REAL CHRISTIANITY
I have in mind that we might get a fresh impression of what is distinctively characteristic of Christianity. It is indicated in Elijah’s mantle, the measure of the Man who has been taken up into heaven. It is a good thing for us to keep that in mind, that Christianity, the testimony that is to be maintained here during this day of the Spirit, now nearing its end, is to take on this feature, that there is the one measure of manhood according to God, one standard of testimony, and that is the measure of the Man who has gone up into heaven. We may think it is an unattainable standard, and Elisha did not presume to wear Elijah’s mantle, but he took it up. He took it up, having first rent his own garments in two pieces. It was definite in his own mind; he had finally discarded all that had marked him previously, and as now to fill the place of testimony for God, he kept before him this measure, the measure of the Man whom God has taken to heaven. I am sure we need to keep in mind that this is the characteristic feature of Christianity. Christ is the standard of manhood according to God, and if God entrusts His testimony to man He intends that it should be filled out according to that standard. The only power for it lies in the Spirit. This is the day of the Spirit. What Elisha exclaimed as he saw Elijah going up to heaven in a whirlwind was, “My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” He understood that the resources for the testimony were now entirely spiritual. Whether it is the Holy Spirit personally, or whether it is angels—both of these enter into the resources that are available for Christianity—they are spiritual. “Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flame of fire”, Ps 104: 4. So we are to understand that the resources available in the testimony are entirely spiritual.
These chapters in 2 Kings are very much a question of what resources we are relying on. In chapter 6 the mountain where Elisha was, was surrounded by chariots and horses of the Syrians. The Syrians represented great natural resources, but in contrast to that there were horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Elisha’s protection, and his power and support, lay in spiritual resources, and I believe that is the force of this exclamation of Elisha’s as he saw Elijah taken up into heaven. “The chariot of Israel”, he says, “and the horsemen thereof!” implying that the resources of the people of God are entirely spiritual. That means, as we have said, that the Holy Spirit alone is to be relied upon, though in relation to external conditions we have also the support of the angels, but in either case the resources of the testimony are entirely spiritual.
Now God had told Elijah to go and anoint Elisha in his stead, and Elijah went and found Elisha. We have no word of his anointing him, but he cast his mantle on him, as though he would give Elisha that impression that was to characterise his ministry, that he must have before him the measure of the man whom God would take up to heaven. So in Acts 1 two men stood by the disciples as they saw Jesus taken up, and, as they were gazing up into heaven, these two men said, “Men of Galilee, why do ye stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going into heaven”, v 11. That is, they looked forward at once to His coming, that He would come in exactly the same way as they had seen Him go up to heaven, meaning that there is to be no change. The whole of the dispensation is to be marked by the same features; what it was in the beginning it is to be characterised by at the end. He will come in exactly the same way as they saw Him taken up into heaven, and “taken up into heaven” signifies, I believe, heaven’s delight in the One who has been taken up. So we are to have that in mind. We may think there is great weakness and failure on our side, as undoubtedly there is, but the secret lies, of course, in our learning more fully and characteristically to make room for the Spirit. The Spirit of God will always bring Christ into our hearts, and into expression in our lives. Indeed, He is “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”, Rom 8: 2.
So Elisha was to get hold of this idea, and having rent his own garments in two pieces he takes up the mantle of Elijah which fell from him.
Now I refer briefly to chapter 5. It is a very evangelical chapter, a delightful chapter, showing incidentally how the gospel can be carried on and be effective in days of such weakness as mark the present time, corresponding with the days in which Elisha ministered. There was very great weakness, almost complete departure from the truth publicly, and yet Elisha ministered in grace and power notwithstanding. So we find in this chapter, first a little maid, and her feelings, her desire, in keeping with the desires of the heart of God. She says, “Oh, would that my lord were before the prophet that is in Samaria! then he would cure him of his leprosy”. Then there is Elisha himself, when Naaman comes to him, entirely in keeping with the gospel. Naaman was there in his own greatness and self-importance. He was a man indeed whom God had used, but God had in mind his blessing. He had not in mind his reputation, but He had in mind his blessing, and Elisha is in keeping with the gospel. How important it is that we should always be in keeping with the gospel. Indeed, I believe that many of our sorrows and troubles arise from the fact that we are not really keeping the gospel in our hearts and souls. Elisha was thoroughly in keeping with the gospel, so that when this man came in his self-importance and greatness—“Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha”—Elisha is not found in any way pandering to this man’s desires. Naaman had it all planned out in his own mind, what was to happen. It was all to make something of Naaman, but Elisha is faithful. He is in complete accord with the gospel. He will not go out to him. He just sends a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times”. Naaman asks why it must be the Jordan. Why the Jordan? “Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar”, he