“ . . . and he laid him on his own bed.”

(1 Kings 17:19)

Today is a good day, tomorrow a bad.

Today heaven is opened wide; tomorrow it is ceiled with bronze.

Today your prayers flow like a flood; tomorrow the string of your tongue cannot be loosed.

Today the righteousness of Christ sweetly rests upon your shoulders; tomorrow the fires of hell lick your sin-fouled feet.

Today you have, and to spare; tomorrow you are counting quarters and hoping for seconds on rice and beans.

Today your job is a straight path to a sure future; tomorrow your feet are pounding the pavement and circling the city.

Today you and your mate need say nothing; tomorrow you have nothing to say, and no desire to say it.

Today your body is a willing servant, tomorrow a cruel tyrant.

Today the world is a glorious Eden, tomorrow a waste and howling wilderness.

Today God is working all things together for good; tomorrow it seems he’s on a mission to search and destroy.

Welcome to the Prophet’s Bed.

____________

The widow of Zarephath was doing well. For many days the bin of flour had remained full, and the cruse of oil had not run dry. So the prophet had promised, and so it had come to pass, saving both her and her son from starvation. Perhaps she could trust this man of God—and the God of this man—after all.

But then it happened. Her son fell sick, so sick that there was no breath left in him.

“Why have you come to me, O man of God?” she asked. “Was it to bring my sin to remembrance before God and to kill my son?”

But Elijah, both seeing and hearing, simply said, “Give me your son.”

When she complied, he took the boy out of her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. Then, crying out to the LORD, he stretched himself upon the boy—face to face, hand to hand, foot to foot—and prayed again, saying, “O LORD my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him!”

And it did.

So Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother.

“See,” cried Elijah with tears of joy, “Your son lives!”

To which the woman—both amazed and ashamed—replied, “By this I now know that you are indeed a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”

The Characters

Looking at things superficially, the saints of God might be tempted to think there is little difference between their lives and those of their non-christian neighbors. Both are born, both die, and in between both grow, learn, struggle, marry, parent, work, win, lose, joy, and sorrow. Yes, in the end a saint might be tempted to think that all lives are cut from the same piece of cloth, that all are cast in the same basic mold, and that all is vanity, a mere chasing after the wind (Eccl. 2:14; 3:19-20; 6:6; 9:3)

But nothing could be further from the truth. To see why, let us now put on our New Testament glasses, the better to understand a mysterious Old Testament text that is loaded with comforting types and shadows of our own life, and of every life that has died and is hidden with God in Christ (Col. 3:1-2).

In this amazing (true) story, the widow represents the Church, but the Church in two different forms at two different times.

The widow before the raising of her son represents the Church BC: the Church before coming to Christ, but also in the process of being drawn to Christ. She is the Church seriously considering: Is this really a Man of God I can trust to be God, and to forgive my sins, declare me righteous, and grant me eternal life?

The widow after the raising of her son is the Church AD: the Church who now knows that, yes, he is indeed.

The widow’s house is the whole world—the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all they contain—the dwelling place of God and his people.

As for the widow’s son, he also typifies the Church, but in this case the portion of the Church that, for the moment, is dead in trespasses and sins. He dwells in close proximity to the Prophet, and also to his Mother: the living Church, which, through God’s grace, loves him deeply, and therefore deeply desires that he might live again . . . forever.

And as for Elijah, he represents Christ, the supreme Prophet, dwelling with the Church in the house of this world, mighty in word and deed, bringing truth and life to the dead.

The Story

As our story begins, the widow pleads with Elijah for the life of her son. Here we see the Church as intercessor, pleading with Christ for the eternal life of God’s elect—for the salvation of all her dear children, wherever they may be.

Elijah commands her, “Give me your son.” Just so, our Lord commands his living Church to present her dead sons and daughters to him: first, to acknowledge her own spiritual helplessness, and so, in prayer, surrender beloved unbelievers to the only One who can grant them life . . . but then also to act: to bring them to him through the Spirit-led proclamation of the Gospel.

So the woman obeys, giving her son to Elijah, who carries him to the upper room where he is staying. Here too we behold Christ, this time granting new birth to those who are dead in sin and carrying them up—spiritually speaking—into the heavenly places, where they might dwell with him in the uppermost of all upper rooms!

Now, mark carefully what Elijah does next: He lays him on his own bed. Moreover, having done so, he lays himself on the boy—head to head, hand to hand, body to body—and he cries out to God that the boy might live.

And so he does.

The Meaning 

Saint of God, do you see what the Spirit is showing us here? Do you see why your life is so profoundly different from that of people who are still living in the world? And also how important it is for people who are still living in the world?

It is because God has laid you—his chosen and beloved child—in the Prophet’s bed. It is because he has laid his life upon your life. It is because he has ordained, from all eternity, that you should be conformed to the image of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is because, even now, by his wise providence, he is causing every object and every event in the whole universe to work together for this very good purpose: that you might be and look and live like Christ, forever.

Think for a moment what this means.

Was the Lord Jesus born into this world? Did he increase in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man? Did he pray to God, and did God hear and answer? Did he receive the Spirit for ministry? Did he minister—by word and deed—in the gifts, love, and power of that same Spirit? Was he loved, honored, followed, and obeyed? But was he also tempted, wearied, misunderstood, hated, dishonored, betrayed, falsely accused, and almost universally rejected? Did it seem, in the end, that his work was in vain? Indeed, during his three darkest hours upon the cross, did it seem that God himself had forsaken him? But did his Father—when the world least expected it—vindicate him after all, raising him, showing him, lifting him, and greeting him with joy at heaven’s portals, seating him at his own right hand, and saying: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

If so, then we—the widow’s once-dead son—must not fail to understand: This, the life of Jesus, is the Prophet’s Bed upon which we all have been laid; this, the Prophet’s body—Jesus’ person and work—will be superimposed upon our own; his is the image to which we are being conformed; his is the course we are predestined to run; his is the life—and the death—which, in one way or another, we are appointed to live and die.

Beloveds, at every moment of every day of every week and month and year of our Christian life, God the Father has us in the Prophet’s Bed. In every high and low, every struggle, every victory, and every (temporary) defeat, he is skillfully at work to pattern our life after his Christ, and to pour his life into us. Our part is simply to understand—and cherish—this greatest of all privileges. It is to thank God for laying us in the Prophet’s Bed, to submit to him, and to cooperate with him as he—by his Word, his Spirit, and his all-encompassing Providence—superimposes upon us the very life of his beloved Son.

The Happy Ending 

After God revived the widow’s child, Elijah brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother, saying, “See, your son lives!”

Here is Christ, filled with joy, presenting one of his newborn children to his Mother, the living Church. Henceforth, Mother and son will live together in the house, and the Prophet as well. And henceforth they will take up their new ministry of love, serving the Prophet, lifting multitudes of spiritually dead sons and daughters into his arms so that he might carry them to his upper room, place them in his bed, lay himself upon them, and bring them to eternal life.

Brothers and sisters, while Today is still called Today let us draw still nearer to the Prophet, and let us serve him still more faithfully in our time. For soon he will come down from the Upper Room one final time. When he does, all who are hidden in him will be revealed in glory. When he does, he will again say to the Woman (and to his Father as well), “Behold, your son lives!” And when he does, all people of all times and all places will see that this is indeed the Man of God, and that the word of the LORD in his mouth was—and forever will be—the truth.