2 Corinthians 12:1-7: It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. 3And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) 4How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. 5Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. 6For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. 7And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
References to “out-of-body” and “near-death” experiences are numerous and subjective. According to one poll, one out of ten people claim to have had an out-of-body experience, and there are many different types of the experiences claimed. They range from involuntary experiences to “astral projection” in which a person voluntarily tries to leave their body behind and ascend to a spiritual plane where they believe they obtain truth and clarity. Some Christians claim to have had such an experience. Is there any substance to such claims? Can people have such experiences? If so, what qualifies the experience to be of a Christian nature? To determine the Biblical answer, we look to:
- Historical Context: 2 Corinthians 1:1 identifies Paul as the author very likely written approximately A.D. 55-57. The church in Corinth began in A.D. 52 when Paul visited there on his second missionary journey. It was then that he stayed one and a half years, the first time he was allowed to stay in one place as long as he wished. A record of this visit and the establishment of the church is found in Acts 18:1-18. Referring to a letter lost to us, Paul expresses his relief and joy that the Corinthians had received his “severe” letter in a positive manner. That letter addressed issues that were tearing the church apart, primarily the arrival of self-style (false) apostles (2 Corinthians 11:13) who were assaulting Paul’s character, sowing discord among the believers, and teaching false doctrine. They appear to have questioned his veracity (2 Corinthians 1:15-17), his speaking ability (2 Corinthians 10:10; 11:6), and his unwillingness to accept support from the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 11:7-9; 12:13). There were also some people who had not repented of their licentious behavior (2 Corinthians 12:20-21). Paul was overjoyed to learn from Titus that the majority of Corinthians repented of their rebellion (2 Corinthians 2:12-13; 7:5-9). The apostle encourages them, expressing genuine love (2 Corinthians 7:3-16). Paul also sought to vindicate his apostleship, as some in the church had questioned his authority (2 Corinthians 13:3). He ends his epistle by describing the vision of heaven he was allowed to experience and the “thorn in the flesh” he was given by God to ensure his humility (chapter 12).
- Grammatical Usage: 1) “Visions” in the Greek is “optasia” meaning “to see, coming into view”; 2) “revelations” is “apokalupsis” meaning “a specific expression of the mind of God” in this case exclusively for Paul; 3) “third heaven” is “ouranos” meaning “to lift…to heave up…the eternal dwelling place of God and angels.” It should be noted that three heavens in Paul’s thinking included A) the earth’s sky; B) stellar; C) God’s dwelling place. 4) “Paradise” is “paradeisos” which has its root as an oriental word meaning “a wall around” where Persian kings could feel safe and in the Greek may be translated as “the sum total of blessedness.” 5) “Unspeakable” in the Greek is “arrhetos” meaning “words to sacred to be uttered.”
- Literal Application: I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to see God and gain a message from the Lord. 2I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – God’s dwelling place. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4was caught up to complete blessedness. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. 5I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. 6Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say. 7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
- Contextual Interpretation: There was controversy as to Paul’s authority as an apostle. What he relates in vs. 2-4 is the greatest evidence that God actually chose him and not Matthias (Acts 1:15-26) or some other person to replace the apostate Judas Iscariot. There was no doubt that the other eleven Apostles had been chosen by Jesus from a larger group of disciples, all of whom had known Jesus personally (Lk. 6:13-16). Saul of Tarsus was the only exception and he now proceeds to say that he, too, “experienced” Jesus from whom he received his commission to preach and teach. In fact, he had an experience that none of the other Apostles had – he went to theological seminary in Paradise, the third Heaven, where Jesus sits at the right hand of God (Lk. 23:43). Therefore, Paul relates an out-of-body experience. Temporal and spatial sensations were absent. The reality of his state is “caught up” or the Greek verb “harpazo” used in 1 Thes. 4:17 of saints at the Rapture. The experience contributes to Paul’s conviction that, “out light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” – 2 Cor. 4:17.
