In recent years we have witnessed an explosion of interest in religion, magic, the occult, astrology, and the paranormal. Men and women, finding themselves in a spiritual vacuum, are searching, sometimes in desperation, for some kind of spiritual experience which has been denied them by discredited materialistic philosophies. And yet, precisely because the search is sometimes so desperate, there is real danger of exploitation and fraud. For this reason Luke’s next story is of great interest, for it shows us how to distinguish the false from the true.
Luke relates an encounter in Samaria between the Christian evangelist, Philip, and a certain man, Simon, whom Luke describes as practising a form of magic. Exactly what form of magic he practised, Luke does not tell us, but it was obviously very impressive, for the Samaritans were amazed by Simon’s feats and, simply on that ground, felt convinced that his claims were true, and hailed him as ‘the power of God that is called Great’ (Acts 8:10).
[p 40] And many people make a similar mistake nowadays. Because psychic and demonic powers are real (though often accompanied by a lot of superstition and gibberish), they unthinkingly suppose that they are spiritually healthy, and can be relied on to point us to the ultimate truth about God and the universe.
To complicate matters further, Luke tells us that, when Simon heard Philip preach and saw him perform miracles, he professed to believe the gospel and got himself baptized (Acts 8:13). But the sequel showed that he had not repented of his old magic. In fact, he had not even understood the gospel. To him, Christianity was simply another, and more powerful, form of magic, which he was quite happy to add to his repertoire.
This also happens in the modern world. In Mexico, for example, it is well known that many who have had themselves baptized as Christians, unrepentantly continue their pagan and demonic rites. And, unfortunately, at various times in history, Christian missionaries have deliberately assimilated pagan festivals into Christendom’s religious calendar, in order (they claim) to make it easier for pagans to convert to Christianity. That is why, for instance, the local customs which surround the Feast of All Souls in some countries, strikingly resemble the customs practised at the Feast of Hungry Ghosts in places like Malaysia, when people visit the cemeteries and honour the spirits of their departed relatives.
This all raises the question: what, then, is the difference between true Christianity and magic? How can we distinguish the two? Some will say that there is no need to try. Jesus Christ and his apostles, they argue, did [p 41] amazing miracles; so did Simon, and so do certain gurus nowadays. They are, therefore, all the same. Or they argue: Jesus claimed to be the Christ, the Son of God, and based his claim on his miracles; why shouldn’t Simon or some modern guru equally claim to be the embodiment of some god, on the strength of their powers?
To argue like that is to make the mistake of confusing reality and truth. The fact that psychic powers are real, in the sense that they actually exist, does not necessarily mean that they are all healthy. All mushrooms are real; but some of them are deadly poison. Furthermore, the fact that spirits are real and can be contacted, does not mean that they necessarily tell the truth about God and the universe. In the underworld of international intrigue, spies are very real; but they cannot be relied on to tell the truth, except insofar as it furthers their deceit. Similarly, the Bible tells us, not all spirits are loyal to God. Indeed, it warns us not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).
It is in this connection that Luke describes for us the tell-tale signs which eventually exposed the fact that Simon was not a true believer in Christ, and that the kind of religion he represented was false and demonic.
First, there was his fundamentally false concept of the Holy Spirit. Observing that the Holy Spirit was given at9 the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he jumped to the conclusion that the apostles had discovered how to control the Holy Spirit, and could impart the Holy Spirit to [p 42] whomever they wished. His conclusion was false. No man, not even an apostle, could control or impart the Holy Spirit. Only God can do that.
It was natural for Simon to think this way, for this is how all practitioners of magic and spiritism think. They profess to be able to control certain spirits. That is how they acquire their fame and status, for anyone who wishes to benefit from these powers must apply to them and depend on their techniques. So Simon, who doubtless had made a lot of money by his psychic performances, saw the opportunity of making a lot more, and so offered the apostles money to teach him this new technique of controlling and imparting the Holy Spirit.
