Elijah in heaven

From a message by a Curious Questioner--
>CQ> Subject: Heaven

>>CQ2> So where did Elija [sp] go then? He left earth on the chariot, was he kept in a holding pattern untill Jesus got there :-&#

>CQ> I believe you are referring to 2 Kings 2:11 where it says that 'Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.'

>CQ> Evidently, he was transferred through the earth's atmosphere (in a whirlwind or windstorm) and placed on a different part of the globe.

The people viewing afar off saw the whirlwind. Elisha (up close and personal) saw the very chariot of fire and horses of fire transport Elijah into the "event horizon" of the vortex, the "door" into the third heaven, the paradise of God. It was the "sons of the prophets" that viewed afar off that mistakenly thought that the Spirit had "cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley." Elisha, knowing perfectly well that he did indeed go up into heaven rebuked them! (But they kept URGING him to send a search party, so he OK'd it.)

Three days later: "And when they came again to him, (for he tarried at Jericho,) he said unto them, Did I not say unto you, go not?"

>CQ> This must have been the case because:

>CQ> 2. Elijah was still alive on earth years after this incident. see 2 Chronicles 21:1, 12-15 where we see that after the death of King Jehoshaphat (vs 1) Elijah wrote a letter to King Jehoram of Judah.

No, that passage does not say he "wrote" a letter at that time. That's just when it "came". (They didn't have lightning fast E-mail back then, and not even the "speedy" U.S. postal "snail mail"! :)

And just because 2Chron.21:12-15 is written after 2Chron.21:1, doesn't automatically mean the event of the writing from Elijah took place after the death of King Jehoshaphat. Verse 12 is the beginning of the 4th paragraph. The 2nd paragraph beginning with verse 5 took you back to the time Jehoram began to reign. Go back now and look at 2nd Kings chapter 2 where Elijah was taken to heaven. Back up two verses into chapter 1, before he was translated: "And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son." (2Kings 1:17p)

Then in the 5th year of the Israel Jehoram, the Judah Jehoram begins to reign again jointly with Jehoshaphat king of Judah. Besides more than one Jehoram, there are more than one Ahaziah, and the family trees of the kings of Israel and kings of Judah are intertwined to further complicate the chronological maze. (Is yer head swimming? :)

What is clear is that Elijah was indeed taken up to heaven and what he had written to Jehoram "came" at some time after it was written.

"Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein."

Grace be to your heart, in love for Jesus' sake. Amen. --Richard