Chapter 2.2 - The mediums

- 41 - As a result of the fact that your translators of the Scriptures have, in countless passages, used the expression: ‘the Holy Spirit’ where the Greek text has ‘a holy spirit’, they have not only caused erroneous interpretations of the passages in question, but they have, above all, caused such confusion regarding the term ‘holy spirit’ as to give rise to the false doctrine that the Holy Spirit is a Divinity. To give you a clear understanding of the spirit and of spirits, so that you may be able to understand the above-mentioned two chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, I shall draw on an example from your worldly life. In the days when your kings were absolute rulers, only the king’s will count in what took place within his dominions. All laws and regulations came from him. In his realm only one will, only one spirit, ruled: the will and the spirit of the king. His servants and officials performed their acts of office subject entirely to his authority, and only according to his will and in his spirit. From this it did not follow that they were obliged to obtain the king’s consent for every individual official act; they had his laws and his general instructions, from which they could decide for themselves what should be done in each individual case. There were, therefore, many people engaged in governing the kingdom, but only one ruler: the king. So, it is also in the Kingdom of God, in which there is only one absolute ruler, whose will is law in all things. That ruler is God – or, as it is sometimes expressed in the Bible, the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit. The other spirits, likewise known as spirits of God or holy spirits, are merely God’s executive agents, His servants and officials. They too have laws and directions, according to which they act. Hence they, too, do not require special instructions from God on every occasion. They all work in the same spirit and under the same convictions, in accordance with God’s will and His spirit. They represent, so to speak, a great governing body composed of many parts that, although individually distinct and independent of each other, are governed as the parts of a whole by the Spirit Who made the spirit world a governing body, and Who has conferred upon it His own authority and power. This is what Paul had in mind when he wrote: I Corinthians 12: 4-6: ‘Now there are diverse granted gifts, but only one Spirit; and there are diverse services, but only one Lord. There are also diverse workings of power, but only one God, who works all things in all.’ Thus when, at the meetings of the Christians in Corinth, one spirit spoke through a medium in a foreign language, a second through another medium in their mother tongue, a third endowed its medium with healing power, and many other spirits worked in other ways, these spirits were not acting at their own discretion or under their own power, but at the will and under the power of the one God, the highest, almighty Spirit. The Corinthians were naturally greatly impressed and astonished whenever a spirit spoke through one of their mediums in a foreign language. They therefore eagerly desired, and included this wish in their prayers, that as many spirits as possible might manifest themselves in this way. Since this wish arose only from human curiosity and love of the sensational, they were reprimanded because of it by Paul, who told them that the workings of the spirits which visited them were for the sole purpose of serving the enlightenment and inner growth of the Christian congregation, and not for fulfilling purely personal desires. What would it profit them spiritually, he asked, if the spirits which came to them spoke in foreign languages? Neither would the medium’s spirit profit therefrom, since

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