The Only Source of Life and Grace. 2 Kings 4:8-37

In 2 Kings 4:8 we get another illustration of God’s grace. All of these different situations that we see in the life of Elisha focus on the character of God because that is the way the battle was being fought at that time. In every generation there are different battles that are being fought in terms of spiritual warfare. They usually relate to the character of God in one way or another but there are always challenges set forth by the cosmic system, ultimately engineered and directed by the prince of this world, Satan. In every generation there are new intellectual challenges that are raised against the Word of God. Ultimately they all come back to the same issues which are a challenge to God’s grace, His competency, but they take different forms and Satan always seems to camouflage then in different ways in each generation. It is important for each generation to understand where the battles are being fought. We often make the mistake in the church, the same mistake that often military forces make, and that is to fight the last war and not be aware of where the current fight is taking us. The battle at the time of Elisha was the same as it had been in the time of his predecessor Elijah and that is a battle against the pagan idolatry of the fertility religion exemplified in the worship of Baal. Ultimately the claim was being made that life came from Baal, that he was the god of thunder, the god of rain, the god of fertility, as was his consort; and so by reenacting sexual acts the individual could somehow manipulate and motivate the god Baal to give them fertility and productivity in their agricultural endeavors, bring them life, stability and happiness. All of these things were attributed to this false religious system. So what we see from the time of Elijah forward through the time of Elisha are these different acts of God where He is demonstrating to Israel, the rebellious northern kingdom, that He, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the only source of life and happiness and productivity. Again and again we see these things illustrated in these miracles. During the time of Elijah the focus was more negative, more confrontational.

2 Kings 4:8 ^NASB “Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat food. And so it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat food.” All of these episodes take place in the northern kingdom. Shunem is on the shoulder of Mount Shunem, about 20 miles due east of Megiddo. Elisha’s usual mode of operation was to walk around the areas of the northern kingdom and he would teach different groups of believers in different villages. It shows us that there was still a contingent of positive believers who wanted to worship God and were not being intimidated by the false religious system, or being pressured by the culture to worship the Baalim and the Asherah. This woman is described in the Hebrew as a wealthy woman. In the previous seven verses Elisha is demonstrating grace to an impoverished woman, a woman who was at the lowest rung of the economic scale in Israel, and in this episode he is going to demonstrate God’s grace to one of the wealthier women in Israel’s culture, showing that God is not a respecter of wealth or position but His grace is equally available to all. She is positive to God’s Word and to ministry and when Elisha would come through that way she would provide for him. This indicates right away that she was grace oriented and understood the value of being taught the Word by the prophet. She is going to do what she can to give of what God has provided for her in order to help supply for the physical needs and the sustenance of the prophet of God.

After a while this woman realized the consistent pattern of Elisha and that he really needed a place to rest and be refreshed. 2 Kings 4:9, 10 ^NASB “She said to her husband, ‘Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually. Please, let us make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; and it shall be, when he comes to us, {that} he can turn in there.’” In the ancient world at this time houses weren’t as large or as spacious as we are used to in our culture. They were relatively small and comprised of only three or four rooms. At times they would build another room on the roof. The roofs of the houses were flat. Because of the reference to the wall here this was a house that was next to the wall of the city, so they could build a room on their roof that would be up against the wall of the city.

2 Kings 4:11 ^NASB “One day he came there and turned in to the upper chamber and rested. [12] Then he said to Gehazi his servant, ‘Call this Shunammite.’ And when he had called her, she stood before him.” This is a response to her gracious provision. This is not a pattern. Some people go to the Old Testament and look at something like this and try to draw a universal principle from this, that if you supply the needs of a pastor or a church God is going to give extra special blessing. That is not what the text is teaching. This is not a universal principle, it is a circumstance that is unique to illustrate the principle of grace but not in a way that shows how to manipulate God. So the woman comes before him but he does not directly address her, he has his servant directly address her in his place. This is probably because he is held in such high esteem by this woman that rather than create a circumstance that might be a little uncomfortable for her he has his servant address her in his place.

2 Kings 4:13 ^NASB He said to him, “Say now to her, ‘Behold, you have been careful for us with all this care; what can I do for you? Would you be spoken for to the king or to the captain of the army?’” And she answered, “I live among my own people.” She doesn’t ask for anything, so he goes further. [14] “So he said, ‘What then is to be done for her?’ And Gehazi answered, ‘Truly she has no son and her husband is old.’” She would have been old as well and this immediately reminds us of the circumstances of the circumstances of Abraham and Sarah. With the recognition that she and her husband are childless there is going to be the promise that she would have a child. In a way they represent the spiritual condition of the northern kingdom which is barren. The barrenness of women was one of the things that would result when Israel was to go through divine discipline. The barren womb was a picture of the northern kingdom spiritually and the only way that that can be reversed is by the power of God. We are all born spiritually dead, spiritually barren. Every human being is born under the condemnation of sin and there is no way that man can reverse that through his own efforts. The only way that life can be brought from death is from the power of the creator. It is only through the One who can create life out of nothing that we can have a solution to spiritual death, and that is through regeneration.

