Seven marks that distinguish the real Christ from every counterfeit
A woman sits across from me in a coffee shop. Her mother died three weeks ago. In the last hours before her mother slipped away, something happened that the whole family witnessed. Her mother — unconscious for most of the day — suddenly opened her eyes, looked toward the corner of the room, and said, "Jesus is here. He has been waiting for me." Then she closed her eyes, smiled, and was gone within an hour. The daughter, a quiet Baptist woman who has never before asked a theological question in her life, looks at me over her coffee and says, "So. Was that really Jesus?"
I want to stop and notice the honesty of that question. Most of us, if someone we loved saw a glowing figure and called him Jesus at the hour of death, would not want to ask. We would want to receive the gift, hug the family, plant the flowers, and move on. Pressing the question feels almost rude. But the daughter has a point. She is not being cynical. She is being careful. She wants to know whether to tell her grandchildren about what Grandma saw — whether to put it in the story of the family faith or hold it at arm's length.
This chapter is for her.
And it is for the rest of us too. Because the same question shows up again and again across the literature on near-death experiences (NDEs) and deathbed experiences (DBEs). An NDEr writes a book. In the book, she says she met Jesus. A reader picks it up and wants to know: was that really Him? A family member of a dying loved one wonders the same thing. A pastor gets a phone call and has to answer it. Somewhere in the background of every testimony we hear, the question is there, whether anyone says it out loud or not.
When someone says "I met Jesus" in an NDE or DBE, there are three common responses Christians give. All three are inadequate.
The first is automatic acceptance. "They said Jesus. They must have met Jesus." This response sounds generous, but it is not biblical. Scripture is full of warnings about people who claim to speak for God and do not. Jesus Himself warned that "false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew 24:24).1 The Apostle John said plainly, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God" (1 John 4:1). The Apostle Paul wrote that "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14).2 If the New Testament is our guide, automatic acceptance is not the posture of faith. It is the posture of the untested.
The second is automatic rejection. "No one meets Jesus in NDEs. It must have been a demon, or a hallucination, or wishful thinking." This is the posture some conservative critics of the NDE movement have taken, and I understand why. They have read the strange books. They have watched the syncretistic teachers on television. They are rightly concerned. But automatic rejection ignores the biblical record of people meeting God at the edge of death (Stephen in Acts 7; Paul in 2 Corinthians 12). It ignores the careful, systematic research — done by believing Christians — showing that Jesus is remarkably prominent in NDE reports, including among atheists, children, and people from non-Christian religions.3 It is, in effect, a refusal to consider evidence. And it leaves Christian NDErs and the families of dying believers without any good pastoral word at all.
The third is suspension of judgment. "We cannot ever know, so we should not try." This sounds humble. It is actually a refusal of the discernment the Bible commands. When John writes "test the spirits," he is not suggesting a hobby for the curious. He is giving a command to every believer. And he believes we can actually do what he is commanding. He even gives us the test: "every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God" (1 John 4:2-3). Refusing to judge is not humility. It is disobedience dressed up as humility.
The biblical posture is active discernment. When someone says "I met Jesus," we can apply criteria — criteria drawn from Scripture's teachings about Christ and Scripture's warnings about deception — and reach a careful, responsible judgment. Most of the time, especially in Christian contexts, the judgment will be: yes, this was probably Jesus. Sometimes it will be: this does not look like Him. And sometimes it will be: I do not know, and that is okay. This chapter equips us to think about these three possibilities in an orderly way.
This chapter is not written to make you suspicious of your dying grandmother. It is not written to fuel hostility toward the Christian NDE testimonies that have blessed the church. My working estimate — based on my own research and on the work of J. Steve Miller, John Burke, Michael Sabom, and Shaun Tabatt — is that the overwhelming majority of reported Jesus encounters in Christian contexts really were Him. This chapter exists for the smaller number of cases where the identification is disputed, unclear, or contradicted by what the being actually teaches. Most of the time, the answer is yes. But we need to know what to do when the answer might be no.
Imagine a bank teller. On her first day of training, her supervisor hands her a stack of real twenty-dollar bills. "Study these," he says. "Learn how they feel. Look at the watermark. Study the texture. Feel the paper under your fingers. By the end of the week, I want you to know what real money looks like better than you know your own handwriting."
She does not understand. "Don't you want me to study the fakes? How am I supposed to spot a counterfeit if I've never seen one?"
The supervisor smiles. "If you know the real thing well enough, every fake will feel wrong in your hands. You do not need to memorize every style of counterfeit. You need to know the real."
