07.18. The Dead Man Quickened
The Dead Man Quickened.
2 Kings 13:20-25. This is the closing expression of the power of God in our prophet. But the way of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, is reflected here still. For by His death we live. To touch the dead body of Jesus, that is, to have faith in His blood, is to be justified and live. But it is not so much in that general way, as belonging to all sinners, that we get Jesus here. It is as in connection with Israel, whose prophet Elisha was, and the earthly man also, who takes his course in power through Israel and on the earth, after Elijah the heavenly man had been translated to his place on high. For so with Jesus. He will be for the succour and life and kingdom of Israel in the latter day, after He has accomplished His mercy and His purpose with the Church, His heavenly witness. And as the man of grace and power for Israel, we here see Elisha doing his last service. Israel was now in confusion before the face of their enemies. They were put to the worse by the Moabites. The most they can do is to bury their dead, and we know, that is the service of the dead — "Let the dead bury the dead." This is shortly, but strikingly, marked as their condition here. But one that was dead already carries life, unlooked-for life, for them. This is shortly but strikingly marked here also. The power of reviving lay in the sepulchre of this mystic prophet. And so with Jesus, the Messiah and Lord of His Israel. Things will be seen in Him according to this pattern; when it shall be said, "The Lord shall judge His people, and repent Himself for His servants; when He seeth that their power is gone, and that there is none shut up or left, He shall say, See now that it is I, even I, and there is no God with me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal." Then, according to Ezekiel, the dry bones shall live; then the Lord will open the graves of His people and bring them out of their graves.
"At evening time it shall be light," we read. And again, "He turneth the shadow of death into the morning." Of these holy and august powers, we have faint touches in our prophet’s history. For in the evening of his days, when he was adying, we saw a light shining, as in the case of Joash and the arrows, that was worthy of his life’s meridian hour. And now, after his sun is gone down, even in the night of the tomb, the full power of the returning morning appears. And all has still a mystery in it. It is mystic ground as well as holy ground that we tread through these histories, and in the spirit of our minds we must tread softly, as ever, with unshod feet, but still be in company with happy thoughts of Jesus and His ways.
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Thus have we closed the story of "the great things that Elisha" did. Great things they surely were. We have, however, if I may so call it, a short appendix to it, which I read as very characteristic and significant. I mean the notice taken in the last four verses of this chapter, of the times of Jehoahaz and Joash. (See 2 Kings 13:22-25).
We are told that Hazael of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz but that the Lord was gracious, and had respect to His people, remembering in their behalf His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he gave Joash three victories over the son of Hazael, according to the sign of the arrows, which by command of Elisha, he had struck on the ground; and he took out of his hand the cities of Israel which his father had lost to Hazael in war.
Here we get the God of the fathers of Israel and His covenant of blessing, in company, too, with the mystic arrows of our prophet, strikingly owned. And this is, as I observed, very significant and characteristic. For Elisha’s ways had been ways of grace and power towards Israel, shadowy or typical of the ways of Messiah in the behalf of His people. And now that those ways of our prophet had all been run, as we have seen, and even in death he had given life, and sent the prisoner from the pit, and made the buried ones to go up from their graves, in a little postscript we get this mention of Abraham’s God and His covenant, by which Israel was to be secured and blest, in spite of all that was against them. Is not this like the moral of the whole story? Is not this, as it were, the key to the mystery, or the sense of the parable? Do we not thus learn that the Lord has pledged, in all this history of Elisha, succour and strength and grace and revival to Israel in the latter day? It is Israel delivered and blessed, as of old, that we get here; and nothing less. It is the ancient days of Israel’s mercy in Egypt that are again before us. For there, when they groaned under the rod of Pharaoh, and sighed by reason of the bondage, God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, as He does here; and also, as He does here, had respect unto them. (Exodus 2:23-25). Hazael may be as Pharaoh, but the God of Abraham is the God of Abraham still, and He can pledge deliverance and blessing by Elisha, as once He brought it by Moses.
It was long ere now that we heard of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in connection with the ten revolted tribes. Yea, did we ever before hear of Him as with them, save on the lips of our prophet’s kinsman, as I may call him, Elijah? ( See 1 Kings 18:36.) But now Elisha has been the witness of His grace and power in the midst of them, and the God of grace, the God of the fathers, can now be owned over them and for them.