2 Kings 4:15, 16 ^NASB “He said, ‘Call her.’ When he had called her, she stood in the doorway. Then he said, ‘At this season next year you will embrace a son.’ And she said, ‘No, my lord, O man of God, do not lie to your maidservant.’” This was almost the same sentence, word for word, as God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis chapter seventeen. But God is the one who can bring life where there is death. He is the one who can bring happiness into our lives where there is sorrow, the one who can provide jobs when we have no jobs, the one who will take care of all of our problems. That is the grace of God. Note that this was not something the woman was asking God for or asking Elisha for, but God is the one who knows what our deepest desires and hopes and dreams are and He is the one who supplies them in a real way. He understands what our true motivation is.

2 Kings 4:17 ^NASB “The woman conceived and bore a son at that season the next year, as Elisha had said to her.” This whole episode is not just an aspect of God’s blessing upon this woman because of her grace orientation and because God in His goodness has decided to allow her to conceive and give birth to a son, but it happens for the purpose of teaching a spiritual lesson to Israel: that God and God alone is the source of life and He is the only one who is able to bring life where there is death. He is also the only one who is able to bring blessing where there is cursing. In Israel it was understood that to have children was a blessing from God.

2 Kings 4:18-20 ^NASB “When the child was grown, the day came that he went out to his father to the reapers. He said to his father, ‘My head, my head.’ And he said to his servant, ‘Carry him to his mother.’ When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her lap until noon, and {then} died.” This brought tremendous grief and sorrow to the mother, but rather than dwelling upon her own emotions and becoming wrapped up in them she set those aside and kept her focus on God. So this is another tremendous illustration of her faith and trust in God rather than a focus on her circumstances.

2 Kings 4:21-23 ^NASB “She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut {the door} behind him and went out. Then she called to her husband and said, ‘Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and return.’ He said, ‘Why will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath.’ And she said, ‘{It will be} well.’” The Sabbath was the seventh day of every week and on the Sabbath there was a time set aside for worship, but the new moon festival which was the beginning of each month was a day that was also treated as a sabbath. She obviously has kept track of where Elisha is and so they go to Mount Carmel which would have taken a good six or seven hours at least. When she found him she was going to ask him to restore life to the child. But before that there is an interesting exchange that takes place. Elisha, is consistently referred to in the episode as simply “the man of God,” and he looks up and sees her coming and God has not informed him ahead of time of her circumstance. He addresses Gehazi and tells him to go out and find out what is wrong and what the Shulamite woman is concerned about. Gehazi goes out and meets her and goes through the normal pleasantries, and then says, “Is it well with the child?” She doesn’t just pour out her heart that he has just died, she is not bitter or angry; she responds that it will be well. This is a reflection of her faith. She is not in denial, she is not somehow being divorced from reality; she knows that God through Elisha can restore life to her child.

2 Kings 4:27 ^NASB “When she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came near to push her away; but the man of God said, ‘Let her alone, for her soul is troubled within her; and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.’” Then she confronts him. [28] “Then she said, ‘Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me’?’ [29] Then he said to Gehazi, ‘Gird up your loins and take my staff in your hand, and go your way; if you meet any man, do not salute him, and if anyone salutes you, do not answer him; and lay my staff on the lad’s face.’” The reason was that in the ancient world a greeting sometimes could take a while as they went through all of the different pleasantries. Rather than to be distracted by that Elisha tells him to go straight to the woman’s house and not to talk to anybody else. We are not sure why Elisha sends his staff initially. The word is not the same word as for the rod that was used by Moses, so this is not something that was a symbol of his prophetic power or anything of that nature, it was just a walking stick that he had. And when Gehazi gets there and lays the staff on the child northing happens, the boy is not brought back to life.

