READING 2 KINGS FIVE AND SIX
[p. 360] READING 2 KINGS FIVE AND SIX
JT Up to the end of chapter 4 I think we have what foreshadows the activity of divine grace in regard to Israel; now we are on different ground, God going outside of Israel in blessing to the Gentiles. God’s sovereignty is indicated here, as in Luke 4.
RSS That is what the Jews could not stand.
JT Yes. It is most interesting to see here that God set His mind on this great Syrian, and arranged that the light of His grace should reach him.
JP The sphere of the testimony is unchanged, it goes out from Samaria.
JT That is where the prophet was.
FL The great fact of this chapter is still grace. It came out in the captive maid.
JT A nation that was marked by hostility to God and His people has become the subject of His grace. The healing of Naaman brings out still more fully the magnitude of divine grace.
FL The great point is just that the magnificence of the grace that comes out. The maid was the victim of hostility against the people of God, and she had the understanding of the mind of God. Her thought was always of the grace available in Samaria.
JT She was no ordinary maid; although very insignificant outwardly, she was intelligent as to what was in Samaria. God acted sovereignly in His wisdom so that this Syrian should come into touch with Elisha.
Ques What would answer to Samaria today?
JT Samaria is the place of the enemy’s influence. Jezebel still had a place there, but God places the light in Samaria. The Lord, in setting up the testimony in this world, does not place it where [p. 361] there is no opposition, but where the enemy’s power is strongest.
FL The thought of divine testimony involves opposition.
JT And it means the overthrow of evil — that which holds men in bondage. So that the gospel began at Jerusalem, which was the stronghold of the enemy’s power. You will remember that the Lord told the apostles to go to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, Luke 24. Wonderful that God should set up a testimony, in outward weakness, in the stronghold of the enemy’s power and overthrow it! Jerusalem and what it represented were morally overthrown by the testimony of the apostles.
FL I suppose the little maid stands as a picture of those coming into the kingdom as little children, who are formed in the knowledge and mind of God. She had light as to what God could do through the prophet.
JT I think you will see that the vessels used of God are marked by outward weakness and insignificance.
JP The little captive maid corresponds with what 1 Corinthians 1:27 speaks of — the “weak things”. God has chosen the weak things.
JT I think that is what is presented here.
RSS Yes, and I was struck with the great difference between how the mind of this little maid was formed — the great contrast between her and those in Luke 4. She says with the greatest confidence, “For he would recover him of his leprosy”. 2 Kings 5:3. She had not a doubt of it; but in Luke 4, where the Lord spoke of grace going out to the Gentiles, they could not abide it. They would have cast Him over the brow of the hill.
She has a counterpart in Barnabas in the Acts. He was not the official appointed to open the door to the Gentiles, but he was in the spirit of the Lord, a [p. 362] good man and full of the Holy Spirit. He went down to Antioch. It was he who took Paul by the hand. He rejoiced in the work of God among the Gentiles. Peter was very different about it. What the little maid presents is that produced by the Spirit among the Jews, as seen in the Acts. Barnabas was in sympathy with God’s mind, rather than acting in an official way. The little maid was in sympathy with the spirit of the moment. She had no doubt at all but that the prophet would heal Naaman of his leprosy. On the other hand, the king was so utterly oblivious to what was going on that he thought that the king of Syria was seeking a quarrel with him.
JP The little maid stands out in contrast to the two kings. The king of Syria sent a letter to the king of Samaria. She did not say anything about the king. The kings were great officially, but they did not know anything about the mind of God. The king of Syria was a king himself, and thought nobody but a king could help; but the poor king of Israel sees nothing in it but an attempt on the part of the king of Syria to pick a quarrel with him. The little maid is wonderful in that way.
JT She presented the right object to Naaman, the vessel of grace, the prophet. All was bound up in the prophet.
FL I suppose the attitude of the king really expresses his absolute blindness and ignorance of the wonderful vessel God had set up. The amazing vessel and power of grace that God has established, but the utter blindness and unconsciousness of what exists in Christ for the relief of man today are the same.
JT It often happens that when the light of God in the gospel reaches the soul it turns to official great ones or help. But the test of the reception of light is that it leads us to the Source of the light, that is, to the Lord.
[p. 363] Ques Would the little maid be doing the work of an evangelist?
