TEACHING OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES

THE previous chapter showed us something of the obstinate and determined antagonism of the spiritists, the sorcerers and the magicians toward the Christian apostles. But the latter met it by their inspired writings, as well as by their spoken words and the wonders and signs they wrought in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I

One of the first in the order of the books of the New Testament and one of the best known of the written words of Paul, is that in the tenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, where he says:

"The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons.

"Ye can not drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; ye can not be partakers of the Lord's table, and the table of demons.

"Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?"

The actual existence of demons is here implied if not positively stated, as well as their actual worship by the benighted pagans. But what is more to the point so far as Christian believers are concerned, is the temptation to affiliate with such worshippers, an affiliation cutting off from communication with the true God.

And more than that, it not only severs communion, but exposes believers to the divine chastisement as implied in the words, "Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?" That is, will we attempt to resist His will and openly bring His honor into contempt?

The words denote the strong displeasure in consequence of adulterous love. The fiercest of all human passions is used to illustrate the hatred of God towards idolatry, and spiritist séances come dangerously near idolatry.

There is a curious passage in the eleventh chapter of the same epistle which has puzzled commentators. It is where Paul is instructing women how to behave themselves in the assemblies of worship:

"Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

"For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels."

One of the commentators consulted in the preparation of this chapter, added, "for some remarkable Oriental illustrations of the interpretation that evil angels are here meant, see Dean Stanley on this verse."

An examination of Dean Stanley, with whose commentary the present writer had not previously been particularly acquainted, revealed that he favored the view of Kurtz, Maitland, Fleming and others as to the Angel interpretation of Genesis VI. referred to in previous chapters; and that he connected this admonition of Paul with the extraordinary event there named.

His words, in part, follow, and are given somewhat at length because of their bearing on what has gone before:

"The apostle had dwelt on the necessity of this subordination, as shown in all the passages in the early chapters of Genesis, where the relation of the sexes is described, viz. Gen. 1.26, ii. 18, 23, iii. 16.

"The mention of these passages may have carried on his thoughts to the next and only kindred passage in Gen. vi. 2, 4, in which those relations are described as subverted by the union of the daughters of men with the sons of God, -- in the version of the LXX. the angels.

"In this case the sense would be In this subordination of the woman to man, we find the reason of the custom, which, in consequence of the sin of the angels, enjoins that the woman ought not to part with the sign that she is subject, not to them, but to her husband. The authority of the husband is, as it were, enthroned visibly upon her head, in token that she belongs to him alone, and that she owes no allegiance to any one besides, not even to the angels who stand before the throne of God.'

"The 'fall of the angels' thus spoken of is the same as that indicated in Jude 6, 2 Pet. ii. 4, where the context shows that the fall there intended is supposed to be at the time not of the creation, but of the Deluge, not from pride but lust.

"It is possible that, if the words 'on account of the angels' be so taken, the word 'power' might be understood, not as the sign of the husband's power over the woman, but (in the sense most agreeable to the usage of the word itself) as the sign of the power or dignity of the woman over herself, protecting her from the intrusion of spirits, whether good or evil. In that case compare its use in vii. 37.

"Finally, we must ask why a train of argument, otherwise simple, should be thus abruptly interrupted by allusions difficult in themselves, and rendered still more so by their conciseness?

"The most natural explanation seems to be that he was led by a train of association familiar to his readers, but lost to us. Such is the allusion in 2 Thess. ii. 5, 6, 'Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth,' etc.

"An argument in their letter, a conversation, a custom to which he had before alluded, would account not only for the introduction of the passage, but for allusions which, as addressed merely to a local or transitory occasion, might well be couched in terms so obscure as to forbid in effect, if not in design, any certain or permanent inference from them for future ages.

"The difficulty of the text is, in fact, the safeguard against its misuse."

This church to which it was necessary to say so much about evil spirits, was one which, perhaps more than any other, had abused the spiritual gifts bestowed upon it by the Holy Spirit for the propagation of the Gospel. Hence the large place given to spiritual gifts in this epistle, covering chapters XII-XIV.

