Hi Darlene,
At the transfiguration would you call Moses and Elijah ghosts?
Mediums don’t actually believe they are calling up Ghosts. They do look to some demonic telepathic connection, to aide them in finding facts or clues. The woman/ medium wasn’t expecting to see a being and cried out in fear!
Samuel name means ‘appointed by God’
1Sam 28:12,13 (NAB)
When the woman saw Samuel, she shrieked at the top of her voice and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!”
But the king said to her, “Have no fear. What do you see.?” What do you see?” “ The woman answered a rising from the Earth. she replied.
David Guzik protestant commentary:
b. When the woman saw Samuel, [u:28nvaxvb]she cried out with a loud voice:[/u:28nvaxvb] Why the medium so shocked? Probably she was a fraud, and [b:28nvaxvb]most of her dealings with the spirit realm were mere tricks.[/b:28nvaxvb] [b:28nvaxvb]Now, Samuel really appears from the world beyond, and she is completely surprised to have a real encounter with the spirit realm.
NAB Catholic Bible, Oxford, send edition commentary on 1Sam 28:12;
Human beings cannot communicate at all with the souls of the dead. God may, however, permit a departed soul to appear to the living and even to disclose things unknown to them. Saul’s own prohibition of necromancy and divination was in keeping with the consistent teaching of the Old Testament. If we are to credit the reality of the apparition to Saul, it was due, not to the summons of the witch, but to God’s will; the woman merely furnished the occasion.
As far as Samuel appearing in 2Kings? And the Bible saying it is his ghost? I can’t find ghost: apparition of a dead person that is believed to appear in the form of a cloud or haze/ vague or ill defined.
The medium sees him clearly:
That was no Ghost! That Samuel
Strong’s # H433 which is used biblically as:
1) (plural) a) rulers, judges b) divine ones c) angels d) gods
2) (plural intensive – singular meaning) a) god, goddess b) godlike one
c) works or special possessions of God d) the (true) God e) God
No ghost in there!! In fact I can’t find any Bible translation that uses the word ‘ghost’ anywhere I checked KJV, NKJV, NIV, RSV,ASV,NASB, NLT.
Our God is not limited to our feeble finite minds. He’s in eternity, ‘out of Time.’
Our God is the God of the living not the dead
Mat 22:32’I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
Mar 12:27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”
Luk 20:38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him.”
Rev 4:4 “..seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders,clad in white garments, with golden crowns upon their heads.”
Rev 6:9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne
CCC# 633
“Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because [b:28nvaxvb]those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell. “Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.
480
Cf. Phil 2:10; Acts 2:24; Rev 1:18; Eph 4:9; Pss 6:6; 88:11-13.
Cf. Ps 89:49; 1 Sam 28:19; Ezek 32:17-32; Lk 16:22-26.
God bless,
John