Elijah and the Chariot of Fire, Horses of Fire,
and the Whirl-Wind
A sermon by Rev. Paul Booth
Lessons: II Kings 2: 1-15, Matthew 16: 13-20
Arcana Coelestia 2762 § 2
and the Whirl-Wind
A sermon by Rev. Paul Booth
Lessons: II Kings 2: 1-15, Matthew 16: 13-20
Arcana Coelestia 2762 § 2
"And it came to pass, as they went on, and talked, that behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire came between them; and Elijah went up in a whirl-wind into Heaven."
(II Kings 2: 11)
Our lesson from the Old Testament is about Elijah's final days on earth. We learn that Jehovah sent him to several different cities and eventually to the Jordan River. >From there it was said he went up into Heaven. We also learn that the prophet Elisha knew that Elijah would one day leave him. There are many other things that are said in the literal sense about this story. It is a beautiful story. It is an inspiring story. The faithfulness of Elijah to Jehovah and the determination of Elisha to remain faithful to Elijah in order to receive his spirit touch our hearts. We wish we would be something of an Elijah or an Elisha. However, we also know that what is told concerning these prophets in the literal sense is only the beginning of what is revealed to us if we sincerely desire to know the Lord, His Word and salvation. If we want to learn interior truths, if we want to be lead to other truths and to goods, we need to study and love the Word and the Lord spiritually as well as literally.
The Word, the written Word, in its external form appears to us in the literal sense. We, the Lord's New Church believe the Word has an internal sense, which is a spiritual sense. In that sense we can be lead to understand interior truths about the Lord, His Church, and Heaven, about His salvation, and His glorification. It reveals truths concerning the Word itself, and truths about the Church on earth and our regeneration and how it is to be effected to us from a literal understanding of it.
The prophets spoken of in the Word represents the Lord as to the Word. They were teachers to the Israelitish Church used by the Lord to lead them in faith and in obedience. What they spoke was from the Lord through them. They, therefore, represented the Word as to the Lord. It was through them that the Lord spoke to His people, the Church, in its various states.
First, let us understand out text as it relates to the Word. In our text, we see the good of truth, the doctrine of charity taken up into Heaven. It is taken up in order to protect it from destruction and from being profaned. Before this state, in the state of the Most Ancient Church, all truths and goods were immediately from the Lord through influx into a man's mind. In this way, man could be lead into becoming a likeness and an image of the Lord and would one-day be with Him in Heaven. With the granting of a proprium to man any conjunction with Jehovah God was destroyed in man. As Enoch was taken up into Heaven to preserve the doctrine of charity that had been the Ancient Church's posterity's, so was also Elijah taken up into Heaven to preserve and protect the New Word from profanation. The doctrine of love and charity was preserved in Heaven from profanation, thereby preventing mankind from damning Himself to hell. Elijah, the chariot of fire represents the Word and the doctrine of charity even as Enoch had represented it.
It is the chariot of fire that represents doctrine, the doctrine of Divine truth and love, and also the doctrine of love and charity from the Lord. The horses of fire represent the understanding of that doctrine as to its interior sense. Why did the doctrine of love and charity from the Lord had to be taken from man if he was to become an image and a likeness of the Lord and enjoy the delights of Heaven? Man, from his proprium, has a desire to will from himself. As he does, he becomes increasingly evil and would never have become a likeness or an image of the Lord. That love and charity from the Lord would have been destroyed in him and any conjunction with the Lord and Heaven would be closed. It is for this reason that the Lord provided that the interior of the Word, that good from the Lord, be given through the understanding of natural truths and a desire to live by faith in the Lord.