In the verses preceding this passage, Paul lists his “boasts” or the things that, if he was counting on works and good deeds to secure his salvation much less position, would get him into Heaven. Unfortunately, the Corinthians were impressed with such – including the fantastic. In v. 1 Paul may glory in his experience given that he did not seek it, deserve it or do anything to bring it about (a clue as to its validity and repudiation to the Corinthian mindset). It was totally the work and grace of God. Though he seems to be referring to a third party, scholars agree that he is speaking of himself in the third person in relating this experience. Therefore, he is including this apparent out-of-body occurrence in his list of boasts, but only because he is forced to do so. It is instructive that Paul insists that he is not going to boast about this experience as someone might derive a higher opinion of him than is deserved – a clue as to the validity of others and their experience.
The result of this experience is that Paul now knew as much theology as the other Apostles (Gal. 2:1-10)and the mystery of gentile inclusion was made clear (Rom. 11:25; Eph. 3:1-7). In truth, only the resurrected Lord (Ps. 2:7, 8) could have said what Paul heard and was told to preach. Paul scores heavily against his enemies in Corinth. Not one of them could boast of this experience, nor could they have known that the divine plan of salvation was to include the uncircumcised Gentiles.
This experience proved a unique revelatory experience in keeping with Paul’s unique calling as the “apostle to the Gentiles” (Gal. 2:7-9). Given the fact that Paul had a significant ministry ahead of him, it thus cannot be taken as representative of a near-death experience. However, it does fit the common definition of a vision as noted in v. 1 and experienced by prophets of old. The Apostle John later had the same experience (Rev. 4-5) and, at the second coming, every member of the Body of Christ will have this experience (1 Thess. 4:13-18).
- Scriptural Comparison: Two important reasons why we should turn to the Bible as we try to understand this phenomenon are 1) the Bible is the supreme authority in guiding the lives of believers. It conveys what God declares essential for humans to know about truth, including how to please Him. Therefore, whatever the Bible has to say bearing on out-of body/near-death experiences must be thoroughly and objectively examined; 2) we must turn to the Bible because advocates also turn to the Bible to support their interpretations of this phenomenon. Since many of them believe in the universality of all religions, they naturally seek passages from as many religious texts as they can find that seem to parallel the out-of-body/near-death experience, including one particular biblical account that they assert describes such experiences.
Advocates claim to find this in Acts 9:3-6 and 26:12-23, which respectively relate Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus and Paul’s own account of his experience. There are, however, glaring distinctions between Paul’s experience and modern claims. First and most importantly, Paul did not have a near-death experience on this road. Some people have asked how we know that he didn’t. The best answer comes from Paul himself when he later elaborates on the incident, offering further details to King Agrippa without once mentioning that he had died (Acts 26:2-29). Another difference is that the light blinded Paul, while in modern reports the light does not visually impair people’s eyes. Clearly Paul is experiencing a real, spiritual situation. It should be noted that spiritual warfare, however, is a battleground where it is often difficult to identify the enemy. Frequently Satan disguises himself as a beloved friend. Deception has always been his way, and it has been a deadly weapon in his arsenal evident since he used it in the Garden of Eden. Indeed, Paul warned Timothy that “in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (1 Tim. 4:1). Of course, the most evil deception is when the Devil appears to be God. Again, Paul’s words ring true: “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14).
Beyond Paul’s conversion story, advocates are hard pressed to enlist other biblical accounts of out-of-body or near death experiences. They have alluded to Paul’s discussion of spiritual bodies (1 Cor. 15:35-52) and Jesus’ self-declaration as “the light of the world” (John 8:12). Neither of these biblical passages, however, were intended to illuminate the mysteries of an out-of-body/near-death experience, just as Paul’s confession in 2 Corinthians. In context, the “spiritual bodies” Paul writes of in 1 Corinthians 15 are the bodies believers will possess after they have been resurrected at the time of Christ’s second coming. Jesus’ declaration that He is the light of the world pertains to the spiritual illumination He brings to the world — it has no necessary relevance for the near-death experience.
