Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

The Axe-Head did Swim

How those who are dead may have eternal life.

“And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, Behold, now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us. Let us go, we pray thee, to Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make a place there, where we may dwell, And he answered, Go ye. And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go. So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. But as one was felling a beam, the axe-head fell into the water, and he cried, and said, Alas! master! for it was borrowed. And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he showed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim. Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand and took it” (2 Kings 6:1-7).

What highly favoured men these sons of the prophets were in being the companions and disciples of Elisha. His words must have been good to listen to, and it is no wonder that they crowded to hear him until the place where they dwelt with him could not contain them, and they felt that they needed more room. It was a healthy sign, and their desire for enlargement had the full approval of the prophet.

Are we dwelling with our Lord as those sons of the prophets dwelt with Elisha? “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” He has said, and He will not deny His own Word. But are we consciously dwelling with Him? We often quote His words: “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them;” but are they mere words to us, or a living reality? If we are dwelling with the Lord and learning of Him, we are growing; we are being enlarged in our souls, and we shall want to move on in the more abundant life that is ours.

This question of growth is a vital one. A father would be seriously concerned if his children ceased to develop in mind and body, and God is our Father — does He not care whether His children are growing in grace or not? He certainly does. Let us not be indifferent to this matter, for growth and strength go together, and we cannot be strong in the face of the foe if we do not grow and move on in the knowledge of the Lord; we shall not be more than conquerors if we stagnate and are stunted in growth. To the Church at Corinth Paul wrote: “O ye Corinthians, our mouth is opened to you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same (I speak as to my children), BE YE ALSO ENLARGED” (2 Corinthians 6:11-13).

What was it that had straitened and stunted those Christians? The world and the evil things that are in it. They had forgotten that the Gospel of their salvation had called them out of the world to brighter and better things, and that they had been united to Christ, Who is not of the world, by the Holy Ghost from Heaven. They had formed associations which made it impossible for them to expand in the greatness of the Christian life and service — they were fettered and not free, and they needed the command, “Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers. … Come out from among them and be ye separate, says the Lord, And touch not the unclean thing.” We cannot love and cleave to the world and abide in Christ at the same time. To dwell as His disciples with Him means separation from the world, and there can be no spiritual growth apart from this.

It was to JORDAN that these young men went for the material with which to build their larger dwelling, and there is no place like Jordan for enlargement of soul, for Jordan is a figure of death. Death is a great and effectual teacher; it teaches how great is the fall of man, for death is the measure of it, and it teaches us how great is the love of God, for “He commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Death shows us the way that God has taken to recover His fallen creature for Himself, and to bring him into larger blessing than was possible for him before he fell.

The incident of the loss and recovery of the borrowed axe-head shall illustrate these things for us. I do not think that I am giving it a fanciful interpretation in so using it; if my readers think so, let them forget the illustration and consider the truth that I am pressing. The axe-head fell from the handle of it, and sank beneath the waters of Jordan. The wielder of it was a careless man, for the axe was borrowed, it was not his to lose, but it was lost nevertheless. Thus carelessly did Adam become a lost soul; and it was to God that he was lost, as is clearly proved by God’s cry in the Garden, “Adam, where art thou?”

By that one act of disobedience death entered into the world. So we read in Romans 5:12: “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; AND SO DEATH PASSED UPON ALL MEN: FOR THAT ALL HAVE SINNED.” Yes, the waters of Jordan roll over the whole race of sinners as a result of the first man”s disobedience, a disobedience in which all his progeny have shared, for they have all been as wilful as he. Adam had no right to cast away his soul, for it belonged to God Who had created it and given it to him. When he fell, the whole race of which he was the progenitor fell with him. All Scripture as well as all history teaches this solemn truth, but nowhere is it stated more emphatically than in the fifth chapter of Romans. Verse 15 says: “Through the offence of one many be dead;” verse 17: “By one man’s offence death reigned by one;” verse 18: “By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation;” verse 19: “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.”