Second, we shall turn to the external Word that is revealed to us. We want to understand the Word in our text as it represents the Lord, and as it reveals to us who the Lord is, His work of glorification and mankind's salvation. For then we can learn something of how man becomes conjoined to the Lord and Heaven. Both Elijah and Elisha represent the life of the Lord while He was here on earth. Elijah represents the Divine itself, Elisha, His Human. The significance of the different cities is the different states that the Lord went through in His progress in becoming glorified, in becoming one with His Human. Gilgal signifies the introduction into the doctrine of natural truths; it signifies the beginning of the Lord establishing His Church, the Christian Church. Traveling to Bethel is further progress of His more external knowledge of celestial good while in the natural. As for us, there we acknowledge the Lord's Divine Human. At Jericho, there is the instruction of the knowledge of goods and truths. It signifies the Lord's life from the Divine. There, a man in introduced into the Spiritual Church and into Heaven. It signifies the truth, which comes from good, and a life of charity from the Lord. Finally, Jordan signifies the Lord's final removal of His hereditary evil He had assumed from Mary. For man, it is the removal of his sins before he receives good from the glorified Lord. It is the conjunction of the external Word with the internal Word within man.
Let us now turn to the subject of the Lord in the Word. Thus, Elijah and Elisha when from Gilgal to Bethel. That is, the Lord progressed from a state of natural truth to acknowledging celestial things of good while in His natural. The Word in its literal sense mentioned Elijah asking Elisha to tarry there in Gilgal. In fact, Elijah requested Elisha to tarry at each city that Jehovah commanded him to go. And each time Elisha would not leave Elijah. The appearance is disobedience. The significance of this is that the Lord in the human was to live in the different states, which He ascended to during His earthly existence. To tarry has the implication of dwelling, of living, and not of waiting. He was not only to understand, or to know, but also to appropriate; that is, to live those states Himself. Thus it became his Own, He became One with the Divine. Therefore, it is said, "As Jehovah lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you" (II Kings). His life is Jehovah's life. The two are not separate. You can see that these words said by Elijah to Elisha are not to be understood as Elisha's disobedience, but just the opposite.
Again, from the literal sense of the Word, we are told of the sons of the prophets saying to Elisha, "know you that Jehovah will take away your master from your head today?" and Elisha's answering, "Yes, I know it, you hold your peace" (II Kings 2: 3, 5). How are we to understand this? What is the significance? First, we must know what a master or a lord means. By master is meant the love of what rules in man; it is that which makes a man's life as it is. It is either his life from his proprium and is evil, or it is a life from the Lord and a new proprium that is good. We know that the Lord's human from Mary was not just His material body, but it included all that natural life is. Although the Lord's human was not evil as is man's, He did inherit man's evil tendencies and had to fight against them and overcome them. So, the master or the lord in the text that his master that was to be taken away from Elisha's head signifies the evil desires or tendencies inherited from Mary, the human from Mary. This was the victory over the hells; it was their subjugation and order under His reign. Likewise, as the Lord told His disciples to tell "no man that He was Jesus Christ" (Matthew 16: 20). Elisha, whose name means 'the salvation of the Lord', said to the sons of the prophets to keep silent. Why? To keep silent signifies mourning because of vastation of the Church.
Elijah and Elisha represent the Lord's progression through different states toward His final glorification at each city. Now, Elijah and Elisha came to Jordan. What is signified here is the Lord's coming to the Divine Truth, and the first or the primary of the Church. Crossing over on dry land after Elijah struck the water with his mantle signifies the final removal of evils and falsities, as also was the water of the Red Sea. It is through an external truth that evils are fought. The hells cannot attack truth in the internal or divine, but they can attack truths in the natural. However, now the mantle of Elijah, the Lord's Human, His Natural, was one with His Divine and the evils fled, as it struck them. Elisha asking for a double portion of Elijah's spirit signifies that the Lord in His final glorification would have both Divine Truth and Divine Good conjoined. He became the Divine Human.
Now let us approach our text, "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked that behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire came between them; and Elijah went up in a whirlwind into Heaven" (II Kings 2: 11). The Lord in His Divine Human ascended above the Heavens. The glorified Human, the Divine Truth and the Divine Good ascended above the Heavens. What about Elisha? Elisha represents the Word of the Lord as the Israelitish prophets did. Moreover, here in this part of the Word, when Elisha is left alone, he represents the Word as the Holy Spirit that now proceeds from the Divine Human. Out text mentions Elijah going. "&…;up in a whirlwind into Heaven". Whirlwind signifies the confusion of the Church about the doctrine of the Lord, and also of man's salvation. Elijah and Elisha reveal the two states of Exinanition and Glorification of the Lord before He was united in one Divine Human. Now, because of the glorification, the Holy Spirit proceeds to man for conjunction with the Lord. And, 'putting on the mantle' or the external Word, the Word of the Lord, signifies the divine proceeding enabling man to be led in his reformation and to his regeneration if he is willing.
