What does the Bible say about near death experiences?

It is a fact to be noted that though we read of several persons being restored to life in Bible times, not once are we told of anything that they related of their experience while amongst the dead. As to this, their lips appear to have been divinely sealed.

Many vain speculations have been made as to when and how the apostle was thus caught up, admitted into, this “third heaven.” The apostle himself tells us he did not know whether he was bodily caught up or not. He had been into paradise, in the third heaven; he knew that; but if it was with or without his body, he could not tell. Why should any speculate about it then? One thing is clear, the apostle not only thought it was possible to go there in the body, but also out of the body. Then, at any rate, there is consciousness for the spirit or soul of man after death. If there were not another verse in all Scripture bearing on that question, this one passage settles absolutely that the disembodied spirit after death is conscious.

The wonderful experience was his, though he was uncertain what exactly was his condition when he had it. Incidentally this shows us that the "falling asleep" of a saint does not mean the sleep of the soul. If the death of a saint involves his total unconsciousness until the coming of the Lord, then the Apostle would have been in no uncertainty. He would have said, "I must have been in the body for I was conscious: had I been out of the body I should have had no consciousness at all."

This man in Christ was caught up to the third heaven; that is, the immediate presence of God, of which the holiest in the tabernacle was a type. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and Paul found that as a man in Christ he had free access into the third heaven, which he identifies with Paradise, into which the thief went with Christ. During his sojourn there he found himself in touch with a range of things entirely outside anything known in this world. He heard, "unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."

Such was our Apostle; and far more might be added of the same character; but I will not further speak of them. I would now notice only one other thing that was peculiar to him also; I mean, his rapture into Paradise. In this he stands also as the representative of the dispensation, inasmuch as it was as "a man in Christ," that he was favoured with this rapture. In it he knows himself only as such, and therefore this paradise is the portion of all such. I judge it assuredly to have been the place of the spirit of the saint while absent from the body, and to which the pardoned thief went on the day of his crucifixion. Paul was actually* caught up to it for a season, but no other man has ever had the same joy. He calls it "paradise" — "the third heaven," the place of abundant visions and revelations. Whether in or out of the body, he knew not, but there he was. He has not been allowed to tell us much about it, and Scripture is generally silent on the nature of it. But there he was, and in this rapture of our Apostle, as by the teaching of Scripture, it is witnessed to us, that it is better to depart and be with Christ, and that the place of the delivered spirit is a place of abundant revelation, and a paradise of visions of Christ.

In the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16), the Lord draws aside the curtain and teaches us the condition of those who have died. Lazarus was in the place of supreme blessedness, and he was not permitted to go and communicate with the five brethren of the rich man, and the rich man was in the place of misery and could not go; hence we conclude, and rightly, that the spirits of dead men do not communicate with the living.

But if the Lord's portion in her death is so blessed, what of hers? Only God's word can tell us this infallibly, and yet there is another witness that we cannot ignore, and that is the general experience of saints themselves. It is certain that the nearer they have come to their departure from this world the less they have feared death, and the deeper has been their peace and the fuller their joy. They have borne witness to the fact that as this life and earthly things receded from them their rest of heart increased until it became too deep, too blessed to be described, and if they found this outside heaven's gates, what must they have found when they passed inside! This is no delusion, the witnesses are too many and too reliable for us to have any question as to it.

I told you of his prayer and bargain with the Lord. After that he looked at me with great affection, expressing an earnest wish that we were all round one table of the Lord, and venturing to hope that it would be so. I did not, of course, reason any point with him, the ruling thing in his soul being affection, desire for the visible union of those who were so dear to him; and as G. and I were just now beside him, with tears and much fervency, he alluded to it again. He also expressed a hope that the Lord would speedily come to take us, that we might meet Him all together. And with much decision, though in a way that evinced he did not forget the age and relationships in which we stood to him, he told us that he had been very near heaven, he believed nearer than any of us had ever been, saying, too, that he did not speak under any excitement.

He was delirious at times, and about one on Sunday morning he appeared to be dying. The watch was looked at, as his friends thought he was going. But he suddenly shouted out, “There is a heaven; do, do, let the world know there is a heaven.” He then held his hands up, and said as he seemed to behold the heavenly vision, “Hush, hush, there is heaven. There is the white robe, the crown, — one broken, but another crown. Glory.” He said, “Shout, Glory.” And his friends all at once were constrained to shout Glory. Oh, what a moment, — never to be forgotten by them. He appeared to be in full view of the New Jerusalem; said he saw his departed relatives who sleep in the Lord; seemed to have great joy in seeing William Dawson, whose preaching was greatly used of God to him when a boy. His countenance, indeed the whole scene, was heavenly. He then said, “I am now about to swim, and there is the strong arm of Christ.”

To meet this strong desire to know what lies beyond the veil spiritualism makes a big bid, and many are drawn into this terrible snare of the devil. The right name for spiritualism is Demonism. Satan transforms himself into “an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). He is too crafty to present himself in his true character of that old serpent, a liar and murderer from the beginning.

Now, it may be that, on reading the foregoing quotation, the reader feels disposed to ask what possible application it can have to professing Christians? We ask, in reply, Are there any Christians who are in the habit of going to the performances of wizards, magicians and necromancers? Are there any who take part in table-turning, spirit-rapping, mesmerism, or clairvoyance? If so, the passage which we have just quoted bears, very pointedly and solemnly, upon all such. We most surely believe that all these things which we have named are of the devil. This may sound harsh and severe; but we cannot help that. We are thoroughly persuaded that when people lend themselves to the awful business of bringing up, in any way, the spirits of the departed, they are simply putting themselves into the hands of the devil to be deceived and deluded by his lies. What, we may ask, do those who hold in their hands a perfect revelation from God, want of table-turning and spirit-rapping? Surely nothing. And, if not content with that precious word, they turn to the spirits of departed friends or others, what can they expect but that God will judicially give them over to be blinded and deceived by wicked spirits who come up and personate the departed, and tell all manner of lies?

We cannot attempt go fully into this subject here. We have no time, for anything of the sort. We merely felt it to be our solemn duty to warn the reader about having anything whatever to do with consulting departed spirits. We believe it to be most dangerous work. We do not enter upon the question as to whether souls can come back to this world; no doubt, God could permit them to come if He saw fit; but this we leave. The great point for us to keep ever before our hearts is the perfect sufficiency of divine revelation, what do we want of departed spirits? The rich man imagined that if Lazarus were to go back to earth and speak to his five brethren, it would have a great effect. "I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house; for I have five brethren; that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham says to him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham; but if one went to them from the dead, they will repent. And he said to him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." (Luke 16:27-31.)

Here we have a thorough settlement of this question. If people will not hear the word of God, if they will not believe its clear and solemn statements as to themselves, their present condition, their future destiny, neither will they be persuaded though a thousand departed souls were to come back and tell them what they saw, and heard, and felt in heaven above or in hell beneath; it would produce no saving or permanent effect upon them. It might cause great excitement, great sensation, furnish great material for talk, and fill the newspapers far and wide; but there it would end. People would go on all the same, with their traffic and gain, their folly and vanity, their pleasure-hunting and self-indulgence. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets," — and we may add, Christ and His holy apostles — "neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. The heart that will not bow to scripture will be not convinced by anything; and as to the true believer, he has in scripture all he can possibly want, and therefore he has no need to have recourse to table-turning, spirit-rapping or magic. "And when they shall say to you, Seek to them that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep, and that mutter; should not a people seek to their God for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isaiah 8:19-20.)