Each of these has 'parked' by a previous experience of God. Sad...
Religious experiences, particularly those with a high emotional content,
are very complex. Protestants generally, particularly Anglo-Saxons, are
somewhat afraid of their emotions. They have a 'reserved' approach to
worship, and a somewhat rationalistic approach to faith and doctrine. Very
few could be accused of 'being drunk with new wine'! Religious experience
is for them a private matter. At the other extreme, for some Christians
their religious experiences are for constant public demonstration.
Now feelings are important, and experience is important. And so is
rationality. Friedrich Schleiermacher has reminded us that we know God
primarily through our experience; for him, a 'passional' experience of
religion made more sense than a purely intellectual one.
I doubt whether any great idea gets hold of us without our feeling
something. But feelings can fluctuate wildly, and they must never be used
to test our spiritual state!
But, that said, we must confess that with our new openness to the Spirit
many are experiencing some quite dramatic encounters with the living
Christ. What are we to make of it all?
In the passage we read together, 2 Cor. 12:1-10, Paul describes his
greatest 'agony and ecstacy'. Because his opponents were bragging about
their visions and experiences, and claiming as a result to be 'one up' on
the apostle, Paul very reluctantly describes his ecstatic experience too.
Circumstances have forced him to do it, and so in a strangely oblique way
he speaks of himself in the third person. Paul was entirely passive -
almost a spectator and hearer, without any volition of his own.
Paul's reticence about relating his spiritual experiences is seen again in
Gal. 1:15,16. There he describes his dramatic conversion experience in an
objective, almost impersonal way: 'God in his grace chose me, called me to
serve him, decided to reveal his Son to me...' When you read 1 Cor. 12-14
carefully, you'll find that Paul doesn't belittle unusual spiritual
experiences or explain them away. He simply wants to put them into proper
perspective.
It happened 14 years before - just previous to his first missionary
journey. He was 'caught up' (cf. Philip's experience in Acts 8, and 1
Thess. 4:13-17 where the expression is used again) to the 'third heaven',
Paradise. He isn't sure whether he was conscious or asleep, whether 'in
the body or out of it'...
The NT is deliberately vague about giving us details of the afterlife. A
veil conceals these magnificent mysteries. Although the rabbis talked
about seven heavens, the Bible describes three: the atmosphere with its
clouds; the sun, moon and stars; and finally God's abode. Human language is
simply inadequate to describe the glories of God's heaven, but we are
learning, I think, that there really isn't such a vast distance between
this life and the 'life after life'. None of the six 'resuscitations' in
the NT tell us anything about what's over there. ('Where were you,
Lazarus, those four days? There is no record of reply/ which, telling what
it is to die/ had surely added praise to praise!').
So Paul, too, can't tell us about these 'unutterable utterances'. It was
an experience intended for Paul alone, not for communication to others.
There he'd experienced both 'visions' - mental pictures with definite shape
and form - and 'revelations' - truths understood by special insight.
Why is Paul reluctant about telling us of his special experiences of God?
Surely we 'praise Him' in the recounting of such happenings don't we?
Perhaps the following reasons may be suggested for Paul's reticence:
(1) Such testimonies can be misconstrued as boasting. Pride - even the
semblance of it - is deadly for a Christian. In fact Paul's 'thorn in the
flesh' was given to him to prevent his 'being puffed up with pride' (12:7).
There's a sort of proud exclusivism conveyed by those who've been 'touched'
by the Lord in a special way. This is often unintentional, but comes
across in all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle ways. There can be a
tendency to classify others into 'those who have it and those who don't'.
Such people give the impression - even though they don't consciously mean
to - of having 'arrived' whereas the rest of us are somewhere else in our
ignorance and immaturity.