These chapters challenge the most prayerful consideration in connection with our theme, touching as they do, the source of such gifts (XII. 4-6); their nature ( 7- 11 ); their object and use (12-31); the cause of their abuse (XIII. 1-13); the preference among them, and why (XIV. 1-25); the manner in which they are to be publicly exercised (26-35) y an( i indeed everything else required for their wise and holy employment in the blessing of men and the extension of the knowledge of the true God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

II

Galatians comes next in order after Corinthians with its warning against idolatry and sorcery (V. 20) placing them alongside of adultery, fornication and all uncleanness in the catalogue of the works of the flesh. "Idolatry is the open recognition of false gods," says Lightfoot, "and sorcery the secret tampering with the powers of evil." They are like the two halves of one whole. "They which do (practice R.V.) such things," the apostle admonishes, "shall not inherit the Kingdom of God" (21).

It is not said, "they that do such things daily," for even though one does any such thing even only once, voluntarily, he forfeits the the kingdom of God as long as he remains under the dominion of that work of the flesh. -- Starke.

A plainer and more fearful notice of danger to the necromancers of the present day it would be impossible to put into words.

Ill

Paul's letter to the Ephesians follows with a revelation of the conflict in which Christian believers are engaged in this matter, together with a description of the protection to be taken and the weapon to be used for victory and the assurance of its attainment if the command be obeyed.

Beginning with the tenth verse of the sixth chapter, he says:

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkless of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

"Wrestle" indicates a personal encounter, a contest of life and death. But it is not one with "flesh and blood"; it is not against humanity viewed in its palpable characteristics that we wrestle, but with spirits high in rank and position. As Dr. Eadie says, "it is no vulgar herd of fiends we encounter, but such of them as are darkly eminent in place and dignity."

Moreover they are "the rulers of the darkness of this world," those which in some way, and for some reason, "have acquired a special domination on earth, out of which they are loath to be dislodged." This "darkness," to quote him further, is that "spiritual obscurity which so painfully environs the church -- that zone which surrounds an unbelieving world with an ominous and lowering shadow." No wonder we should take unto us "the whole armour of God," not a part, but the whole.

Dropping the figures which Paul uses in the subsequent verses, the protection and the weapon that he names and which we all need, are truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the Word of God and prayer.

"Truth" here is subjective, it is "the assured conviction that we believe and that it is God's truth that we believe." The intimate dealing of truth with the soul, "the affections and judgment braced up to Christ and the things of Christ."

The "righteousness" also is subjective. It is not the imputed righteousness of Christ, and which is presupposed as the possession of the believer, but the practical every day righteousness growing out of it, the "good conscience" which Peter repeatedly urges upon those to whom he writes.

The same is true of "peace". It is peace as an experience, the effect of maintaining a good conscience. The Christian warrior moves as the battle shifts, and his continued preparedness for action, his feet shod, depends on that serenity of heart which nothing perplexes or disconcerts.

"Faith" in God and His grace is needed also to "guard the mind from aberration and despondency, and ward off the assaults that are made upon it."

"Salvation" in this instance means the conscious possession, the knowledge of safety, the conviction of pardon and sanctification. He who thus knows that he has passed from death unto life is one whose "head is covered in the day of battle."

As "the helmet of salvation" crowns the various parts of the armor, so there comes after it no reference to any further means of defence, which is quite complete, but a revelation of the instrument of offensive energy against the adversary, "the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God."

And then the hidden spring of power without which nothing avails, "praying always." But always in the Spirit, i.e. the Holy Spirit, in His exciting and assisting influence (Romans VIII. 26, Jude 20). "And watching thereunto," watching for these very things thus specified to be realized in us, and in "all the saints."

IV

We pause in Colossians to point out its teaching concerning evil spirits in their relation to the Person and work of Christ in our redemption (chapter II. 13-15).

We who were "dead in trespasses and sins" have been quickened together with Him Who blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His Cross;

"And having spoiled principalities and powers He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it",

i.e. in His cross.

Nicholson (Oneness With Christ) renders it: "Stripping off and away from Himself the principalities and powers, He made a show of them boldly, leading them in triumph in it."

