DWELLING IN DOTHAN
(week 50/09)
OLUBI JOHNSON
The Old Testament stories and characters are prophetic foreshadows in symbolic code of New Testament realities we are experiencing today:
Hebrews 10:1 ESV: For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
Colossians 2:16-17 AMP: Therefore let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a feast day or a New Moon or a Sabbath. (17) Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, and they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:11 ESV: (11) Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
Romans 15:4 ESV: For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
The Holy Spirit has been sent to reveal these shadows to us in the scripture and by them show us things to come, so that we may experience their reality in our lives:
John 16:13 ESV: When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
John 17:17 ESV: Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
We will be applying the truth of this principle this week in the story of Elisha at a place called Dothan:
2 Kings 6:12-13 ESV: And one of his servants said, “None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.” (13) And he said, “Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him.” It was told him, “Behold, he is in Dothan.”
Here, we see Elisha by revelation showing the King of Israel what the King of Syria was thinking and planning and he was in place called Dothan.
Dothan in Hebrew means ‘a place of two wells’:
1) a place in Northern Palestine, 12 miles North of Samaria, the home of Elisha
Symbolically this speaks of the two wells of mercy and grace.
Hebrews 4:16 ESV: Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Mercy is the compassion of God that causes Him to release a measure of His life upon us externally through the air.
Jude 1:21 KJVR: Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Grace is the favour of God that causes Him to release a measure of His life into us internally through our born-again human spirits by cleansing of the blood of Jesus.
Psalms 30:5 MKJV: For His anger is only a moment; in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
In the Old Testament all the favour and mercy of God showed to them resulted in mercy releasing divine life upon them externally: they did not have the life of God given to them internally since Jesus had not yet shed His blood. God influenced their wills, minds, emotions, bodies and circumstances by His power externally through the air.
However, in the New testament, God gives life to us internally through the recreated human spirit by agency and the legal basis of the blood of Jesus: representing His sufferings in dying for us and paying the legal price for our sins.
This is why John says in
John 1:17 ESV: For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
So, to ‘dwell in Dothan’ means to live in a place where we draw from both the well of mercy and the well of grace.
This is one reason why the New Testament is better than the Old Testament: we have as it were an ‘Elisha’ double portion or blessing: the external mercy of the Old Testament and the internal grace of the New Testament.
Hebrews 8:6 MKJV: But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which was built upon better promises.
In our article next week, we will see how to draw from these two wells and so ‘dwell in Dothan’!
