by Rev. Kenneth MacLeod
Some thoughts on 2 Kings 13: 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 sepulchre of Elisha; and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.”
We can well imagine the godly in Israel, however few they may have been at that time, feeling very downcast now that Elisha had died. They could remember the wonderful things which Elisha had done and they could remember how he had spoken so powerfully in God’s name. Some of them could probably also remember Elijah; at least they would have heard what an amazing man he was — how he too had acted and spoken in such a remarkable way in the name of the Lord God of Israel. And Elijah had gone to heaven in a way altogether in keeping with his wonderful life. Now God’s people could look around and see how weak the cause of God had become, and very likely there was no longer anyone of significance to speak for God.
Yet it was in this situation that this unusual miracle was performed. In the emergency, having been surprised by a hostile band of Moabites, the funeral party disposed of the corpse in Elisha’s tomb, and at once the corpse came alive when it touched Elisha’s bones. How are we to view the incident except as a message from God to that generation? Elijah had performed his miracles, and Elisha had performed his miracles, by the power of God. Both were now away from the earthly scene, but here was a testimony from God that He still lived, and that His power was unchanged.
Elijah had indeed made a tremendous impact on the whole nation when he had gathered Israel together to Mount Carmel and had proved that Jehovah had power which Baal altogether lacked — to send fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice, and even the twelve barrels of water which had been poured on and around the sacrifice. The result was that, “when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said, The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God” (1 Ki 18: 39). Doubtless this was, in most cases, no more than the natural effect of the miracle acting on their minds and consciences, but the fact remained that a notable act of witness had been made in the name of the God of Israel, and it made a profound impression on everyone.
No one in Israel could altogether ignore the reality of the existence of God, or His power, while Elijah was alive, but he, faithful servant of God that he was, had been taken home to heaven in a chariot of fire. There was, however, someone else to take his place. Of him it was truly said, “The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha” (2: 15), when he took the mantle of Elijah and repeated the miracle which his former master had performed in crossing the Jordan on dry ground. Elisha asked, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” And the miracle which God worked in answer to the cry of Elisha was a clear demonstration that He still lived.
But the time came also when “Elisha died, and they buried him” (v20). While he lived no one could deny the reality of God’s power, but the fact remained that Israel continued very much in a course of wickedness. Time and again the Books of Kings speak of the kings of Israel, that they continued in the sinful ways of Jeroboam, their first king as a separate nation. And the subjects followed in the steps of their rulers. The whole history of Israel was: “They departed not from the sins of Jeroboam who made Israel sin, but walked therein” (v6). They went on in their idolatry, ignoring the worship of the true God, ignoring His authority and their duty to seek Him. That must have been painful to the children of God, even while Elisha and Elijah were still alive, but they would have had some hope that the Lord would yet bless His Word as spoken by these His gracious and powerful servants, and that He would thereby work a mighty transformation in the land.
How dispirited then they must have felt when Elisha followed Elijah to heaven! Doubtless the words of Ps 74: 9 sum up their feelings: “We see not our signs; there is no more any prophet.” Other prophets did indeed follow at a later date — great men like Isaiah and Jeremiah — but there was a uniqueness about these two men, Elijah and Elisha; they had no clear successors in the Church on earth.
Today the state of religion is low, and the cause of Christ makes very little impact on society. Although we have to thank God that we still have the Gospel and that His Church has by no means died out, yet the fact remains that the great men of other generations, of whom we have heard and read, have all been taken to heaven, and we have to mourn that they have so few successors. Where is there anyone today, in Britain or anywhere else, who makes an impact on society because of his faithfulness to the Word of God? So, seeing the absence of God’s power we also may ask, as they did of old, “Why withdrawest Thou Thine hand, even Thy right hand?” (Ps 74: 11a). In other words: Why dost Thou not work in the way that once Thou didst? Not that God will reveal to man all the reasons for His way of working. We may think of our sin, our carelessness and wilfulness, and point to them as valid reasons why God does not work now as He has done in the past. But there are other reasons unrevealed, reasons which are bound up with His perfect sovereignty. Yet, whatever God’s ways of working are, we can be sure that all He does is for His glory in the end, and when the heavens and the earth will have passed away it will be seen that the Lord was glorified in it all.
