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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 352. The Spirit of Elijah
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The Spirit of Elijah
2. With the deep sympathy that came from a sense of his own infirmities and failures, Elijah gazed on the eager face of his disciple. He longed, before his voice was still for ever on earth, to be of some service to him. He longed to spare him, if so it might be, some of his own sorrows and trials, to leave him some part of the legacy which he had gained. With yearning heart Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee.” And the young man looked up at him and saw the scars of all the fights, saw the lines upon his face, read the records of his troubles in every furrow in his brow and every line upon his cheek, knew that it all meant peril and danger and hardship and suffering, and his heart swelled within his bosom as he turned to him and said, “I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.”
God is a Spirit, in so far as He is not locked up in the invariable order of the world; and there is a spirit in Man, in so far as he is not disposed of by his organism and his dwelling-place, but rises in thought and directs himself in affection to what is above them. Here, then, it is that there is room for true communion, that Spirit may meet Spirit, and that the sacred silence may itself speak the exchange of love. The life with God, then, of which saintly men in every age have testified, is no illusion of enthusiasm, but an ascent, through simple surrender, to the higher region of the soul, the very watch-tower whence there is the clearest and the largest view.1 [Note: James Martineau, Essays, Reviews and Addresses, iv. 579.]
3. Elisha was not asking, of course, that the spirit which had animated and inspired Elijah might be doubled in his case; but (as the margin of the Revised Version informs us) that he might be given the double portion of the firstborn, the heir. The old Jewish law required that, when the father died and his property was to be distributed, the firstborn son should have a double portion. “So give me of thy spirit,” he prayed, “that I may be thy true successor. Make me thine heir by giving me thy spirit.” It was a wise and noble request. It showed how true already was the spiritual insight of the new prophet. He craved not his leader's miraculous powers, not his magnetic influence, not his indomitable will, but his spirit, which he recognized to be the true secret of his work. He knew the greatness of his master's heart; he knew its nobility and grandeur. He appreciated its troubles and its trials; he recognized their permanent results. In the silent sympathy of daily companionship he had absorbed the contents of the records of his master's soul. He knew, and loved, and venerated him. He thought of nothing better, he wished for nothing higher, than to follow with increased zeal in his steps. He longed only to pursue the labour which Elijah had begun-pursue it with the same steadfastness and the same resolute devotion. But if he inherited the sacred burden, he must also be made heir of the blessing. So he asked for the portion of the firstborn, for recognition as his master's natural heir. And as we read the account of Elisha's ministry, we cannot but feel that his prayer was the fitting prelude of the life which followed it, a life quite equal in its own way to that of Elijah; with all its tenderness so strong, and so full of deep abiding intercourse with God, that it fills a leading place in Old Testament history as a type of power and gentleness combined, which is the true ideal of the man of God.
Many years after, a little group of men, on the Mount of Olives, saw a sight as wonderful as that Elisha saw. They were gathered round their Master, who was dearer to them than Elijah was to Elisha. He was saying His last words to them, when suddenly He was parted from them; He rose higher and higher into the blue sky until a cloud received Him out of their sight, and He was taken noiselessly, quietly, peacefully, up into heaven. But He left behind Him a legacy, a double legacy. He left it to the company of disciples who saw Him ascend; but, thank God, He left it not only to them, but to the Church of God in all ages. What was the twofold legacy which the Christ left to His people? He left them His Spirit and His work. And that legacy has been left to each of us. The question is, Have we received it? The postman leaves a letter at our door, which tells us that a legacy of £1000 has been left to us, and instructs us to apply at a certain place where the money will be handed over to us. That money is left to us, but we must apply for it before we can receive it. God's letter is in our hands to-day, His word of truth. In it we read of the Lord's double legacy left to us. Have we ever applied for it? Have we ever received it? Have we claimed the first part of the legacy, the Spirit of God? Are we filled with the Spirit? Is the Spirit moving us, strengthening us, filling us with Divine power? Now what about the work? What are we doing for the Master? Are we carrying on His work? Are we day by day serving Him and toiling for Him? No one can be poor who has such a glorious legacy. His Spirit must make us rich, His work must make us happy. Have we claimed the legacy? Or does the Lord say to us to-day, as He said to His disciples, “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full”?1 [Note: O. F. Walton.]
4. What is the answer to Elisha's prayer? Surely most remarkable, however we explain it. “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.” Elisha had asked a hard thing, which it was not in any man's power to grant. Not hard in the sense that Elisha's work would be greater or more terrible, that it would require a larger measure of Divine interference in the affairs of men; but hard because it belongs to the spiritual life, the working of which is conditioned by the grace of God and the faith of man; hard because the conflict of the spiritual life is not that of controversy or agitation, or clamour of sect, or jealousy of party, but that of the soul, too intense for words, battling for right. But Elijah could give him a sign by which to know whether God designated and would qualify him to be his successor. If he saw it all, when Elijah was taken from him, then-but only then-would it be as he had asked. It is as if Elijah said in so many words: “My spirit, the spirit which you are seeking, is the spirit of vision, of insight, of the power to penetrate the world of the visible and the temporal to the world of the invisible and eternal, of the eye that looks not at the seen but at the unseen. If in this you are like me, then my spirit is and shall be yours, and through it shall flow into your work the energy and the power of the seer's faith.” Spiritual perception is ever the condition of spiritual work.
