ANNOUNCER: We’ve been talking about King Saul a little bit this week. Another one of his unfortunate decisions after being cut off from the prophets and wanting to hear a word from the Lord, was to go to the medium at Endor to try to contact dead Samuel. The witch gets a surprise and we get to learn a lot from this incident. Thank you for joining us again, friend, on Grace in Focus, which comes to you from the Grace Evangelical Society. Our office is in North Texas and our website is faithalone.org. And when you come to that website, make sure and stop by our store, see all the books that we have to offer, and a few free ebooks as well. Our newly published first volume of our Old Testament commentary is available. You will want to have it. And by the way, each May for the next two years, we will be subsequently publishing volume 2 and volume 3. Also at the store, Bob Wilkin’s most recent book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege. And on our website, you can also find a way to donate, if you so choose, to our ministry. We do appreciate that. It’s faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s discussion, here is Bob Wilkin along with Philippe Sterling. 

BOB: Well, Philippe, one of the more unusual passages in the Old Testament, and certainly one of the more unusual passages in 1 Samuel, is when King Saul is cut off from the prophets. God isn’t sending him any more prophets. And so he goes to a medium called the witch at Endor, because he wants to talk to Samuel, who has died. And so he wants the witch to bring up Samuel. 

PHILIPPE: This will be chapter 28 of 1 Samuel. And we can start the discussion with verse 10. And that’s where Saul makes the request. “And Saul swore to her about the Lord saying, as the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing. Then the woman said, whom shall I bring up for you? And he said, bring up Samuel.” 

BOB: Now, we probably should understand that this woman is a charlatan. She doesn’t really bring up anybody from the dead, because when somebody actually comes up from the dead, she’s shocked. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, she cries out. Verse 12 says, “When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice.” She’s fearful now because she recognizes that this is Saul. Now, and Saul says, “Do not be afraid,” and actually asks her to describe, what are you seeing? “What did you see? And the woman said to Saul, I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.” So this is a spirit that made his way through the layers of the earth. “So he said to her, what is his form?” So the spirit apparently has a form. “And she said, an old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel.” 

He recognizes Samuel. “He stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down. Now, Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me?” And then he also says, “I’m deeply distressed.” God is not speaking to me to prophets or by dreams. Therefore, I have called you that you may reveal to me what I should do. 

BOB: So his desire is right. He wants a word from the Lord. He knows or at least he thinks Samuel still has the ability to give him a word from the Lord. 

PHILIPPE: And then Samuel, of course, goes on to again summarize everything, that God had torn the kingdom from his hand. And then Samuel says something interesting to him, I think verse 19 says, “Tomorrow, you and your sons will be with me.” 

BOB: That means in Sheol. Sheol is the place of the dead. I don’t think we should make the case that this proves they were born again, although they were. But because “with me” would be, you’ll be in like, for example, when David’s son with Bathsheba dies, he can’t come to me, but I can go to him. And people say, well, that proves that the boy was regenerate. No, I don’t think it proves the boy is regenerate. He’s saying, I’m going to the place of the dead, just like he is. Now in Old Testament thought as well as New Testament thought, a baby that dies is not eternally condemned. But they’re also not given eternal life either, so I would assume that the child is there, but 

PHILIPPE: Awaiting whatever is there and perhaps will be in the kingdom, and might believe in the Millennium. 

BOB: But here when he says, you’ll be with me, he is saying in Sheol. And I believe if you go to Luke 16, there’s two parts, right? You got the part, this air-conditioned part where Abraham and Samuel are and all of the Old Testament believers. And then you’ve got the place of torment where the rich man was in Luke 16:19-31. So he’s prophesying here. So God is still, this is pretty remarkable, right? Here’s a dead man prophesying.

PHILIPPE: Yes. And having knowledge of what is going on in some facet.

BOB: Because the Spirit of God is still working through Samuel, right? So what else does he say? And he’s not just, “Saul will be with me”, but his sons too.

PHILIPPE: And we know that Jonathan and other sons were killed and suffered a great defeat. But I think that does give us insight concerning what happens after death for the believing and perhaps the unbelieving, their portion of Sheol. But what do you see there about Samuel?

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PHILIPPE: What do you see there about Samuel? He has a form. 

BOB: Well, he has some sort of intermediate body. He’s not yet been raised from the dead. So we can’t take this as his glorified body, but he looks like Samuel, right? 

PHILIPPE: Saul immediately recognizes him and bows down before him. 

