Read Time: 6 minutes2 Kings 1–2
Ahaziah falls through a lattice and sends to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether he will live — bypassing the God of Israel for the Philistine idol. Elijah intercepts the messengers: Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baal-zebub? The king who will not ask Yahweh is told he will not rise from that bed. When he sends captains of fifty to seize the prophet, fire from heaven answers the first two companies; the third captain comes humbly, begging for his life, and is spared. Arrogance toward the prophet of fire is consumed; humility is spared — the same lesson as the third captain’s bowed knee throughout these chapters.
Then the great translation. Elijah and Elisha walk from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho to Jordan, and at each place Elijah says tarry here, and Elisha will not leave him — as Yahweh liveth, I will not leave thee. Elijah’s mantle parts the Jordan; they cross dry; and Elisha asks the one thing he wants: a double portion of thy spirit — the firstborn’s share, to carry on the work. The disciple clings to the master to the very end and asks for his spirit, not his goods. Then the chariot of fire and horses of fire, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind — caught away from the earth, removed by Yahweh from his successor’s side.
Elisha sees it, cries My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, takes up the fallen mantle, and parts the Jordan again: Where is Yahweh, God of Elijah? The Spirit and the work pass on; the prophet is taken, but the word does not stop. The mantle that struck the water for Elijah strikes it for Elisha; the catching-up of the one is the commissioning of the other. It is a figure of the catching-away to come (1 Thess 4:17) and of the Spirit handed to the next generation of witnesses — the work outlives the worker.
Elisha’s first acts set the tone of his whole ministry — grace and judgment together. He heals the bitter spring at Jericho with salt in a new cruse: I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death. Then, mocked by a crowd of youths jeering Go up, thou bald head — contempt for the prophet and for the very ascension they had heard of — judgment falls in the two she-bears. The same prophet heals the poisoned water and is not to be mocked; the ministry of life is also a ministry that the scornful cannot trifle with. The fire spares the humble captain; Elijah is caught up and the mantle and Spirit pass to Elisha; and the new prophet heals the death out of the waters.
Jeremiah 50
The long oracle against Babylon opens, and it is the turning of the tables. The hammer that smashed the nations is itself to be smashed: Babylon — the name itself means confusion — is taken, Bel is confounded… her idols are confounded. The rod Yahweh used to chasten Judah is now broken in its turn — the instrument of judgment becomes the object of it, exactly as the cup of wrath went round to all the nations and at last to Babylon herself. Bel (the old Baal, lord) and Merodach (rebellion), the great gods of the empire, are put to shame; the proud city falls to a nation out of the north.
And the fall of Babylon is the release of the captives. In those days, and in that time… the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek Yahweh their God. The judgment on the oppressor is the homecoming of the oppressed; Babylon’s fall and Zion’s return are one event — the chains struck off when the prison-house is thrown down. And the One who brings them home is named: their Redeemer is strong; Yahweh of hosts is his name (50:34) — the goel, the near kinsman whose right and duty it is to buy back his own, the redeemer revealed at last in the One who is kinsman as Son of man and able to ransom as Son of God. The weeping pilgrims set their faces back to Zion and to a covenant that shall not be forgotten.
The keynote command rings out, the one the Revelation will take up over the last Babylon: My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of Yahweh. The call is to separation — come out of her before she falls. The people of God are not to share her sins or her plagues; they are to leave the doomed city while there is time, the same call that runs to come out of her, my people in the last book (Rev 18:4). Babylon is no home for the saints, then or now.
The cause of her fall is named without flinching: she hath been proud against Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel. Babylon stretched herself against the living God, and the strength that made her the terror of the earth is the pride that brings her down. The world-system that exalts itself against Yahweh is appointed to fall, and his people are called out of it. The hammer of the nations is itself broken, the captives go home weeping toward Zion under their strong kinsman-Redeemer — and the word goes out: come out of her, my people.
1 Corinthians 10
Paul reaches back to the wilderness to warn the over-confident Corinthians, and in doing so gives the clearest statement of the typological method in the New Testament. Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses… and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. The exodus was a baptism, the manna and the water were Christ, and the Rock that gave the water was Christ himself — the apostle reads Israel’s history as a shadow of the believer’s, and names Christ at its centre.
And the warning is sharp: with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples — they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Mark the narrowing: all were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all ate and drank the same spiritual food — and yet with many of them God was not well pleased, and the many shrank to the some who fell to idolatry, fornication, and murmuring. Privilege did not save the fathers, and it will not save the Corinthians — they were baptized, fed, and given the Rock, and still fell. The man who thinks he stands is told, take heed lest he fall; the way through is no automatic safety.
Yet the warning comes wrapped in a promise. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape. No trial is beyond bearing, and there is always an appointed way out — the faithfulness of God stands under the warning, so the call to take heed is not despair but sober hope.
Then the table. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? …For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. The Lord’s table joins the many into one body and one loaf, and it cannot be shared with the table of idols — ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils. To partake of the one bread is to be one body, and that fellowship forbids any other altar. The chapter that began with the Rock in the wilderness ends at the table where the one body remembers him; and over all of it: whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. The Rock in the wilderness was Christ, the fathers fell despite every privilege, and the one bread of the Lord’s table makes the many one body that can share no other altar.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day calls the people of God out of the doomed city and warns them not to presume on privilege. Babylon, the hammer of the nations, is broken, and the word goes out —** *****come out of her, my people*****; and Paul warns the baptized, Rock-fed Corinthians that privilege did not save the fathers in the wilderness, who fell despite the cloud and the sea and the manna.** Both readings strike the same warning: do not be at home where you must not stay, and do not presume that the signs of belonging are the same as standing. Babylon must be left; the wilderness fathers must not be imitated; let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
And both hold a promise under the warning. Babylon’s fall is Zion’s homecoming — the captives go out weeping and seeking Yahweh, brought home by their strong kinsman-Redeemer; the way out of the prison is thrown open. And the warning about the wilderness comes wrapped in faithfulness — God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation make a way to escape. The God who calls his people out of Babylon makes a way of escape in every trial; the call to separation and the call to take heed are both held up by his faithfulness, not left to our strength.
So the day asks us to come out and to take heed — and to keep the one table. Come out of Babylon while there is time; do not share her sins or her altars, for the world-system that exalts itself against Yahweh is appointed to fall, and his people are not to go down with it. Do not presume on your baptism and your bread as the fathers presumed and fell; the Rock that followed them is Christ, and the same Rock is no charm against falling — take heed. Keep the one table that makes the many one body, and drink no cup of devils beside the cup of the Lord. And in every temptation, trust the faithfulness that makes a way of escape. Come out of Babylon, do not presume as the fathers did, and keep the one table — for the Rock is Christ and God is faithful to make a way through.