Audio Transcript
Thursday we were talking about recreational marijuana, and I briefly mentioned that various religions have used marijuana in pursuit of a spiritual high — a divine connection or an altered state of consciousness that they believe deepens faith or opens the mind to a sacred experience. If you’ve been around for a while, you know that we talk about the daily fight to experience God’s “manifest presence” in our lives — the “experienced, known, tasted presence of God.” (That’s a topic that comes up when we talk about spiritual depression, like you’ll see in the APJ book on pages 399–400.) That kind of language can make people think we’re talking about some euphoric high or mystical experience that we pitch as a pinnacle that others should aspire to reach. So, it’s good to consider this letter from Dianne in South Africa.
“Pastor John, thank you for all you have done to educate and help Christians worldwide for so many years. I have made use of many of your resources online. I don’t know if this question has come up before, but what are your thoughts on Christian mysticism and Christian mystics and their interaction with God? Did they experience something in their walk with God that we have generally lost today? Is mysticism something that we should pursue to have a closer walk with God?
“I understand that mysticism often involves deep personal experiences with God, but I’m unsure whether it aligns with biblical teachings on how we are to know God and be sanctified. Can mysticism be a legitimate path to spiritual growth, or does it distract from the means of grace we have been given, like prayer, Scripture, and fellowship? Colossians 2:18–19 warns against pursuing visions or worship of angels, emphasizing the importance of holding fast to Christ alone. How do we avoid these distractions while deepening our relationship with God?”
Defining Mysticism
Wikipedia defines mysticism like this: “Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning.” Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines mysticism as “the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (such as intuition or insight).”
So, I suspect that what Dianne is getting at in her question is the kind of subjective experiences that one pursues, not by meditating on Scripture so as to understand objective, revealed truth and be transformed by it, but rather seeking some other kind of ecstatic or out-of-body connection with supernatural powers in the hopes of gaining some hidden knowledge or experience of ultimate reality that would give power for successful life change — something like that.
And Dianne asks, “Is mysticism something that we should pursue to have a closer walk with God?” Now, given the way I have defined mysticism and the way it’s usually thought about, the answer is no. No, we shouldn’t pursue it. Don’t seek transformation or power through ecstatic or out-of-body connections with supernatural powers. Don’t go that route. And I would take us to just one passage of Scripture to support that position, in 2 Corinthians.
Paul and His Critics
Paul is being mocked in this book (or in this situation behind the book) by a group of adversaries whom he calls “super-apostles” — he calls them that in 2 Corinthians 11:5 and 12:11. They said, for example, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account” (2 Corinthians 10:10). One of the things that they derided Paul about was that he wasn’t mystical enough; he didn’t have the kind of amazing experiences that the super-apostles had.
So, one of Paul’s strategies to rescue the Corinthian believers from the influence of these adversaries was to go ahead and boast about the very thing they said he didn’t have — and then turn around and call it foolishness. It’s a very interesting strategy.
“The real power of the Christian life lies in trusting Christ to show his power through our weaknesses, gladly.”
He boasted rather in his weaknesses, not in these powerful, special, unusual, striking ecstatic experiences. Right after the text that I’m going to read to you in just a minute, right after this text, in 2 Corinthians 12:11, he says, “I have been a fool! You forced me to it.” So, what is it that Paul calls foolish? The answer is this: He thought it was foolish to boast about mystical experiences as though they were the true sign of an apostle or the key to godliness or Christlikeness.
Paul and His Visions
So, here’s what he says in 2 Corinthians 12:1–7:
I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to [boast about] visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago [and we’re going to know in a few minutes that this is Paul talking about himself in the third person] was caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows — and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses — though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me [me!] from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh.
So, now we know those mystical experiences of being caught up into paradise, into the third heaven, where he heard things that cannot be uttered — that was Paul. We know it was Paul because Jesus is now giving Paul a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being conceited about those amazing mystical experiences he just had. The reason Paul spoke of those experiences in the third person, as though they belonged to somebody else, is to communicate to the Corinthians and to the super-apostles that those experiences were not central to his ministry. They don’t make one holy; they don’t give one God’s authority. And then, in the next four verses, we read one of the most amazing experiences of the apostle Paul in the New Testament.
Paul and His Power
Jesus gave Paul a painful thorn precisely to keep him from making much of mystical experience. It was as though the Lord gave that experience to Paul as a special gift, and then he hit the mute button and directed his attention and our attention elsewhere — which is exactly what we should do.
Here’s how Paul gets his attention directed elsewhere: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this [thorn in the flesh], that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’” (2 Corinthians 12:8–9). To which Paul, amazingly, responds like this: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly” — and that’s an important word — “all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
In other words, the real power of the Christian life — the peculiarly Christ-given power, the Christian power, the real power of an apostle — lies not in mystical experiences but in trusting Christ to show his power in and through our weaknesses, gladly. This is why the super-apostles mocked Paul, because he taught that Christians experience the power of Christ when they are enabled to be content and even glad in their sufferings, in their weakness. They were so bent out of shape! They did not want to be weak. They didn’t care whether Christ got all the credit. They wanted to look strong, and being caught up into heaven was a great way to boast over other people — but Paul said, “Not going to do it. Mute button on that; thorn to keep that in its place.”
So, I think the upshot of all this is that we should not reject extraordinary experiences if they come (Paul didn’t reject it; he received it as a gift) but that we should seek them not. Don’t go after them. You’re going to get a thorn if you go after them, if you try to boast in them. We should not seek them as an ordinary way of experiencing the power of Christ — rather, we should seek to know Christ so deeply that he himself becomes the satisfaction of our souls, the gladness of our hearts, and the contentment of our minds as we walk the Christlike path of sacrificial love.
