2 Kings 2:9

2 Kings 2:9

As Elijah represents the Baptist, Christ's forerunner, so Elisha prefigures Christ's successors, His servants who come after Him and inherit His gifts. Let us go through some points of the resemblance.

I. Though Elijah was so great a prophet, yet Elisha had a double portion of his spirit. This has its parallel in Christian history. Even the extraordinary gift of John the Baptist was as nothing compared with that presence of the Spirit which Christ's followers received, and by which they were regenerated.

II. Notice the special communion and citizenship which Elisha enjoyed with the unseen world. He had the privilege of knowing that he was one of a great host who were fighting the Lord's battles, though he might be solitary on earth. We have privileges surely far greater than Elisha's, but of the same kind.

III. Another gift bestowed on Elisha and on the Christian Church which he prefigured is the gift of discernment. He detected the sin of Gehazi; he saw in the face of Hazael his future fortunes.

IV. A further power vouchsafed to Elisha was the power of inflicting spiritual censures and judgments. In like manner, to all the ministers of Christ is committed the awful power of retaining or remitting sin (John 20:23).

V. Elisha's person seems to have been gifted with an extraordinary sanctity and virtue. Even the touch of his relics after his death raised a dead man. Our Saviour had this power in its fulness, and His Apostles inherited it in their measure.

VI. There is much in Elisha's miracles typical of the Christian Sacraments. Naaman's cleansing in Jordan is a figure of Holy Baptism; the multiplying of the oil is a type of Holy Communion.

VII. In Elisha's close connection and intercourse with matters of this world he resembled Christ and His Church.

VIII. Lastly, it is well to notice the dignity and state which he assumed in his dealings with men, high and low, in which he was a fit type of that holy Church catholic to whom it is promised, "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted."

J. H. Newman, Sermons on Subjects of the Day,p. 164.

References: 2 Kings 2:9. J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College,vol. iii., pp. 1, 63; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ix., p. 82; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. no; J. J. S. Perowne, Sermons,p. 313; H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit,No. 752, and Old Testament Outlines,p. 73. 2 Kings 2:9; 2 Kings 2:10. J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,3rd series, p. 98; I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament,p. 224. 2 Kings 2:9. A. Edersheim, Elisha the Prophet,p. 22.