Reading: 2 Kings 13:14-25.
In these verses we read
of the closing scenes in the life of Elisha. There are
three things which stand out.
1. The arrow of the
Lord's deliverance.
2. The smiting of the ground with the arrows.
3. The body of the dead soldier reviving by contact
with Elisha's body.
These three instances
are a very fitting conclusion to the life of Elisha in
the light of the spiritual meaning of his life, namely,
that he represents throughout the power of resurrection
life; that is, testimony in life all the way through, is
one of testimony against death in various and numerous
forms. Here we have Elisha at the end, but how
wonderfully the life is maintained.
How suited to all that
has gone before are these incidents. Life triumphant over
death right through to the last! Although it says that he
was sick of his sickness whereof he died, that is only
one aspect. That relates to the human vessel. There is
another side where Elisha never did die. When the human
vessel has gone, even then the testimony to life
triumphant over death is maintained, so that the very
dead are quickened by that testimony, which goes on when
the vessel has departed. It is mighty life.
Here is Elisha on his
bed, an old man, on the human side in weakness, and so
soon to pass away. The king of Israel comes to him, and
he lifts himself in his bed, calls to the king to bring
his bow and his arrows, and to put the arrow in the bow.
Then the prophet places his hands over the hands of the
king, they two draw the bow to its full extent, and that
arrow goes in the power of resurrection life from that
bed through the open window. The life of resurrection is
in that arrow. Life triumphant over death is the strength
of that arrow of the Lord's deliverance.
Then there comes the
command to the king to smite the ground with his arrows,
and he smites thrice and stays. The man of God is wroth
with him. There is still much more energy in the dying
prophet than there is in the living king. He is the very
embodiment of energy to the end. In effect he says:
"Why did you not go on; why did you stop so soon;
why did you not go right through with the whole
thing?" He breathes life and energy.
Then, even when his
body is dead and in the tomb, contact with it is life. It
is a marvelous conclusion, full of significance and
spiritual value. Nothing could more aptly fit into his
whole testimony. You could have no finer conclusion and
rounding off than that. It would have been a
disappointing thing had Elisha just gone as if something
of a tragedy had overtaken him and he had fallen a prey
to some evil and been killed, or had he simply
disappeared from the scene. You can never associate such
a thing with that which all the way through represents
triumph over death in every direction. You expect that
testimony to be maintained right through and beyond,
going out of time into eternity. And so it is. That life
triumphant over death is something which does not end
here, it goes on. It is a testimony which outlives its
vessels.
Turning to the three
instances we shall seek to understand in some measure
what they have to say to us specifically. There are
depths and fullnesses in all these incidents in Elisha's
life, and in his life as a whole, which we cannot stay to
touch upon. But there are some things which seem more or
less apparent as lessons to be learned by us in these
three closing incidents of Elisha's life.
1.
The Arrow of the Lord's Deliverance
It was a question of
victory over the enemy. And it is a matter of the Lord's
purpose to give full and final victory over the enemy.
What the king of Israel entered into may be one thing,
what the Lord's thought was is another. He may only have
come into it in a limited way, but that was his own
fault. The Lord provided for very much more than that. We
shall come back to that in a moment.
The thing from the
Divine standpoint is the overcoming, fully and finally,
of the Lord's enemy. The fullness of deliverance and
victory was bound up in Elisha's prophecy. Although for
the time being, because of the limited appropriation of
the king, the representative of the Lord's people, that
prophecy will be long postponed in its full realization,
nevertheless the arrow of the Lord's deliverance has been
released, and, in spite of postponement, ultimately the
Lord's people will have a complete and full deliverance.
It is secured to them in the prophecy. This arrow of
deliverance is the arrow of a prophecy, the fuller
expression of which may be found in the other prophets,
such as Ezekiel and his vision of the valley of dry
bones, the triumphant side of the activity of the
resurrection of the Lord's people, and their ultimate
standing upon their feet a mighty army. It is all bound
up in this arrow of deliverance. But more than that,
there is foreseen in the illustration, in the type, the
ultimate full triumph of the people of God spiritually
over the last enemy. "The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death." The guarantee, the earnest, the
title deeds of the final triumph over the last enemy,
death, is in the fact that resurrection life is already
given to the Lord's people.
The last enemy will be
overcome in the Church, the Body of Christ, by the power
of His resurrection. The Church has been long entering
into the value of that. The Church has known, because of
its own weakness, only a little of that, but eventually
it will be realized to the full. The Word of the Lord is
full of that fact, that the end is going to see the last
enemy destroyed in the Church. It is to be in the Church,
the Body of Christ, that the last enemy is destroyed, and
that death is to be finally cast out.
