Revelation 21:7-8 reads: “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Today I would like to do my part to comment on one of the mysteries of this particular passage (in particular, one word of verse eight). It is fairly easy to understand what the Bible says about courage, the importance of faith, the avoidance of abominations, standards of sexual impurity, the problem of idolatry, as well as the importance of sincerity and truth. All of these matters are fairly easy to understand, if not always easy to apply. But sorcery is a strange matter. What does the Bible mean when it forbids sorcery?
People, of course, have all kinds of ideas about what sorcery means. Often, those ideas relate to the idea of conjuring some kind of magic spell, the sort of image of a sorcerer that one would get from reading the character classes of Dungeons & Dragons, or from listening to songs like “Sorcerer” by Stevie Nicks & Sheryl Crow, which compares a particularly enthralling man to a sorcerer just as the poem “La Belle Dame Sans Regrets” would be about an enchanting sorceress who lures souls to their destruction. In many cases, people tend to think of a sorcerer as a powerful figure, and certainly a dangerous one, but there is often at least a grudging respect for the power that such a person has over others as a result of their high charisma.
Is this what Revelation means by “sorcerer,” though? As is often the case, let us look at the specific word being used, as sorcerer is definitely not a word that is commonly found in scripture. The Greek word in question in Revelation 21:8 is pharmakeus, a word which shares its roots with the modern term pharmacist. A more precise translation of this term would mean “drugger,” “poisoner,” “dispenser of potions.” Greek medicine was deeply connected with pagan religion, which included the use of drugs in order to see visions and hallucinations. This is what pagan shamanistic cultures have always tended to use to get in greater touch with a supposed spirit realm, by weakening their mental defenses through drug use (like some Native Americans use peyote, to give but one example among many). This particular type of drug use with pagan connotations is similar to the use of drugs by many counterculture types who seek a higher consciousness through the use of drugs to help release the mind from its normal structured path.
The depth of meaning found in this particular Greek word ought to give us some pause. First of all, let us note that those being talked about here are not those caught in the grips of addiction, but rather those who dispense the drugs, potions, and poisons that enslave other people. The Bible views those who are engaged in oppressing others with the deepest condemnation, considering God’s laws and God’s ways are all about freedom from domination and exploitation. Those who exploit and take advantage of others are those who make themselves the deepest enemies of God, whatever their vain protestations of faith or their hollow religiosity. Few can doubt that in this present age sorcery is a big problem [1]. Indeed, sorcery can happen in a variety of ways and on a variety of levels.
Depending on which meaning of sorcery one has in mind, even without condemning all pharmacy, one can potentially be dealing with a lot of people. For example, those who poison our environment through pesticides and other chemicals or unwisely tampering with genetics could fall under condemnation for their actions based on what this word means. Those who create or sell drugs that produce a psychoactive effect could also be considered sorcerers by this definition, which could potentially include a lot of people. Likewise, those who promote the use of drugs to help dominate or control people, which is a massive scourge in our generation of the world, could also be seen as falling under this condemnation as well. While the common idea of a sorcerer is something rare and mysterious, the use of chemicals either to free ourselves from what is viewed as the slavery to the mundane world, or the use of chemicals to control our food supply or control people by changing the workings of their minds is a lamentably common problem.
Ultimately, there are no shortcuts either to genuine godly freedom or self-control. Freedom comes attached at the hip with responsibility–to the extent that we are free, we are responsible for what we say and do. This responsibility is not always easy to handle wisely, and all too often we seek an escape from that responsibility because it feels like too heavy of a burden to bear. Godly freedom is not a freedom from responsibility, but rather it is the development of maturity as well as the capacity to help others even as one recognizes the need for divine aid and support in the absence of the ability for us to control our world on our own. Likewise, the development of control of our minds is a matter which requires great effort. We can drug ourselves (or others) into a stupor, but we cannot coerce others into developing self-control or moderation, try as we might. When we examine the fact that the biblical word for sorcerer deals with both the attempt to gain forbidden insight from the spirit world through the use of drugs and the attempt to control and dominate others, we can be better equipped to wrestle with how such matters of power and control poison our own lives and our own relationships. Let us make sure that we avoid conduct that would have us labeled by the Bible as sorcery, and that we overcome the pull to dominate and control as runs rampant in our world.
Edge Induced Cohesion 