#54. Taking Up The Mantle

Published by Ben Stahl on June 10, 2020June 10, 2020

He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan.

II Kings 2:13 NKJV

There are some phrases and concepts from Scripture that have been so thoroughly absorbed into English usage that those who use them today often have little knowledge of their biblical origin or meaning. Believers and unbelievers alike may refer to a “scapegoat” (Leviticus 16); “A drop in the bucket” (Isaiah 40:15); the “writing on the wall” (Daniel 5); or a “surety” (Gen. 43:9, Heb. 7:22).

When a younger person takes up the work of an older person or a protege continues the work of a mentor, another biblical phrase is often used: He “took up the mantle.” When Elijah was taken into the chariot of fire, his mantle fell from him and Elisha took it up. The meaning we associate with the phrase today had the same original meaning in the Scripture. Elisha was taking up and continuing the work the Lord had called Elijah to do.

The Lord took one prophet to glory and set up another prophet to continue revealing the Word of the Lord to Israel. Elisha did not wait to take up the work: he took up the mantle immediately and returned to the Jordan River. The mantle that was once thrown over him (I Kings 19:19) was now taken up as a sign that the spirit of Elijah was upon him and that he was the successor of Elijah when there were perhaps no other witnesses to his divine anointing.*

Who will continue your work for the Lord when you are called to glory? If you are an elderly woman, faithfully praying for the church and her labor of proclaiming, promoting, and protecting the truth, who will be praying for such things when you are with the saints triumphant in the throne room of King Jesus? Will you teach younger women now of your prayers and practices that they may be well prepared to take up your mantle when you ride the chariot and horses of fire to Heaven? If you are a church officer, missionary, or theologian, are you preparing the next generation of men to take up the Lord’s work that you will be leaving behind? How will you prepare them to take it up with double the focus that you were able to give?

Whose work will you take up in service for the King? If you are that young woman learning from the older woman, are you practicing prayer and implementing those practices that have so helped Christ’s church for millennia? If you are a younger minister or considering full-time ministry in the church, are you preparing to plant the seeds and water the fields that others have plowed? Service in the church is not always new, groundbreaking service but much of the time is simply taking up the mantle of those who have labored in front of us until the Lord returns and brings in the harvest.

Service for the Kingdom is a great labor. It is our first and highest calling: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God…” It is not necessarily a glamorous calling. It is not necessarily a visible calling. Some labor in the church no one will see but you and the Lord. Most of your prayers will never be heard by others. The world would question the point of such activity when there is no one nearby to “like” it. There may not be financial compensation. It may be wearisome. It may be heartbreaking. In many places today it is dangerous labor, perhaps deadly. But what a glorious thing to be even a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. Take up the mantle of those who have gone before you and labor on!

Go labor on; spend, and be spent,

It is the way the Master went;

The joy to do the Father’s will;

Should not the servant tread it still?

Horatius Bonar

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*The Lord gives signs to remind us of His glorious names, titles, attributes, Word, and works. Neither Elisha, the sons of the prophets, nor anyone else we read about in II Kings ever worshiped Elijah’s mantle. Many did worship other objects in history such as the bronze serpent and to some extent the ark of the covenant, but those who did so were sinning. The practice in Roman Catholicism of venerating / worshiping relics is giving glory that is properly reserved for the Lord God alone, to a created object. Venerating relics is idolatry. Kissing a box holding the supposedly still-beating heart of a dead saint is idolatry no different from the pagan religions we see dominating other countries of the world.

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