Channeling Jesus

Have you seen this? I had never heard of it until quite recently. Apparently there is a host of people who are "channeling Jesus." For those who don't know, "channeling" in this sense is when you can commune with the dead or spirits and have actual contact and expression. So, if Bob (my fictitious friend) is "channeling Jesus," he would be in communion with Jesus and Jesus would be able to speak directly to him and through him. In one example I found, someone named Jamie was channeling Jesus and his friend was excited to learn that Jesus was "blasé yet casual and British." "He has an accent." On a website named the Golden Age of Gaia, someone named Tina Spalding "brings a message from Jesus that can be helpful to many during this chaotic time." How nice!

Here's the problem. Jesus is God Incarnate. Jesus is not among the dead and is not mere spirit. Jesus is the body of God. So "channeling" wouldn't work in this case. But it gets worse. In this situation, if Tina or Jamie or whomever was actually in direct dialog with Jesus -- if they actually brought a message from Jesus -- such a message wouldn't be merely of interest, just "helpful." It would be authoritative. We should take it as Samuel did when the Lord spoke to Him: "Speak, LORD, for your servant hears" (1 Sam 3:9-10).

A website called The Christ Teachings aims to "help you find the teaching that resonates with your heart" by channeling Jesus. Apparently the whole concept has made the New York Times to include celebrities willing to pay a spiritualist medium $1,111 an hour for her services to channel Jesus. Rest assured, it can't be done. According to the Word of God, "we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16), but "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor 2:14). If Jesus is "the Word" (John 1:1) and we have the God-breathed Word (2 Tim 3:16-17), "channeling Jesus" is as easy as opening up our Bibles and seeing what He says. If our helpful spiritualist mediums offer something "new and exciting ... and different," you can be sure it is something, but it's not Jesus.