2 Kings 2:11

11. They still went on, and talked What moments were those, what conversation never to be forgotten! It was a walking and talking on the verge of heaven!

A chariot of fire, and horses of fire These were creations of the spiritual world; a part of that Divine machinery by which God consummates the purposes of his wisdom and providence. There are not only angels in heaven, but horses and chariots ready to do the bidding of the Most High. This heavenly scene which Elisha witnessed was no hallucination, nor were the chariot and horses of fire a mere ideal symbol seen only in vision, like the living creatures which Ezekiel saw by the river Chebar, (Ezekiel 1:5-14;) but they had actual existence in the spiritual world, and were only a part of that vast host, the sound of whose movements David once heard over the mulberry trees, (2 Samuel 5:24,) and who at a later time filled the mountains round about Elisha. 2 Kings 6:17. Why should we doubt this as a fact of the unseen world when we are told (Psalms 68:17) that the chariots of God are אלפי שׁנאן רבתים , two myriads, repeated thousands, and they that minister unto him are thousand thousands, and they that stand before him are myriad myriads. Daniel 7:10.

Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven That is, the moment the fiery chariot separated the two prophets a sudden tempest broke upon Elijah and carried him aloft into heaven. It is not said that Elijah went up in the fire-chariot, but in a tempest, the chariot serving to separate Elijah from Elisha, as if defining a boundary between the earthly and the heavenly states. It has been usually and very naturally assumed, however, that the translated prophet ascended in the chariot, and the chariot was borne aloft on the wings of the wind. Compare Psalms 104:3. The heaven to which Elijah went was the abode of God’s saints, who rest from their earthly labours, but employ themselves in higher and holier works than it enters our minds to conceive. There he met with Moses, who had died and was buried not far from the place whence he ascended; and with that elder prophet he afterwards descended from his heavenly home to appear to the three disciples, and to talk with Jesus of his exit from the world. Luke 9:30-31. This translation of Elijah to heaven, and the appearance of the chariot and horses of fire, like other similar events of Old Testament Scripture, teach the existence of another world beyond us, unseen by the natural eye; a realm whose inhabitants and hierarchies and orders of ministries are numerous beyond all computation. But Elijah entered this heaven without tasting death, or at least by a marvellous transformation. The human body, with its earthly modes of life, must be unsuited to the heavenly state, and hence we suppose, in harmony with other Scripture, that at the moment of his separation from Elisha, Elijah was changed, as in the twinkling of an eye, and ascended with a renewed spiritualized body, made compatible with the nature of heavenly existence. Thus has he become a representative of those saints who shall not die, but be changed at the coming of the Lord. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:17. It is contrary to the evident import of this account of Elijah’s departure, and contrary to the teachings of other Scriptures, to assume that his body must have become suddenly decomposed and dissolved into dust, or that it was thrown down again, as some of the sons of the prophets thought, (2 Kings 2:16,) on some mountain, or in some valley, a lifeless corpse. Elijah truly ascended bodily to heaven, but his body underwent such a spiritualizing change as fitted it for the heavenly life; hence our doctrine that man is all immortal body as well as spirit.