[Apologetics] Who is Elijah?

[Dianne Dawson]

by Fr. William Saunders 

Other Articles by Fr. William Saunders Who is Elijah?
07/09/04


 At daily Mass recently there was the story of Elijah and how he was taken up into heaven on a fiery chariot in a whirlwind. I am confused. Were not the gates of heaven closed after Adam and Eve sinned and not opened until our Lord made the sacrifice for our sins? How could Elijah go to heaven? If he did not go to heaven, where did he go?

Elijah was the great ninth-century B.C. prophet during the reigns of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, and King Ahaziah of Israel. His story is found in the Old Testament books of I and II Kings. Elijah proclaimed that Yahweh was the one true God, and he called the people to repent of their worship of false gods, their abandonment of the covenant and their sinning against the commandments.

The time came when Elijah’s mission had come to an end and the prophetic office would be handed onto Elisha, his disciple. Even the various guild prophets of Bethel and Jericho said to Elisha, "Do you know that the Lord will take your master from over you today?" Anticipating Elijah’s departure, Elisha asked for a "double portion of [his] spirit." Then "as they walked on conversing, a flaming chariot and flaming horses came between them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind." Elisha then picked up Elijah’s mantle (his sign of office as a prophet), and began his mission as the prophet of Yahweh. Even the guild prophets proclaimed, "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha" (cf. 2 Kgs 2).

Where did Elijah go? First we must remember what our Lord said, "No one has gone up to heaven except the One who came down from there — the Son of Man" (Jn 3:13). Christ descended from heaven in the Incarnation. Through His saving action, He opened the gates of heaven which had been closed due to the original sin of Adam and Eve. At the appointed time, He ascended into heaven: The Letter to the Hebrews teaches, "For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one; He entered heaven itself that He might appear before God now on our behalf" (9:24).

If the gates of heaven were closed at the time of Elijah (again due to the original sin of Adam and Eve), and if "no one has gone up to heaven except...the Son of Man," where then did Elijah go? Granted, Elijah may have been taken to Sheol, "the land of the dead," where the souls of the just awaited the Messiah to open the gates of heaven. Underscoring this point, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, "In His human soul united to His divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before Him" (#638).

Or, did Elijah go somewhere else? St. Paul mentioned three heavens: "I know a man in Christ, who, 14 years ago — whether he was in or outside his body I cannot say, only God can say — a man who was snatched up to the third heaven. I know that this man — whether in or outside his body I do not know, God knows — was snatched up to paradise to hear words which cannot be uttered, words which no man may speak" (2 Cor 12:2-3).