2 Kings 2

What words can we use to describe the end of Elijah's days on earth? We cannot say that Elijah died. Elijah was taken up to heaven.

Where is heaven? What is it like to be there?

Prophets had the unusual providence in life of being temporarily brought up into the heavenly council. The Apostle Paul wrote of his own experience this way in the New Testament:

I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. (2 Corinthians 12:2-3)

Paul found it challenging to describe this temporary event.

There remains a mysterious and troubling divide between heaven and earth. Elijah crossed that divide, not temporarily, but permanently. The normal way to go to heaven is through facing death on earth. But this great Old Testament prophet was carried to heaven on chariots of fire.

The Lord appeared throughout the Scriptures in the glory cloud of heavenly fire. In the wilderness, He was a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. Elijah was brought up to heaven in the Lord Himself, surrounded by His angels who ascend and descend on the One who is God with God. (Compare Genesis 28:12 and John 1:51.)

The timing of Elijah's unusual departure was known to His successor and to others among the prophets. There were signs of grief and concern among them in the account that we have in 2 Kings 2. This was not only the normal concern that those who are left behind have at the loss of someone they love. It included the additional question of who would take this great man's place in the work of God.

The Lord's work of testifying about the kingdom of heaven throughout Israel would continue with Elijah's successor, Elisha. He would receive a “double portion” from his master. This double portion was a way of speaking about the largest share of the inheritance that normally came to the oldest son in the case of the death of a father.

The miracle-working and truth-proclaiming ministry of the Lord through His chosen prophet would continue in Elisha much as it had in Elijah. There would be works of both mercy and judgment as this representative of heaven's truth and glory performed signs upon the earth.

2 Kings 2 is about the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. Someone was gone, at least to the senses of those who were left behind. Yet God remained, and He would work through His newly appointed servant.

John the Baptist, and ultimately Jesus, came in the tradition of Elijah. John was the forerunner for the ultimate Prophet of God. His primary ministry was to prepare Israel for her Messiah, and to point to Him as the Lamb of God when the Father and the Son began to make Jesus known to the Jews.

John decreased from that moment forward, and Jesus increased. John was clearly the lesser and Jesus the greater.

Jesus Christ went about Galilee and Judah performing great signs of the kingdom of heaven and proclaiming the truth of God. He was more than an Elijah. As John the Baptist had testified, He was the Lamb of God. He bore the sin of many. (Isaiah 53:12)

The day came for the fulfillment of Jesus' ministry. Unlike Elijah, our Lord actually died. That was necessary in order to make atonement for us. But then He rose again from the dead upon the earth, beginning a new resurrection era. He would not need a successor. He would live forever.

Nonetheless, He still had to go to heaven. There He would reign at the right hand of the Father, preparing a place for us and sending forth the Holy Spirit upon the church. He was taken up into that kingdom above before the eyes of His watching apostles.

Consider the importance of that event historically. The apostles went to their deaths proclaiming the truth of the ascension of Jesus Christ. If Jesus did not go up to heaven on a cloud of glory, where did He go? Or were all those men such good liars that they changed the world with their unlikely tale?

In his day, Elijah's amazing journey to heaven was an example of what would one day happen to Jesus. But Jesus went to heaven, not as a mortal man, there to be transformed from mortality to immortality. He was already an eternal man, a resurrection man, who had lived upon the earth in that state for forty days.

Now our Savior lives above. He has won a great inheritance, and the church has been granted more than that double portion which would customarily go to the oldest son. We have become joint-heirs with Christ of the entire kingdom of heaven. Even now we have been given a deposit of the life to come through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Let not your hearts be troubled. Jesus lived, Jesus died. Jesus rose again. Jesus ascended into heaven. Face the challenges of this fallen world with a firm assurance of the truths of our faith which have been proclaimed and believed for many centuries. In the words of the Apostle Paul:

[11] May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, [12] giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. [13] He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:11-14)