BOB: Now, I don’t think we can infer from this that at whatever age a person dies, that’s the age their glorified body will be or even that that’s necessarily the age that their intermediate body will be maybe. I think what we can infer is this is what Saul expected to see and recognize, and if he had looked like he looked, let’s say, at 30, Saul wouldn’t have recognized him probably or might not have recognized him, but he does have a body.

PHILIPPE: And he has a mantle and he can talk. He can communicate with living people and we will assume that in Sheol, 

BOB: He can communicate with the dead. Now, what is this mantle thing? 

PHILIPPE: Well, the mantle may represent his prophetic ministry. 

BOB: On top of this, we know that the dead are conscious because he’s conscious. 

PHILIPPE: And they’re at rest because he says, you know, why have you disturbed me.

BOB: Right. And so he has broken up his rest. And, by the way, we do know about intermediate bodies from other Scripture because remember when Jesus appears at the Mount of Transfiguration along with Peter, James, and John, and two Old Testament believers? 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, and Moses, and Elijah, and they are recognizable by Jesus and by Peter.

BOB: I think they all had name tags because I don’t know how Peter, James, and John would recognize Moses and Elijah. It probably said Mo and Eli or something on their name tags. But Elijah never died, but Moses did die. So this is Moses in an intermediate body. And by the way, this says that the dead can appear to people. Now, we don’t know if this has happened beyond Moses at the Mount of Transfiguration, and Samuel with the witch at Endor. You also have the situation in Matthew 27, where some of the tombs were open and the dead rose, but they actually weren’t in an intermediate body now.

PHILIPPE: They may have been resuscitated and lived out perhaps a second life. 

BOB: Right, but they did rise for a time, but these aren’t people who rose from the dead. These are people who are dead and still dead, but yet they appear. 

PHILIPPE: Also in the book of Revelation, if you remember, the souls under the altar who cry out, so they are they are communicating. And they have bodies too and later on some of the are holding harps and playing them. 

BOB: Now, we know from 1 Corinthians 15 that it’s not until the Rapture and also 1 Thessalonians 4, we who are alive will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, right? And it’s at that time when the dead will rise first. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. So the dead don’t rise until then, but they do have some sort of body. They are recognizable. For example, one of our former professors Zane Hodges, he passed in 2008. Well, he’s with the Lord now. All believers who have died are with the Lord now and they moved from Hades or Sheol to the third heaven when Jesus ascended to heaven. And so now, Sheol is only the place of the unsaved dead, but Zane Hodges would have some sort of intermediate body. And if the Lord terries and you and I die, well, then we’ll be able to see him and other believers. They would have an intermediate body and they would be recognizable.

PHILIPPE: Yeah, and even Paul says, you know, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, the presence and the fellowship of the Lord and with others.

BOB: Right, but God never, you know, a lot of people have the crazy idea that believers are going to spend eternity in heaven. And they think of floating on clouds and playing harps and things. God didn’t intend humans to do that. God intended humans to live on earth. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, they would have been fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. And then presumably they would have started filling all the other planets, but they would have constantly been involved in using their bodies to glorify God, right? And we know on the new earth, people are going to have bodies and heaven isn’t our destination. The new earth is our destination. First, the millennial earth, then the new earth. So bodies have always been a part of God’s program. And we shouldn’t think in terms of spending eternity in the Elysian fields with disembodied spirits. 

PHILIPPE: And then coming back here, that intermediate form that we have in between unless the Rapture occurs first. 

BOB: We’ll still be recognizable. And a lot of people say, well, what are our glorified bodies going to look like? Well, it seems like they’re going to look like what we look like in this life, except with all the handicaps taken away, all the scars, all the weaknesses, that all goes away. Now, whether we look like we were at the age of death, or whether we look like when we were in the prime, we don’t know. But even if it was the age that we were at death, now we’re going to have a perfect body at that age and all vitality and all everything. So I don’t much care whether I’m going to look like I’m 74 or 94 or 24 as long as I have what God promises, which is a glorified body and a glorified mind too.

Well, thanks so much, y’all. This is good stuff. I encourage you to go to 1 Samuel 28 and look at this interesting passage because it’s very edifying. And let’s remember to keep grace in focus.

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Now, friend, we thank you for joining us all this week. We are wishing you a very pleasant weekend, perhaps some time with family and with God’s family, in a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching church. And all the while, let’s keep grace in focus. Hope to see you again on Monday.