Our life in Christ operates in two scriptural modes. One is grace, the other is faith. Grace is God’s love to us and faith is our response. It is God’s power making them effective.
We launched our In Christ discussion from a verse platform written by Paul to the saints in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 1:30:
“And because of him (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption,”
We observed these “carnal Christians” are in Christ Jesus. This relationship in Christ Jesus brings a wisdom defined as righteousness, sanctification and redemption. We identified these “wisdoms” being associated with the work of the Father, the Holy Spirit and Jesus the Son, operating in our life. Spiritual wisdom is God’s grace cultivated by our faith. Grace is a spiritual capacity but faith is our soul’s ability to receive and apply it.
We have examined the nature of these “wisdoms” or teachings so we can use them building our spiritual structure. In other words, knowing these teachings is just the first step. This is what Paul has in mind writing his letter “to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae.” Read how he puts it in 1:28-29,
“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we might present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he works powerfully within me.”
Paul wants us to “reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:2b-3).”
Paul is affirming what he said to the Christians in Corinth. We need knowledge through reason AND we need to grasp understanding in wisdom. Our spiritual wisdom does not come from human information and reason, it comes from soaking our experience in spiritual knowledge. Wisdom grows in Christ by seasoning our heart in a grace relationship. This is another way to define faith. Faith is acting upon what we know is true even if it is not supported by our reason. It requires testing our grace relationship with time and spiritual experience.
God’s creates circumstances making opportunities for dependence upon our Abba, Father. Grace is His tool to grow our faith. God intentionally shapes our confidence in Him by creating challenging circumstances. A good place to look at examples is in the life of Elisha. Elisha’s scriptural narrative is a series of supernatural events containing rich faith lessons. He was Elijah’s servant but upon Elijah’s departure Elisha becomes the northern kingdom’s “go-to” spiritual leader. Elisha had become Elijah’s humble and committed servant. In this same capacity, he proves God’s authority and character in very demonstrative ways to those he served.
The illustration we want to look at is found in 2Kings 4:1-7. It is an opportunity to see grace and faith operating in OT pictures for NT life in Christ Jesus. The setting is the death of a “son of a prophet”.
After the death of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel became divided into two separate kingdoms. The tribe of Judah remained in Jerusalem as the southern kingdom including most of the tribe of Levi and part of the tribe of Benjamin. The ten northern tribes became Israel. Israel, the northern kingdom, appointed priests not of the tribe of Levi. Later, under the reign of Ahab and Jezebel, believers who remained faithful to Jehovah were persecuted and had to hide in caves. Jezebel’s priests of Baal were in control and were worshipers of idols. Even after Elijah had confronted the people on Mt. Carmel and killed Baal’s priests, the people returned to the worship of idols under king Ahab. The tribe of Levi and the system of Priests located in Judah remained in tact although the system became corrupted.
It may have been Samuel who began the “school of prophets” (1Samuel 19:20). We find the “School of Prophets” in the northern kingdom active under the leadership of Elijah and Elisha (2Kings 2:5,15). Elisha continued to nurture and provide leadership for these devout men of Jehovah after God had taken Elijah home.
The “son of a prophet” mentioned in our 2 Kings 4:1-7 is a man of God who was in the “School of Prophets” in the northern kingdom.
“Now one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in your house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels, and when one is full, set it aside,” So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.””
A devout man, who is in the School of Prophets, dies leaving a wife and two sons. The widow receives a visit from creditors giving her notice that her two sons will be taken as slaves to satisfy a financial obligation unless she is able to take care of the debt on her own.
We don’t know the amount of time passing between the husband’s death and the creditor’s visit. The context suggests a couple things including Elisha absence. He was probably dealing with King Jehoshaphat and two other kings who were going up against Moab. So he would not have had knowledge of this situation.
The wife, who has lost her protector and provider, is not only in grief but also destitute. So she “cries out” to God’s man, Elisha, who is also the head of the School of Prophets. Elisha asks what she still has at her house. She confesses she has nothing but a single jar of oil. This suggests her husband may have been supporting his family by selling olive oil. Her neighbors had empty containers suitable for oil.
