2 Kings 2:1-15
"2 Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. 2 And Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. 3 And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he said, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”
4 Elijah said to him, “Elisha, please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. 5 The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”
6 Then Elijah said to him, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. 7 Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. 8 Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” 10 And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” 11 And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. 12 And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.
Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. 13 And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. 14 Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.
15 Now when the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho saw him opposite them, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” And they came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him."
The point of the story of Elijah's translation is that he did not die in the way that other men die. He was 'taken up', as Enoch was (Genesis 5:24). It is difficult for us who are used to think of death as we know it as being an integral and inevitable part of human experience to grasp the fact that it did not come into the divine purposes for mankind at all (this is why we are told in the Book of Revelation that in the final consummation when redemption is complete there shall be no more death). This graphic portrayal of Elijah's translation is some indication of how we might have passed from earth to heaven if sin had not entered into the world - apart from death, and in triumph instead of in weakness and corruption. (Not that Elijah was sinless, of course; God chose to take him in this manner to remind a God-forgetting age of another order of existence, in which death does not reign supreme.) Also, and still more important, it points forward to, and foreshadows a yet greater event at the end of time, when Christ comes for His own. 'We shall not all sleep (die)', says the Apostle, 'but we shall all be changed', and those that are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall be caught up to be with Him, apart from death, when the dark midnight of the end-time bursts into light in the blaze of His glory. The record of Enoch's and Elijah's triumphant passing into the invisible world stands as a token that death does not have the final word in man's sorrowful existence, and that God has another way, made known in the fulness of the times in Christ, Who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.