Finally, we now turn to man's regeneration in today's text. The internal or the spiritual Word is protected from man's profanation. Therefore, the Lord has provided salvation by conjoining the Divine with the Human. We now need to come to the external or literal Word and be led in obedience to His Truths. We need to come to understand the Word as the Lord's instructions for our regeneration, and for our salvation. Our lessons and text amply supplies such guidance. At Gilgal, we will be introduced into His natural truths. This is when we read the Word and accept it as the Lord's truth. At Bethel we learn the knowledge of the celestial Word. There we learn there is an internal sense in the Word. There we learn of His Divine Human. In Jericho we have understanding about the natural good and truth from the Lord and that it is not ours. Our truths and goods are all falsities and evils if they are not from the Lord in us. We receive instruction about internal knowledge or internal truths. We need to live these truths and do these goods from the Lord as it from ourselves. Finally, at the Jordan River we are introduced into His New Church. This is the Divine truth in its literal sense, which leads us in our regeneration. From there we are also introduced into Heaven, though we are unaware while still on earth. Later, we will be present and aware after we leave this earthly life. There at the Jordan our sins and falsities are removed as the central ruling thoughts of our mind, and the truths and goods from the Lord are within us in a new proprium. Our sins are removed as represented by Elisha striking the water of the Jordan with Elijah's mantle.
Are we, as Elisha was, determined to be conjoined with Elijah, his lord? Are we as determined, as Jesus was to be conjoined with His Father, the Divine? Is out old proprium, that which rules us, being conquered and finally removed by truths of the Word? Are we obedient to the teachings of the Word and willing to be led by the Holy Spirit in reformation and regeneration? If so, them we, as Elisha, may ask for a "double portion of the Lord's spirit". We must appropriate both truths and goods. We must receive truths from the literal sense of the Word. We must then receive goods from the internal sense of the Word. We may then receive goods from the internal Word, the Spirit of the Lord within us. May we put on Elijah's mantle and be clothed with the Lord's truths and His goods.
Amen.
(II Kings 2: 11)
Our lesson from the Old Testament is about Elijah's final days on earth. We learn that Jehovah sent him to several different cities and eventually to the Jordan River. >From there it was said he went up into Heaven. We also learn that the prophet Elisha knew that Elijah would one day leave him. There are many other things that are said in the literal sense about this story. It is a beautiful story. It is an inspiring story. The faithfulness of Elijah to Jehovah and the determination of Elisha to remain faithful to Elijah in order to receive his spirit touch our hearts. We wish we would be something of an Elijah or an Elisha. However, we also know that what is told concerning these prophets in the literal sense is only the beginning of what is revealed to us if we sincerely desire to know the Lord, His Word and salvation. If we want to learn interior truths, if we want to be lead to other truths and to goods, we need to study and love the Word and the Lord spiritually as well as literally.
The Word, the written Word, in its external form appears to us in the literal sense. We, the Lord's New Church believe the Word has an internal sense, which is a spiritual sense. In that sense we can be lead to understand interior truths about the Lord, His Church, and Heaven, about His salvation, and His glorification. It reveals truths concerning the Word itself, and truths about the Church on earth and our regeneration and how it is to be effected to us from a literal understanding of it.
The prophets spoken of in the Word represents the Lord as to the Word. They were teachers to the Israelitish Church used by the Lord to lead them in faith and in obedience. What they spoke was from the Lord through them. They, therefore, represented the Word as to the Lord. It was through them that the Lord spoke to His people, the Church, in its various states.
