Here is what I take from this story - God doesn't want to you go to heaven via suicide. He wants you to die of natural or other causes in order to get to heaven. Anything absent from this picture? I see deception written all over this NDE.
Some NDE seem to be clearly non-Christian or even anti-Christian. Others seem to be "neutral". And in each kind, some of the people who experience them interpret them in such a way that either leads them to or away from Christianity. But usually to some spirituality if they didn't have a spirituality previously, or a deeper spirituality in the tradition they were already familiar with. The two testimonies I posted above (which could be multiplied) are of people who became Christian.
As as Charismatic I don't discount the possibility that these experiences were really from God. HOWEVER, as a Calvinist I find it a bit problematic because they seem to contradict (or at least are problematic with respect to) 1. penal substitution 2. Limited Atonement. These people who go to hell seem to be experiencing the pains of hell for a period of "time" for their sins (or some of their sins) even though if they were eventually saved. But their experience of the pains of hell (even if limited in time and intensity) would seem to be a case of Double Jeopardy since Christ paid for their sins so that they didn't have to. One way out of that would be to see Christ's atonement as some who hold to universal atonement do. Namely, that Christ's atonement is analogously like the purchase of a medicine that can be administered to anyone at any time rather than the purchase of medicine with the specific individual names on each medicine bottle for specific patients (which would be more like the Calvinist understanding of Limited Atonement).
Also, these alleged experiences suggest that Gehenna exists "now" rather than after the 2nd Advent of Christ. Yet in times past (especially when I was a dogmatic Premillennialist) I thought that the wicked dead continue to wait in Sheol/Hades till they are judged at the Last Judgment and then sent to Gehenna.
Here is what I take from this story - God doesn't want to you go to heaven via suicide. He wants you to die of natural or other causes in order to get to heaven. Anything absent from this picture? I see deception written all over this NDE.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be a formula in many NDE. For example, here are two cases of claimed suicide attempts and alleged entrance into hell:
DeleteDavid Parnell
Tamara Laroux
Some NDE seem to be clearly non-Christian or even anti-Christian. Others seem to be "neutral". And in each kind, some of the people who experience them interpret them in such a way that either leads them to or away from Christianity. But usually to some spirituality if they didn't have a spirituality previously, or a deeper spirituality in the tradition they were already familiar with. The two testimonies I posted above (which could be multiplied) are of people who became Christian.
As as Charismatic I don't discount the possibility that these experiences were really from God. HOWEVER, as a Calvinist I find it a bit problematic because they seem to contradict (or at least are problematic with respect to) 1. penal substitution 2. Limited Atonement. These people who go to hell seem to be experiencing the pains of hell for a period of "time" for their sins (or some of their sins) even though if they were eventually saved. But their experience of the pains of hell (even if limited in time and intensity) would seem to be a case of Double Jeopardy since Christ paid for their sins so that they didn't have to. One way out of that would be to see Christ's atonement as some who hold to universal atonement do. Namely, that Christ's atonement is analogously like the purchase of a medicine that can be administered to anyone at any time rather than the purchase of medicine with the specific individual names on each medicine bottle for specific patients (which would be more like the Calvinist understanding of Limited Atonement).
DeleteAlso, these alleged experiences suggest that Gehenna exists "now" rather than after the 2nd Advent of Christ. Yet in times past (especially when I was a dogmatic Premillennialist) I thought that the wicked dead continue to wait in Sheol/Hades till they are judged at the Last Judgment and then sent to Gehenna.
Delete