2 Kings 2:14 And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah?… It was a great thing when we could get people to ask questions about God. Philosophers talked a great deal about "the God-consciousness." Here was a man who had the "God-consciousness" wondrously developed. This man Elisha, when he asked this question, was not simply solicitous about God in general — he wanted a particular type of God. He wanted not any god nor every god, not any aspect of the tree God, but the Lord God of Elijah. But was the Lord God of Elijah different from the god of other people? The implicit doctrine of this question seemed to be that He was. Did God reveal Himself in a hundred different ways through a hundred different personalities? He did, and that was the great fact that appeared in the text. It must be so, for God was infinite. Most people would dismiss this statement as a foolish platitude. But if we realised what it meant it would be obvious that God transcended intellectual conception. Let us not be distressed because we cannot understand God. Nobody could understand Him. As one of the greatest modern theologians had said, "It takes a God to understand God." In the ultimate sense no man could by searching find out God. Therefore, if we had an infinite God, He must be capable of expressing Himself in a hundred, in a thousand, ay, in ten thousand different ways. "Every man painted his own picture of God," and every man must be warranted in doing so if God was infinite. One individual saw God from a certain angle, another individual saw Him from a different one; different churches saw Him from different standpoints; but all were right, for God was infinite. Elisha wanted the type of God he had seen manifested in Elijah. It was a glorious doctrine, this doctrine that God revealed Himself through personality. Jesus Christ was in the supreme sense what every man is in a lesser sense — God's Word. A word was the manifestation of a man. What a grand opinion we should have of some people if they never opened their mouth! When we spoke a word we were known; a word was the expression of a personality. And Jesus Christ came down to this earth to articulate God to man. And what Christ did supremely every believer did in a lesser degree. Elisha had got all his theology from Elijah. Elijah never wrote a word; he left no volume of theology behind him, but there was no prophet who had made such a permanent impression on Israel and on the world. He lived his theology, and he gave such a revelation of God to his people that when he was gone they said, "Where is the God of Elijah? — the God of Elijah for me." Some of us had gathered most of our conception of God from some noble personality. That was our aim in life as believers to give a theology to men, to live a theology before men. Infidelity could answer argument, but argument wag no answer to life. What sort of a God was the God of Elijah — God as represented in the teachings, and work, and life of Elijah? He was a God of wondrous power. We wanted a God of that sort to-day. The God of Elijah was a big God. What a little God some people had. Some people had a very shrivelled theology nowadays. People were doing to-day what the Israelites of olden times were charged with doing — they were limiting the High One of Israel, limiting the Illimitable. What a ghastly irony! There were people who were turning nature into a dungeon, imprisoning God in His own creation, chaining Him with what they called "Natural Law." There were people nowadays who instead of having the God of Elijah had a God, to whom it was practically no use to pray. But what were natural laws but God s methods of working? Elijah s God was a God of marvellous power in Nature. It would be wonderfully refreshing to have a little more of the God of Elijah to-day Elijah's God was a supernatural God. He was a miracle-working God. The God of Elijah was a God who would have right done at all costs. Did some one say Elijah represented a very stern righteousness — that we should not like a stern Master to-day? He was sure we should not. Elijah would not be at all popular nowadays. Did some one say that if Elijah had lived in these Christian days his sternness would have been modified? Surely it was not too great a stretch of the imagination to say that in the last glimpse we had of him, on that snow-clad mount of Christ's transfiguration, he spoke no longer of justice but of redemption. But people said, "We believe nowadays in God's Fatherhood." But "Fatherhood" must be defined. It did not mean indifference to right and wrong. The manifestation of God that Elijah gave meant righteousness. Fatherhood was the great attribute of Elijah in the eyes of his disciple. He revealed God not only as a God of wondrous might, but as a tender Father. How tender that strong man could bet The Lord God of Elijah was also a God of intense zeal. We did not get that God very much in these days. It was an unpleasant fact that the great majority of people were outside the churches to-day; but what was worse was the fact that the majority of Christians were content with this state of things. It was an unpleasant fact that there was such a dearth of conversions, but it was worse that Christians were not concerned about it. Elijah's conception of God allowed him to pray. There are people to-day whose theology scarcely permits them to pray. Elijah was a most remarkable man for solitary communion with God. We must be men of prayer if we would be living manifestations of God. (Dinsdale T. Young.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over. |
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