The Prophethood of All Believers
Elijah to Elisha
The Prophethood of All Believers: Elijah to Elisha
Through the Incarnation, Jesus has transferred the Spirit of prophecy from Himself to his disciples. The 120 in the upper room became a community of Spirit-baptized prophets. In the narrative of the gospels, Jesus is seen as a Rabbi whom the disciples follow. If Jesus is the eschatological Prophet, then the Old Testament prophets also had disciples called the sons of the prophets. In his groundbreaking book on prophetic reformation, The Dead Prophets Society, Dr. Mark Chironna argues this point bycomparing Elijah and Elisha with Jesus and His disciples:
An accommodating Church demands little of itself. By contrast, the preparatory dynamics of the Elijah and John the Baptist typology require the rebuilding of altars and fresh sacrifice of our lives.The Elijah-Elisha transfer we will soon discuss foreshadows the Jesus-and-his disciples transfer that leads to “greater works.
Luke records Jesus’s words, which seem to suggest the outpouring of the Spirit of Prophecy on the Day of Pentecost in Acts as being a garment of power they would receive.Therefore, Luke is not only depicting a narrative of Jesus as the Eschatological Prophet but also a greater Elijah.
. . . . tarry in Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high . . . (Lk. 24:49)
Jesus the Greater Elijah and the Mantle of the Spirit of Prophecy
The narrative of Elijah and Elisha in the Scriptures can be described as what Dr. Leonard Sweet would define as a “narraphor,” a narrative that contains images, metaphors, and stories.
The journey of Elijah and Elisha is a narraphor that contains images, metaphors, and a story that prophetically hints at a metanarrative (a smaller story within a larger story) that compares the relationship of Jesus and His disciples with the relationship between Elijah and Elijah.
As mentioned, just as the gospels depict Jesus as Rabbi and his disciples as his students, prophets had disciples, called the sons of the prophets. The disciples related to Jesus not just as their Rabbi but also as an eschatological Prophet, which made them sons of the Prophet.
As sons of the Prophet, the disciples embodied and continued Jesus’s prophetic ministry by incarnating Him through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Prophecy.
It is the testimony of the Crucified and Risen Lord embodied by the church that is the Spirit of Prophecy and what it means to be a prophethood of believers.
Our limited view of prophetic function is reset when we understand this. It’s not to say all are Ephesians 4:11 prophets, but all the church is meant to stand as prophetic witnesses of the Word of God as “a word of God”.
Elijah being taken up to heaven and his mantle falling to Elisha is a powerful prophetic typology of Jesus ascending to heaven and the Holy Spirit clothing the disciples as a type of mantle.
Luke records Jesus’s words to the disciples, and it is a significant connecting point with the Book of Acts: “Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from high.”
The Greek word for “endued,” enduomeans to put on clothing or sink into a garment. Enduo is used in several places that give us a profound narrative of what it means to be endued with power.
The night is far spent the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put onChrist.
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.
These Scriptures begin to develop a narrative that indicates what it means to be endued with power. This is not at all to suggest that the Holy Spirit is simply a garment and not a person! The Holy Spirit is God just as much as the Father and the Son. We can see prophetic hints in the Old Testament of the Spirit of the Lord “clothing” those whom God would use. For example, “But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.”
The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and clothed him, inspiring him with unusual wisdom, courage, and zeal to move as a witness of God’s character much in the same way the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, who, prior to Pentecost,hid in fear. Jesus is the Eschatological Prophet, and His disciples were the sons of the Prophet. Jesus is the greater Elijah, and the disciples were a type of Elisha. They received the promise of sonship when Jesus declared that when the Holy Spirit came, they would no longer be orphans.
It was Elisha who called out “Father”as Elijah ascended, and the mantle fell. It was the promise of the Father that the Spirit who proceeds from the Son would bring the disciples into union with the firstborn Son of God. When the writer of Hebrews refers to the Church as the firstborn, we can see the inheritance of the mantle of Jesus. The Spirit of Prophecy is how we can function as a prophethood of believers clothed with the testimony of Jesus.
The testimony of the Church as a prophetic witness stands in two tensions that bring about the glory of the Lamb. The Greek word for “testimony” in Revelation 19:10,marturia, is used thirty-seven times in the New Testament, with the majority of those occurrences beingin the Johannine writings, which suggests this is a central theme for John. Marturia is not only used as a legal term for “witness.” It originatesfrom the word martus, which is used to describe those who die a violent death as martyrs. To stand as a prophetic witness is to stand as a legal witness of Jesus’s life by coming into union with His death, so all they see is Him. Jesus’s life has become the life of those who testify of Him.
The kingdom’s power is released through the legislation of faithful witnesses who testify of what their eyes have seen and their ears have heard in the council of the Lord and in the court of heaven. Isaiah, whowas sent as a prophetic witness from the council of the Lord, narrates astory that illustrates the tension of marturia, the legal witness, and martus, the martyr. that is seen in theprophetic function.
The prophetic witness of the Church must be seen from the view of the Book of Revelation. Just as John sees himself in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets meeting the Word of God in the council of the Lord, the Church is also a prophethood of believers. John, an apostle who is moving in the tradition of the prophets, is meeting the Word of God who created all things before the council of His throne.
The climax of the Book of Revelation for John is also the climax and culmination of the prophets of old for the Church, and it is this: we as a prophethood of believers are invited into the council of the Lord before the throne of Jesus, the Word of God.
He is not only the Word of God who created all things but also the Word of God of the New Creation. His throne is not like earthly thrones. He is the Lamb standing as if it had been slain in the midst of the throne.
The Word of God recreates all things in the image of the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and the Church as a body of prophets is the embodied witness of the overcoming Lamb who releases the power of the Lion through the victory of His wounds.
It is a prophethood of believers who stand in the midst of idolatry as a prophetic contradiction, demonstrating that the King looks different from the kings of the earth,as does His rule, and principalities and powers are disarmed through it. It is not a rule of weakness but of power, for no one took this King’s life. He laid it down of his own accord.
That power through which He laid down His life is the same power that raised Him up. This is the same power that empowers a prophethood of believers to be an embodied, three-dimensional witness that He is no longer in the grave but has risen within them. The Church stands as a present witness of the One who came, who is present, and who will come again
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