The earnest of that is
the fact that Christ, already triumphant over death, is
resident within His Body. Take such passages as Ephesians
1:17-21. There is seen universal dominion resultant from
the inworking of the power of His resurrection. To put
that round the other way in the terms of this Scripture,
"the exceeding greatness of His power" - which
is that of resurrection - by which God raised Jesus from
the dead issues in universal authority. Thus universal
authority over all the power of the enemy is resident
within the power of His resurrection. Resurrection life
contains that very power by which death shall be fully
and finally vanquished, and the Church, the Body of
Christ, knowing that power - "...that the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ... may give unto you a spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of Him... that ye may
know... the exceeding greatness of His power..." -
will come to the place where the Head already is.
Pass from that passage
to the third chapter of the same letter, verse 20, and
you have similar things said: "...according to the
power that worketh in us." What power is that?
"The exceeding greatness of His power... which He
wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the
dead..." "Unto Him be the glory in the CHURCH
and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and
ever." Here is resurrection.
Let us repeat, that the
last enemy, death, is going to be finally and fully
overthrown in and by the Church, on the basis of the
resurrection life of the Lord Jesus operating in that
Church as the Body of Christ. Herein is the necessity for
you and for me NOW to learn to live on the basis
of resurrection life. Herein is the explanation of why
the Lord takes pains to bring us to the place where only
His risen life will meet our need. Herein is the
explanation of the constant application of the Cross to
cut from under us every other basis of life save the life
of the Lord, because of the enormous issue involved, that
the Church is the chosen means by which the risen Head is
to settle finally the issue of death.
That brings us to an
interesting and significant point in this story of
Elisha. Do you notice how the king of Israel addresses
Elisha? Look at verse 14 of chapter 13, and you will see
there an extraordinary address. What did he mean? Was he
expecting Elisha to go the same way as Elijah? Was it an
expression of some feeling that Elisha was about to be
raptured? I confess I do not know from the standpoint of
Joash. But I think I can stand on the side of the Holy
Spirit and see some meaning, because if the Holy Spirit
inspired this, then there is a spiritual meaning. Elijah
went up into heaven in a chariot of fire amidst the
shouts of Elisha - "My father, my father, the
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!'' That was
Elijah's victory over death. We do not have that form of
victory with Elisha, but we have the same words. Elisha
did not go into heaven by a chariot of fire, as did
Elijah, nevertheless exactly the same words apply to him.
He comes within exactly the same category of those who
conquer death and are not conquered by death. But what is
the difference? If Elijah was raptured outwardly, Elisha
was raptured inwardly, but it is the same thing.
Resurrection life in any case is rapture in its issue. It
is victory in its outworking. It is victory over death,
and victory over death is rapture. What is rapture? It is
glory! And, so far as the principle and basis of rapture
is concerned, which is the power of His resurrection,
that holds good whatever may be the form of its outward
consummation.
Was not Paul as truly
at the end of his life, as he had hoped to be at the
beginning? When you read his first letters, the letters
to the Thessalonians, there is no doubt but that Paul
thought and hoped to be raptured with the Church -
"...we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught
up..." After many years, toward the end, he came to
see that that was not to be the manner of his going, and
said so quite frankly. "...I am already being
offered, and the time of my departure is come." And
he knew by what method it would be. But spiritually in
his inner life he was as truly raptured at the end as he
had hoped to be at the beginning. It was not death, it
was not defeat, it was not the mastery of death; it was
victory over death, triumph over death. It was glory. He
could go through in perfect confidence and perfect
triumph; he could go through with a shout in his spirit.
Though the executioner's axe is about to be lifted to
sever his head from his body, he could go through with a
shout - "the chariot of Israel and the horsemen
thereof!" He is above the whole thing. Whatever may
be the course, resurrection life embodies rapture in
itself. So that, whether Elijah goes up literally in a
chariot, or Elisha goes up spiritually in a chariot, it
is the same in the working out.
But there is something
more. Paul had two phases of resurrection in his heart
and in his faith. Firstly, he had resurrection inwardly.
The power of resurrection was at work in him all the
time, so that death was being transcended in all its
workings. In his spirit he was always above death. He
knew the power of resurrection as an inward thing.
But then, in the second
place, Paul had his heart and his faith set upon a
specific form of its outworking, in what he called
uniquely "the out-resurrection from among the
dead." It is Paul who brings into view such a thing.
