Secondly, the conclusion is apparent that this was only a manifestation of ancient necromancy, sorcery, witchcraft, or spiritualism; a wholesale deception palmed off upon his dupes by the devil in disguise. Between the ancient and modern there is this difference: Then he had to pretend to bring up the dead from the ground; for the people then believed that the dead were in the lower regions of the earth: now he brings them down from the upper spheres; for the prevailing belief now is that those regions are populous with the conscious spirits of the departed.
Let no one then appeal to the workings of the witch of Endor to prove the immortality of the soul, unless he is prepared to claim openly that the Bible is a fiction, that ancient necromancy was a divine practice, and that modern spiritualism with all its godless blasphemies and its reeking corruptions is the only reliable oracle of truth and purity.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE TRANSFIGURATION. MATT. 17:1-9.
When our Lord was transfigured, on a high mountain of Galilee, before Peter and James and John, there appeared with him two other glorified personages, talking with him. These, the inspired narrator says, were Moses and Elias, as the disciples understood them to be. Luke 9:30-33.
With what pleasure does the immaterialist meet with an account of any manifestation or action on the part of those who have long been dead; it has so specious an appearance of sustaining his views, or at least of furnishing him ground for an argument; for, says he, the person was dead, and this manifestation was by his conscious spirit or immortal soul.
So far as the case of Elias is concerned, as he appeared at the transfiguration, it affords that theory no benefit; for he, being translated, never saw death, and so could appear in the body with which he ascended. This is conceded by all; and for this reason his case is never put in as a witness on this question, except by those who are so unfamiliar with the record as to suppose that he, too, once died, and here appeared as a disembodied spirit.
But with Moses the case is different; for we have in the Bible a plain account of his death and burial; yet here he appeared on the mount, alive, active, and conscious; for he talked with Christ. And so with an air of triumph, perhaps sincere, Landis asks (p. 181), “What then have our opponents to say to this argument? for they must meet it or renounce their theory.”
Were we Sadducees, denying the resurrection, and any future life beyond the grave, this case would lie as an insuperable barrier across our pathway; but so long as the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is taught in the Bible, the incident is not necessarily against those who deny the existence of any such thing as a conscious, disembodied human spirit, since the presence of Moses on the mount can be accounted for otherwise than through such a medium.
This scene was either a representation, made to pass before the minds of the disciples, or it was a reality as it appeared. The view that it was merely a representation receives some countenance from the fact that it is called a vision. “Tell the vision to no man,” said Christ; and, while the word, vision, is sometimes applied to real appearances, as in Luke 24:43, it also is taken to represent things that do not yet exist, as in John’s vision of the new heavens and new earth. Again, Luke says that they (Moses and Elias) “appeared in glory.” Our Lord himself has not yet attained unto the full measure of glory that is to result to him from his work of redemption, 1 Pet. 1:11; Isa. 53:11; and it may well be doubted likewise if any of his followers have reached their full state of glory. If, then, the expression quoted from Luke refers to the future perfected glory of the redeemed, we have another evidence that this was only a representation, like John’s visions of future scenes of bliss, and not then a reality. But, if this was only a vision, no argument can be drawn from it for the intermediate existence of the soul; for, in that case, Moses and Elias need not have been even immaterially present.
But let us consider it a reality. Then the presence of Moses can be accounted for by supposing his resurrection from the dead. Against this hypothesis our opponents have nothing to offer but their own assertions; and they seem determined to make up in the amount of this commodity what it lacks in conclusiveness. Thus Landis says, “Moses had died and was buried, and as his body had never been raised from the dead, he of course appeared as a disembodied spirit.” And Luther Lee says, “So far as Moses is concerned, the argument is conclusive.” But against these authorities, we bring forth another on the other side, as weighty, at least, as both of them together. Dr. Adam Clarke says, on the same passage, “The body of Moses was probably raised again, as a pledge of the resurrection.”