So Elisha instructs the woman to borrow all the empty jars and containers she can possible scrounge from neighbors and friends. This is an era just after the time of Ahab when they had experienced many years of drought. We don’t know if the olive orchards were still impacted at the time of this event or if they had fully recovered. But the woman was able to borrow many empty containers.
Elisha’s instructions to the widow is to go into the privacy of her house with her sons and shutting the door on everything else except what is happening between her and God.
What a lesson this was for her sons! The death of a loved one can be bittersweet. We are to look to the Lord in such circumstances. He knows the number of hairs on our head (Luke 12:7). God’s truth is often meant for our private consumption because His love to us is intended to shape us according to our own personal needs as well as God’s own purpose and pleasure. We are reminded of the hidden manna passage of Rev. 2:17. Those not in Christ do not have the capacity to process spiritual knowledge coming from the Holy Spirit of God (1Corinthians 2:14). There are pearls of revealed knowledge each believer in Christ can savor (Matt. 7:6) when the heart’s door is open to the ministry of the Holy Spirit (Rev. 3:20).
The widow was without the means to satisfy her creditor with a single jar of oil but God can use what we have in our hand to meet the demands of our situation. Remember when Moses argued with God because he didn’t see himself as adequate for the task God was calling him to do?
“The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff”. He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. but the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail” – so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand.”
God can use whatever we have in our hand, our sin is our unbelief.
I’m reminded once again of the precious passage in Romans 5, we should memorize it if we have not already (Romans 5:2):
“Through him we have also obtained access by faith, into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
Verse 1 tells us we have been made righteous (justified) by faith, and in verse 2 we are standing in grace through this same faith. This is exactly where the widow was standing, in grace by faith. She did not seek the local neighbor for help or the local loan shark, She was a women of faith, who respected her husband’s commitment and resources. She demonstrated her faith by submitting to Elisha’s instructions. She didn’t question him by saying, “What good is collecting all those empty vessels going to do?” She acted on the expectation that Elisha, the man of God, could be depended upon, this is what she hand in her hand, not realizing it was a life long supply of oil. Notice, she came with empty vessels.
Olive oil is used as a picture of God’s blessing, an anointing that represented God’s grace. The Holy Spirit is Himself an anointing able to provide us with instruction and sanctification (1John 2:20).
We also see in this miracle the “and much more” of Romans 5 (verses 3, 9,10,11,15,17 and 20) which ends in “grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace might reign also through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The amount of grace the widow woman received was limited only by the number of her faith containers. The grace of oil did not stop until her containers of faith were full.
Grace is not contingent upon God’s provisions, it is contingent upon our faith. Remember what Jesus said about faith and the mountains, Mark 11:23, MT 21:21. Our faith is a measure of our belief. The widow woman had enough faith but God’s grace was “so much more”.
This is also the essence of 1Corinthians 1:30. Justification, sanctification and redemption. They are all tied together into a single grace unit. Truth starts at the level of historical information and reason but truth must permeate into levels of the heart to become grace. This is where sin hides and desires to control the values we place on what is important to us. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you (Matt 6:33).”
“I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you (Psalms 199:11).” The word we store in our heart is alive and living, John 1:1-4, 1Peter 1:23. It has the capacity to separate the bone from the marrow, Hebrews 4:12. It is Christ in us working because we are created in Him. So we are admonished in Philippians 2:12-13, to work out our salvation because it is Christ working in our soul according to His own good pleasure.
The level of our “in Christ Jesus” belief determines the number of “empty” containers we have to be filled with God’s grace. It is a function of our obedience and to be obedient we have to know the truth in both our heart and mind. We have to be rooted and build up (Ephesians 3:16-17) in Christ Jesus. He is the Word that is abiding within us. He is the living water in John 4. He is the vine in John 15. He is how we become rooted through His organic life in us. Both faith and grace are organic so we need not only to build our structure but we need to nurture His life in us so that His light (life) is seen in our building.
“Grace is a spiritual capacity but faith is our soul’s ability to receive and apply it.”