THE BIBLE AND SPIRITUALISM.
A LEADING Spiritualist paper has the following:— The only essential part of Spiritualism is the belief that the so-called dead can communicate with the living and really do so—the rest is accessory and may be admitted or not. Now, if there is anything in the Bible which is positively taught it is that part of Spiritualism. It teaches that the spirits of “the dead” return and manifest themselves to the living; it teaches clairvoyance in the ecstatic state; it teaches of healing by the spirit and finally the materialization of spirits. And indeed certain Spiritualists allege that the Bible is filled with Spiritualism and if you were to suppress this there would be nothing remaining but the covers of the Bible. Without going so far as this, we say that the Bible contains a great proportion of Spiritualism, and surely those who believe as the orthodox do, that the Bible is the word of God addressed to man, would be forced to become Spiritualists. Take in the first place the Old Testament and see what a role the angels play in their descent upon the earth. Angels came to the side of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah. An angel saved Hagar and Ishmael, her child, in the desert. Now right here is where Spiritualists entirely misapprehend the entire question. The Bible does teach spirit communication, or, as we prefer to state it, ministration of angels, but the spirits are not the spirits “of the dead.” Angels, whether good or evil, for there are both, are not dead people. They are a distinct order of beings, and existed before man and the earth were created, before man sinned or a soul died. See Job 38:4-7; Gen. 3:24. Some of these spiritual beings, led by Lucifer, “kept not their first estate,” and they are those which come to us in the guise of the dead to deceive. These in all past paganism have deified, deceived, deluded, and blinded millions to their own doom. The Bible clearly intimates that those who worship the dead, or engage in supposed ancestral worship, worship devils and not God. See Ps. 106:28, 36, 37; 1 Cor. 10:20. Against these deceptions God expressly warns his people and has ever warned them. See 1 Tim. 4:1-3; Rev. 16:13, 14; 2 Thess. 2:9; Deut. 18:9-11. Saul, the rejected king, failed to heed God’s warning and was deceived by the demon which came in the guise of Samuel. That so-called “orthodox” people will inevitably do one of two things is evident. If they hold to the soul’s immortality and its conscious existence apart from the body, they will eventually become Spiritualists, and in fact many are already; though they deny the name, they hold the essential belief, and will inevitably be led to reject the religion of Christ for the religion of self. But if the Bible doctrine of man’s nature be accepted in truth, Modern Spiritualism must surely be rejected. The whole doctrine is based on one utterance and one motive. The utterance is Satan’s falsehood, “Ye shall not surely die.” The motive is thoroughly selfish, “Ye shall be as God.” Gen. 3:4, Revised Version. This was the motive that actuated Satan in his rebellion against God. He said: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, . . . . I will be like the Most High.” Isa. 14:13, 14. It is by the same devilish ambition instilled into the hearts of men, the same principle of selfishness, that he has brought all the evil, woe, misery, and death into the world. It is by that first falsehood that every false system of religion, from the ancient sun worship to Roman Catholicism, has lived and does live to-day. It exalts man to deceive him. It dethrones, as far as wish can do, God, and exalts Satan and self in his place. But the opposite exalts God and Christ Jesus, who revealed God as the One above all others, the Source of all good, of all life, of all righteousness, of all felicity and blessedness; and all these he will freely impart to him who simply trusts. He is “the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE.”