The appearances which accompanied Elijah's departure were spiritual, and spiritual things are spiritually discerned. The chariot of fire and horses of fire are said to be of fire because this brilliant and subtle element is the material symbol which best represents the intangible glory of the spiritual world; but of course they were not horses made of material fire. They were a spiritual appearance. Just as the painter Blake said that when looking at the sun it was not the material sun he saw, but ethereal powers and beauties hidden from the bodily eye, so Elisha saw what was hidden from the sons of the prophets on the opposite bank of the river. Manifestly this power of beholding the invisible, and of relying upon supernatural aid for his country, was the surest evidence that Elisha had a large measure of the prophetic spirit; of that spirit which could enable him to represent God's will among His people. Spiritual vision is the source of spiritual strength. He who sees with the distinctness of bodily vision the realities which belong to the spiritual world has a strength to which nothing seems impossible. He to whose inward eye the chariots of fire which accompany God's servants are clearly discernible, cannot but have a courage and a hope not given to every man. It was this seeing of things invisible, this walking with God, this immovable persuasion that God means good to the world, is ever working towards a perfectly righteous kingdom, that gave Elijah and Elisha their strength, fidelity, and success in dark and evil days. And in our day, as in theirs, the men who do most of God's work in the world are those who see powers about us which are not of earth. It is a great step gained when we discard the notion that God is a mere spectator and not an energetic worker in this world. We cannot too emphatically tell ourselves that with Divine energy God is now working in the world, spending among us the life and force that ever and unceasingly flow forth from the Divine nature.1 [Note: M. Dods.]
5. And “Elisha saw”: he comprehended to the full the moral significance of the great prophetic life as “the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” It was not simply that he saw “a chariot of fire and horses of fire,” or that he saw his master in one startling last glimpse; but he saw also how the true prophet of God is the nation's defence and bulwark. He had asked a hard thing, but he asked it with the capacity to receive it; and the holiness and consistency of his character and influence were the results of his prayer and of the desire that prompted it.
Then Elisha was left alone, alone to go back to fulfil the long, weary toil of the many years of the prophet's work, in the midst of a gainsaying and rebellious people. But as he went back to fulfil his mission, there came to him a new power for his work; a power which had hitherto been unknown to him. The hard thing he had asked had been granted, the double portion of the spirit of Elijah had been given to him; and as the sign and token thereof he saw lying at his feet the mantle of the prophet which had fallen from him. Elisha stooped down and took it to him, and then he “went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan.” He stood, a lone man, his master taken away from his head that day, the sour stream of Jordan gliding at his feet; he looked down on it and gathered the forces of his soul for an act which would put his fate to the test. “He took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And behold, Elijah's God was with Elisha, and he too went over. And the sons of the prophets, looking on from afar, cried out that the spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha, and they met him and bowed themselves before him.
Thus began a prophetic career in Northern Israel which lasted for more than half a century, during the reigns of Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash.
Elisha was, like his master, a man of special spiritual gifts, and exercised a scarcely less powerful influence on his contemporaries. Most significant is the very decided part played by Elisha in the revolution which led to the downfall of Ahab's dynasty and raised Jehu to the throne of Israel. In his conduct at this crisis Elisha was resolutely carrying out the religious policy of his predecessor Elijah, whose constant aim had been the total extirpation of Baal-worship. The career of these two great prophets illustrates very clearly the functions of a Hebrew prophet. A prophet was a man guided and inspired by God, and acting under commission from Him; a man who looked at contemporary history in the light of those great religious ideas which Moses had transmitted; a watchman who kept his eyes open for the signs of the times and who warned his countrymen of the impending judgments of God; an “incarnate conscience” who perceived and presented in its true light all that was unjust or corrupt in the ordinary life and social arrangements of his time; who recognized in history, and especially in the disasters which befell his nation, the warnings and the chastisements of Almighty God. Nor can we justly estimate the influence of the Hebrew prophets unless we bear in mind the relation in which they stood to the nation as a whole. The truths which they preached stood in striking contrast with popular religion. They were successively raised up by the Holy Spirit not as representatives of the beliefs and practices of average Hebrew religion, but as champions who never ceased to struggle against the down-grade tendencies, customs, and beliefs of their countrymen. Their preaching could not fail to be unpalatable to the mass of the people, for the simple reason that the God whom the prophets proclaimed was quite other than He was popularly supposed to be.1 [Note: R. L. Ottley, The Hebrew Prophets, 12.]