“Elijah … and all of his doings were a type on a small scale of greater things which came afterwards” (R5741).¹

Divine providence may arrange a forceful method of conveying lessons when an illustration is needed respecting moral conduct and its consequences. God can overrule so that men acting with complete moral free-will have their words and actions preserved in the Bible. History by its very nature relates general lessons, but personalities of special importance become a focus in “types” where they serve as heroes or enemies of righteousness conveying lessons of importance in an “antitype” acted out at some later date.

One example is Melchizedek, the priest and king of Salem, to whom Abraham paid tithes (Genesis 14:18-20). At first, this lesson conveyed in three brief verses of scripture might seem undistinguished from the many events of Abraham’s life. We learn that this historical incident is a type when it becomes the focus of prophetic interest in Psalm 110:4; and then becomes a theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews in chapters five, six, and seven. Righteous Melchizedek pre-figured Christ’s dual office as priest and king, superior in every way to the Levite priesthood bound to the ordinances of Mt. Sinai. The Melchizedek type also refutes the argument that Jesus cannot be a priest because he is not a Levite or descended from Aaron.

ELIJAH

Elijah and his implacable enemy Jezebel are also types. Both are mentioned later in scripture as prefiguring some later antitypical fulfillment. Other characters and details in the historical accounts concerning them may also figure into the antitype, though in setting forth specific applications, prayerful caution and restraint are needed. Some, in following the shaky hypothesis that everything in the scriptural record was overruled as a type, have woven the Old Testament accounts into exaggerated antitypes, or into pictures conveniently pointing favorably to self.

Jesus endorsed the special Biblical lessons found in “types.” Speaking of John the Baptist, who was God’s fearless prophet speaking against a corrupt order, Christ said, “if you will receive it, this is Elijah who was to come” (Matthew 11:14). Many voices from the true church filled with God’s spirit have followed John the Baptist’s example during the Gospel Age. They have had this privilege of preaching in defense of our heavenly Father’s character, plans, and purposes before the coming of the “great and dreadful day of the LORD” (Malachi 4:5-6).

The antitypical significance of Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel is persuasively set forth in the Harvest message (R5741): “Elijah’s prophecy was larger than on the surface appeared; for he and all of his doings were a type on a small scale of greater things which came afterwards. Elijah was a type of the Church in the flesh – the Church of which Jesus is the Head, and all of His saintly followers are the members. It was of this antitypical Elijah that God declared, ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful Day of the LORD; and he shall turn the heart of the children to the fathers, and the heart of the fathers to the children; otherwise I will come and smite the earth with a curse’ (Malachi 4:5, 6).”

“Jesus and His Apostles, and all of His followers, as the members of this greater Elijah, actuated by the Spirit of God, have been delivering a Message to the world. They have been reproving sin, and making known to the world the righteousness of God. If the world had heeded the Message, the Kingdom of Messiah on the spirit plane would eventually have been ushered in, as the desire of all nations, without any great Time of Trouble. That God meant Elijah to be a type of the Church is confirmed to us by certain statements in the Revelation. The matter is there covertly presented, a great religious system being figuratively described as Jezebel, and the worldly system to which this professed Church of Christ is united being represented by Ahab, the king of Israel.”

NABOTH’S VINEYARD IN TYPE

Reprehensible as all of Jezebel’s actions were, those linked to securing Naboth’s vineyard led to a death sentence on Ahab’s house. If there is an antitype here, it may be the way the “professed Church of Christ,” antitypical Jezebel, seeking to expand her adherents, authorized policies that increased the political and economic power of the European states. These states sought their “place in the sun,” to control colonial empires upon which the “sun never set.” This effort covered nearly 500 years, from the European “Age of Exploration” in the mid 15th century until the close of World War II in the mid 20th century. Roman Catholic states, Protestant states, and even the once powerful Orthodox-Christian state (Russia) jostled with each to carve out the best portions of the globe.

As the age of colonization moved toward its close, costs associated with these policies were recognized in words of self-pity by the British imperial poet Rudyard Kipling, in “Take up the White Man’s burden.” ² Kipling’s sentiments are unflattering in portraying all things non-European, and they would not be uttered today. They powerfully illustrate how the current concern for “political correctness” has altered the dialogue on multi-cultural relations.

SHATTERED MYTHS

With respect to judgment on Ahab, “the worldly system to which [the] professed Church of Christ is united,” history amply corroborates Pastor Russell’s prophetic expectations. This civil order began to meet its doom in the First World War. A world with its value system and conventions lay rotting in the mud of the trenches and the shattered French countryside. The system of political colonization and its costs were a burden that would not survive the Second World War. However, a new and even more powerful system linked to economic domination was already taking root.