says, “rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?” But Jordan is the whole point. Jordan is what Elijah went through just before he was taken up to heaven. It speaks, of course, of death, and Christ having been into death. It speaks of death as lying upon all men, and Christ having been into death and risen triumphantly out of it in order that He might have the right to give the Holy Spirit to those who believe on Him, who are thus set up in the life of the heavenly Man. But then before that was possible the life of man in flesh has had to be terminated in death. It is not here a question exactly of judgment of sin, although that enters into it, as we have been reading, but it is rather the end of man in death. Jordan represents that, and Jordan has an important place in this history of Elisha. We have read of it in chapter 2, and then we read of it in chapters 5, 6 and 7. The Jordan is an important element in the teaching of this part of the history, but now the whole point is whether we have really identified ourselves in mind and heart with the Jordan, that is with Christ as having gone into death. The epistle to Colossians makes much of “with Christ”: “died with Christ” (chap 2: 20), “buried with him” (chap 2: 12), “raised with the Christ” (chap 3: 1), “quickened together with him”, chap 2: 13. It is a question of where our affections are, whether we really have in our hearts that we belong to Christ, that He loves us, holds us in His love, and has given Himself for us in order that we might partake of His life, the life of the heavenly Man, for that object He went into death for us, and in that death the life of man in flesh has been ended vicariously. Have we really laid hold of it, and do we maintain it in our souls? God had in mind wondrous blessing for Naaman, and he nearly missed it because of his unwillingness to accept death unreservedly, to plunge himself seven times in Jordan.
Now, in the wondrous grace of God, the servants of Naaman draw near. How wonderful it is, how the gospel can go on in days such as these are, in the most simple of circumstances! A maid on the one hand happily accepting God’s ordering of circumstances for her; the servants, on the other, with singleness of desire that their master might be blessed. They draw near and they say, “My father, if the prophet had bidden thee to do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he says to thee, Wash and be clean? Then he went down, and plunged himself seven times in the Jordan”. It is not three times. It is not even five or six times. It is seven times. One has thought how the servants looking on must have held their breath as Naaman went down the fourth, fifth, and sixth time, and still nothing had happened. Would he go down the seventh time? Would he complete the matter? Would he be cleansed? It says that he “plunged himself seven times”. He accepted the full requirement, the complete unreserved acceptance of death, as ending Naaman in his totality. It is not merely ending Naaman as a leper, so to speak, but ending Naaman in all that he was in his importance. He had been an important man, one whom God had used. All that had to come to an end, in order that he might come into the gain of being set up in the life of the heavenly Man. “His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child”. On one occasion, when the disciples were reasoning who would be the greatest of them, the Lord took a little child and set it by Him (Luke 9: 47), as though a little child is worthy to be set alongside of the heavenly Man, suitable to be identified with Him. And so Naaman’s flesh “became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean”. Naaman found all his natural features gone for ever, but he was there in all the beauty of a little child. When the leper was to be brought into the camp of Israel in Leviticus 14 (and we have all been lepers) he was to shave himself; he was to bathe himself, and to shave off his hair, and then seven days afterwards he was to do the same, to shave all his hair, his head and his beard, and even his eyebrows, all that sprang out of what he was naturally, so to speak, was to go under the power of the razor. It was all to disappear. What a different man he would be as people looked on him! No hair, no beard, no eyebrows even. He would be a completely different man, and that was the kind of man that Naaman became as he plunged himself in Jordan; fit for the people of God. Now he asks that Elisha should take a present, but Elisha is firm. How blessed to see Elisha so completely in the gain of the gospel! All must be of grace. If we are on any other principle it will leave something for us to glory in but let us boast in Christ Jesus. Elisha is in keeping with God’s dealings with Naaman, so that he refuses, and then Naaman indicates that what he has in mind now is the great end that is in mind for all of us, that he should serve God acceptably. He had in mind to build an altar, an altar of earth, as God prescribed in Exodus 20. It was obligatory, an altar of earth, meaning that in our approach to God we approach Him humbly in the recognition of what we have been as after the flesh. But then Naaman says, “this earth”. You might say, Why take earth to Syria? Was there not plenty of earth in Damascus?
He says, “This earth”. That is to say, it was the ground he was now on. He had arrived at the truth. He had plunged himself seven times in Jordan. He virtually says, “I am on that ground and I am going to maintain that ground in my approach to God, and in all my relations with Him; I am going to have an altar in keeping with what I have arrived at”. God would bring us all to that. If we are to have part in His testimony, we must have nothing less before us than the measure of the Man whom He has taken up into heaven, and there is power in the Spirit to enable us to answer to this, if we will accept unreservedly the bearing upon us of Christ’s death for us, and seek to maintain ourselves in keeping with the truth we have thus arrived at.
LONDON
5th March 1957
From Words of Grace and Comfort
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