“you received the Spirit of adoption” (Rom. 8:15, NKJV)
Within the context of the spirit of Elijah we are currently examining the origin of the Father wound. In the previous teachings we learnt why Elijah was specifically sent to the widow and her orphaned child, to deal with the spirit of the orphan and widow within himself. Lam. 5:3 clarifies this in typological terms: “We have become orphans and waifs, our mothers are like widows.” It was clearly very important for Elijah to deal with this, so that he could be established as spiritual father, and in the process this also established his spiritual mantle.
There is great confusion concerning natural and spiritual fatherhood in the world – it is not a responsibility one merely takes upon oneself. The natural and spiritual father points to the Father. In Eph. 4:6 we find this beautiful summary: “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all”. E.W. Kenyon, in his classical text, The Father and His Family, taught us: “All fatherhood love in the human comes out of the bosom of our Father God. He is the fountain of fatherhoods.” Fatherhood models God the Father to the son.
For our current topic it is of great importance to realise that the collective father wound, and the spiritual slavery that accompanies it, and that we’ve discussed, prevents believers to associate with God the Father, and is at its core about fearing the Father. Therefore it is so important to know that the spirit of slavery can only be replaced with “the spirit of adoption”. Rom. 8:15 explains this – “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’.” This spirit calls from within your deepest being to the Fatherhood of God. The spirit calls Him: Daddy, Daddy … The spirit of Elijah (Luke 1:7) facilitates the spirit of adoption.
This process is explained in beautiful typological terms, through the story of Elijah and the widow and her orphaned son.
To refresh your memory – everything takes place in Zarephat which is at Sidon, and symbolically it means that Elijah must be refined in order to enter the kingdom of God (here Sidon is symbolic of the “net”: Matt. 13:47 – ““Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea …”).
[Remember that the baptism with fire brings this “refinement” – Mal. 3:2-4; Matt. 3:11; 1 Cor. 3:13. No one spells out this process of Godly intervention of man more beautifully than Catherine of Sienna, who lived more than six centuries ago: “When then, eternal Father, did you create this creature of yours?…You show me that you made us for one reason only: in your light you saw yourself compelled by the fire of your love to give us being in spite of the evil we would commit against you, eternal Father. It was fire, then, that compelled you. Oh, unutterable love, even though you saw all the evils your creatures would commit against your infinite goodness, you acted as if you did not see and set your eye on the beauty of your creature, with whom you had fallen in love like one drunk and crazy with love…You are the fire, nothing but a fire of love, crazy over what you have made.”]
This mystical unification with the Father heart is only possible through his Son, Jesus: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6). To thus be reconciled with the Father heart firstly requires that a consummation with Jesus takes place. In his book God’s Ultimate Passion, Frank Viola paraphrases 1 John 1:1-3 and 1 John 4:16-29 as follows: “I have seen, touched, and experienced the love of God in Jesus Christ. I lived with Him for almost four years. My knowledge of this glorious One was born out of first-hand experience. I tasted the love that He had for me. It was unflinching. I was flooded and consumed by it. As a result, I found no power to resist the loveliness of this glorious Person. So I cannot but love him. He has captured my heart and possessed my being. His love is all-consuming, and it has ruined me. As far as I can tell, I’m the Lord’s favourite! He loves me more than anyone else.”
Reconciliation with the Father heart of God brings about a consummation that completely heals the Father wound. The Oxford Dictionary provides the following definitions of the word ‘reconciliation‘: “1. complete; make perfect; 2. complete (a marriage) by sexual intercourse; 3. fully skilled; 4; desired end or goal; 5. perfection; 6. accomplishment, fulfilment, realization, attainment, achievement. Culmination.”
Take note that it also includes “marriage”, which then negates your widowed status. You then become Beulah, which means “married”: “You shall no longer be termed Forsaken, nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.” (Isa. 62:4). You will no longer be called Forsaken – you will not be left behind (John 14:1).