In offering money to buy power, Simon made his second fundamental error. Luke explains: he thought he could ‘obtain the gift of God with money’. This showed that he had not even begun to understand, let alone accept, the Christian gospel. The gift of the Holy Spirit is an integral part of salvation, and like salvation itself, is an utterly free gift that cannot be bought with money, or earned or merited in any way.10 Simon’s whole concept of God and of salvation was wrong. A spirit, the control of which can be bought for money, is self-evidently not the Holy Spirit of the almighty Creator. And a god who was prepared to give his Holy Spirit only to those who could afford to buy his salvation would obviously not be the God of infinite love, whose Spirit is, in fact, given freely and directly to all who will repent and believe.
[p 43] The third thing that showed Simon to be a fraud was his extravagant claim to be that power of God which is called The Great Power. In the same way, a modern New Age pantheist like Shirley MacLaine not only claims to be in tune with the basic powers of the universe, but asserts ‘I AM THAT I AM’ (which is one way in which the Bible speaks of almighty God himself), and encourages others to follow her techniques, with the hope that they too one day will be able to claim the same thing. This is none other than the Satanic lie whispered into mankind’s ear in the garden of Eden: ‘You will be like God’; but it holds its fatal fascination still.
How different all of this is from Jesus Christ. True, he claimed to be the Son of God, and supported his claim by doing miracles. But of him it is said that
Though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:6–8)
In fact, Jesus is the one who, as Luke is about to remind us in his very next story, fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah by becoming God’s Suffering Servant: the lamb led to the slaughter, and silent before the shearers—the crucified Christ who was wounded for our transgressions, who was bruised for our iniquities, and by whose stripes we are healed (see Isa 53). It is [p 44] by first becoming God’s humble, suffering and redeeming Servant, and then by being raised from the dead—and not simply by doing a few miracles—that Jesus Christ has been demonstrated to be God’s unique Son. Between him and the boasting Simons of this world, there is no comparison.
How, then, did the Samaritans come to be deceived by a man like Simon? The answer is: as a result of their neglect—indeed, their positive rejection—of large parts of the Old Testament. Before Israel entered Canaan, God had warned them that they were not to erect temples all over the land, but only one; and that one, as he subsequently indicated, was to be in Jerusalem. The reason given was that if they offered their sacrifices just anywhere, they would fall victims to the polytheistic superstitions of their Canaanite neighbours.
Now the Samaritans of the first century AD accepted the first five books of the Bible. But, for all kinds of reasons too detailed and complicated to discuss here, they had rejected all the rest; and especially those parts which appointed Jerusalem as the place where God’s temple should be situated, and as the city to which the Messiah would eventually come as king. Instead, they made Samaria the centre of their worship and, in doing so, fell into the snare of polytheistic superstition, as God’s Word had warned them they would.
Now when they heard Philip preach the gospel and they believed it, they were, Luke tells us, filled with joy. But how could they now be sure that Philip was a genuine messenger of God, and not some religious charlatan or emissary of Satan? And how could they be sure that their spiritual experience was genuine, and not just another [p 45] deception propagated by some spurious cult or sect? The answer is simple: to stop people from being deceived, God himself had prepared for the coming of the Christ by predicting in the Old Testament that he would come of the Jewish nation; that Jerusalem would be his capital city; that he would be rejected by his nation and die for the sins of the world just outside Jerusalem; he then would be raised from the dead. And the Saviour whom Philip preached to the Samaritans was precisely this Christ, who fulfilled those Old Testament predictions.
This is why God made the Samaritans submit to the laying on of hands by the apostles from Jerusalem before he gave them his Holy Spirit. This procedure was quite abnormal: people normally received the Holy Spirit the moment they repented and believed, as we see from the famous example in Acts 10. But the Samaritans were a special case. For their own good and assurance, they had to be brought to realize and admit that the only genuine spiritual experience of salvation is that which comes through faith in the gospel that historically was first preached by the Christian apostles from Jerusalem; through faith, that is, in the Christ of God who died for our sins according to the Old Testament Scriptures, was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, just outside the city of Jerusalem.
Still today that remains the indispensable mark of the true gospel, and the only basis of true spiritual experience.
Notes
9 The Greek preposition which Luke uses means not ‘through’ but ‘to the accompaniment of’.
10 See John 4:10; Acts 2:38; Eph 1:13–14; 2:8–9.
English (US) · 