The Power of His Resurrection

The Power of His Resurrection is T. Austin-Sparks’s topical study of resurrection life through Elisha and the narratives of 2 Kings. Sparks expressly says that his aim is not to produce a study of Elisha’s life or an exposition of 2 Kings as a biblical book. His governing pursuit is Philippians 3:10: to know Christ and the power of His resurrection. Elisha and the events surrounding him provide the sustained Old Testament framework through which that spiritual reality is developed.

Resurrection life is treated as more than belief in Christ’s historical resurrection or hope of a future bodily resurrection. It is the present life of the risen Lord operating where natural strength, human resources, and the power of death have reached their limit. Again and again the book asks what can be explained only by God. Barrenness, poison, debt, death, disease, insufficiency, hostile power, and impossible circumstances become settings in which divine life demonstrates that it belongs to another order.

Elisha himself is central to the book’s typology. He begins his ministry on resurrection ground, in relation to the ascended Elijah and under the anointing of the Spirit. Sparks takes this as a picture of the Church’s relationship to the risen and ascended Christ. Christian testimony is not meant to be sustained by natural energy; it is the expression on earth of a life and authority that come from heaven. Union with Christ therefore stands behind the entire resurrection testimony.

Second Kings 2–4 develops the principle through several forms. The healing of Jericho’s poisoned waters shows God introducing a new element into a source issuing in death. Sparks links the episode with the Cross and also reaches back into Joshua’s account of Jericho to develop Calvary as God’s victory over the ground on which death and satanic power operate. The widow’s oil, the needs of the sons of the prophets, poisoned food, limited provision, and the raising of the Shunammite’s son all show divine sufficiency appearing where human capacity is exhausted. The oil especially illustrates that the limitation is not in God’s supply but in the capacity available to receive it.

Naaman in 2 Kings 5 receives a substantial independent treatment. His position, resources, and expectations expose the natural man’s desire to approach God on his own terms. His cleansing requires humiliation and submission to God’s appointed way. Sparks uses the narrative to contrast natural self-sufficiency with the new ground of life that God provides.

The study later moves from inward experience to heavenly government. In the account of the unseen host surrounding Elisha, visible circumstances do not determine the true balance of power. The believer’s security and effectiveness depend on union with the Lord above, faith in His heavenly position, and recognition of the government of the risen Christ. Spiritual opposition is real, but it is treated in support of the larger testimony of resurrection life rather than as the book’s governing subject.

The closing scenes reinforce the same burden. The arrows of deliverance expose the importance of faith laying hold of what God has provided, while the revival of the dead man who touches Elisha’s bones gives a final dramatic picture of life triumphing over death. Sparks returns to Philippians 3 and the believer’s practical conformity to Christ’s death as the way in which resurrection power is known.

The Power of His Resurrection addresses readers asking what Philippians 3:10 means in present Christian experience, why Elisha can be read as a picture of resurrection testimony, how the Cross and the Holy Spirit relate to resurrection life, what Naaman reveals about the natural man, why impossible conditions can become the setting for divine life, and how the Church is meant to bear witness to the risen Christ through a life that cannot be explained by natural resources.