Modern Spiritualism by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 9, 1879

Modern Spiritualism.

By Editor

(Continued.)

It is objected that this is a cheerless and repulsive view of death. We confess that it is so; but to the objector we say, You are then seeking just what the serpent hypocritically offered, but God denied, namely, a consequence of sin neither cheerless nor repulsive. But this should not be the direction of our investigation. The question is, What is truth? What say the Scriptures? He who prefers a pleasing fable to unpleasant truth may turn at once from God's word to the vagaries and falsities of Spiritualism, where the "carnal mind" will find enough to please it. But we have to deal with facts, not with fancies; and where shall the truth be found? Most certainly with one of three classes:—

First, Those who teach that the soul is immortal, and that death means eternal torment. This involves the idea that part of the human race are now, and have been for thousands of years, suffering unutterable torment; that they will be caused to appear in the Judgment, and then returned to their abode of woe, to suffer on in ever-increasing tortures to all eternity. But this is not only repulsive, but the Bible does not teach it, the penalty of the law does not include it, justice does not demand it, reason does not approve it, nor is there an attribute of God or of his government, as revealed in his word, that requires it; man is not held in check by it, because it is beyond the power of his imagination to reach it. Or,

Secondly, Those who deny a future Judgment, and punishment for sin. But this virtually ignores all government, tramples on justice, tolerates vice, and directly contradicts God's word. Or,

Thirdly, Those who believe that man, in death, rests in unconscious sleep, awaiting the decision of the Judgment; that after that event the righteous will be raised to everlasting life and an inheritance in the kingdom of God; while the wicked, who have rejected the Saviour, and refused to seek for immortality, are judged unworthy of eternal life, and are destroyed by fire, which is the second death. This last view, we believe, is the truth. It accords with the account of the creation and the fall of man, with the psalmist's view of death and the cessation of thought or the powers of the mind, and with the many scriptures that teach our dependence for eternal life on Jesus and the resurrection.

Solomon, comparing the state of the living and the dead, says, "The living know that they shall die," which is the simplest knowledge, deduced from continuous observation; but, simple as it is, it is beyond the power of the dead; for "the dead know not anything." Eccl. 9:5. Hezekiah, king of Judah, praised God for the prolongation of his life, and acknowledged his opportunities to praise on this account. "For," said he, "the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee." Isa. 38:18, 19. But Spiritualism teaches that the dead find more truth than the living. David asks: "Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Ps. 88:11, 12. Well might Isaiah ask even with astonishment, "Should not a nation seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?" when the dead know nothing, and are in the land of forgetfulness.

The word soul in the New Testament is from the Greek word psuche, which occurs 105 times. It is translated soul 58 times; life, 40 times; mind 3 times; heart, twice; us, once; you, once. The originals from which the word soul is translated in the two Testaments occur 850 times, but it is never called immortal; it is in no place intimated that it is of an undying nature; immortality is never predicated of man until the resurrection, and then only of the righteous; it is to be sought for by well-doing. Rom. 2:7.

Nor is the principle of immortality contained in the "breath of life," which was breathed into man. It was strictly and only what the words imply—the breath of life; its effect was to make the man a living man. It is from this term that the word spirit is derived. Its property of vivifying, or giving life, is recognized by the apostle James, who says the body without the spirit is dead. This term is also applied indiscriminately to all living, breathing creatures, in Gen. 7:21, 22; and Solomon expressly declares of men and beasts that "they have all one breath," or spirit. Eccl. 3:19.

Spirit is translated in the Old Testament from two Hebrew words, n'shah-mah and roo-ach. N'shah-mah occurs 24 times, and is translated spirit, twice; breath, 17 times; blast, three times; soul, once; inspiration, once. Roo-ach occurs 442 times, and is translated 16 ways; namely, spirit, 282 times; wind, 97 times; breath, 28 times; mind, 6 times; etc. This word, roo-ach, is used in Ecclesiastes 21 times, and is rendered spirit, 18 times; wind, twice; and breath, once. In the text quoted, "They have all one breath," or spirit, Eccl. 3:19, the same word is translated spirit in the 21st verse, which speaks of the spirit of man and the spirit of the beast. This teaches that "a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast," in death; for they are all of the dust, and all go to the dust, and have all one breath. The difference between men and beasts is shown in life—not in death. How highly, then, should we value the resurrection and Jesus the Life-giver! since all our hopes rest on him.

The equivalent of roo-ach of the Old Testament is pneuma in the Greek of the New Testament. It is also variously translated, as follows: ghost, 92 times; spirit, 291 times; wind, once; life, once—margin, breath; in all, 385 times. Though these words are translated so many different ways, and used with every possible shade of meaning, the idea of immortality, or a continuous conscious existence after death, is never associated with them.

In the Scriptures, life—eternal life, is presented as a subject of hope. Titus 1:2. It is promised by and through Jesus Christ; John 10:28; 3:16; 6:40; 1 John 5:10, 11; and it is to be given at the coming of Christ, in the resurrection. Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; John 5:28, 29; 1 Cor. 15:52-55.