JT She was not an official like Peter (I am not making little of Peter), but she was doing the work of an evangelist. What is so striking is that she had been taken captive. There had been hostility in those she had befriended. It shows the magnitude of God’s grace. The Syrians were really hereditary enemies to the light of God in Israel, but in this incident you find grace rises above all that, and the Syrians (one of them, at least) come into blessing.
RSS Yes, the Lord’s word was, “Bless them that curse you, ... and pray for them which despitefully use you”. Matthew 5:44.
Rem They were holding her unjustly.
JT They had taken her captive. She was one of God’s people, and instead of judgment in the maid, you get blessing and light from God.
FL It strikes me as the excess of grace coming out in one who is formed in the mind of God, and follows along the line of what we had before. She understands the mind of God and what the intent of God is in putting that fountain of blessing in Samaria.
JT I have no doubt that chapter 3 shows the height of God’s grace to Israel, and this chapter to the Gentiles. There was opposition in both cases. Paul speaks of the Gentiles; they were children of disobedience, as the Jews were children of wrath.
RSS Does that not show how grace enlarges you?
JT Yes, it works in the believer so that he becomes like God, and acts like God. “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink”. Romans 12:20.
RSS So that if a person is characterised by grace, he is not small about things — there is a largeness about him.
JT No man that retains anything in his heart [p. 364] against his fellow is acting like God. In chapter 3 we see how He rises above the opposition in Israel, intervening for their deliverance, and in this chapter He rises above the opposition in the Gentiles.
Ques Would you say the little maid was equal to the Shunammite woman?
JT I believe it would be the Shunammite in another way. The greatness of the Shunammite is seen in the little maid. She has no resentment as to the Syrians; she thinks only of their blessing.
RSS So she was really a great person.
JT She was intelligent as to what was in Samaria, and had only thoughts of good for those who were her captors.
FL She is a great example of one formed by grace.
JT Very like Barnabas. It was said of him that he was a good man. He is spoken of as an apostle after the account of his moral greatness.
FL He was a “son of consolation”.
JT You do not see election, as in Paul’s case. Barnabas was a great man, and thus qualified to be a missionary to the Gentiles. Having lands, he sold them and laid the proceeds at the apostles’ feet.
Rem The maid was in such a condition that the Lord could use her.
RSS In regard to Barnabas we read, “Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith”, Acts 11:23, 24.
JT It shows you how completely he was in sympathy with what God was doing. He was not the official vessel to the Gentiles, but he had the place of an apostle. And he recognised the grace that was in Saul. He seemed to see that Saul was the suited vessel for the work among [p. 365] the Gentiles.
RSS Yes, Barnabas was the unjealous introducer of his more gifted brother Saul. I suppose the great point is that when he saw the grace of God he was glad.
JT That is the point, whereas Peter and the others were somewhat diffident about the grace of God going out to the Gentiles.
RSS It took immense persuasion on God’s part to lead them to accept it.
JP I think the sovereignty of God in the display of His grace in this instance is very conspicuous; the details all serve to show this, first, in the way the gospel is presented to Naaman, and then in all the elements of opposition, not only in the kings of Syria and Israel, but in Naaman himself. They are all overcome. It shows how nothing can frustrate the purpose of God to bless man.
JT God had set His eye on Naaman, and He would have Naaman.
JR Yes, in spite of the kings of Syria and Israel and in spite of himself. He turned away in a rage. After all, the way of God in the display and exercise of His grace is never pleasant to man. It is always contrary to man.
JT Naaman was a great man in Syria with his master, but he was not a great man as the Shunammite was a great woman. He lived in his greatness.
JP He was an honourable man. Of course all great men in the world look best at a distance; they will not bear close inspection. Naaman, however, was not only great, but honourable; and I think the finest touch of all is that God had used this man for the deliverance of his own people. He is almost as fine a man as Nicodemus in the New Testament.
It seems to me that the whole conduct and bearing of the prophet are wonderful. There are such fine touches about the way he acts. There comes Naaman with his chariot and horses and his retinue — a man of [p. 366] his position never travelled alone; everything calculated to impress people with his greatness. He drove up to the door of the prophet’s house, and the prophet did not even do him the honour of going to him; he sent a messenger out saying, “Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean”. 2 Kings 5:10.
Rem The prophet was greater than the visitor.
JP Well, the prophet was really the vessel of grace.
FL The messengers are important. The maid gives us one aspect of the gospel and Elisha’s messenger gives another aspect. The latter points to the remedy for Naaman’s disease. At the present time the Source of grace is unseen, but tidings are conveyed through servants who are used.
