WE HAVE MEDITATED on one of the pair of opposites which “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus”—“a power from on high.” We turn to the other: “nor a power from below” (Rom. 8:39 P HILLIPS ). What would fit the description of “a power from below” which could separate us, except spiritualism? That ancient world looked on the abode of the dead as a shadowy world beneath us. Spiritualism turns to the world of the dead for guidance in life now. I do not affirm or deny the possibility of getting in touch with the dead and the dead’s getting in touch with us. I simply do not know. I leave that open to scientific investigation. All I am interested in is the question of whether a power from below can and does separate us from the love of God in Christ, if we give our attention to it. The evidence is heavily on the side that it does separate from Christ those who are devoted to it, or dabble in it. So far as I can see and hear not one new luminous word about human living has ever come through any medium, professional or amateur. Curious incidents and coincidences are cited as proving a connection with the departed, but no new luminous revelation beyond or in addition to what we find in Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. No new moral or spiritual insight has been revealed. It would imply that the moral and spiritual insight of the medium is the determining factor. It is earthbound. If heaven were breaking through to us, it would be something more and different from the usual moral and spiritual piffle. The word of Isaiah is still valid: “And when they say to you, ‘Consult the mediums and the wizards who chirp and mutter,’ should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! Surely for this word which they speak there is no dawn” (8:19–20). The last phrase was true then and true now: “there is no dawn”—no opening light in it!
O Jesus, Thou art the light of this world and that world. Apart from Thee “there is no dawn,” for Thou art the dawn. In Thee all our sunsets turn to sunrises and all our gloom into glow. When we walk in Thy light it is Light. We thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In Jesus there is a perpetual dawn leading to light and only light.