The whole spiritual scene in Israel at the time of Elisha’s death resembled the scene described in Ezekiel’s vision, the scene in “the valley which was full of bones . . . and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry” (Ezek 37: 1f). In Israel there was so little spiritual life; instead there was so much deadness and dryness. Is it not the same today, even in communities where the gospel once flourished? There is so much resistance to the Word of God. Indeed, by and large, it is past the stage of resistance; the Word of God is simply ignored. When an army is mobilised, there must be something to resist; the leader works on the assumption that there is significant opposition. Thus, to the extent that the devil does not mobilise his troops in outright opposition to the Church of God, it is because he feels that the Church may with reasonable safety be ignored and in this way his purposes be more effectively accomplished — as it avoids what is for him the danger of drawing attention to what God’s Word and messengers have to say. And when so few consciences are touched by the Word of God people can feel quite at ease in ignoring the truth of God and ignoring God Himself.
It was in that kind of situation that the miracle of restoration of a corpse to life was performed; the Lord gave this testimony to the fact that He had not abandoned Israel. He had not abandoned His Church, He had not abandoned the world; He was the same God still. The God of Elijah was still alive, the God of Elisha was still alive, and His power was unchanged. The miracle was a testimony to the fact that “the Lord is the true God, He is the living God and an everlasting King” (Jer. 10: 10). It was a testimony to the fact that His power was as great as ever and that He still had everything under His absolute control. If Elisha was still alive he could have raised the man from the dead, had that been God’s will, just as he had brought back to life the son of the Shunamite woman. But the miracle was only possible by the power of God Himself, and He could work without Elisha; His power to work miracles was unchanged. Although great men had been removed from the Church, God was still with His Church.
Now as then, God will be faithful to His promise, “The Lord will not forsake His people for His great name’s sake, because it hath pleased Him to make you His people” (1 Sam. 12: 22), and He demonstrated this to Israel by the miracle. His honour involves Him continuing His presence with His Church. Men in our time may blasphemously express the thought that God is dead but, although God may allow His Church become small, He will go no further than this — He will most certainly never allow that Church to pass out of existence. Absolutely not! At particular times in the history of the Church in this world He may remove more individuals into the Church in heaven than He brings as replacements out of Satan’s kingdom to be His followers on earth. That part of the Church which is on earth may indeed become smaller, but God’s power is unchanged. And we are to believe that God will yet bring about a greater expansion of His Church than ever before.
God’s wonders are not now performed by contact with one who is dead, though the Lord may use the writings of those who are long since dead and buried in that greatest of all miracles, bringing sinners out of darkness into God’s marvellous light. Great as were the miracles recorded in Scripture: the feeding of the five thousand, for instance, the stilling of a storm on the Sea of Galilee, or the raising of someone from the dead, none of them is as great a miracle as when one sinner is born again. And every time a sinner is born again it is a testimony to the great and wonderful fact that God still lives and that His power is absolutely unchanged. The world today is by no means without that testimony. The number of those who are truly born again today may be so small that the world can generally ignore it — but they ignore it at their peril. God still bears this testimony to His existence — and to His unchanging power — on every occasion that He plucks a sinner out of Satan’s kingdom. The time has passed when we may expect miracles such as restoring a corpse to life, but the time has certainly not come when God will cease to perform the greater miracle of regeneration — not until the last of God’s elect has been made spiritually alive.
The miracle of salvation takes place, not by contact with someone who is dead, but by living contact with a living Saviour. But the living Saviour was a crucified Saviour. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15: 3). This must be at the centre of the message borne by everyone who goes out as an ambassador for Christ. Apart from the death of Christ there could be no salvation, and this generation stands desperately in need of learning that tremendous fact. This Saviour, who is the only Saviour, died — but He rose again. He is a living Saviour, for God “raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come” (Eph. 1: 20).
Accordingly the Church is not a dying force, however weak she may become at any stage of her existence. Therefore, as she goes on with the work of preaching the gospel, she may do so with the confident assertion, “God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth” (Ps. 74: 12). Paul had repeatedly seen the power of the gospel; not only had he seen the wonderful effects of the preaching of Peter and John and others, but he had seen the powerful results of his own preaching, as it was accompanied by the Holy Spirit. So he could claim, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth” (Rom. 1: 16).
Many were the testimonies which Paul could bear to the power of the gospel — even in conditions of personal weakness and in difficult circumstances. In Philippi, for instance, when it was past midnight and after spending some time in close imprisonment, he saw the power of the gospel when he told the jailor, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16: 31). What Paul and Silas saw was the gospel becoming the power of God for the salvation of this man and his household. So Paul went out daily with the gospel, strong in faith of the goodness of God, for he believed that God is indeed willing to use the gospel to the salvation of sinners.