His desire and ambition was not just to attain unto the
resurrection from the dead. You have to do nothing to
attain unto the resurrection from the dead. If you are
saved you will enjoy the resurrection from the dead
without any attaining whatever. The fact that you have
eternal life is the guarantee that you will be raised
from the dead. The Lord Jesus made that perfectly clear,
that He would give unto as many as He would eternal life
and raise them up at the last day. But there is a day
which anticipates the last day, and that was the day that
Paul was after. He did not speak of the last day
resurrection, he spoke of the out-resurrection from among
the dead. This for him represented rapture, in which not
even all those who are the Lord's will participate. If
Philippians 3:10 means anything at all, if language is to
be taken seriously, it does most definitely indicate that
this resurrection is not that general resurrection which
comes with the gift of eternal life, but this is a prize.
Resurrection from the dead in general is not a prize. It
accompanies the free gift of God. A prize is always
something worked for, striven after, and which may be
missed, as Paul makes perfectly clear. This
out-resurrection is a prize which extends him fully.
That is where the first
phase of this chapter ends and makes necessary the second
phase, because the one arrow must lead to the other
arrows.
2.
The Smiting on the Ground With the Arrows
Elisha does not leave
things with the releasing of that one arrow, prophetic of
full and final deliverance, but he instantly takes
another course, by which he would seek to bring the king
at once into the full possession of it, to anticipate the
end, and to secure it in advance. It might have been that
Elisha had said when the one arrow was released:
"The arrow of the Lord's deliverance! Someday - it
may be a long way ahead - there will be full deliverance.
This arrow declares it." He might just have left it
there, and that would have meant a measure of comfort,
the comfort which you get from 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
that ultimately all the saints will be raised, those who
have gone and those that remain. The thing will come into
the final victory at some time. That is a general
statement. What we read in Thessalonians is but a general
statement, and you need a great deal more Scripture to
get inside of the general statement. Paul there is only
making quite a comprehensive statement, he is not giving
us anything more. We need much more to break that up. It
is not fair to take the general statement, and say that
is the beginning and the end of all the doctrine of the
rapture, or the resurrection, or the coming of the Lord.
It is not by any means!
Elisha does not leave
things there. He says to Joash: "Take the arrows...
Smite upon the ground." Anticipate the end, get hold
of it now, make it good now. And Joash takes his arrows
and smites once, twice, thrice, and stays. And Elisha
asks why he has stayed, why he accepts less than he might
have, why he does not go the full way now and possess the
whole at once - "...now thou shalt smite Syria but
thrice." That will be your measure of glory. Whereas
you might have gone right on and had so much more glory,
known so much more ascendancy and victory, you have fixed
the measure yourself.
See how wonderfully
that fits into Philippians 3. The measure of victory and
glory will be the measure of faith's appropriation of the
power of His resurrection. We are not dealing with the
matter of salvation now, we are dealing with God's full
thought as to salvation. And when Paul wrote that letter
to the Philippians and came to the part of his letter
which is marked by our third chapter, it was as though he
smote, and he smote, and he smote, until he had the whole
thing - "...but one thing I do, forgetting the
things which are behind..." - it was the uttermost
taking hold of Him and the power of His resurrection -
"...that I may know Him... if by any means I may
attain unto the out-resurrection [Greek]..." There
is a man who does not stay short of the whole end of God.
The Lord's people are
going to come more or less to the fullness of the glory
of Christ, more or less to the place of universal
dominion, according to the measure of faith's
appropriation now of the power of His resurrection. Paul
says in another place that in the resurrection there are
differences of degree, that there is one glory of the
sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of
the stars, and that so shall it be in the resurrection.
Do you want the glory of the sun, the full-orbed glory of
Christ? Well, that demands now a going the whole way in
the matter of faith's appropriation of the power of His
resurrection - "...that life which I now live in the
flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of
God," and then, with that basis laid, a pressing on
to know Him, and the power of His resurrection.
The point is that there
is something to be lost. That may not be our salvation,
but that may be glory in measure, positions which the
Lord would have us occupy and enjoy, but from which we
may fall short. The Word of God points out that the
generation of Hebrews which fell in the wilderness lost
their inheritance. And Paul carries that principle
forward when he says that you can be saved, but only as
by fire. You may not lose your salvation, but you may
lose everything else that God intended you to have in
your salvation. There is something which God has which we
can only have on conditions. And when we view that in the
light of God's own need, "His inheritance in the
saints," and of God's own purpose, and when we view
it in the light of what it has cost God and His Son, it
becomes a sin to be satisfied with less than all that God
desires. The Lord Jesus did not suffer all that Calvary
meant just to get us out of hell, just to get us saved.
