SERMON XIII.

ELISHA A TYPE OF CHRIST AND HIS FOLLOWERS. Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.

2 KINGS ii. 9." And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.'

THERE is so much alike at first sight in the history of Elijah and Elisha, that it is not surprising if many of us (as I suppose is the case) confuse them one with the other. Yet if we examine the sacred narrative carefully, we shall find that they differ from each other as widely as those children in the market-place, described by our Lord, the figures of Himself and St. John Baptist, who first piped and then mourned. Certainly there are many things which correspond in their respective histories. Both wrought miracles; both withstood kings; both, at God's bidding, visited in mercy the heathen in the neighbourhood; both lived in one age and one country, and apparently with one principal design in God's Providence; viz. that of witnessing against idolatry. Even the same miracles were wrought by the one and the other; both multiplied oil; both raised a dead child: so far they resemble each other.

Yet they differ in many important respects. Elijah led an ascetic and solitary life, and was the great Reformer of Israel; he was a preacher of repentance, and the avenger of

God's honour upon false gods and their worshippers. What the kings Hezekiah and Josiah did in Judah, that work Elijah the Prophet did in Israel, and by the same weapon, the sword. On the other hand, Elisha lived in the world, mixed with all classes of people, had greater political influence (as we now call it), and the higher invisible gifts.

Of Elijah it is said, "He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins."* We read of him first as miraculously fed by ravens in concealment, then living on the oil and meal miraculously increased; and this for three years: next, as showing forth the great miracle on Mount Carmel before all the people, of calling down fire from heaven on the sacrifice, and as causing the slaughter of Baal's prophets; then, as fleeing to the wilderness, sustained miraculously by an Angel, going forty days and nights without food; then as returning and denouncing judgment upon Ahab; then as calling fire from heaven upon the messengers of Ahaziah; and lastly, as taken up without dying in a whirlwind. Such is the course of his history, very mysterious throughout, as if he did not live on earth, but only appeared from time to time for special purposes. Like Melchizedek, he has neither beginning of days nor end of life; he is introduced abruptly, as "Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead," and he is taken away as suddenly. His special characteristics, however, are, on the one hand, his austere mode of life; on the other, his destruction of idolatry.

Elisha, on the other hand, cannot be called a preacher of repentance or a reformer; as if Elijah had done the work for him, as far as it was attainable. Moreover, he lived in public, in known dwellings; he presided in the schools of the Prophets; and he had dealings with the kings of Israel, Judah, Edom, and Syria.

*

2 Kings i. 8.

† 1 Kings xvii. 1.

The difference between the two Prophets is marked, in the circumstance that Elijah, and not Elisha, is taken as the type of St. John the Baptist, our Lord's forerunner; and from our knowledge of what St. John was, we may form some idea of Elijah's office. The Baptist prepared the way for Christ; such seems to have been Elijah's office, with reference to the age which succeeded him. Before his ministry, Baal's prophets had the supremacy, and the true Prophets were hid in caves, and fed with bread and water: Elijah reversed the state of things, reinstated the Lord's Prophets, and then he was withdrawn. Thus he prepared the way for Elisha. Elijah then, as being a forerunner, a reformer, a preacher of repentance and righteousness, was the type of St. John the Baptist; but of whom is Elisha the type? On this subject I proceed to say a few words.

We need not of course be surprised, even if the Prophet Elisha was not the type of any servant of God then to come. Yet God's providences are so marvellously conducted in the way of figure and token, that certainly it does seem likely that Elisha is meant to represent some person or persons in the times of the Gospel, as Elijah is the type of St. John. Nor is it to the purpose to object that Scripture is silent on the subject, for Scripture omits to tell us that Isaac is a type of Christ, or Joseph, or Job, or Jeremiah; yet we can scarcely doubt, that all these were such; and as the Apostle had much to say (which he did not say) about Melchizedek, there is no reason why he might not also have had somewhat to say about Elisha too, had it so happened. Since specimens of a typical correspondence between the histories of the Old and of the New Testament are given us in Scripture, it is arbitrary to say, that the correspondence ends with these specimens; probable, on the other hand, that we are intended dutifully to avail ourselves in our expositions of Scripture of the clue which Scripture itself has put into our hands.

"

Still, though Elisha be the representative of some Christian office or ministry, it does not follow that there should be any very accurate and conclusive correspondence between type and antitype. Thus Elijah, we know, represents the Baptist; yet there are points in his history which are unlike St. John, and more like Christ Himself. The Baptist did no miracles; Elijah even raised the dead, and so far was a type of Christ rather than of the Baptist. Again, when he ascended on high, he was rather a type of Christ than of Christ's forerunner.

We cannot then have such certainty in typical expositions which we make for ourselves, as we feel when Scripture has supplied them; but it is a great mistake to suppose that religion is only occupied with such facts and doctrines as are certain. Faith has its duties towards what is probable or doubtful, as well as towards the express words of Scripture. Who then does Elisha represent? does he prefigure Christ? All the Prophets are types of Christ, as being Prophets; but it is true besides that Elisha is the type of Christ, in some remarkable points of his history peculiar to himself. For instance, when he came from Jordan, gifted by the hand of Elijah with the power of the Spirit, surely he resembled our Lord, as baptized by St. John in Jordan, and receiving the Spirit in consequence. And when his bones after his death revived a dead man, he typified (one cannot doubt) the Everlasting Saviour, whose body, dying on the cross, is our life and resurrection. Yet in spite of these parallels, one may hardly call Elisha a special type of Christ, any more than Elijah.

Whom then does Elisha represent? in other words, What is the lesson for Christian times deducible from Elisha's history? What light does that history throw upon the present condition of the Church, and the present duties of us members of it? I think we may say that, as Elijah represents the Baptist, Christ's forerun

ner, so Elisha prefigures Christ's successors, His servants which come after Him and inherit His gifts; Christ Himself being exactly represented by neither, coming between them, or (if at all) represented by both at once, when the one was departing, and the other taking his place; at once the Antitype of Elijah ascending into heaven, and of Elisha standing by Jordan, and receiving the gift of the Spirit.

Let Elisha then be taken to be the figure of Christ's favoured servants and followers, and thus be made to throw light upon their duties and privileges. By Christ's favoured and special servants, I do not merely mean His ministers, such as bishops and others, but all who in any measure have upon them eminent marks of the Lord Jesus; such as evangelists, confessors, solitaries, founders of monastic orders, doctors, and the like. Of all these, the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the noble army of martyrs, Elisha is the type. Let us go through some points of the resemblance.

66

1. Though Elijah was so great a prophet, yet Elisha had a double portion of his spirit. This seems to have its parallel in the Christian history. Our Saviour says, that though 66 among those that were born of women, there was not a greater than John the Baptist, yet he that was least in the kingdom of heaven," that is, the Christian Church, was greater than he." This is explained by our being told by the Evangelist, that the Spirit was not given till Christ was glorified. St. John "was filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb;"* yet even this extraordinary gift was as nothing compared with that Presence of the Spirit which Christ's followers received, and by which they are regenerated. It is indeed a double, or rather a sevenfold portion of the Spirit, and gives us powers, in proportion to our faith, above all that we can anticipate or comprehend. This then is a first point of resemblance. Christ's follow

* Luke i. 15.