TESTING Christian Experience
TESTING CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE
Virgil Warren, PhD
I. Pattern for Testing Christian Experience
In our estimation, scripture does not clearly teach any exact pattern of supernatural experience during the church era. The New Testament does not say that (1) such experiences would cease with the apostles, that (2) they would continue among true believers, that (3) they would come as “latter rain” after centuries of drought, or that (4) they would manifest themselves any time the gospel penetrates a new field. There is no basis for thinking “the normal Christian experience” involves supernatural experiences.
A. Take a first-century viewpoint and apply tests.
We do well to take a first-century viewpoint and apply tests (1 John 4:1-4). That keeps us from unbounded subjectivism or a spirit of denial. It makes us cautious but not obscurantist. First-century Christians had to test genuine Christian experience against competing phenomena. Taking a first-century viewpoint and applying tests sidesteps the moot question about New Testament teaching on the duration of supernatural experience.
The question is not whether supernatural experiences occur, but what we make of our experiences. The issue is not the raw experience but our interpretation of what it is, our explanation of what caused it, and our inferences about what to make of it. In the modern Christian scene, the problem is not so much deliberate misleading as it is sincere misreading that ends up misleading. It is not so often bad motives as it is misunderstanding scripture and misinterpreting experience.
B. Use objective tests for subjective experiences.
Gideon used objective signs with cakes and chevron stew to verify that “it is you that are talking with me” (Judges 6:17). On the road to Damascus, Paul asked for identification, evidently because God does not let other entities claim to be God’s agents (Acts 9:5; 22:8; 26:15).
Let other people help us test our experiences. Other people have not had our experience, but that does not mean we alone can test it. The crux of the matter is identifying our experience with the word. Determining what certain biblical examples were like is an exegetical matter, and other people stand on equal footing with us in that regard. They cannot deny we had an experience, but they can discern whether it should be equated with New Testament precedents. In some ways, it is hard for us to be “objective” about our own experiences.
II. Tests for Genuine Christian Experience
A. Definitional test
Before anything else, we need to determine what certain Christian experiences really were. Revelation was more than an idea coming forcibly to mind. Prophesying was more than “for-telling” what spontaneously struck someone. Some Christians apparently suppose that since they have God’s Spirit, he has planted ideas that come to mind on Christian matters, especially if they are new to them, if they are reading the Bible and praying, if they have first asked God to show them how to understand or what to do. That procedure may be nothing more than supernaturalizing what “pops into my head” from the “tacit dimension.” The origin of an idea is hard to account for, but we do not identify the Spirit with the creative urge that is part of being created in the Creator’s image.
For me to suppose that my experience I have had a divinely originated experience, I must distinguish it from experiences that people have on matters that are not even religious or Christian. That responsibility lies with me because other people have not had my experience, so they cannot analyze its aspects.
Speaking in languages means speaking in human languages (xenoglossia), not ecstatic utterance (glossolalia). Paul evidently uses “languages of angels” (1 Corinthians 13:1) as an exaggeration for emphasis akin to other heightened expressions nearby: “move mountains,” “give my body to be burned [note textual issue],” “know all mysteries and have all knowledge,” “give all my belongings to feed the poor” (13:2-3). (a) To the Galatians Paul makes another hyperbolic statement about angels: “If an angel from heaven should preach to you anything else . . . let him be accursed” (1:8-9). (b) Angels are spirits, who do not have tongues to make audible languages (Luke 24:3; Hebrews 1:4, 14). Languages are sound-symbol systems would mean the physicality both of angels and their realm. Besides, (c) if we have never heard angels speak, we cannot identify our verbal experience with their speaking. Finally, (d) even angelic languages would have structure to convey meaning. The nature of interpretation of languages follows from the nature of languages and the nature of revelation.
New Testament material on baptism in the Holy Spirit does not seem to indicate what Pentecostals take it to have been in the apostolic setting. The issue is too complex to treat here, but we can stress a point about procedure. We cannot settle the experiential question without first settling the exegetical one; otherwise, we let personal experience dictate doctrine. On this question, the issue between Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals is not that one group believes the Bible and the other one believes experience, or that one wants the Spirit and the other does not. The problem is identifying experience with revelation. For our part, we think “baptism in the Spirit” is an alternate expression for “gift of the Spirit,” normally meaning indwelling presence. It is simply and significantly relationship with God the Spirit. Any supernatural manifestation associated with baptism in the Spirit is a non-uniform effect pursuant to the relationship itself.
Being slain in the spirit comes from misunderstanding Paul’s Damascus road encounter. The phenomenon accommodates scripture to experiences that are unidentifiable as to cause and pointless as to effect.
Dreams, visions, and trances recur in both testaments. The previous items involve more prominently interpreting the New Testament as to what the experience was. These items involve interpreting individual cases of the experience to make sure they are a divine variety of these things.
B. Doctrinal test
Since God is consistent, anything he reveals later fits with what he revealed before, especially in successful confrontation with opposing agencies. No experience can authenticate a doctrine or practice that is at odds with God’s revelation (Deuteronomy 13:1-5; John 16:13-15; Galatians 1:8-9; Hebrews 9:26-28; 1 Peter 3:18; Jude 3).
There are some cautions here. (a) The doctrinal test assumes correct understanding of previous revelation. (b) The doctrinal test applies only when there has been previous revelation on this matter. (c) The doctrinal test assumes that the items on which someone else is in error are sufficiently important that God would take his Spirit from someone.