The Scripture truths that we have here presented in brief will give the reader readily to understand that the common—very common phrases, immortal soul, and deathless spirit, are not Bible terms, nor is the idea that they are designed to convey sanctioned by the Bible. To use them as they are used by Spiritualists, and in the current theology of the day, is to give false ideas of fallen humanity, and to rob the gospel of Jesus, the Life-giver, of its prerogatives and glory. The following summary of the writings of Paul on this subject shows the wide difference between the modern views, and the views of the writers of the Scriptures:—

"1. The apostle Paul is the only writer in the whole Bible who makes use of the word immortal or immortality. "2. He never applies it to sinners. "3. He never applies it to either righteous or wicked in this world. "4. He never applies it to men's souls at all, either before or after death. "5. He speaks of it as an attribute of the King Eternal. 1 Tim. 1:17. "6. He declares that He is the only possessor of it. 1 Tim. 6:16. "7. He presents it as an object which men are to seek after by patient continuance in well-doing. Rom. 2:7. "8. He speaks of it as revealed or brought to light (not in heathen philosophy, but) in the gospel of the Son of God. 2 Tim. 1:10. "9. He defines the period when it shall be put on by the saints of God, and fixes it at the resurrection, when Christ who is our life, shall appear. 1 Cor. 15:52, 54; Col. 3:4. "10. Therefore he never taught the immortality of the soul as it is now taught, and hence when he declared that sinners should be destroyed, or perish, or die, or be burned, or devoured by fire, he did so without any 'mental reservations,' or 'theological definitions.' In other words, he said what he meant, and meant what he said."—Pauline Theology.

There are those who will meet this with the cry of "materialism," rather than with argument; and with them materialism is nearly synonymous with infidelity. On this we call the reader's attention to the following extracts from Dr. Chalmers' sermon on the new heavens and earth, which, though very brief, are sufficient to disarm the candid of all prejudice on this subject:—

"The common idea of paradise is that of a lofty aerial region, where the inmates float in ether, or are mysteriously suspended upon nothing, where all the warm and sensible accompaniments which give such an expression of strength and life and coloring to our present world are attenuated into a sort of spiritual element that is meager and imperceptible, and utterly uninviting to the eye of mortals here, where every vestige of materialism is done away, and nothing left but certainly unearthly scenes that have no power of allurement, and certain unearthly ecstacies with which it is impossible to sympathize. "The holders of this imagination forget all the while that really there is no essential connection between materialism and sin; that the world which we now inhabit had all the amplitude and solidity of its present materialism before sin entered into it; that God so far on that account from looking slightly upon it after it had received the last touch of his creating hand, reviewed the earth and all the green herbage, with the living creatures and the man whom he had raised in dominion over them, and he saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. "They forget all the while that on the birth of materialism, when it stood out in the freshest of those glories which the great Architect of nature had impressed upon it, the 'morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.' "They forget the appeals that are made everywhere in the Bible to this material workmanship, and how from the face of these visible heavens, and the garniture of this earth upon which we tread, the greatness and goodness of God are reflected on the view of his worshipers. "No, the object of the administration we are under is to extirpate sin, but not to sweep away materialism; the fires of the last day may melt its solid elements until they are utterly dissolved, but out of the ruins of this second chaos another earth will arise, a new materialism in beauty and magnificence, a 'new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.'"

The unreliability of the spirits, and the certain tendency of their teachings, are further shown by the following statement, which we believe is fully justified by the Scriptures:—

THEY ARE THE SPIRITS OF DEVILS. WE here use the term devil as it is commonly used, but would call attention to the following statement of Dr. Ramsey, of Philadelphia:— "The word Daimon in the New Testament is usually rendered by one word, devil. But this is evidently improper, as it would lead us to believe that there are many devils, whereas there is and can be but one. . . . Daimon in the New Testament always means an evil spirit, who is under Satan's control; a demon." Again, concerning the distinction between the demons and the devil, or Satan, we quote:— "The word Satan means an adversary, the opposer. It is never found in the plural number, so that the sacred writers acknowledge but one being of that name. He is styled by our Lord, 'The prince of this world;' John 14:30; by the apostle, 'The prince of the power of the air;' Eph. 2:2; and by the Jews, 'The prince of the demons,' Matt. 9:34; the septuagint translates the word Satan by the word Diabolus, which means an accuser, a slanderer. He is also called in the New Testament by a variety of names, indicative of his character and conduct, as accuser, destroyer, liar, murderer, etc." That the devil was not of human origin, as many now contend, we think is evident from the fact that he was the deceiver of our first parents. He is called, in the Scriptures, "that old serpent." Rev. 20. The apostle John says that "he that committeth sin is of the devil;" and that Cain, who slew his brother, "was of that wicked one." 1 John 3:8, 12. Thus it appears that the first transgressors, even the members of the human race, were deceived by him, and of course he was a deceiver, a liar, and, in heart, a murderer, before there was any sin in the human race. The Saviour teaches the same thing in the parable of the wheat and the tares. He says, "The tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil."

N. P. Tallmadge, in his "Reply to Count Gasparin," published in the Spiritual Telegraph, says:— "There is, therefore, one place of refuge left to him, and that is the one now taken by some of our evangelical clergy, namely, that all these manifestations come from the devil, or from evil spirits. When ministers come to this conclusion, I think they are in a very hopeful way. I then have no difficulty with them; for they cannot long make their congregations believe that a wise and benevolent God has established a law of spiritual intercourse by which the bad alone, and not the good, can communicate."

In this, Gov. T. labors under the same fatal error that seems to enshroud all Spiritualists, namely, supposing that whatever occurs is according to God's will, and in harmony with his laws. This, Dr. Hare openly avows, and on no other hypothesis can we find a place for the above declaration of Mr. Tallmadge.

EDITOR. (To be continued.)