2 Kings 4:30 ^NASB “The mother of the lad said, ‘As the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.’ And he arose and followed her.” Notice the phrase, “as the Lord lives.” We worship a living God, a living, resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. He is not a dead god like all other religious systems. The woman persists. Elisha then travels, following Gehazi, and arrives finding the child dead on the bed. [33] “So he entered and shut the door behind them both and prayed to the LORD. [34] And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth and his eyes on his eyes and his hands on his hands, and he stretched himself on him; and the flesh of the child became warm.” The idea here is not some sort of mystical or magical way of invoking God’s healing power but that he is identifying himself with the child by lying completely on top of him and then he continues to pray. God begins to restore life to the child who becomes warm, but that is as far as it goes. [35] “Then he returned and walked in the house once back and forth, and went up and stretched himself on him; and the lad sneezed seven times and the lad opened his eyes.” The word that is used there for “sneeze” is a hapax legomena, i.e. a word that is used only one time in ancient Hebrew literature. We don’t know what it means. Maybe he gasped seven times. It indicates that life has returned and the child opened his eyes. At this point Elisha called to his servant to call the woman up into the chamber and he instructed her then to pick up the son. [37] “Then she went in and fell at his feet and bowed herself to the ground, and she took up her son and went out.”

That is the end of the episode, we are not told anything else that transpired, but the point is that this is purely an expression of God’s grace to her. She has done nothing to earn it or deserve it. She has shown that she is grace oriented in her responses to God and God has in turn blessed her, but these blessings from God are not there just to satisfy her personal desires, they are there in order to teach and reinforce important spiritual principles. The most important is that God is the one who is able to take care of and to provide for our every need. There is nothing that is impossible for God to do and He is able to supply our every need. Because God is just and righteous He is going to do the right thing in any and every situation, taking into account all of the factors that He knows in His omniscience. And again this depicts for us the doctrine of the sufficiency of God’s grace.

1. What does it means when we talk about the sufficiency of God’s grace? Sufficiency means that enough has been provided or given to meet a situation. There is not going to be excess necessarily but there is enough to accomplish the task. The Greek word that is used is arkeo [a)rkew] which means it is enough, it is sufficient, it is adequate. Used in the passive voice it means a person being content or satisfied with something. What God provides is enough and, on the other hand, we should be satisfied and content with it.

2. Sufficiency may imply to some people that God’s grace is barely enough and not an overabundance. But in Scripture there is always the focus that God’s grace is more than enough; He gives us more than we require in order to accomplish whatever it is that God desires for us to accomplish.

3. The doctrine of sufficiency is always related to God’s character, specifically the omni characteristics: His omniscience because He knows every circumstance and situation in life, there is nothing that is hidden from God, he knows the innermost desires of our soul, and He is able to truly supply what we need. Because of His omnipotence God is able to do whatever is necessary to be done in order to fulfill the need, and because God is omnipresent He is always present with us and always aware of our circumstances so that He can solve each and every problem.

4. Satan has always attacked the sufficiency of God and this is where part of the battle lies. In the very beginning when Satan questioned Eve, “Has God really said?” What is hidden in that is a question of the sufficiency of God’s provision. The Scripture says that God supplied the man and the woman in the garden with food from every tree; it was more than enough, and so Satan is now questioning the sufficiency of God’s provision. When He said you can’t eat from this tree, is that really right? God should have given you more but He is restricting you. So there is a question of the sufficiency of God’s provision. He also questions the sufficiency of God’s Word. When Satan asked Eve, “Has God really said, is this really true?” So he is constantly questioning the veracity of the Word of God and the message of the Word of God. Is it enough? Can we really rely upon it? Don’t we need to add something else to it? Then third, he questions the integrity of the plan of God and the purpose of God. Satan always raises these doubts. Is God’s way the right way? Isn’t there another way? Can’t we somehow provide for our own needs?

5. The abundance of God’s provision is illustrated in the Old Testament with His supply of manna to the Israelites as they went through the wilderness for forty years. God supplied food for them every day with the exception of the Sabbath day. Jesus illustrates this in the New Testament with the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, the feeding of the five thousand, Matthew 14:13-21. Note there were twelve baskets full left over; not just barely enough but more than enough to satisfy the need.

6. In salvation God’s sufficiency is abundant to all. He provided a sacrifice in Jesus Christ that is sufficient for all. Every single human being can be saved by trusting in Jesus Christ. This is the doctrine of unlimited atonement as seen in 1 Timothy 2:6; 4:10.

7. The doctrine of God’s sufficiency is that His grace extends to believers in all areas of the spiritual life, especially in testing. God is going to provide everything that we need in every circumstance. We need to know His Word, though. We need to know the promises that He has given us; we need to understand His character. 2 Corinthians 9:8 ^NASB “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 ^NASB “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” The issue when we are doing without is to be able to demonstrate that even when we are doing without God is providing all that we need. It is a demonstration of His grace and of the sufficiency of His grace and His power. Cf. 2 Peter 1:3; Philippians 4:19.