Angel of light?

During one of his lectures on apocalyptic literature this year at Word Alive, Don Carson explained how we can be diverted from the gospel by what may have been good experiences in our lives.

Even miracles done in the name of Jesus do not show that a person is saved. That is what Jesus himself says. Do not misunderstand me: I am not saying that God has limited himself to the natural order, and therefore cannot perform a real miracle.

Not for a moment would I deny that God has done some spectacularly miraculous things that carry attesting force while displaying kingdom power. But the miraculous by itself does not prove anything, even when it is done in Jesus's name. For Jesus himself insists that on the last day 'many' will stand before him and piously advance their claims, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'- only to be told, 'Away from me, you evil-doers!' (Matthew 7.21-23).

There was a fairly common belief in the ancient world that statues spoke. Ventriloquism was used quite transparently at the Oracle of Delphi. In Chicago, where I live, there is a statue in a church that is allegedly given to weeping every once in a while when things go wrong in society or some catastrophe takes place. Then people want to come and watch this statue weep. There are repeated historical patterns of deception. Very frequently such deceptions turn people away from the heart of the gospel, from the work and grace of Christ.

Deception today?

Now the obvious question to ask at this juncture is, 'Fair enough - but name the most dangerous deceitful things today.' If I started down such a trail, unless I had time to explain myself in detail I would doubtless generate more questions than answers, and fall into trouble rather fast. Besides, I do not claim to enjoy ultimate insight into all forms of deceit. That is why Christians need to talk with one another, inform one another, even check one another out. But let me give you one example.

A number of years ago I was speaking at a large congress of missionaries in an east Asian country. I speak nebulously here to protect the guilty. In one of my addresses, I mentioned in passing, as something that was deceitful, rebirthing techniques.

Rebirthing techniques were first invented by American psychologists to help some people who had been abused when they were young. These techniques have been adapted in some branches of evangelicalism to help people get over the abuse that they suffered in the past and they usually involve group therapy. All the participants who have been abused are asked to shut their eyes and imagine being born again - literally born again, not in the John 3 sense, but actually coming out of their mother's birth canal again. They imagine their mother in labour, her feet in the stirrups. In their mind's eye, they themselves are now coming out of the mother's womb, and Jesus is there to ease them out of the birth canal. He is there to wipe their faces, cut the umbilical cord, slap them, if necessary, so they will draw in the first breath of life. He is there to give them their first cuddles. This exercise in imagination may take quite a bit of time. Participants testify that sometimes they have broken down and wept for 30 or 40 minutes as they have suddenly realised that Jesus really did love them from the beginning after all. It was to this technique that I made some slighting allusions in my talk.

After the address, I was confronted by a rather angry young missionary and his wife who very graciously invited me around to their place for lunch so that we could talk about this further.

The missionary's story

We had lunch, and then he said to me, 'I'm going to tell you my story. I was brought up in an abusive family. I was raped, sodomised by my father and my uncle. I have no good images of fathers, none. Then at the age of 16 I started going to a local evangelical church. At the age of 17, dragged along by my friends, eventually I was converted. I went off to theological college, met this woman who is my wife and here we are in the mission field.' They were then in their mid-30s. 'And if you had asked me during that period of time if I knew that God loves me, of course I would have answered in the affirmative. I would have quoted all the texts; after all, I've been to Bible college.'

'But', he said, 'about nine months ago someone came through and invited those of us from abusive backgrounds to go through one of these rebirthing sessions. ... Let me tell you frankly, I went in with a certain amount of scepticism. Before it was over, I wept and wept. For the first time I knew, I felt in my heart of hearts, that Christ loved me - and this conviction was immensely healing. I love my wife better, and I receive her love better. I think I understand Jesus better. There is nothing in the Bible that condemns rebirthing techniques. Who are you to come here and make slighting remarks about that which, in God's mercy, has been so helpful in my life?'

It was a fair question.

I said, 'My dear brother, if as a result of these rebirthing techniques you love your wife better and receive her love better, and if you feel more integrated, I'm not going to throw stones at you. Go in peace. But if you really do want a serious answer, it is going to hurt. Do you want me to keep going, or not?'
He said, 'Yes, I do.'

Two questions

'All right', I said, 'I've got two questions you must answer honestly before we can go any further.'

He said, 'What are they?'

I said, 'The first question is this. Do you think it might have been possible for you to have had a similar cathartic experience another way? Suppose, for example, someone had taken you to a passage like Ephesians 3.14-21, which pictures Christians coming to know the length and depth and breadth and love of God in Christ Jesus and the gospel? Do you think that if somebody had taken you carefully through such a passage, and applied it to your life very thoroughly, you might have had a similar cathartic experience?'

He paused a long time before he replied. 'Yes', he said, 'I think that it could have happened that way. I'm not saying that people have to have my particular experience to get to where I am, but I'm saying that in my case that's how I got here. So I suppose that if somebody had taken the Scriptures and applied them to me that way very carefully I might have had a similar cathartic, healing experience and been a lot better.'

I said, 'Good, I'm glad to hear it. My second question is: where, according to Scripture, is the love of God most definitively and spectacularly displayed?'

'Oh', he said, 'in the cross, undoubtedly.' I said, 'That's also correct.'

'So let me ask you this. If someone now comes to you with a similar broken background, and says to you, "Brother, I hear that you've had an abusive background, and by rebirthing techniques you've got your life integrated and more in balance. Can you help me?" - will you direct that person to the historical Jesus of the cross, in line with passages like Ephesians 3, or will you direct such a person to an imaginary Jesus - an imaginary Jesus who stands between the legs of that person's mother so as to ease the victim from the birth canal, wipe yuck off his face, and cut his umbilical cord?'

You see, the devil is not so stupid that he is going to come alongside a missionary and say, 'Here's a great big wonderful lie: believe it!' He is going to come along and say, 'Well, yes, yes, the gospel is a good thing. We know that, we believe that. But to get really integrated you need this little bit extra as well. After all, God is the God of all truth, and clearly rebirthing techniques constitute part of that truth. Not only so, but you will find that there are significant psychological benefits to these approaches. There is no sense in being rigid. This pattern is "off" from gospel focus by no more than five degrees. Flex; do not be so rigid; for goodness sake, be realistic.'

Down the generations

But as that approach gets passed on to the next generation and the next generation and the next, where is the power of God in the gospel? As one moves out from the centre, what begins as a five-degree divergence becomes an awful spread. I am not denying that some psychological good came to this young missionary from his rebirthing experiences. I am arguing, rather, that the same psychological good is fully available in the gospel, without the divergence that directs our attention away from the historical Jesus of Golgotha. Where does our confidence lie? In the gospel, or in rebirthing techniques?

The devil not only goes around as a roaring lion chewing up those he may devour, but he goes around as an angel of light, deceiving, if possible, the very elect. Satan controls not only the first beast of Revelation, who uses the pressures of government and culture, and sometimes the coercive powers of the military and the police; he also controls the second beast, the false prophet. And, I tell you, in the West at the moment, we are far more in danger of the false prophet than of the first beast - which is why we must go back to Scripture again and again, and get our cues from God's most holy Word.

This article was edited by and used with permission of the author.