JT Naaman, having been used of God heretofore, indicates that there was something of God among the Gentiles; but now that Christ has died, everything has to go into death; in order that divine requirements should be met, death has to be accepted.
JP The message of the prophet instructing him to dip seven times in Jordan was really the occasion of bringing out what was in Naaman. He tells what he expected the prophet to do. He wanted to get rid of the leprosy but to preserve the leper. There are a good many recovered lepers in the present day — but God’s way was that the leprous man had to go, and that was the sticking point with him; that set him in a rage. He would have gone back with the prancing steeds — Naaman the great man recovered. If he goes back at all, he will be turned into another man.
JT That is the point. He was a great man, not only because of his exploits, but because the Lord had used him; that was unusual. But he was not on the ground of death and resurrection, and if on [p. 367] any other ground now, we are lepers, since Christ has died. The man born after the flesh is proved sinful.
JP It would be necessary to have some understanding of what leprosy signifies. Naaman was a leper, although a great man.
JT It was not simply that Naaman had sinned — he was a man after the flesh.
JP Leprosy does not set forth conduct, but condition.
JT When God brings in Christ and Christ dies, God can no longer look on man in the flesh.
Rem The king indicated that, in his words, at least, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive?” 2 Kings 5:7. He seems to feel the necessity of death and resurrection as having to do with leprosy.
JT He did not know that God was acting upon this very line. Death and resurrection had come in and Jordan was the testimony of that. Naaman’s flesh became as the flesh of a little child when he dipped seven times in Jordan. All that he was in the flesh was gone. His flesh was like the flesh of a little child, there was an entirely new beginning.
FL In a way, Naaman had become like the vessel of God that started him on the way — the little maid.
JT Yes, like a little child. Naaman represents the man in the flesh, not as a sinner, a transgressor, but as one whom God has honoured.
FL What he had was hereditary from Adam.
JF The leper had to cry, “Unclean, unclean!” Leviticus 13:45. There is such a false thought prevalent in Christendom about cleansing — that the man according to the flesh becomes clean. But God’s way is death — and the removal of the unclean man.
JT There could be no question as to Naaman having been in death. He went in seven times.
JP The seventh dip [p. 368] told.
JT Baptism is only once. There was complete testimony that that man had gone.
JP Seven is the number of completeness.
FL The sprinkling of the blood seven times was the complete testimony that God had come in.
JT There must be an adequate testimony that that man was gone. The blood sprinkled seven times on the mercy seat was for God.
JP The blood, of course, was put before God, and blood cleansing in Scripture is always judicial, but cleansing with water is moral. “This is he that came by water and blood”. 1 John 5:6. It is the side of the truth that has not been seen. The condition of man subjectively has to be met.
JT Leprosy is what characterises man as born of Adam.
JP “That which is born of the flesh is flesh”. John 3:6. Naaman got a new condition. His flesh was as the flesh of a little child.
Ques Would you take Naaman here to represent a believer? He went away in a rage.
JT He was a believer, seeing he had acted on the light given by the little maid. All the little maid did was to direct him to the vessel of grace. When he went to Elisha he got further light. Elisha told him what to do.
JP The more closely you look at it the more you are impressed that it is God acting sovereignly in the display of His grace.
JT I do not think souls get into the good of the gospel until they come to Christ. The light directs you to Christ, and He tells you what to do. If you are to be in the good of the truth, to be cleansed, He will give you to understand that it will mean death.
Ques In chapter 4 the prophet instructs the widow as to the oil — would you take the prophet there [p. 369] for Christ?
JT He stands in an abstract way for the light that has come out. He was a man of God. What Elisha there represents in the progress of your soul is the light that comes to you as to the Holy Spirit who indwells you.
Ques Is believing the gospel one thing, but coming to Christ another?
JT Certainly. The gospel directs you to Christ; it brings your soul into direct relation to Christ.
JP What they began to preach was that Jesus was the Christ, and what the little maid preached was that the prophet who was in Samaria could heal Naaman of his leprosy.
JT Naaman was a great man in his own account, but all that must go. The prophet does not see him at all until he goes down into Jordan.
FL Every illustration teaches the same lesson that we must go through the strait gate. The man in John 9 had to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Then he was excommunicated by the Pharisees, but he was found in company with the Son of God. Everyone has to go that way.
