<p>9:55 <i>But he turned and rebuked them, saying: You know what kind of Spirit you have</i>- The incident in&nbsp;2 Kings 1:10 of calling fire down from Heaven is specifically rebuked by the Lord Jesus as not being of <i>His </i>Spirit. And He rebukes His followers for assuming that their natural prejudice against others can be justified by an appeal to Elijah&rsquo;s example. The Lord&rsquo;s comment that He had not come to <i>destroy </i>men&rsquo;s <i>lives</i> but to <i>save</i> them (Lk. 9:56) must surely be connected with what He has just said: Whosoever will <i>save</i> his<i> life </i>shall <i>lose</i> s.w. <i>destroy</i> it and vice versa (Lk. 9:24,25). The three words <i>save, life, lose / destroy </i>are all the same. There is surely a connection of thought here. But what is the Lord saying through it? The disciples like Elijah would have had their prayers heard- the fire of destruction could have come. But the Lord says that they don&rsquo;t know the type of spirit they are of. His Spirit is one of saving and not destruction. Men destroy <i>themselves </i>by seeking to save themselves without Him. This is why the Lord could say that He Himself judged / condemned no man- each rejected man will have condemned himself. The same point is actually made within the Elijah story too. In 1 Kings 18:28 the prophets of Baal worshipped <i>after their manner</i>- a Hebrew word normally translated 296 times &ldquo;judgment&rdquo;; they judged / condemned themselves, rather than needing Elijah to do so. And the word translated &ldquo;cut&rdquo; essentially means to gather. They gathered themselves together to condemnation and poured out their own blood. &ldquo;Knives and lancets&rdquo; is a phrase normally translated &ldquo;swords and spears&rdquo;. They lived out judgment upon themselves rather than Elijah needing to condemn them.&nbsp; Elijah like the disciples thought that he was the judge on God&rsquo;s behalf, and that he was justified in calling down fire, evocative as that was of the way God Himself judges sinners. But Jesus puts it all another way- our focus, if we have His spirit, should be on saving people by getting them to destroy / lose their own fleshly lives through following Him. Jn. 12:25,26 makes the same point- he who loves his life <i>loses / destroys</i> it, but he who picks up the cross and follows Jesus will <i>save</i> it. Our absolute focus must be on the salvation of others through helping them condemn / destroy / lose themselves for the Lord&rsquo;s sake; and we achieve this by following Jesus in the life of the cross, not by destroying others ourselves. The Lord came to save not destroy; to save the lost / destroyed (Lk. 6:9; 19:10- the same words are used; note how this theme is developed specifically by Luke). But He did this through getting people to destroy their lives. And He begged- and begs- His followers to have His spirit / attitude in all this. And His point was that Elijah didn&rsquo;t have His Spirit. Note that God worked with Elijah- He heard his prayers. Elijah like the disciples had the Spirit, the power that God was willing to let them have; and yet the Spirit of Jesus is more than raw power. And so it could be said of us, that we so often know not what manner of spirit we are of. We may be correctly reflecting the judgment of God, we may have Biblical justification for the hard line we adopt; but this doesn&rsquo;t mean that we fully have the spirit of Christ. Yet as with Elijah, the fact our prayers are heard, that Scripture appears to back us, can make us blind to such&nbsp;major insufficiencies in our spirituality. We have a choice in how we respond to others&rsquo; weakness; there are different levels of response. If thy brother sin against thee, the Lord said- we can ultimately take others with us and then treat him as a Gentile or tax collector. But He continues- if our brother sin against us, we should forgive to an unlimited extent. This is the higher level of response to your brother&rsquo;s weakness. Elijah and the disciples took the first of those options, as many of us do; but in doing so we so easily forget what manner of spirit we are of; for we are to be of the spirit of Christ, not Elijah. And His attitude / spirit was most definitely to save rather than to destroy, to share table fellowship rather than disassociate... See on Lk. 12:49-54.</p>