Where are Enoch and Elijah? [continued]
The Answer Unfolds
Let us notice the next few years and see what further events the Scripture records. The new king of Israel was another son of Ahab, Jehoram, or Joram as he is sometimes called. The beginning of his reign marked the year of the removal of Elijah (II Kings 1:18 and 3:1). During this king’s reign Elisha was the recognized prophet of God (II Kings 3:11). In the fifth year of Joram king of Israel, the son of the king of Judah began to reign along with his father in Judah (II Kings 8:16). His name also was Jehoram. The first thing he did to establish his kingdom rule was to put his relatives to the sword lest they should claim the throne from him (11 Chronicles 2 1:4). For nearly six years he followed the ways of the nations about him and did evil in God’s sight. Almost ten years had now expired since Elijah was taken from the people. But what do you think was about to happen?
A Letter Comes from Elijah. Yes, after this wicked rule by the Jewish king, God chose Elijah to write a letter and have it sent to the king! The contents of the letter are found in II Chronicles 21:12-15. In part it reads:
"Because thou hast not walked in the ways of... thy father... but hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel... and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father’s house, which were better than thyself... thou shalt have great sickness by disease." From the wording of the letter, it is clear that Elijah wrote it after these events had occurred, for he speaks of them as past events, and of the disease as future. Two years after the king became diseased the king died—having reigned only eight short years (II Chronicles 21:18-20). This proves that the letter was written about ten years after Elijah had been taken to another location by the whirlwind. God used Elijah to convey the message because he was the prophet of God in days of the present king’s father—and the son was not going in the ways of his obedient father, Jehoshaphat. The letter he had others deliver was recognized as his—proving that he was known to be alive someplace. Just how much longer he lived, the Bible does not reveal. But in that "
it is appointed unto men once to die" (Hebrews 9:27). Elijah must have died somewhat later. All human beings born of Adam, and that includes Elijah, must die—for we read: "In Adam all die" (I Corinthians 15:22). Elijah was a man "subject to like passions as we are" (James 5:17) subject to human nature and death. The prophet, being mortal flesh as we are, could not have lived much beyond his seventy years.
To suppose that God gave him the power of an endless life of nearly three thousand years is to read into the Bible what is not there! He was mortal, subject to death, and after being lifted into the atmospheric heavens, spent the remaining years of his separate life at some little-known location on the earth, living as every human being, before he naturally died.
The only remaining texts that puzzle people are those relative to the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. The record of the event is found in Matthew 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-10; Luke 9:28-36. Leaving the mountain, Jesus told his disciples: "
Tell the vision to no man” (Matt. 17:9). A vision is not a material reality but a supernatural picture observed by the eyes. Moses died, and was buried (Deut. 34:5-6). Both he and Elijah were still dead in their graves, but in vision both they and Jesus were seen in the glory of the resurrection—an event to which Moses and Elijah have not yet attained (Heb. 11:39). The vision was granted the disciples after Jesus had spoken of the glory of immortality in the coming kingdom. How plain the Bible is! Elijah is dead in the dust of the earth awaiting the resurrection of the just. Elijah, some years after being removed in the whirlwind, went to the grave, but will rise again to live forevermore.
