Was Elijah Dead?
So Elijah only ascended into the sky on this fiery transportation device. What’s more, this was not an ascension upon death: Elijah survived this ordeal! The context of the verse in 2 Kings 2 reveals that Elijah was talking about being “taken away from” Elisha—not that he was facing death. The purpose was a changing of the guard in the leadership of God’s work.
Of course, one could argue that being “taken away” was figurative or poetic language for death. But notice 2 Chronicles 21. Elijah was heard from again in another part of the region.
At this point in the chronicle, about 10 years had passed since Elijah was taken away from Elisha and the sons of the prophets. The story picks up in the land of Judah (Elijah’s work had primarily involved the kingdom of Israel). King Jehoram was going the way of Israel—setting up idols in the nation. “And there came a writing to himFROM ELIJAH THE PROPHET, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel … like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab .… Behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people …” (verses 12-14). Read the entire frightening prophecy and its fulfillment in verses 12 through 20.
Imagine the horror of receiving this sentence, much less from a prophet who had come out of hiding to deliver it! The wording of the prophecy is clear. Elijah wrote thisAFTER the king had set out on this course, and the message also concerned FUTUREevents.
The Bible states that the dead know nothing (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; Psalm 146:4). If Elijah had died, he would not have known all that had happened, much less been able to pen and post a prophetic letter!
Those who think God gave Elijah endless life of three millennia already are reading into the Bible what is not there. Elijah was a mortal man, subject to death as all are (Hebrews 9:27); and, after being lifted by angelic chariot into the atmospheric heavens, he spent the remainder of his days at some undisclosed locale until he naturally died.
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