Following World War I the myth was forever shattered that God’s providential care was specially guiding states through state religion. It makes no difference that the traditional forms were clung to in some quarters. These now were traditions and rituals without power to energize and inspire. Soviet Russian communism attempted the most radical break. Tsarist Russia went into the “Great War” singing devout hymns on its knees to seek God’s blessing on Tsar Nicholas II and his doomed hemophiliac heir, the Tsarevich Alexei. Now she rose up with a hammer and sickle in her hands singing the “Internationale.”³

CASTING OFF EVERY FORM OF “OLD”

Outside of Russia, in all aspects of life, old forms were cast aside. Opulent and exaggerated art, architecture, and music that marked the close of the pre-War La Belle Epoque gave way to new forms. The modern art movement cast aside the conventions and training of the academies in an attempt to embrace primitive and disturbing realism and surrealism. Renoir gave place to Picasso. In architecture, the opulent and sinuous lines of Art Nouveau gave way to the stark crisp minimalist lines of the international Bau-haus movement. In America, traditional structure of musical forms gave way to jazz, a musical form widely condemned in learned circles as another step backward for civilization. Horse and buggy were displaced by the automobile in a technology revolution unmatched until the introduction of personal computers at the close of the 20th century. Radio opened unprecedented mass-communication opportunities. Airplanes provided the freedom of birds on the wing as the pace of running to and fro became even more hectic.

Both Elijah, “the Church in the flesh,” and Elijah’s enemy Jezebel, the “great religious system,” survived. The combatant nations engaged in the “Great War” and the colonies dominated by Europe (and more recently the United States), found themselves staggering towards a new, frightening and uncertain epoch of man’s history. It was an age of unfamiliar sights, unfamiliar sounds, unfamiliar cities, unfamiliar modes of running “to and fro,” and disillusionment about state religion.

AHAZIAH AND WINDOW ACCIDENTS

The experiences of Ahaziah, successor to Ahab, seem to typify this new and frightening order. Ahaziah came to the throne of Israel after his father Ahab died. Jezebel, still the queen mother, enjoyed power and influence, but no longer had the same control she exercised as the consort of the king. Ahab’s seal, not Jezebel’s seal, was needed to initiate the heinous conspiracy against Naboth (1 Kings 21:8).

In antitype, we see the political upheaval following World War I. The communist revolution remained confined to Russia, and until the Stalinist regime showed its ugly character, Russia was a magnet for the disaffected and hopeful for this new order. Elsewhere, a flood of economic depression engulfed the developed economies until it covered all of Europe and North America. Desperate times may cause otherwise sensible people and nations to seek direction from charismatic flawed leaders. The unrelenting economic woes paved the way for Nazism and Fascism.

Lattice Window, 19th Century

Adolf Hitler realized that blindness was so prevalent among his followers looking for charismatic leaders, that he said “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.” In Mein Kampf he asserted: “By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell – and hell, heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily will it be believed.” Nazism and Fascism set forth their own novel, powerful, antitypical Beelzebub-worshipping mythologies, to reclaim the energy of a mythical non-Christian past.

ELIJAH
Opposed Baal worship, proclaimed 1260 days of drought to Ahab
True Church in the flesh (R5741)
Taken to heaven in a whirlwind during reign of Jehoram of Israel
True Church taken to glory in troublous events of anarchy (R5846)

ELISHA
Elijah’s successor as prophet
Lord’s agent in two roles after true church departs (R5780)

AHAB
Evil king of Israel
Government systems united with the false church, Jezebel (R5741)
Condemned by Elijah and slain fighting Syrians
European Church-state governments that ended in World War I

AHAZIAH OF ISRAEL
First successor to Ahab as king of Israel, son of Ahab and Jezebel
Successors to Church-state systems after WWI, ending in WWII
Condemned by Elijah, died of injuries falling from window about one year after Ahab’s death
Post WWI European dictators condemned by the true Church

JEHORAM OF ISRAEL
Second successor to Ahab, son of Ahab and Jezebel
Post WWII European governments
Slain by Jehu 12 years after Ahab (uncle to Ahaziah of Judah)
Post WWII European governments overthrown

AHAZIAH OF JUDAH
King of Judah, son of Jehoram and Athaliah
Post WWII non-Europ. Chrstn. gvmnts., US, Canada, Australia
Slain by Jehu 12 years after Ahab’s death (nephew of Jehoram)
Post WWII non-Europ. Chrstn. gvmnts., US, Canada, Australia

JEZEBEL
Queen to Ahab, Baal worshipper from Sidon
A great religous system (R5741)
Slain by Jehu 12 years after Ahab, cast from window by eunuchs
False church slain by “Jehu” (see below), and her own eunuchs

JEHU
Sword of retribution on Ahab & Jezebel, anointed by Elisha (R3446)
Reckless driving generation that overthrows present order

Ahaziah was mortally injured in a curious accident. He fell through a latticework window. In warm Eastern countries such lattice windows frequently project from the wall of the building so that they may catch any breeze. They thus form enclosed balconies and are often highly ornamental. Portions of the lattice are hinged, so they may be opened or shut at pleasure. These details are important because both Ahaziah and Jezebel perished by falling or being thrown from such a lattice window. The figure showing a 19th century lattice window in Cairo is believed to be close to the type of window in use nearly three millennia earlier. It shows both the design features of windows that open and the lattice work mentioned in scripture.

