When Elisha asked his master Elijah for a “double portion” of his spirit, he was not asking for double the anointing of Elijah but the double portion to which the eldest son of a family was entitled. Elisha cried out “My father, my father!” as Elijah was taken up because the prophet was his spiritual father. Fifty “sons of the prophets” watched from across the river, but Elisha alone went all the way with Elijah—the others were no more than curious onlookers.
When Elisha’s request was granted and his master’s mantle (cloak) fell to the ground, Elisha tore his own clothes in two. Not in sorrow at his master’s departure, for he had known that would happen. Elisha knew what many believers today do not: that before wrapping yourself in the indispensable you need to rid yourself of the disposable. An anointed spiritual son no longer wears the clothes of a servant.
When the Holy Spirit “comes upon” us, we are “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8) The Greek word for power is “dunamis”, from which we get the words dynamo, dynamic, dynamite, and dynasty. Yet the word “dunamis” conveys ability: the ability to do whatever our Lord wants done—the “greater works” Jesus said believers would do—”because I go to my Father” (John 14:12).
Elisha went on to do twice as many miracles as his master. After picking up Elijah’s mantle, the first thing he did was try it out. He found that it still held the anointing it had when worn by his master. Its power would not be in the son Elisha but in the fact that the mantle had been worn by the praying prophet Elijah. Likewise, the God-given anointing that clothes us is the same one worn by the ever-prayerful Jesus Christ.
So, why do not believers, after being “clothed from on high” with the same mantle as our risen Lord set about putting it to good use—ASAP? After all, the ability is in the anointing, not in the one that it clothes.
The mantle fell on my shoulders in 1978, the day before our church would first meet, and it felt like a heavy blanket. (It reminded me a bit of the army kind) When it did, power ran from it down my arms and into my hands like electricity! Then the Lord Jesus spoke to me. In the meeting the next morning a woman was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Dramatic conversions to Christ and stunning miracles of healing took place from then on.
The anointing that fell on the disciples after Jesus ascended on high retained the power it had when their Master wore it. It’s now the turn of 21st century Christians to wear the mantle of Jesus the Anointed One. After all, the name Christian defines believers as “anointed ones”.
It’s time that we too picked it up, shed and tore up the old clothes of servant-hood, and as spiritual sons wrapped ourselves in the anointing of the one who wore it so well (Hebrews 3:5, 6). We will discover that the power is still in the mantle when we then begin to do the works that our Master did before ascending into heaven (John 14:6) The mantle that Jesus wore is now ours to wear, so we should wear it — and wear it well!