1 Samuel 28:12

Thou art Saul. The information was supernaturally imparted — however, not by God. God had shown His abhorrence of the practice of necromancy by ordering the death of all who engaged in it (Lev. 20:27). Even those who consulted spiritualistic mediums were to be cut off (Lev. 20:6). Hence the communication must have come from some other source. There are those who hold that the spirits of the dead return to commune with the living. These would maintain that the spirit of Samuel responded to the summons of the medium. But a communication from Samuel, speaking as a prophet, would indirectly be a communication from God, and it is expressly stated that the Lord refused to communicate with Saul (1 Sam. 28:6). Saul was slain, “for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it; and enquired not of the Lord” (1 Chron. 10:13,14).

The teaching that the spirits of the dead return to communicate with the living is based on the belief that the spirit of man exists in a conscious state after death, that indeed this spirit is the real man. The Bible does not teach that the spirit, at death, returns unto God, who gave it (Eccl. 12:7), but the OT emphatically denies that this spirit is a conscious entity (Job 14:21; Ps. 146:4; Eccl. 9:5, 6). The NT teaches the same doctrine. Jesus pointed forward to His second coming and not to death as the time when the believer will be reunited with his Lord (John 14:1-3). Otherwise, Jesus might have comforted His sorrowing disciples with the thought that death would soon overtake them and that thus they would immediately go to the heavenly realms to be with Him. In speaking solace to those who had laid their loved ones to rest, Paul significantly declared that there was to be no precedence on the part of the living over the dead, but all would be reunited with their Lord at the same moment (1 Thess. 4:16, 17).

It is evident, then, that the spirit of Samuel did not here communicate with Saul.

There remains one other source for the intelligence. The Scriptures reveal that Satan and his angels have the ability to impart information and also to change their form (see Matt. 4:1—11; 2 Cor. 11:13, 14). The apparition that appeared to the woman of En-dor was a satanic impersonation of Samuel, and the message imparted had its origin in the prince of darkness.

Although much of the phenomena of spiritistic seances involves trickery and sleight of hand, not all phenomena can be explained on this basis. Many who have investigated seances admit the presence of a power that cannot be accounted for on the basis of trickery or of known scientific laws.

The Scriptures predict an increase in supernatural manifestations in the last days (Matt. 7:22, 23; 2 Thess. 2:9; Rev. 13:13, 14; 16:14). The only safeguard against these delusive devices is to have the mind so well fortified with the truths of the Bible that the tempter will be recognized in his guise. A firm faith in the truth of the unconscious state of the dead will make powerless any attempt of the enemy to infiltrate his propaganda through spiritualistic mediums and supposed communications from the departed (see GC ch. 34).

It appears that the woman’s spirit informer took delight in divulging the information that uncovered Saul’s disguise, and mocked the king’s strange course in finally coming for help to the very power he had thought formerly to silence. In the presence of the satanic supernatural power the king’s bravado, self-justification, and alibis of every description fled as chaff before the wind.