The evil principalities and powers are here meant of course, the same as in Ephesians VI. 12. They seized on Christ's human nature, which, though without sin, had infirmities, as we saw illustrated in the wilderness temptation, and the agony of Gethsemane as well as Calvary. But His victory was complete, for the powers of evil which had thus clung to Him were turned off and cast away forever by His death and resurrection.

And yet there is a higher or, if you please, a deeper view to be taken of this truth. The evil principalities and powers attacked our Lord on His spiritual side as well.

Satan did this in the wilderness, in seeking to keep Him from the cross by offering Him "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" if he would fall down and worship him (Matthew IV). And the same temptation came to Him from the same source at other times and in other ways. When Peter sought to dissuade Him from going up to Jerusalem to be killed was such a time (Matthew XVI. 21 ), and when the Greeks desired to see Him at the feast, and learning of it, He exclaimed, "Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour." John XII. 27.)

But He was not rebellious, neither turned He away backward. He set His face like a flint and He knew that He should not be ashamed (Isa. L). He died, but He arose again. So pleasing to His Father was the substitution of Himself for sinners and so absolute and glorious His defeat of the dire purposes of Satan, sin, death and all the powers of darkness, that the cross itself became the victor's car.

To quote Bishop Wilson in his Lectures on Colossians,

"At the very moment when Satan and the Jews conceived that they had accomplished their hellish purpose; when Christ and His new religion seemed crushed at a blow; when the efforts of the evil one which had succeeded against the first Adam appeared to succeed against the Second Adam; when the sun veiled in darkness might be thought to symbolize the destruction of man's expectations of redemption excited during 4,000 years -- at that very instant, behold the triumph!

"The law fulfilled; God's moral government vindicated; death robbed of its prey; Satan dethroned from his usurped position; principalities and powers led in procession as captives, and a show openly made of them before a rescued world!"

Where, then, are the inventions and follies of men? Where the worship of principalities and powers? Do not spiritists see the peril of the company they keep, and do not Christians rejoice in the comfort and protection of that Mighty One on Whom help has been laid, and under the shadow of Whose wings they have come to trust?

V

In his first epistle to the Thessalonians (II. 18), Paul charges the devil by name as the opposer of his work, in a passage parallel to that of the inspired Chronicler "and Satan stood up against Israel" (I Chron. XXL 1).

The Apostle had endeavored to go back from Athens to visit the afflicted brethren at Thessalonica, "but Satan hindered us." The hindrance exhibits itself to the reader of Acts 17 as the persecuting Jews, but the spiritually illumined Apostle sees not "flesh and blood," but "the rulers of the darkness of this world," Satan and the evil angels whom he directs. He also was the tempter of the Thessalonian Christians themselves, in whom, because of their tribulation, there was danger that Paul's labor might be in vain.

This leads up to the larger consideration of the occult powers in the second epistle, where at the second chapter, the writer is dealing with the apostasy already at work in the Church, and the development of that wicked or lawless one (the Antichrist).

This being is identified as one

"Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power, and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that are perishing because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved."

These "lying wonders" are so called, not because they are not real wonders which Satan and his emissaries are able to do, but because they are done in the interest of and to bolster up a lie. Their seriousness lies in the fact that they are wrought "with all deceit of unrighteousness." But note that it is only "them that are perishing" (R.V.) on whom the deceit works, them that have "not the love of the truth that they might be saved."

The "truth" means of course, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and as the present writer has sought to show in his Antidote to Christian Science, there is a difference between receiving the truth and receiving the love of it. A man who marries a woman without loving her is soon seeking a divorce, and he who knows the truth in his head, but has never given it lodgment in his heart, is not difficult to lead into error.

But the momentous feature of this is that, as the subsequent verses in the chapter show, because men receive not the love of the truth God sends upon them as a judgment, a "working of error," a "strong delusion that they should believe a lie." It is not merely that God permits such a delusion to come upon them, but that He sends it as the mighty act of a Judge punishing evil by evil.

Not to believe the truth of the gospel is sin, and not to receive the love of it after knowing it is still deeper sin; but to be obliged to believe a lie in consequence of it is retribution unspeakable. The Greek in this case might be translated "THE lie," as the idea is not merely a single lie, but the entire force of lies, the entire element of the devilish perversion of all truth (Auberlen in loco).

