman whom he had come to know, and whose heart was now very sore. The prophet spoke to Jehovah twice. In his first utterance, in which we think we discern tenderness, he said: “O Jehovah my God, hast Thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, in slaying her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, as if he would acknowledge that in himself he was as weak as he who was dead; then he spoke to Jehovah a second time, and we note that both in verses 20 and 21 the Holy Spirit says “he cried unto Jehovah.” This word “cried” should never be lightly passed over in our reading of Scripture, for it expresses intense longing. Thus our Lord, at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, “stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink” (John 7:37³⁷In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. (John 7:37)). How He yearned over needy souls!

Such a prayer as Elijah uttered over the dead child, had probably never ascended to heaven before: “O Jehovah my God, I pray Thee, let this child’s soul come into him again.” Wonderful! There is no previous record in Scripture of any person, Jew or Gentile, old or young, ever having returned from the dead. Yet the prophet prayed thus! His faith was in advance of Abraham’s on Mount Moriah, when he laid Isaac upon the altar “accounting that God was able to raise him up from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure” (Heb. 11:19¹⁹Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. (Hebrews 11:19)). Both Abraham and Elijah believed that nothing was impossible with God, and that even death would present no difficulty to Him; but it was one thing for Abraham to reckon that God could raise a lad from the dead, and quite another for Elijah to ask definitely that this great miracle might be wrought.

Be it observed that Elijah’s prayer was brief and definite. Shall we not learn a lesson from this? Do We go to our prayer meetings with something definite before our minds? Or do we attend from mere force of habit (a good habit, admittedly), with minds unexercised and unprepared? If it be so, need we wonder that the dreary round of words to which we sometimes have to listen have no set purpose; and, in consequence, lead nowhere? Prayer is sorely needed, shall we not seek to learn how to pray?

Jehovah heard and answered Elijah’s brief prayer, “and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.” With calm dignity the prophet led the lad down from the upper chamber, and said to the mother, “See, thy son liveth.” The woman’s reply is arresting: “Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of Jehovah in thy mouth is truth.” We cannot but compare this with what the Shunammite woman said (to her husband) concerning Elisha: “Behold, now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God which passeth by us continually” (2 Kings 4:9⁹And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. (2 Kings 4:9)). Elisha had sometimes, in the course of his travels, called at their home for a meal, and his deportment suggested the women’s remarks. But the Shunammite was on higher ground spiritually than the Zidonian in that she discerned in her visitor a man of God before any miracle was wrought; the Zidonian needed a miracle to lead her to that conclusion. But both women are included in God’s gallery of witnesses in the words, “through faith.... women received their dead raised to life again” (Heb. 11:35³⁵Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: (Hebrews 11:35)).