That is not a popular doctrine. The foolish theory of Evolution suits the modern mind better than the solemn truth. Men want to get rid of the thought that they are responsible to God and must give account to Him. And this is why the fact of the Fall is refused; and this is why the fiction of Evolution is embraced; it is more pleasant to believe that man is rising up, becoming greater and grander as the ages pass by, than to own that he is sinful, fallen and lost. But the latter is the truth. Just as the nature of the axe-head was to sink and not swim, to go down, with no power in itself to rise up, so man’s nature as a sinful, fallen creature is to go farther and farther from God; his course is ever downward, as is plainly shown to us in Romans 1:19-32, which solemn Scripture my readers should seriously ponder. Nothing but the truth will satisfy a fully awakened conscience, and the truth is clearly stated in these Scriptures that I have quoted. Blessed is the man who will own it before God.

This son of a prophet was conscious of his loss, and he felt it the more because the axe was borrowed; but he was wise in that he did not waste his time in vain efforts to recover what he had lost, but cried to the man of God, “Alas, master!” And here is a fine example for sinful men. The first step to recovery and blessing is to realise the need and the loss, but some who have taken this step are seeking sincerely and earnestly to right what is wrong by their own efforts. They are endeavouring by their works to save themselves, when the Scripture states expressly “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

The man of God was equal to the situation. And in this he did faintly foreshadow the all-sufficiency of Christ, Who came into the world to destroy the power of death and set us free. “Where fell it?” asked the man of God. Then cutting down a branch of a tree, he cast it into the water, and lo! the iron did swim! Do you perceive in this incident the Gospel story? And does that story thrill your soul? How wonderful it is! It tells of Jesus, Who went into death for us that we might pass out of death into life. Yet the question might well arise, “If death has passed upon all men, if all are dead in trespasses and sins, so that none can deliver either himself or his brother, what was there in Jesus that made Him different to others? Who was He?” He was the only begotten Son of God, He was the Word, the Creator of all things, and He became flesh and dwelt among us. He became flesh — a man, as truly man as Adam was, or as any man is to-day — but the SINLESS MAN, and in this He differed from all others. In becoming man He did not cease to be the only-begotten, eternal Son of God. This great truth we must hold fast in the face of modern infidelity. He Who was in the form of God was found in the likeness of men. He had become a man that He might die for men. Yet as a man death had no claim upon Him, for He was holy. Yes, He was just as holy as He trod the dusty roads of Galilee as when He sat upon the Throne of His glory and created the hosts of Heaven. Because He was holy, the one sinless Man, death had no claim upon Him. He could have walked victoriously upon death’s fiercest billows, just as He trod upon the waves of the Sea of Galilee at midnight. But He came to die. This commandment He had received from His Father, and just as the branch of the tree — the nature of which was to swim — was cast into the waters by Elisha, that the iron the nature of which was to sink — might swim, so Jesus, upon Whom death had no claim, went down into death that we, whom death held in its power, might pass out of death into life, that we might live in Him Who died for us and rose again.

This is God’s way of salvation, the way that His great love has found, and as we consider it we are greatly enlarged; we are delivered from bondage and set free by the truth, for the truth is that “GOD IS LOVE,” and “in this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.”

“Take it up to thee,” said the prophet, and he put out his hand and took it, a grateful and wondering man, as well he might be. I desire that we might understand better those words of the Lord: “Verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life” (John 5:24). If we have heard the words of this glorious Gospel, which first began to be spoken by our Lord, and have believed on God the Father Who sent Him to tell them to us, this eternal life is ours; we have put forth the hand of faith and taken it; our souls are saved, we are recovered from death, and now we live. But how shall we live, and to whom? There is only one right answer, and it is a Scriptural one: “The love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that THEY WHICH LIVE SHOULD NOT HENCEFORTH LIVE UNTO THEMSELVES, BUT UNTO HIM WHICH DIED FOR THEM AND ROSE AGAIN” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). We could have no better commentary on our Old Testament story than that Scripture, and every redeemed heart and conscience says “That is right.” The life that is lived to Christ is the victorious life; in it we are more than conquerors and in no other. In it our souls will be enlarged in the knowledge of God and of Christ.