There is far more than that bound up in His Cross. This
has a good deal of light to throw upon the New Testament
position.
3.
The Revival of a Dead Body by Contact With
Elisha's Bones
"Now the bands of
the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the
year. And... as they were burying a man... they spied a
band; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha:
and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he
revived, and stood up on his feet."
The knowing of Christ
in the power of His resurrection is by conformity to His
death. It is on the ground of identification with Him in
death. Here is this man falling into the sepulchre of
Elisha and becoming identified with him in his death.
Typically he came to the place mentioned by Paul
"...that I may know Him, and the power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being
made conformable unto His death." But that very
conformity to His death was the way of knowing the power
[of] His resurrection. That very identification with Him
in death issued in resurrection life.
We must always remember
that the death of the Lord Jesus is not a passive thing.
The death of the Lord Jesus is a mighty energy, a mighty
power. There is something about the death of the Lord
Jesus which death cannot stand. His very death swallowed
up death; His very death destroyed death - "...that
through death He might destroy him that had the power of
death." There is a mystery about that, how a death
can kill death, but it did in His case. The death of the
Lord Jesus is not the death of any other man: it is a
different death, a mighty death, an energetic death.
This man touched the
bones of Elisha and found that in the place of death
there was victory over death, power destroying death.
That ought to be a very
strong additional word to our ideas about identification
with Christ in death, because so often people think that
when language like that is used it means going out and
losing everything; it is all death, death, death! You
never do touch the Lord Jesus in His death in any new
measure without knowing a new measure of resurrection
life. When the Lord Jesus by His Spirit brings us in a
further measure into the meaning of His death, let it be
settled with us, once and for all, that that is in itself
a new measure of resurrection life. The two things go
together, it cannot be otherwise. It is death unto life.
It is loss unto gain. The life and the gain are of a
different sort from the death and the loss. The death and
the loss is simply all that which, sooner or later, will
go in any case, and even while it remains is of a very
doubtful value, but the life and the gain are eternal,
and have in them all the values of God. So Paul could,
with something of joy, hail conformity to the death of
Christ. He speaks about it in no mournful terms as though
he were going to lose everything. There is no shadow on
his face, or sob in his voice, when he speaks about being
conformed to His death. It is the shout of a victor.
There is something he is after.
Paul knows quite well
the value of this exchange, the exchanging of his life
for the life of His Lord, the exchange of which he has
been speaking in this very letter - "Howbeit what
things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for
Christ... for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord." What is the nature of that
knowledge? "That I may know Him, and the power of
His resurrection." That is the excelling quality of
this knowledge. It excels everything that could come to a
man in this world, that would be regarded by a man of
this world as gain, and he has tabulated and catalogued
all those things. He has known power, popularity,
reputation, position, possession, and he says the
knowledge of Christ Jesus is excelling all that. What
knowledge is it? It is the particular knowledge of
"Him, and the power of His resurrection." Why?
Because of what that leads to, all the possibilities of
that resurrection life and power: because of its ultimate
issue: because of the place to which it can bring him; no
less a place than the very Throne of the Lord Himself.
We have left out a good
many things, and have not pursued the various lines and
questions that may have arisen, content just to give the
broad outline of the many features. Questions may have
arisen, but let us first of all face the facts and say:
Are these facts? Get rid of prejudices, and ask broad
questions - "Why should I not accept that? What is
there to hinder?" If we are very frank and open,
without prejudice in matters like this, we shall get
light, and that light will mean a very great deal. But if
we have preconceived ideas, preconceptions strongly held,
we shall get into a fog as we touch these matters. An
open heart provides the way for the Lord to give much
light. A willingness to accept what is of the Lord makes
it possible for the Lord to show what is of Himself.
Leaving for the moment
all the details, let us look at the statements squarely
in the face, confront ourselves with the mighty
"ifs." "IF by ANY MEANS I
may attain unto the out-resurrection [Greek]..."
What hangs upon an "if'! We may take it that it is
not our salvation that hangs upon an "if." Our
salvation hangs upon Christ's finished work and our faith
therein. But there is something which hangs upon an "if."
The Lord inspire us
with His own mighty urge, and the inward working of His
exceeding great power unto the full end, that we shall
not fall short of His thought.