1 Kings 13:31: ?And it came about after he had buried him, that the old prophet spoke to his sons, saying, ?When I die, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.??

One of the fascinating things about this bizarre story is the way the two characters switch places by the end of the story. Throughout, they are distinguished by their titles, though the titles are virtually synonymous. The man from Judah is called the ?man of God,?Ewhile the old man of Bethel is called a ?prophet.?EIn verse 23, however, this terminology changes, and the man of God from Judah is called, for the first and only time, a ?prophet,?Ejust as he climbs on the old prophet?s donkey to leave his home. After the man of Judah dies, he?s buried in the prophet?s tomb.

What we see during the course of the story, then, is a substitution. The old prophet is a tempter, a Satanic figure who successfully seduces the man of God into taking forbidden food, enjoying a forbidden table. But the old prophet doesn?t suffer at all for his deception. He gets off free, while the poor slob he seduces gets mauled by a lion. The seducer lives on happily, while the seduced is destroyed. Where?s the justice in that?

The justice in that is the justice of God, the justice of a God who provides a substitute to die in the place of a sinner. True, the man of God from Judah sinned, violating an express command of God. But he also serves as a substitute here, dying for the old prophet. The old prophet was the seducer, the tempter, the Satan of the story. Jeroboam is an idolater. By comparison, the man from Judah is comparatively innocent, but he dies and leaves Jeroboam and the old prophet behind, both very much alive. To whom much is given, much is required, for sure. But there is more: the death of the man of Judah is the death that both Jeroboam and the old prophet deserve but don?t receive.

In fact, the old prophet wants to be joined with him in his death, knowing that this way his bones will be preserved. And they are. Josiah refuses to exhume the bones of both the old prophet and man of God, knowing that he was fulfilling the prophecy of the man of God from Judah. The old prophet?s bones are preserved because he was associated with the man of God from Judah in death.

The story is not only a parable but a type, and it is a type not only for the future history of Judah and Israel, but for the future history of Jesus, the true Israel. For the redemption that Israel awaits will come only with the sudden appearance of another man of God from Judah, who is also the prophet of the North, from Nazareth. He will prophesy against the false worship of the Jerusalem temple and will receive an undeserved punishment, despite being faithful in all things, resisting all Satanic seductions to unfaithfulness, refusing forbidden food. And that man of God from Judah dies for sinners, seducers, idolaters. For such were some of us.

As Barth pointed out in his famous treatment of this passage, the story of the man of God and the old prophet ends at a grave. That is the way the OT must needs end. But there is more to the story: ?this story, too, does point to one real subject if Jesus Christ is also seen in it, if at the exact point where the story of the prophets breaks off a continuation is found in the Easter story. The Word of God, which abides forever, in our flesh; the man from Bethlehem in Judah who was also the prophet of Nazareth; the Son of David who was also the king of the lost and lawless people of the north; the Elect of God who is also the bearer of the divine rejections; the One who was slain for the sins of others, which He took upon Himself, yet to whom there arose a witness, many witnesses, from the midst of sinners; the One lifted up in whose death all was lost, but who in His death was the consolation and refuge of the lost ?Ethis One truly died and was buried, yet He was not forgotten and finished on the third day, but was raised from the dead by the power of God. In this one prophet the two prophets obviously live. And so, too, do the two Israels ?Ethe Israels which in our story can finally only die, only be buried, only persist for a time in their bones. They live in the reality and unity in which they never lived in the Old Testament, but could only be attested. They remain in Him, and in Him the Word of God proclaimed by them remains to all eternity.?E

Like the old prophet, through baptism, you have been buried with this man of God in His death, and will be conformed to Him in the likeness of His resurrection. Having been buried, you have been brought to celebrate His substitutionary death is celebrated here at this table. Because this greater man of God from Judah resisted the temptations of the devil, He was vindicated and exalted. Because the greater man of God refused the tree of knowledge, the gates of Eden are opened, and we are invited to take and eat from the tree of life.