James H. Cagle
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you” (Acts 1: 8 KJV).
There are only two ghosts mentioned in the Scriptures. The first is the Holy Ghost, often referred to as the Holy Spirit. The Third personal Distinction, and commonly termed “Person” in the Divine Trinity: the Comforter; the Advocate, and the Paraclete.
The second one referred to in Scripture is the “ghost” which man was given by God at his creation (Gen. 2: 7), and which he gives up at death, and which eventually stands before God to be judged. This “ghost” is synonymous with “spirit” and “soul.”
Many people are saying that they’re seeing ghosts. By that, they mean that they are seeing the disembodied spirit of a dead person appearing among the living as an apparition or phantom.
The Bibles does say that when a person dies that they “give up the ghost.” When Abraham died, he “gave up the ghost” (Gen. 25:8). When Jesus died on Calvary, he “gave up the ghost” (Jn. 19: 30). When Ananias and Sapphira died they gave up the ghost (Acts 5: 5, 10). When a person dies they give up the ghost or breathe their last breath and breathe out their spirit. The idea is that life is independent of the body, and that life is due to the habitation of the ghost or spirit living in the material body. The body is mortal and the soul, immortal.
But are these so-called ghosts that people claim to be seeing the spirits of the departed come back to haunt them? This idea of a ghost being the disembodied spirit of a dead person appearing among the living came about in the 14th century, and now, many are obsessed with the idea of Ghost Hunters and the Paranormal.
According to the Bible, the ghost some people are supposedly seeing are not the spirits or ghosts of those that died. The Bible tells us that when we die, we, that is our soul, our inner man, leaves planet earth and goes to either Heaven or Hell – “But the dead know not any thing (regarding life on planet earth). . . Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun (on earth)” (Ecc.9:5. 6). (See also Ecc.3: 21; Lk.16: 19-31; 2 Cor. 5: 8). So, if according to God’s limits, boundaries, and order, it’s impossible for the spirits of the departed dead to remain on planet earth then how do we explain this phenomena?
Walter Martin attributes the activity of these supposedly ghost of the dead to the work of Poltergeist (demons masquerading as human spirits). He says, “They’re usually imaginative in creating their manifestations: they slam doors, walk up steps, throw objects around a room, moan, cry, touch people, and materialize as dark clouds, red eyes, figures, or colorful orbs of moving light. If they succeed in catching someone’s attention, they often speak to the targeted individual audibly . . . In some cases, foul smells or ice-cold temperatures manifest along with other phenomena.”
And why do demons do this work of impersonating a departed soul? So that they may keep men deceived and distracted from the truth, until it’s too late for them to think about Jesus Christ and their soul’s salvation.