Back to the story of Elijah, which then goes as follows: “And he called to her and said, ‘Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.’ And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, ‘Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’ So she said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.’” (1 Kings 17:10b-12).
The prophet asks the widow, the member of society that owns the least (The Bible Knowledge Commentary), for food and water. Her reaction is clearly in accordance with those who (unknowingly) had given Jesus bread and water when providing these things to the least among us: “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” (Matt. 25:40). But clearly the bread and water that Elijah requests is not physical bread and water. His intention with this, in the words of Jesus in John 4:34, is clear: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” Remember how Amos beautifully metaphorises it in Amos 8:11: “’Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord God, ‘That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.’” And although the word words here is actually dabar in the original language, it does however implicitly include the widow and her son’s rhema-words! Indeed: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4). Here explicitly “rhema”, it becomes the nourishment of each one who wants to walk in his calling – to eat (Matt. 26:26; 1 Cor. 11:24) from the Body of Christ (= their words). One can then typologically understand this statement Jesus the Christ makes in John 6:35: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
That this promise of Elijah does not really point to physical bread, is very clear when he suddenly alters his request to the widow, and asks for a “small cake” (1 Kings 17:13). That she also understands this in typological terms is clear, as she also does not speak of it in terms of bread, but of “a cake baked in hot ashes” (1 Kings. 17:12, ABP). The word for bread in Hebrew, lechem, differs greatly from the word for cake, mâ‛ôg. That this is far more than just bread is clear when the same word in Ps. 35:16 is translated with feast or banquet! The root words point to bread that is baked on hot stones/coals.
This reference brings a completely new perspective that needs to be considered. When Ezek. 28:14 speaks of the king of Tirus who had fallen from Eden (verses 13 & 17), we know that it does not, as traditionally thought, point to Satan, as it is explicitly noted that “you are a man, and not a god” (verse 2). In a different dispensation, which we choose to refer to as pre-time, or the other reality, these beings were in the midst of the “fiery stones” – “You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones” (verse 14). Clearly these fiery stones are part of the Rock, Christ (1 Cor. 10:4), which is filled with God’s glorious nature, the “consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). These are the “living stones” of which 1 Pet. 2:5 explains the house of God is built.
When Elijah thus asks the widow for cake, he typologically asks to eat of her rhema word, which is potentially filled with the consuming fire of God’s character! It is interesting that the root word of the word cake also points to the substance of the manna in the desert (Ex. 16:4-15; John 6:31). But Jesus widens the meaning thereof, and renders manna in a spiritual sense a clear symbol of the Bride’s rhema-words: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” (John 6:56-57). [Also remember Matt. 4:4.]
Note Elijah’s precise words to the widow: “And Elijah said to her, ‘Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son.” (1 Kings 17:13)!
In the following two verses this seemingly simple assignment is made manifest in prophetic terms. A characteristic of a prophetic mantle is that the day-to-day life and remarks of a person who walks within it acquires a prophetic allure. Elijah prophesies immediately after this: “For thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’ So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days.” (1 Kings 17:14-15).
The spirit of the widow and the orphan clearly causes this lack, and the spirit of Elijah and the spirit of adoption brings about provision. Jesus had after all said: “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt. 7:9-11).
To walk with authority within your God-given calling always brings forth provision. In 2 Tim. 2:4 the spiritual principle at its core is made clear: “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”
The statement Paul makes in 2 Cor. 9:8-14 sketches the wider context for God’s abundant provision to those who have secured their calling (2 Pet. 1:10): “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written: ‘He has dispersed abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever.’ Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God … because of the exceeding grace of God in you.” Remember: “it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deut. 8:18, NIV). Make this a reality in your life.
- Selah: Have you received the spirit of adoption?
- Read: 2 Kings 24-25; 2 Chr. 36; Hab. 1-3; Jer. 41-45.
- Memorise: 2:14.