First, let us understand out text as it relates to the Word. In our text, we see the good of truth, the doctrine of charity taken up into Heaven. It is taken up in order to protect it from destruction and from being profaned. Before this state, in the state of the Most Ancient Church, all truths and goods were immediately from the Lord through influx into a man's mind. In this way, man could be lead into becoming a likeness and an image of the Lord and would one-day be with Him in Heaven. With the granting of a proprium to man any conjunction with Jehovah God was destroyed in man. As Enoch was taken up into Heaven to preserve the doctrine of charity that had been the Ancient Church's posterity's, so was also Elijah taken up into Heaven to preserve and protect the New Word from profanation. The doctrine of love and charity was preserved in Heaven from profanation, thereby preventing mankind from damning Himself to hell. Elijah, the chariot of fire represents the Word and the doctrine of charity even as Enoch had represented it.
It is the chariot of fire that represents doctrine, the doctrine of Divine truth and love, and also the doctrine of love and charity from the Lord. The horses of fire represent the understanding of that doctrine as to its interior sense. Why did the doctrine of love and charity from the Lord had to be taken from man if he was to become an image and a likeness of the Lord and enjoy the delights of Heaven? Man, from his proprium, has a desire to will from himself. As he does, he becomes increasingly evil and would never have become a likeness or an image of the Lord. That love and charity from the Lord would have been destroyed in him and any conjunction with the Lord and Heaven would be closed. It is for this reason that the Lord provided that the interior of the Word, that good from the Lord, be given through the understanding of natural truths and a desire to live by faith in the Lord.
Second, we shall turn to the external Word that is revealed to us. We want to understand the Word in our text as it represents the Lord, and as it reveals to us who the Lord is, His work of glorification and mankind's salvation. For then we can learn something of how man becomes conjoined to the Lord and Heaven. Both Elijah and Elisha represent the life of the Lord while He was here on earth. Elijah represents the Divine itself, Elisha, His Human. The significance of the different cities is the different states that the Lord went through in His progress in becoming glorified, in becoming one with His Human. Gilgal signifies the introduction into the doctrine of natural truths; it signifies the beginning of the Lord establishing His Church, the Christian Church. Traveling to Bethel is further progress of His more external knowledge of celestial good while in the natural. As for us, there we acknowledge the Lord's Divine Human. At Jericho, there is the instruction of the knowledge of goods and truths. It signifies the Lord's life from the Divine. There, a man in introduced into the Spiritual Church and into Heaven. It signifies the truth, which comes from good, and a life of charity from the Lord. Finally, Jordan signifies the Lord's final removal of His hereditary evil He had assumed from Mary. For man, it is the removal of his sins before he receives good from the glorified Lord. It is the conjunction of the external Word with the internal Word within man.
Let us now turn to the subject of the Lord in the Word. Thus, Elijah and Elisha when from Gilgal to Bethel. That is, the Lord progressed from a state of natural truth to acknowledging celestial things of good while in His natural. The Word in its literal sense mentioned Elijah asking Elisha to tarry there in Gilgal. In fact, Elijah requested Elisha to tarry at each city that Jehovah commanded him to go. And each time Elisha would not leave Elijah. The appearance is disobedience. The significance of this is that the Lord in the human was to live in the different states, which He ascended to during His earthly existence. To tarry has the implication of dwelling, of living, and not of waiting. He was not only to understand, or to know, but also to appropriate; that is, to live those states Himself. Thus it became his Own, He became One with the Divine. Therefore, it is said, "As Jehovah lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you" (II Kings). His life is Jehovah's life. The two are not separate. You can see that these words said by Elijah to Elisha are not to be understood as Elisha's disobedience, but just the opposite.
Again, from the literal sense of the Word, we are told of the sons of the prophets saying to Elisha, "know you that Jehovah will take away your master from your head today?" and Elisha's answering, "Yes, I know it, you hold your peace" (II Kings 2: 3, 5). How are we to understand this? What is the significance? First, we must know what a master or a lord means. By master is meant the love of what rules in man; it is that which makes a man's life as it is. It is either his life from his proprium and is evil, or it is a life from the Lord and a new proprium that is good. We know that the Lord's human from Mary was not just His material body, but it included all that natural life is. Although the Lord's human was not evil as is man's, He did inherit man's evil tendencies and had to fight against them and overcome them. So, the master or the lord in the text that his master that was to be taken away from Elisha's head signifies the evil desires or tendencies inherited from Mary, the human from Mary. This was the victory over the hells; it was their subjugation and order under His reign. Likewise, as the Lord told His disciples to tell "no man that He was Jesus Christ" (Matthew 16: 20). Elisha, whose name means 'the salvation of the Lord', said to the sons of the prophets to keep silent. Why? To keep silent signifies mourning because of vastation of the Church.
