The name Gehazi means “valley of vision,” and is appropriate enough if we think of what Gehazi saw as to the nature of wickedness when the prophet opened his eyes.
Let us note what points there are in this case which illustrate human life as we now know it. In this way we shall test the moral accuracy of the story--and that is all we are now principally concerned about.
Gehazi was “the servant of Elisha, the man of God.” Surely, then, he would be a good man? Can a good man have a bad servant? Can the man of prayer, whose life is a continual breathing unto God of supreme desires after holiness, have a man in his company, looking on and watching him, and studying his character, who denies his very altar and blasphemes against his God? Is it possible to live in a Christian house and yet not be a Christian? Can we come so near as that, and yet be at an infinite distance from all that is pure and beautiful and true?
If so, then we must look at appearances more carefully than we have been wont to do, for they may have been deceiving us all the time.
Surely, every good man’s children must be good, for they have had great spiritual advantages. They have, indeed, had some hereditary benefits denied to many others. Their house has been a home, their home has been a church, and surely they must show by their whole spirit and tone of life that they are as their father as to all spiritual aspiration and positive excellence.
Is it not so?
If facts contradict that theory, then we must look at the theory again more carefully, or we must examine the facts more closely, because the whole science of Cause and Effect would seem to be upset by such contradictions. There is a metaphysical question here, as well as a question of fact. A good tree must bring forth good fruit; good men must have good children; good masters must have good servants. Association in life must go for something.
So we would say--emphatically, because we think reasonably.
But facts are against such a fancy.
What is possible in this human life? It is possible that a man may spend his days in building a church, and yet denying God. Does not the very touch of the stones help him to pray? No. He touches them roughly; he lays them mechanically, and he desecrates each of them with an oath.
Is it possible that a man can be a builder of churches and yet be a destroyer of Christian doctrine and teaching generally? Yes.
Let us come closer still, for the question is intensely interesting and may touch many.
It is possible for a man to print the Bible and yet not believe a word of it. On first hearing this shocking statement we revolt from it. We say it is possible for a man to handle type that is meant to represent the greatest revelation ever made to the human mind without feeling that the very handling of the type is itself a kind of religious exercise. Yet men can debauch themselves in the act of printing the Bible; can use profane language while putting the Lord’s Prayer in type; can set up the whole Gospel of John without knowing that they are putting into visible representation the highest metaphysics, the finest spiritual thinking, the most tender religious instruction.
Let us come even closer. A man can preach the Gospel and be a servant of the devil. Who, then, can be saved? It is well to ask the question. It is a burning inquiry; it is a spear-like interrogation. We would put it away from us if we dare.
Now, let this stand as our first lesson in the study of this remarkable incident, that Gehazi was the servant of Elisha, the man of God, and was at the same time the servant of the devil. He was receiving wages from both masters. He was a living contradiction; and in being such he was most broadly human. He was not a monster; he was not a natural curiosity; he is not to be accounted for by quietly saying that he was an eccentric person. He represents the human heart, and by so much he brings against ourselves an infinite impeachment.
It is in vain that we shake our skirts as if throwing off this man and all association with him and responsibility for him; this can not be done. He anticipated ourselves; we repeat his wickedness. The iniquity is not in the accident, in the mere circumstances, or in the particular form; the iniquity is in the heart--yea, in the very heart itself. Marvel not that Christ said: “Ye must be born again.”
Gehazi did not understand the spirit of his master. He did not know what his master was doing. How is it that men can be so far separated from one another? How is it that a man can not be understood in his own house, but be thought fanciful, fanatical, eccentric and phenomenally peculiar? How is it that a man may be living among men, and yet not be of them; may be in the world and yet above the world; may be speaking the very language of the time, and yet charging it with the meaning of eternity? See here the differences that still exist, and must ever exist, as between one man and another: