To the man who knows not God it may seem puerile to introduce the story of a lost axe head into a volume of so exalted a character as the Bible. But the fact that it is able to stoop to small matters as well as unfold the highest themes is one of the many proofs to the believing heart that the Bible has really come from God. For it is a most precious fact that every detail concerning His own who are in the world is of the deepest interest to Him with whom we have to do. He numbers our hairs; He takes account of our tears; He remembered Paul’s need of a cloak; and He considered the weak condition of Timothy’s stomach. A petty raid is of greater importance in the divine sight if saints are involved in it than the mightiest military campaigns if they do not affect them. This is why a whole chapter is devoted to Chedorlaomer’s attack upon Southern Palestine (Gen. 14), while many of the great military movements of antiquity (dilated upon by historians) receive no notice in Scripture whatever.
In this materialistic day it is considered childish to accredit miracles. An axe head fetched up from the bed of a river by the simple expedient of casting a stick into the water (2 Ki. 6:1-71And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us. 2Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell. And he answered, Go ye. 3And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go. 4So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. 5But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed. 6And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he showed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim. 7Therefore said he, Take it up to thee. And he put out his hand, and took it. (2 Kings 6:1‑7)). Here indeed is food for the contempt of the proud. But the narrative presents no difficulty to faith. No reverent mind believes that the Lawgiver of the universe is limited by the natural laws which He has Himself established. While allowing those laws to have their full ordinary operation, He is quite able to act apart from, and in superiority to, them whenever it pleases Him to do so.
The physical miracle of recovering a lifeless axe from the depths may indeed be great, but the moral miracle of recovering for God a man dead in trespasses and sins is immeasurably greater. The latter may well be pictured in the former. The axe head which broke away from its proper position, where alone it could be really useful, and which then became an instrument for mischief, is strikingly suggestive of revolted man. If he were still standing in his original God-appointed position, he would be of service for God in the universe; having broken away from that position, he is Satan’s most efficient tool for evil.
“Alas, master,” cried the hapless woodman, “for it was borrowed.” To lose what belongs to another is more serious than to lose what is really our own. Now all that constitutes what man is, is derived from, and belongs to, Another. No man has anything that he can properly call his own. This truth was pressed upon guilty Belshazzar by the prophet Daniel on the last night of a wasted life. “The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified” (Dan. 5:2323But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: (Daniel 5:23)). To many another the same strong words might be addressed with equal suitability.
“The axe head fell into the water,” i.e., into Jordan, the familiar Scripture type of death. Is man a fallen creature, or is he not? The wisdom of the twentieth century objects to saying “Yes,” and yet men cannot deny that something is radically wrong with the race in every quarter. Civilized Europe, with its barbarous conflict, wherein every convention is ruthlessly trampled underfoot, cannot with decency again reproach the uncivilized heathen. Let none deny it—man is fallen, and away from God. Jordan speaks of death, and death unquestionably lies upon men everywhere in consequence of their fallen condition.
“And the man of God said, Where fell it?” Having learned, “he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim.” In like manner, as the living branch was cut down and cast in where the lost iron lay, even so was the living Christ cut down, and went right down into death where lost men lay. We are thus reminded of the words of the apostle in 2 Corinthians 5:14-1514For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:14‑15): “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again.” Readers should beware of the Revised Editior’s rendering of this passage. The point before the mind of the apostle is this: the fact that Christ died for all is the proof that all men were in a state of death (spiritual death, of course). He who would deliver men must go where men were; nothing else could avail. The modern ritualist attaches all possible importance to the: Incarnation; but by so doing, he would rob us of the benefit of redemption. Such was men’s condition by nature and practice that Christ’s death and blood shedding alone could meet it.
Physical miracles may today be absent, but moral miracles are being wrought amongst us continually. Men dead towards God are being quickened into new life by the Spirit’s power, the instrument used for the mighty transformation being the old gospel concerning the Savior who died for sinners upon Calvary’s tree, and rose again. Miracles of this description will continue to be wrought while the dispensation of grace lasts.