Elijah and Elisha represent the Lord's progression through different states toward His final glorification at each city. Now, Elijah and Elisha came to Jordan. What is signified here is the Lord's coming to the Divine Truth, and the first or the primary of the Church. Crossing over on dry land after Elijah struck the water with his mantle signifies the final removal of evils and falsities, as also was the water of the Red Sea. It is through an external truth that evils are fought. The hells cannot attack truth in the internal or divine, but they can attack truths in the natural. However, now the mantle of Elijah, the Lord's Human, His Natural, was one with His Divine and the evils fled, as it struck them. Elisha asking for a double portion of Elijah's spirit signifies that the Lord in His final glorification would have both Divine Truth and Divine Good conjoined. He became the Divine Human.
Now let us approach our text, "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked that behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire came between them; and Elijah went up in a whirlwind into Heaven" (II Kings 2: 11). The Lord in His Divine Human ascended above the Heavens. The glorified Human, the Divine Truth and the Divine Good ascended above the Heavens. What about Elisha? Elisha represents the Word of the Lord as the Israelitish prophets did. Moreover, here in this part of the Word, when Elisha is left alone, he represents the Word as the Holy Spirit that now proceeds from the Divine Human. Out text mentions Elijah going. "&…;up in a whirlwind into Heaven". Whirlwind signifies the confusion of the Church about the doctrine of the Lord, and also of man's salvation. Elijah and Elisha reveal the two states of Exinanition and Glorification of the Lord before He was united in one Divine Human. Now, because of the glorification, the Holy Spirit proceeds to man for conjunction with the Lord. And, 'putting on the mantle' or the external Word, the Word of the Lord, signifies the divine proceeding enabling man to be led in his reformation and to his regeneration if he is willing.
Finally, we now turn to man's regeneration in today's text. The internal or the spiritual Word is protected from man's profanation. Therefore, the Lord has provided salvation by conjoining the Divine with the Human. We now need to come to the external or literal Word and be led in obedience to His Truths. We need to come to understand the Word as the Lord's instructions for our regeneration, and for our salvation. Our lessons and text amply supplies such guidance. At Gilgal, we will be introduced into His natural truths. This is when we read the Word and accept it as the Lord's truth. At Bethel we learn the knowledge of the celestial Word. There we learn there is an internal sense in the Word. There we learn of His Divine Human. In Jericho we have understanding about the natural good and truth from the Lord and that it is not ours. Our truths and goods are all falsities and evils if they are not from the Lord in us. We receive instruction about internal knowledge or internal truths. We need to live these truths and do these goods from the Lord as it from ourselves. Finally, at the Jordan River we are introduced into His New Church. This is the Divine truth in its literal sense, which leads us in our regeneration. From there we are also introduced into Heaven, though we are unaware while still on earth. Later, we will be present and aware after we leave this earthly life. There at the Jordan our sins and falsities are removed as the central ruling thoughts of our mind, and the truths and goods from the Lord are within us in a new proprium. Our sins are removed as represented by Elisha striking the water of the Jordan with Elijah's mantle.
Are we, as Elisha was, determined to be conjoined with Elijah, his lord? Are we as determined, as Jesus was to be conjoined with His Father, the Divine? Is out old proprium, that which rules us, being conquered and finally removed by truths of the Word? Are we obedient to the teachings of the Word and willing to be led by the Holy Spirit in reformation and regeneration? If so, them we, as Elisha, may ask for a "double portion of the Lord's spirit". We must appropriate both truths and goods. We must receive truths from the literal sense of the Word. We must then receive goods from the internal sense of the Word. We may then receive goods from the internal Word, the Spirit of the Lord within us. May we put on Elijah's mantle and be clothed with the Lord's truths and His goods.
Amen.
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