C. Moral test (John 9:31, 33; Mark 9:39)
The moral test does not require moral perfection before we can have clear supernatural experiences from God. Jesus observed that it is not natural for us to speak against God soon after being someone God relates to in a special way.
D. Practical tests
1. Are we in control of ourselves (1 Corinthians 14:32)? The Spirit gives control; he does not throw us out of control.
2. Do our experiences draw attention to us (2 Corinthians 2:7-9; Matthew 4:3-4) more than glorify God (Matthew 5:16; 9:8; 15:31; Luke 7:16; 13:13; 17:15; Acts 4:12; 21:17-20) or benefit other people? Do we sense a desire for attention? Insofar as it is perceivable to other people, do our experiences border on exhibitionism? Are they for making money (Acts 3:6; 8:18-24; 16:16-18)?
3. What are the results of our experiences? Do they always succeed (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)? Do they stand the test of time?
E. Control test
What is not distinctive to Christianity cannot distinguish Christian experience. Many experiences found in Christianity happen outside it as well. We must assume either that the beliefs involved are not very important or that the experiences are not distinctively Christian (hence not supernatural?). Conversely, we must differentiate the true from the fake in these other arenas. What looks like our own experience may not be the same; it may intend to deceive the very elect.
Testing and evaluating must balance healthy caution with willing openness. We do not want to be so gullible that we believe every experience or so skeptical we could never be corrected. Because we want certainty and security, we may be prone to accept any experience that looks close enough; because we fear excesses, we may overreact against anything special. Discernment and caution must prevail.
III. Alternatives to Genuine Christian Experience
The Holy Spirit does not correspond with the subjective, the affective (feelings, emotions), the intuitive, the mysterious, or the miraculous. He is a person, so his guidance and empowerment occur primarily through interpersonal means. The alternatives to a (A) divine reconstruction of our experiences are frequently impersonal.
B. Psychological
Here belong psychosomatic phenomena that illustrate the impact of mind on body and vice versa. Altered states of consciousness involve curious subjective experiences. Illusion and warped perception do not compare with Holy Spirit phenomena, but to the person with mental issues they may not be distinguishable. Hallucinations are not to be confused with visions, seizures with baptism in the Spirit or being “slain in the Spirit,” catatonic states with trances, etc.
C. Paranormal
The word “paranormal” refers to phenomena that psychic researchers study: telekinesis, precognition, telepathy, apports, materialization, clairvoyance, clairaudience, extra-bodily-experiences, hypnotism, poltergeist phenomena, psychometry (See, for example, E. Garth Moore. Try the Spirits: Christianity and Psychical Research. N. Y.: Oxford University Press, l977). Paranormal may not differ from demonic or psychological, but theoretically it may. Some people can do other people cannot. Since humans have them, they are not supernatural; they are “normal.” Since not all human persons have them, they are “para-normal”: perfect pitch, total permanent recall, abilities available under hypnosis, etc.
We need to know what happens outside the Christian setting. Literature about psychological and psychic research challenges us to distinguish those things from special Christian experience. Most of us do not realize the range of human potential and natural possibility, which sets us up for supernaturalizing our experiences. The medical profession continues to gain appreciation for mind-body interdependency and the extent of control mind can exert over body. Curious experiences have occurred in Roman Catholicism, pagan religions, New Age circles, Satanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on. We wonder whether these are unusual natural phenomena that people, when they experience them, interpret in terms of their differing world views. If so, such occurrences no more mark Christian experience than they legitimize any other.
D. Demonic
Appealing to the demonic to explain Christian experiences is questionable. Someone with the promise not to be snatched out of Christ’s hand (John 8:28; 10:28-29) would not likely be oppressed or possessed by demonic agencies. But Christians subject themselves to that danger in efforts at worship that try to get rid of personal identity, to become zero, to let go of themselves. Such efforts belong more to Eastern mysticism than Christian worship. When people create a vacuum by removing their personal wills, they invite whatever is “out there” to come in—demons, “extra-terrestrials.” They leave the interpersonal realm of Christianity and relationship to God by losing touch with their personal identity.
Tests eliminate certain phenomena from being divine or at least distinctively so. Tests do not identify which alternative a case is, and they do not need to. The concern is to avoid misidentifying what we experience. Tests keep us from supernaturalizing our experiences. They keep us from misreading what may be common to people simply as human beings. Tests keep us from confusing divine and demonic. The underlying test is the interpersonal one.
If we cannot distinguish an experience from other possibilities, we do not consider it divine. Don’t strain to be a prophet because you think your situation needs one. Don’t try to add authority to your ideas by saying, “God told me.” Don’t require God’s special leading because you want special help, and don’t require God’s special leading to be knowable special leading. Don’t require more certainty than God intends to provide. Take ambiguous experiences as data to be considered rather than as signs to be followed. Affirming the lesser claim is the safer policy.
In summary, past objective revelation tests current objective revelation. Objective criteria test subjective experience, and subjective experience confirms objective revelation. New revelation and special divine guidance must be distinguishable from alternatives. Normal and normative subjective Christian experience is interpersonal, not impersonal. Experiences are not ends in themselves; they are given for interpersonal purposes beyond themselves in evangelism and edification.
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