There are several cases in the Bible in which people have returned from the dead: Elisha restored the Shunammite boy back to life (2 Kings 4:8-37); Jesus healed a ruler’s dead daughter (Matt. 9:18-26); and Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38-44). Seven persons were raised from the dead, however, during thousands of years of biblical history. These were unique situations in which God acted for particular reasons at strategic points in history — such reanimations are hardly commonplace! More importantly, none of these seven people is said to have returned with a report of the afterlife. These incidents do not contradict the teaching of Jesus in Luke 16. What is critical to understand is the Bible clearly teaches the reality of life after death. It also plainly states, however, that “man is destined to die once” (Heb. 9:27 – emphasis added); indeed, the wise woman from Tekoa pictured the finality of death by stating, “Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die” (2 Sam. 14:14 niv). In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus taught that the dead do not report back to the living (Luke 16:26–31). Therefore, anyone claiming a literal trip to heaven or hell is biblically unsound.
One biblical account that does deserve comment is the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:54-60). In this story Stephen looks up to heaven and sees the glory of God and Jesus. But what must be noted is that Stephen had this vision before he was stoned — that is, he was not dying when he saw Jesus.
A
voluntary out-of-body experience, or an “astral projection,” is a different
story. A person trying to achieve an out-of-body experience in order to connect
with spirits or the spirit world is practicing the occult. There are two forms
of this: 1) the “phasing” model is
when the person tries to find new spiritual truth by accessing a part of the
mind that is “shut off” during everyday life. This practice is
connected to Buddhism or postmodernism and the belief that enlightenment is achieved from looking within oneself; 2)
the other form, called the “mystical” model, is when the person tries to exit
the body entirely, their spirit
traveling to another plane that is not connected to the physical world at all.
The Bible explicitly warns against occult practice, or sorcery, in Galatians
5:19-20, saying that those who practice it will not inherit God’s kingdom. God’s commands are always for our good, and
He commands us to stay far away from occult practices because there is great
potential, when trying to access the spiritual world, of opening oneself up to
demons who can tell us lies about God and confuse our minds. In Job
4:12-21, Eliphaz describes being visited by a lying spirit in a vision that
tells him God does not regard humans and that He doesn’t care for us, which is
false! The phasing model is also futile,
according to Scripture. Jeremiah 17:9 says “the heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?” and 1
Corinthians 2:1-5 says “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with
eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him
crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My
message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a
demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s
wisdom, but on God’s power.” It is
futile to search for infinite wisdom inside the finite mind of man.
How do we reconcile this process of
dying and departure of the soul with Paul’s proclamation that believers are
either “at home in the body” and “away from the Lord,” or “away from the body”
and “at home with the Lord”? Biblically
speaking, to be “away from the body” is to be physically dead and, for the
Christian, to be with the Lord. Paul, here, seemed to be considering the two
extremes of life and death,not the gray area between life and death. His
statement does not logically exclude the possibility of an in-between state in
which, while dying, the soul is separating
from the body — a state that Paul seemed to have encountered himself. Considering both the scientific and biblical
evidence and remembering that we “see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12 nasb), we can best understand these experiences as the soul
entering the “shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4).
Actually, the phrase “shadow of death” is a mistranslation. The Hebrew “salmawet” is not a compound of
“shadow” and “death” but is based on the root “‘lm”, meaning “deep
darkness.” Shadows are never an image
for sinister darkness in the Bible.
Rather, in the heat of Palestine,
shadows are preeminently an image for protection or refuge, especially that
which Yahweh provides. The Bible distinguishes between this “shadow of
death” and “death” itself, suggesting two different realms: “Have the gates of death been opened unto
thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?” (Job 38:17) Could the “shadow of death” be
the gray area between life and death in which an experience occurs — a realm
whose “doors” can be “seen” (Job 38:17) and whose “valley” or “land” can
be “walk[ed] through” (Ps. 23:4) — but from which return is possible? The Bible affirms this process.