JT You get in 2 Kings such a variety of ways in which death and resurrection are presented. In the next chapter you get the hatchet, but it is death and resurrection in each case. Here the Gentile is cleansed by death and resurrection.
JP How thoroughly God is master of the situation! Now, it would seem for the moment that Naaman, having come to the prophet, and having heard his message, is turning away in a rage; all was over. He says, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” 2 Kings 5:12. But see how God is completely master of the situation. He has the “servants” first, the little maid preaching the gospel to him, and now his own servants. “A soft answer turneth away wrath”. Proverbs 15:1. They address him respectfully. But it is God really,
[p. 370] the Spirit pleading; and Naaman gives up his own rivers. He sees he has to go, and says he may as well go, and down to Jordan he goes. The leper disappears.
Rem He has to go down to get cleansed.
JP Naturally we would like to be cleansed by going up. We do not like going down.
FL That was an interesting thought as to God using a Gentile. I suppose that what we get here is really the beginning of God’s coming out to the Gentiles in view of the breakdown of Israel. It is the beginning that leads on to the final transfer of power to Nebuchadnezzar.
JT Yes, God had used the Gentile, had put honour on him as well as on the Jew. Now that Christ has appeared, neither is to be used.
FL The princes of this world crucified the Lord of glory. If they had known the wisdom of God they would not have crucified Christ.
JT They were unaware of what had come in. The Lord of glory had come in.
FL The hereditary taint is on all alike, so they must go into Jordan.
JT Nebuchadnezzar was a remarkable testimony raised up of God. He was, in a way, one of the preachers of the Old Testament. Solomon was the great preacher to Israel, and Nebuchadnezzar the great preacher to the Gentiles. His preaching was directed to all nations, as to what the God of heaven had done for him, Daniel 4. Nebuchadnezzar had been the subject of God’s discipline. But since Christ came and died the man after the flesh is no longer used as such. Outwardly, power still remains with the Gentiles, it is true, but the kingdom is really in Christ’s hands.
JP What is set forth here is not simply that Naaman should be cleansed, but that God had in view setting up a testimony among the Gentiles.
[p. 371] Naaman goes back not only in a new condition, but as a worshipper and a witness.
JT The thought of worship is there — we have to add the rest. The chapter does not go beyond what relates to the individual.
FL This does not go beyond the grace of God reaching out to the Gentile.
JT Therefore it is more the present time. This book rather illustrates the introduction of the gospel to the Jews and the nations. Elisha dies and his ministry ends, but there is the revival of things in connection with his bones. After the death of Elisha the Moabites invade the land again. Man appears again in his power and pride; and the people are engaged in the burial of a man; they cast him into the sepulchre of Elisha, and he arises and stands upon his feet.
FL The revival of Israel.
JT The man had to be let down, as here Naaman had to go down into the waters. The man had to go down into the sepulchre of Elisha and touch his bones, then you get revival.
FL It suggests Israel as the valley of dead bones. What we meet with now is not the confederate kings of Israel, Moab and Judah, but a man out of death.
No part of the known earth could have been ignorant of the witness of Nebuchadnezzar, so that they are utterly without excuse. When one reads Romans or Paul’s address at Athens one appreciates that God had sent a very adequate testimony to the Gentiles.
RSS That what we are considering applies to the present time and state of things, comes out pretty clearly in what follows about Naaman. He was returning home, and in the thought of this he was confronted with a confused state of things in connection with the house of Rimmon.
JT We might be justified in saying [p. 372] that the opening of chapter 6 meets that state of things. We get the thought of building. It is just hinted at, but the condition of the pagan world necessitated that the idea of God’s sanctuary should be established there, which we know took place. The building, properly, was committed to Paul. So if we view Naaman as a Gentile believer, he ultimately would find a place of worship.
FL But it will need divine power to bring it about and the reversal of everything according to nature — the iron swims.
JT In the Acts you have priestly service in Antioch, Acts 13. The divine institution is now in the midst of the Gentiles. We are told they were ministering to the Lord and fasting. There is the true idea of service, I think, found now among the Gentiles. The divine centre is really altered, and the testimony of the gospel goes out from Antioch. That is, the Gentile believers find a place in which to worship and serve God.
FL I was adding a little to what you said about the house. Naaman is spoken of, and then the house comes into view, its establishment is really the reversal of nature, for it comes, we may say, out of the water of death. You cannot cut the wood without an axe.