VI

The last of the Pauline utterances on the subject of which we shall now treat is in I Timothy IV., and is distinguished from all the preceding as a prediction of the increase of demoniacal influence in the latter days, upon which many students of the Bible consider that we are now entering. The passage is part of that which concludes the preceding chapter, and we quote it with that context:

"And, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness; God (or 'He, Who', R.V.) was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

"Now (or 'But', R.V.) the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons;

"Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

"Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth."

The key to the interpretation of this remarkable passage is the words, "depart from the faith." The object, or more properly, the essence of the faith is that great Mystery of the Lord Jesus Christ spoken of in the first verse quoted, and which is at once the source and the support of all real godliness.

The departure from the faith, the apostasy as it is described in II. Thessalonians 2, is to commence with a waning faith in Christ, His Person and His work, as set forth in the Scriptures. As Pember says, "it is not necessarily a total denial of Him, but it begins with incredulity as to the miraculous circumstances of His past advent, and so gradually obscures the only source and centre of every godly aspiration. " In other words, it is precisely what we are witnessing today throughout Christendom, and which furnishes a reason, in part, for believing that these are the "latter times."

The "latter times" do not mean the end of the world by any means, but the end of the present age, or dispensation, when God has been dealing in grace with sinners, and offering them a free salvation through His Son.

"The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith." The Holy Spirit is meant in this case, Who spoke expressly, or plainly, in the Old Testament prophets, through Jesus Christ Himself, and also by Paul (Daniel VII. 25; VIII. 23; Matthew XXIV. 1124; 2 Thess. II. 3).

What the Spirit says is that in the latter times some will "depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons." These "spirits" would be working in and through the heretical teachers, and their doctrine, or teaching, would be that of demons, Satan's ministers.

They would speak "lies in hypocrisy" or through the hypocrisy of lying teachers, the feigned sanctity of the seducers or deceivers, "having their own conscience seared." That is to say, "austerity would gain for them a show of sanctity while preaching false doctrine," they would professedly be leading others to holiness while their own conscience was defiled. It would be seared as with a hot iron, cauterized, the effect of which is to produce insensibility.

In the words of Canon Faussett, "sensuality leads to false spiritualism," hence these hypocritical teachers would make moral perfection consist in abstinence from outward things, chiefly two, "forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats."

"From these last particulars," says Pember, "many have endeavored to fasten this prophecy upon the Church of Rome, because she forbids her priests to marry, and has set apart days for fasting. But Paul teaches that those of whom he speaks would receive their doctrines from wandering spirits, for the word "seducing" is capable of that rendering (compare Job I. 7; II. 2; Matthew XII. 43)."

Moreover the prohibition of marriage in this case is general, not limited to "priests" or Christian ministers, apparently an entire repudiation of God's ordinance; while the command to abstain from meats, likewise means a total, not an occasional or periodical, abstinence from certain kinds of food, of which more later on.

Meanwhile, a further remark of Canon Faussett is pertinent, viz., that "Rome's Judaizing elements will ultimately be combined with the open, worldly-wise anti-Christianity of the false prophet or beast" (VI. 20, 21; Rev. XIII. 12-15). In Spiritism instructing demons are sometimes introduced with flaming crosses in their hands, and its doctrine of the seven spheres closely approaches the Romish teaching about Purgatory.

Indeed Spiritism is nothing but a revival of the influence which originated Paganism, while Romanism as a system though it contains much truth, is only Paganism under a veil, so that the ultimate amalgamation of the two presents no insuperable difficulty.

It remains to mention that Spiritism meets the two-fold prediction, "forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats.'' It propagates the first by the prohibition of marriage altogether, and also by "strange doctrines of elective affinities and spiritual alliances, which tend to an utter rejection of marriage as ordained by God."

As to the second, it has always been recognized that abstinence from a flesh diet is indispensable to great mediumistic power, to say nothing of the doctrine of transmigration of souls which, from being a tenet of Theosophy, is now finding favor with the Spiritistic school.