Rachel’s death as she gave birth to Benjamin occurred “as her soul was
departing” (Gen. 35:18 nasb), not when it departed. This suggests that her soul departed over
a period of time and not instantaneously.
Again, this explains Paul’s experience as well as John’s and others.
Meetings with God in the Old Testament were uniformly accompanied with great fear and a “falling down” (e.g., Gen. 17:3; Exod. 3:6; Josh. 5:14; Ezek. 1:28). Those confessing out-of-body-experiences, on the other hand, uniformly feel “love,” “joy,” “euphoria,” and “peace” in the presence of the “light.” God instructed Moses, “No one may see me and live” (Exod. 33:20 niv), and Paul wrote that God “lives in inapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16 niv). A direct encounter with God during an out-of-body-experience, face-to-face meetings with Jesus Christ, are unlikely. The Trinitarian view of God holds that one God exists in three distinct persons and that each of these three persons is fully God, not part of God. We are to be baptized “in the name [not names] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19 niv). Since His earthly ministry, Jesus has been seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven (Heb. 1:3; 8:1) and out of sight of the living. The explanation lies with the spirit beings encountered are angels, which are known to change shape and appearance at will; to serve as messengers, comforters, and protectors; to escort the dead and dying (Luke 16:22); and “to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14 niv). But again, angels can also deceive (since some have fallen), appearing as “familiar spirits…capable of adopting ‘familiar’ images and characteristics (e.g., religious figures, deceased relatives, etc.)”; even Satan, at times, “masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14–15 niv) “so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:24 nasb). Biblically based spiritual discernment is a must in order to avoid being deceived.
- Conclusion: An involuntary out-of-body experience, like the Apostle Paul’s, should be treated in the same way as a dream in the life of a Christian—an unexplained phenomenon that may make a good story, but does not give us truth in the form of new revelation. The only place we find absolute truth is in the Word of God. All other sources are merely subjective human accounts or interpretations based on what we can discover with our finite minds. The book of Revelation, or John’s vision, is an exception to this, as are the prophecies or visions of the Old Testament prophets. In each of those cases, the prophets were told that this was a revelation from the Lord, and they should share what they had seen because it was directly from the mouth of God. We are also told that no more is to be added to the Word of God (Dt. 4:2; 12:32; Pr. 30:5-6; Gal. 1:6-12; Rev. 22:18-19). (The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John. In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo [A.D. 393] and the Council of Carthage [A.D. 397] also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative which closed the Canon to addition.) Whatever sort of out-of-body experience we are talking about, the main point to remember is that an out-of-body experience will give us neither truth nor knowledge. If an involuntary out-of-body experience occurs in the life of a Christian, the best approach would be to consider it in the same category as a dream—interesting, perhaps, but not a source of truth. Christians are to find truth only in the words of God, as Jesus prays in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” Therefore, if the message of the being of light, the interpretation of the near-death experience, or the lifestyle that results from the experience contradicts the teachings of the Bible, then that particular experience should not be accepted as valid.
In addition, there are some accounts that provide elaborate and fantastic details concerning heaven and hell that go far beyond Scripture. When unreservedly accepted, these reports function as extra-biblical revelation about the nature of the world beyond. This can easily weaken Scriptural authority while diluting the divinely revealed content of Christian faith with the feeble projections of human imagination. The best protection against such error, if we are to hold that some of these experiences may, in fact, be genuine is to maintain that only the Bible can be trusted absolutely as a revelation of heavenly realities. We cannot draw any conclusions about individual cases without first taking what has been reported about the experience and the message and examining this report under the light of God’s Word. According to this test, any doctrine that denies the judgment of God is condemned. But any testimony that glorifies Jesus Christ as the only Lord and Savior is worthy of our serious consideration (1 Cor. 12:3).