JP It is in Jordan all this happens. The axe-head had sunk in Jordan, Jordan is typical of death.
JT Things that are now connected with the gospel, such as building and conflict, are seen in the Old Testament in connection with man in the flesh.
JP If these things were written for our instruction I suppose it is for our instruction in the truth of Christianity.
JT But what God recognised before He will not recognise now. If we build now it is with material that has been into death.
RSS An expression was used in our meeting [p. 373] yesterday morning — that John brings forward spiritual facts. This is something of that nature.
JT I think it is simply that all building now is to be in connection with death and resurrection The force of chapter 6 is found in verse 7 — “Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand, and took it”. 2 Kings 6:7. The power came forth there in resurrection. It is appropriate. “Take it up to thee”. There is the thing; what use do they make of it?
JT I think that when people are converted and get a little of the truth, they want to do something, and it takes the form of building; this passage shows that if you do build it must be on the ground of resurrection. That is the only ground on which you can do anything permanent. He took the axe-head; now he had the means of building what was according to God. The Corinthians were building on wrong lines.
Rem The sons of the prophets made the movement.
JT It is right that there should be a movement. The light of God meets you here on every point to correct you, and therefore the importance of ministry to the soul, because after believing the gospel you are sure to become active; but you want to be guided aright, and the only right course is to build on the ground of resurrection. Solomon builds a great deal, because he is, typically, a risen man. You get all around the buildings of wood, hay and stubble — things that will have to go in judgment, because they are not according to God.
RSS The thought that the sons of the prophets had in building was right, but they needed guidance.
JT No doubt the sons of the prophets represented what was of God in Israel, but Judaism was too limited. You get the Spirit of God leading people out into a wider sphere. They were building with what was borrowed, referring to man’s life here. Now you get something out of death, and that is permanent. The light of God must go with you. So that you get, I think, two things running on concurrently — the work of God in souls producing desires, and the need for these desires to be regulated by the light of God. What man is after the flesh is of no use now in building. Moreover, anything that ever was built broke down. But Christ says, “On this rock I will build my assembly, and hades gates shall not prevail against it”. Matthew 16:18. The stick was cast in; that would be Christ, as in the ease of Marah. The wood refers to the Lord going into death; in virtue of that the iron (which is man) swims.
FL It is the Lord going down into death.
JT The axe-head would naturally go down; it could not help itself, but the wood would not sink.
FL Where man comes up is where Christ has come up - in resurrection. The apostle says — “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Galatians 6:14.
JT 1 Corinthians 2 and 3 are connected. All that is of the flesh is repudiated. The apostle’s preaching was altogether aside from it. He was really preaching as one who had been down into death and come up out of it.
WHF What comes up in resurrection is the material to be used for building.
FL The axe-head indicates, not exactly material, but the power for building.
WHF What comes up is really of Christ.
JT Had the Corinthians been recognising this they would have been preserved from what the apostle alludes to in chapter 3. He says, “Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon”. 1 Corinthians 3:10. Everyone is put on his own responsibility. I think it would be a good thing to study Solomon as a builder. Solomon is a great builder (see 1 Kings 9: 15 - 20),
[p. 375] and I believe it is because he is figuratively typical of Christ risen.
RSS We were looking at the establishing of the kingdom in grace, but there is a touch of grace that we have not considered in this chapter, and that is in Elisha’s answer to Naaman — “Go in peace”. 2 Kings 5:19. Evidently the question of Naaman’s path came before him now in returning to his home and his conscience was in exercise in regard to the house of Rimmon into which his master was accustomed to go, leaning upon his arm. He was in a difficulty and he thought he would ask Elisha about it. Elisha maintains his beautiful attitude of grace in neither sanctioning him nor forbidding him. He leaves his conscience in free exercise before God.
JT The teaching here does not go beyond what refers to the individual. I think the prophet’s word to him would set him individually right, and no doubt God would intervene in regard to his associations. I think when the believer has touched this point, when he gets the word, “Go in peace”, then he is prepared for the truth of the church.
RSS Yes; but it comes up in connection with his old associations, and you have to get clear of them before you get into your right place in regard to the new ones.
Ques Was not Israel told to use an altar of earth?
JT Yes, but God had an altar of brass; a golden altar, too. God has His own order of worship, and when the believer is set on the road of peace by the word of Christ he has to take up another lesson, that is, the sanctuary. This would set him right in regard to the house of Rimmon.