Windows as a Biblical symbol suggest the hopes through which we view the world and through which the world sees us. For the Christian these hopes must be certain, and based on the word of God. The ravens and doves were released through a window by Noah to learn of conditions in the new world following the deluge. The olive bough, an enduring symbol of peace, arrived with the dove through this window. Rahab delivered the spies through a window. Rahab identified her faithful family by a scarlet line in her window. Like the spies at Jericho, both David and Paul were delivered from their enemies through a window. Through an eastward open window Elisha had Joash shoot the arrows of deliverance (2 Kings 13:17).

Clearly, windows of a Biblical home are more vulnerable than the doors or walls, hence when hope is lost “death is come up into our windows” (Jeremiah 9:21). In the Song of Solomon the beloved sees her lover through the “lattice” window of prophecy and prophetic hopes. Heaven’s windows when opened – observe, not its doors, as one might expect – deliver blessings such that we cannot contain them (Malachi 3:10).

In the scriptures, women of nobility watched at the window and waited for their men returning from battle. This is depicted in the art of the era, and alluded to in Deborah’s song of victory. The mother of Sisera, sensing his doom, “looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?” (Judges 5:28).

Returning to Ahaziah, after the “Ahab” order perished in the First World War, hopes for a better successor were “dashed” (as in a fall from a window) by the rise of dictators during the 1930’s. The ambitious despots who rose to power were adept at manipulating economic chaos, anger, frustration, despair, and confusion about the path forward, into a seemingly unbeatable engine for world domination.

These ambitious and unprincipled men outdid “Ahab” in their maliciousness. They appealed to the worst of human instincts – pride, tribalism, and racism. They exploited and manipulated the fallen Adamic tendency to blame and persecute minority communities [and sects] for all of society’s problems. In Europe the “scape-goat” community became the Jews. In Japan it became all foreigners. The world found itself plunged into another World War even more horrible than the first one. However, this dangerous movement for a new world order was short-lived; as was Ahaziah. This period ended with the close of World War II (1945) although it is possible that “Ahaziah’s” lingering at death’s door may be extended by eight years later if we include the death of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union (1953) when a new era of nuclear terror and the “cold war” began.

JORAM AND SECULARISM

Ahaziah left no direct successor old enough to rule. His younger brother Joram (or Jehoram) came to power and was at least cautious about the growing nationalistic religious fervor that sought a return to the worship of Jehovah. He removed Baal worship from prominence, though he did not destroy it (2 Kings 3:2).

Characteristic of the post World War II era is a tendency to embrace secularism. Secularism starves the soul. Yet it seems a safer and fairer policy than that of nations since the dawn of their histories. Religion is set apart, to be brought out only at state occasions and times of crisis, and then the expressions must be only the most tepid acknowledgements of God’s existence out there – somewhere – and God’s capacity to bless and comfort in time of need.

How different from the era of the First World War, where nations such as Czarist Russia could go to war after the city dwellers and peasants kneeled together singing their equivalent of “God save the king.” It is impossible to imagine such a public display today. In contrast, this era – the Joram era – is marked by an effort to embrace “human rights” as its religion. Here, Nobel Peace Prize winner and holocaust survivor Elie Weizel may be quoted, “The defense of human rights has become in the last fifty years a kind of world-wide secular religion.”⁴

KISS THE SON

For all of secularism’s good intentions, receiving instruction from Christ, described in prophecy as “kissing the son” (Psalm 2:12), is far from its objective. The Islamic world presents its own special resistance to “kissing the son.” Summarizing our suggestions for antitypes set forth here, at this juncture, Ahab and Ahaziah have perished. Elijah is active and Jezebel still lives, as does her son Joram and all seventy other of Ahab’s sons (2 Kings 10:1).

Let us close with some reflections on “kissing the son.” O that the kings might bring themselves to kiss the son, for this refers to the holy kiss that is pure and without sin or taint of sin; this holy kiss that embraces comradeship and love with God’s beloved son, our Lord Jesus. It is a kiss that brings those who give it near enough to the Lord that they might even be able to hear a whisper from him. That hearing, they might render obedience to the one who loved us and gave his life for us.

– Bro. Richard Doctor

 

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(1) For an extended treatment of the types surrounding Jezebel, please see “Jezebel’s Death,” Beauties of the Truth, 16, 2 (May 2005).

(2) Kipling’s poem was a response to the American takeover of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War (1899). For the United States this was a new and unprecedented development that domestic critics considered as fundamentally in conflict with the foundation principles of the American experiment in representative democracy.

(3) “Arise, you prisoners of starvation. Arise, you wretched of the earth
• For justice thunders condemnation, for a better world’s in birth. • No more tradition’s change shall bind us. Arise you slaves, no more in thrall. • The earth shall rise on new foundation: we have been naught, we shall be all.”

This hymn to the international brotherhood of the working class celebrated revolution and praised the new but untested promises of equitable governance and social justice under a communist order. It originated in the Paris “Commune” of 1871.

(4) Kennedy, David, The Dark Side of Virtue – Reassessing International Humanitarianism, Princeton University (2004) page 278.

 

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