Near Death Experiences Of Heaven

In March, 2013, I submitted a post about near-death experiences. That was not the first time I wrote about this phenomenon. There remains much interest in this subject. After all, we all must die and most of us are interested in what happens after death. As we continue to hear the book of Revelation speak about heaven we naturally wonder if that is an adequate picture of what happens after death. Does the Revelation agree with the experience of those who died and returned from death?

Here are some of the stories these NDE (near-death experience) folks relate, taken from a 2015 book I've been reading (Imagine Heaven by John Burke). Burke, a convinced Christian, writes about many who have had NDE's. Typical is the first, Dr. George Ritchie, a psychiatrist:

George Ritche did claim to see much, much more, which we will explore in the following pages: Beauty surpassing earth's favorite vacation destinations, people alive and active in a world not unlike ours, yet so infused with such exhilarating love, purpose, and belonging that it made earth seem merely a shadow of the real Life to come. As the loving Being of Light sent him back after his tour of another dimension, George said, "From that loneliest moment of my existence I had leaped into the most perfect belonging I had ever known. The Light of Jesus had entered my life and filled it completely, and the idea of being separated from Him was more than I could bear." 

Burke goes on to quote from Dr. Raymond Moody's 2001 book: Life after Life:The Investigation of a Phenomenon—Survival of Bodily Death. Moody describes the commonly reported, overlapping elements of near-death stories. 

A man is dying and, as he reaches the point of greatest physical distress, he hears himself pronounced dead by his doctor. . . He suddenly finds himself outside of his own physical body, but still in the immediate physical environment, and he sees his own body from a distance, as though he is a spectator. He watches the resuscitation attempt from his unusual vantage point and is in a state of an emotional upheaval. After a while, he collects himself and becomes more accustomed to his odd condition. He notices that he still has a "body," but one of a very different nature and with very different powers from the physical body he has left behind. Others come to meet and to help him. He glimpses the spirits of relatives and friends who have already died, and a loving, warm spirit of a kind he has never encountered before—a being of light—appears before him. This being asks him a question, non-verbally, to make him evaluate his life and helps him along by showing him a panoramic, instantaneous playback of the major events of his life. At some point he finds himself approaching some sort of barrier or border, apparently representing the limit between earthly life and the next life. Yet, he finds that he must go back to the earth, that the time for his death has not yet come. At this point he resists . . . and does not want to return. He's overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, love, and peace. Despite his attitude, though, he somehow reunites with his physical body and lives.

How do these stories compare to what we've been reading in The Revelation? Here are some quotes about the saints in heaven in the first eleven chapters. Notice how Jesus, the elders and the great multitude are described, how they are clothed:  

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. - Rev 1:12-18 ESV

The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. - Rev 3:5 ESV 

At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the

Heaven by Christian Graphic Design

throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. - Rev 4:2-3 ESV 

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." - Rev 7:9-12 ESV

Dr. J. Steve Miller (Near-Death Experiences As Evidence For The Existence of God) in 2012 wrote about various aspects of the afterlife:

1. Death isn't the end of life
2. Time is different
3. We will have spiritual bodies, different from and superior to our physical bodies
4. The mind can exist apart from the body
5. We know and understand things much more clearly on the other side
6. There are intermediaries between God and people
7. The other side isn't rosy for everyone
8. Heaven is a place you want to go

His conclusion: 

Unless further research overturns the results of the present research, we have strong evidence to support both life after death and the existence of a personal God. . . But there's more evidence for the supernatural beyond near-death experiences. 

Christmas And Life After Death

In sharing some of God's Word to that little congregation near here this week, I helped them to meditate upon stone and caves. We recalled that Jesus' manger was in a little cave in Jerusalem, according to very ancient tradition. Check out this information about the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

I concluded my Advent mid-week sermon by inviting the congregation to meditate upon another cave, the one in which Abraham's body was laid (Gen. 25:7-11). He was buried in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite after living for 175 years.

It was the phrase "and he was gathered to his people" that caught my attention and to which I pointed the worshippers. What does that phrase mean? Does it suggest that, like all those before him, Abraham breathed his last and was buried like all those who had gone before him? Hardly. Listen to these words of the Lord Jesus when the Sadducees mocked him for believing and teaching the resurrection of the dead. His curt reply was from their own Scriptures, pointing out that when the dead rise they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead they will be like the angels in heaven. Then he went on to say,

"Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!" —Mark 12:24-27. 

We all die, whether young or old, but most of us will not be buried in a cave. Some of us will not be buried at all. Our bodies will be consumed by fire, dropped into the water, devoured by animals or buried in the earth. It does not matter. These earthly bodies will be replaced by heavenly bodies (1 Cor. 15:25-39). That is quite clear from the revealed Word of God. In the earthly time before that Great Day Abraham and all who share his faith are living and rejoicing together in the presence of God.

That wonder is made more certain now that Jesus was born, lived, died and rose again. The dead are not dead at all, but alive and worshipping him, as Jesus pointed out to Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26).

I've often shared what Alice, a delightful elderly lady of our parish, told me. She said that she had died during an operation on her body. She recalled leaving her body and rising above it to look down at the doctors and nurses desperately trying to revive her. Then in a blinding flash she found herself amidst her people, her parents, husband, aunts and uncles who had all gone before her. They welcomed her with laughter and delight and she was filled with joy. But then she heard a Voice tell her she must return. In a moment, Alice said, she was back in that hospital operating room, looking down at her body. And in the next moment she was awake. After that experience, she said she looked forward to death (2 Corinthians 12:1-10).

Alice was quite reluctant to tell her story. She assumed that many would consider her a nut case for telling such a wild tale. I assured her I did not. Perhaps you will not either, because hundreds have told similar stories. There is even a Near Death Experience Foundation, although I would caution everyone not to base their hopes of life after death and the resurrection upon human science and human accounts (1 Corinthians 15:1-19).

Christmas is a time for family and family gatherings. It's a time to share gifts and love. Just imagine what it will be like when we are "gathered to our people". Christmas time will never end—never!