However little influence the gospel has today, we do not need to be ashamed of it — provided we continue to preach the same gospel as Paul preached. Although we do not have an Elisha or a Paul to preach the gospel today, it is not the qualities of the preacher that are primarily significant in the success of the gospel. It is the sovereign purpose of God to work by the Holy Spirit that results in a blessing for the Church on earth. This is not to deny that there are those, like Elisha and Paul, who are specially fitted with grace and with gifts to be particularly useful in the Church of God. But there is always the real possibility of coming in contact with Christ, however inadequate the messenger may in fact be — provided he does proclaim the gospel. Even Paul was in himself inadequate, but he found the power of Christ sufficient for him in his weakness, and time and again he proved the gospel to be the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.
Though Philippi, spiritually, was as dry as the valley of dry bones — and that was true of Thessalonica and Corinth and every other area Paul went to — it made sense to him to obey the instruction, “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord” (Ezek. 37: 4). And it makes sense for the ambassadors of Christ today to preach to dead souls also though, if there was no other power than that of man to be expected, the act of preaching the gospel would be as pointless as that of Ezekiel in prophesying to the dry bones. What gave point to the command to Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones was the further instruction, “Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live” (Ezek. 37: 9). In the same way, if there is to be fruit from the preaching of the gospel, a miracle is needed; it needs the almighty power of divine grace so that even one sinner may be converted. In Ezekiel’s vision the wisdom of the instruction to prophesy was seen, however absurd it appeared at first sight, when bone came to its bone and at last there stood up an exceeding great army.
At the creation God “breathed into (man’s) nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul!” (Gen. 2: 7). It is the same power, only of a higher order, that brings alive an unconverted sinner — the Holy Spirit breathing life into the dead soul. And when a sinner is thus born again the same Spirit applies the Word of God to his soul. The preaching of the gospel — prophesying to the dry bones — is the special instrument used in the conversion of sinners. However inadequate preaching in itself is to work such great effects, we have every reason to believe that God will, to a greater or lesser extent, give the Holy Spirit at all stages of the existence of His Church.
The Church of God must therefore go on discharging the duty of presenting the gospel to dead sinners. Yet preachers are not called to be successful, only to be faithful. They are to preach the whole counsel of God, but this especially: that Christ died and rose again. As they thus obey the command of the living God, who sent them out, they may express the confidence, “Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion” (Ps. 102: 13), and even express the confidence that God will show His mercy to His Church to the extent that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Is. 11: 9). Though in our generation the Church of God is as weak as it is, never has there been a time when the Scriptures have been so widely scattered, and that cannot be without effect. Thus there are now those who believe the gospel in so many more parts of the world than ever before.
One vital responsibility which falls on every believer in connection with the spread of the gospel is the duty of prayer. This is illustrated for us by that last recorded incident in Elisha’s life. King Joash was told to take his bow and arrows and shoot, which he did. He was told again to shoot, and he shot three times. But he was rebuked by the prophet with the words, “Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times” (v19). Joash should have been more willing to continue; he should have entered more into the significance of what he was doing — deliverance from Israel’s enemies — and he should have been more willing to submit to God as the only One through whom that deliverance could be achieved.
It is our duty to seek to understand the importance of persevering prayer in connection with the prosperity of Christ’s kingdom on earth, and so to engage in what corresponds to firing five or six arrows rather than only three. The people of God are to plead in particular that the Holy Spirit would come to themselves so that they might be given greater nearness to God and greater holiness and, of course, that a multitude of souls would be rescued from the power of Satan and made the subjects of redeeming grace.
The Church of God today is to go on in the same spirit as Elisha when he asked, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” (2: 14). He asked the question in the expectation that the God of Elijah would hear his cry too. It is so easy to be absorbed by the fact that today’s Church lacks the great men of the past, that there is no Elijah or Elisha, that there is no John Knox or Andrew Melville or Alexander Henderson, or anyone of that spiritual calibre with the capacity to make an impact even on the ungodly of the generation. But, whenever one sinner is converted, God is bearing testimony to these unspeakably significant facts: that He is alive, that the power of the Holy Spirit to quicken spiritually dead sinners is unchanged, and that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son still cleanses from all sin.
They who asked in days of old, “Why withdrawest Thou Thy hand, even Thy right hand?”, had also a plea to make, “Pluck it (Thy right hand) out of Thy bosom” (Ps. 74: 11b). So we may plead with God that He would show His power in the salvation of sinners and in building up His own people in the faith, and we may ask that He would work on a greater scale than ever before. We are to take the Lord’s promises to Him and cry that He would thus have mercy on His Church, even in our dark day. If our God still lives, and He does; if His power is unchanged, and it is — then we may expect to see the effects of that power demonstrated in His good time. God still directs His Church, “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord will do great things” (Joel 2: 21).