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Mountains of Spices --Hannah Hurnard Tyndale House, 1983 ISBN: 0842346112 A Book Review The Way of Salvation Perverted In Hannah Hurnard’s Mountains of Spices, the woman named Grace and Glory (Which we will call Grace) witnesses to the Old Lord Fearing. As Grace speaks the message of Salvation is twisted into a new age "Love In." The message of repentance is omitted and LOVE ALONE is given redemptive power. "The life of love" The old dyeing man sneered "Why do you keep on harping on love?"Grace answers, "It is the law of the universe, the law of existence." Furthermore, "Everything that loves lives for ever. Everything else perishes."The old man asks, What is love?" Groaning, "I know precious little about it."Grace answer compassionately: "You know nothing about it at all," Explaining, "To love is to give oneself, to lay down one’s self, to share oneself with others," Grace says we must become, "as the grass that gives itself to the cattle, and the water that gives to the thirsty land, and as the sun that daily gives its light and warmth freely to good and bad alike." 1We Evangelicals teach that love is not the seed, but love is the fruit of salvation. However, Hannah defines love as the seed that saves. 2 Thus, she teaches salvation through works.We believe: First: The Work of Salvation comes through faith in Christ’s Propitiation. Secondly: The fruit of Salvation is our love for others. 1 John 4:10-11 "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." A Mouth Full of New Age Rhetoric As we consider Mountains of Spices we ask, "How can so many heresies appear in so few words?" Watch for the following thoughts in our next citation.
While speaking with the shepherd Grace askes, "I want to ask you about all the evil and the misery down there in the valley and the cause of it...?The Shepherd answers, " It is because they have broken the royal law of love," He says, "Love is the one basic law on which the whole universe is founded, and by obeying that law, (Love) everything abides in harmony..."The Shepherd explains that when the law of love is broken, "disharmony immediately results and then come miseries and evils of every kind."The Shepherd continues, RIGHTEOUSNESS is the condition of every thing which is in harmony with the law of the universe (Love) and therefore right." The Shepherd ads, "Unrighteousness is everything which is out of harmony with the law of love and therefore unright...Thus, a righteousness apart from Christ’s atoning blood is put forward, when the Shepherd says, "Holiness and happiness and health are the result of complete separation from everything which breaks the law of love..." 3Hannah goes on to introduce a cultic vegetarianism as she writes, "Everywhere she looked she saw nature . . . share with others, and, by thus doing, to become one with them.Then she began to think of the many creatures who break this law of the universe;" These are "the beasts of prey, always seeking for themselves..." Finally she understood "how destructive everything is when it will not remain in HARMONY with the law of love and oneness..." 4Undoing the Deity of Christ. Hannah ascribes Christ’s unique origin to Adam's entire race. She gives to every man that which Christ alone possesses as the "Logos" of God! Grace asks: "What is a self?" The Shepherd answers, "an individual will is really a part of the Will and Consciousness of the Creator himself," the will is "a part which he has made free so that it knows itself to be distinct in some lovely and mysterious way from all other individual wills, even from the will of the Creator Who sent it forth." 5HANNAH’S UNIVERSALISM We understand that Christ died for whosoever will believe but all will not believe. Universalism states that in the end all will be saved and released from Hell. Our next two citations from Mountains of Spices, seem to show Hannah’s acceptance of Universalism. The third citation from Eagle’s Wings clearly puts forward Universliam. The Shepherd explains that Christ was crucified so that he, "might be able to overcome the disease of sin in the whole suffering body or race of men. 6"Next the Shepherd sings and this is part of his song.
"He descended into hell In Hurnard's out of print 1981 book, Eagles' Wings to the Higher Places, Hannah teaches that the love of God will at last deliver all men from hell. Her fictional character Aletheia discovers this higher truth from an encounter with one she assumes to be Jesus: First, Aletheia cries in confusion. She cannot understand why God is not able to save everyone. How could she follow a God of such little power? Then, the Good Shepherd comes to her and says: "I will lead you to a place where you will behold the higher truth which will solve completely all your sorrowful questioning. 8"She is informed that all of humanity will be saved in the end. With this revelation she exclaims, " Oh, what a victory! The only victory truly worthy of the Great God and Creator Who "did not make anything in vain but in the end" (as she wrongly interprets Scripture) "restores all things unto Himself." (Acts 3:21) Oh, it is the best News possible, the only possible News, if we are truly to love and trust Him fully." 9While it is true that all in Adam die (and all are in Adam) not all are in Christ and therefore, not all have life. All who are in Christ are made alive but we know that this is not true of refuse-nicks. Hannah has universalized the "all" and ignored the all important IN CHRIST! Salvation Though Personal Suffering Hannah suggests that human suffering atones for sin, which makes man his own savior. "All suffering is atoning,"10 she says. This is a recurring theme in Mountains of Spices, pp. 134-144 + 172 + 226) Certainly, we must die to our own desires to be used of God. However, only faith in Christ’s Blood can effect salvation. |