The corollary of this if, of course, that (2) other faithful believers, who
haven't had 'it' (whatever 'it' may be) can be most discouraged. They feel
out of it, or perhaps they've been in the wrong queue when God has been
dispensing his gifts. Some of them give up in despair. Others becaome
'charisphobiacs', developing an unbiblical theology denying any
interventionist possibilities as being from God. ('The baptism in the Holy
Spirit, tongues etc., are not for today's church' etc.) Still others become
'experience chasers', going from meeting to meeting, speaker to speaker,
hoping that someone will at last lay hands on them and give 'it' to them.
Now I don't want to be insensitive to those faithful Christians who,
thoroughly fed up with their fragile emotions or spiritual dryness want
more of God. All I'm saying is that because Paul had a Damascus Road or a
'third heaven' experience, he's not suggesting we have to have one like
that too. In fact he's saying quite the opposite! There's a great danger
that because some of our friends have taken 'a great leap forward' in their
relationship with God, we get the impression that he works only in this
way. He doesn't. His more usual pattern is 'little upon little, line upon
line, precept upon precept'. He's a grower, not a technologist! The
Biblical images describing his tending us are agricultural and sometimes
maternal. He can baptise us dramatically by his Holy Spirit (and you ought
to be open to that possibility) but the normal christian life is one of
steady growth, not 'great leaps forward'.
(3) Some people who've had an ecstatic experience claim more authority,
insight or knowledge as a result. Paul's detractors in the Corinthian
church had this problem. And it's common today, too. The typical
world-travelled speaker in some quarters is someone with, perhaps, a 'gift
of faith' who's assumed that such power entitles him to exercise a teaching
ministry as well. He may well have both gifts, or he may not. Some of the
founders of modern sects have claimed superior spirituality (and even
canonical authority) because of their visions and 'revelations'.
When we read Paul's letters, the overwhelming idea he's conveying is that
the Christian life is (4) a life of disciplined obedience, hardship,
struggle, not of continuous 'mountain-top' experiences!. The Biblical
people encourage us to believe that God is with them in the valleys, and
that the Christian life is sometimes a real struggle, a 'fight', a
conflict. Of course, again, that doesn't mean 'peak experiences' aren't
important in our emotional and spiritual development. Abraham Maslow and
others have taught us that probably 70% of all humans have had unusual
experiences they can't explain, and for most these have been most
meaningful.
(5) But we mustn't place too much emphasis on 'feelings'. They don't
always correspond to the facts. The concordance tells us that the word
'feeling' only appears 3 or 4 times in the NT. Seeking God's gifts because
we want 'fulfilment' or 'warm feelings' is a dangerous motivation. The
testimony of all the saints is that sometimes they just don't FEEL like
praying, for example. But they also tell us that when it's hardest to pray
is the time to pray hardest! Some of our young people who got their HSC
results last week told me they 'felt' they'd done either better or worse
than they had. But the examiners aren't interested in their subjective
feelings, but in their objective performances.
(6) Finally, Paul says (12:6) that private spiritual experiences can't be
verified by others. It's our Christian character that matters. The
Christian life is a life of obedient commitment and loving service to
Christ and others. Any experiences we have are means to those ends, not
ends in themselves.
Derek Prince describes two lives as analogous to two gardens. Christian A
has been 'baptised in the Spirit', but his life is full of awful weeds.
Christian B has a beautiful garden, with shrubs and flowers displaying a
gorgeous array of colour. 'A' has a garden hose, but never uses it, 'B'
only a watering can, but has a daily disciplined habit of removing weeds
and watering his plants. If 'A' had not depended on his spiritual
experience alone, but combined the resultant power with 'B's' discipline,
there would have been quite a different result.
In fact, the history of the church throughout the world is sadly replete
with examples of powerful Christian leaders who have failed miserably
because their spiritual experiences led them subsequently into a kind of
false security. Or else their 'power' gifts caused them to misuse their
position of authority. Whoever thinks they are standing firm had better be
careful they don't fall (1 Cor. 10:12). It is possible to proclaim 'Lord,
Lord,' and not do the things he says.
There are many Peters today who want to stay on the Mount of
Transfiguration. Thank God for the mountain-top experiences you've had.
But don't stay there!
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