Experiences?

Now, besides my caution about the contingency of scientific truth, I also wish to add a personal anecdote.

I once knew an older man who was a sober Christian (who is now with the Lord). I knew he was not the kind of person who was interested in “weirdness” of any kind. He was as sober as a judge and as matter-of-fact as a banker. He had been an executive in a major corporation. But it turned out he had an incident happen to him when he was a serviceman in World War II. I think I was the only person he had ever told his experience to because he was afraid of being labeled a nut for it.

What happened to him was this. As a young serviceman, there was a time when he came under extreme danger in the face the enemy. He was in a situation where very high casualties were being inflicted all around him and his fear level had gone through the roof as he realized that he was facing imminent death. Then for about a moment or so, he suddenly found himself looking down at his body from a great height above his body. He had not blacked out. He had not “tranced out.” He had not hummed a mantra or any other weirdness like that. It appeared to me, from what he had said, that his “I-guy” had for a moment simply switched its view point from being inside his body to being outside his body. No doubt this was caused by the extreme stress he was under.

I will also adduce Walter Elwell’s preface to V. Raymond Edman’s book, They Found the Secret. Edman had been Chancellor of Wheaton College, and Elwell had this to reveal about Edman’s life: “Edman served as a missionary to Ecuador from 1923 to 1928, during which time he preached, traveled, counseled, and served as an educator. In 1925 he nearly died from a tropical disease. The experience was one that profoundly affected him for the rest of his life. It was during a time of unconsciousness, while all were awaiting his death, and his wife having made all the funeral arrangements, that he experienced the overwhelming presence of God. Feeling himself lifted above that scene and into the glorious presence of God he desired nothing more than to ascend forever. However, he heard a quiet voice telling him to return, and a slow descent began, which resulted in his regaining consciousness and recovering from the illness.”

Now, I do not wish at this time to take up the controversies of Near Death Experiences, and occult versions of out-of-body experiences, but I do just want to lay these two anecdotes out for what they are. This is something that happened to two born again Christians. And it is contrary to the notion that all we are is solely inside of our bodies.

But to be more Biblical, I will lay out another Christian’s experience that is contrary to the “meat machine- only ” theory:


2 Cor 12:2-4
2 I 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.
3 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)
4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. (KJV)

2 Cor 12:4
4 was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.
(NIV)

This experience was had by the apostle Paul, and it was so intense that he couldn’t tell if he was still in his body or not when it happened.
The difference between body and spirit was a daily belief of Paul’s.

2 Cor 5:1-9
1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle [ “tent” ] were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest [“down payment” ] of the Spirit.
6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
(KJV)

It was also the daily belief of the apostle Peter.

2 Pet 1:13-14
13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
(KJV)