This is how biblical discernment works too. We do not need to memorize every style of spiritual deception to recognize one. We need to know the real Jesus — the Jesus of the four Gospels, the Jesus confessed by the early church in the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, the Jesus defined at the Council of Chalcedon as "truly God and truly man."4 When we know that Jesus well, most counterfeits feel wrong in our hands the moment we pick them up.47
The criteria in this chapter are not a new invention. They are just a careful walk through what Scripture already teaches about Jesus, applied to the question of NDE identification. Each criterion asks some version of the same fundamental question: does the being described in this experience look and act and teach like the Jesus of the New Testament? The criteria are therefore cumulative rather than each one being absolute. An NDE that passes some but not all of them may still be genuine — not every NDE includes every feature of the biblical Jesus. But an NDE that fails most of them, especially on theological content, gives us reason to pause.
Let us walk through the seven criteria.
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The biblical Jesus is not a principle. He is a Person. He is a particular, historical, incarnate, crucified, and risen man — Jesus of Nazareth, born of Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised on the third day. The opening sentence of the Gospel of John makes this unmistakable: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).
This "becoming flesh" is not a metaphor. It is a permanent ontological fact. God the Son took on a complete human nature — body and rational soul — in a real moment of history, and He has not set that human nature aside since.25 Michael Wilkinson, working carefully through the Council of Chalcedon's definition of Christ, makes the point forcefully: the Son of God "is the divine person of the Son who now subsists in two natures. His human nature consists of a 'body and rational soul' (to use the language of Chalcedon) and his person (the divine Son) is the acting subject."5 What this means in plain language is that Jesus is forever — right now, in heaven, in glory — a particular man. Not a cloud of love. Not a cosmic principle. A particular, identifiable, named, bodied-and-souled Person.26
The Apostle John was so serious about this that he made it the test of every spirit. "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God" (1 John 4:2-3). The Greek phrase en sarki elēluthota (ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα) — "has come in the flesh" — uses the perfect participle, which describes a past action with continuing results. John is not just saying Jesus once took on flesh and then moved on. He is saying Jesus came in the flesh and remains so. Any spirit that denies this, or blurs it, or redescribes Jesus as something less specific than a particular historical Man, is not from God.
This matters for NDE discernment in very concrete ways.
Positive indicators of Christological specificity include the following. The NDEr recognizes the figure as Jesus by specific features — His face, His voice, His bearing, the shape of Him. The being identifies Himself as Jesus directly, or responds when the NDEr names Him. The being's particularity is evident throughout the encounter. This is a particular Person, not an emanation or an ideal or a concept. When Howard Storm was rescued from a distressing NDE by calling out to Jesus, he did not encounter "the love force." He encountered a Person with a face and a voice. When Ian McCormack was drawn out of darkness, he saw a man.6 The particularity was part of the encounter.
Negative indicators are the opposite. The being speaks of "the Christ within everyone." The being refers to itself as "Christ consciousness" or "universal mind" or "the Source." The being deflects to a higher impersonal principle — "I am just a face that the One Love is wearing for you." The being presents Jesus as one teacher among many, saying something like, "I am the Christ, but Buddha is also the Christ, and so are you, if you awaken."
These are not new ideas. They are ancient. They come from second-century Gnosticism, from theosophy, from Hinduism filtered through Western New Age spirituality. Early Christian writers fought hard against the notion of an impersonal "Christ principle" because they understood that such a principle could not save anyone. Only a real Person, who entered real history, could die a real death and rise again to give real life. The "Christ" of Gnostic texts floats above the mess of human flesh, detached from real bodies and real history. The Christ of the Bible picks up babies, touches lepers, eats fish after His resurrection, and eternally retains the scars of nails.
So when an NDE features a being who talks like a Gnostic — who is about love-in-general rather than Himself-in-particular, who refuses to be pinned down to a historical identity, who speaks of the Christ as if it were a state rather than a Name — we have reason to be careful. This may not be the biblical Jesus at all. It may be what Michael Sabom's studies call "a man figure" that looks intuitively like Jesus but has been given the wrong name.7
Here is something remarkable about the risen Jesus: He kept His scars.
Think about that for a moment. The resurrection was the beginning of the glorified body — the body that would never suffer decay, never bleed, never weaken, never die. All the marks of fallen earthly life were presumably wiped away in that moment of rising. And yet, when Jesus appeared to His disciples on Easter evening, He still had the holes in His hands and feet and side. He kept them. He showed them on purpose.
"Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.'" (John 20:27, ESV)
And the book of Revelation, written decades later, shows John still seeing Jesus the same way — "a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain" (Revelation 5:6). The risen Lord retains the marks of His sacrifice forever. They are not a horror to be hidden. They are the center of His glory. The crucifixion is so deeply part of who Jesus is that eternity itself cannot erase it.
This has profound implications for NDE discernment. If the real Jesus forever bears the marks of the cross, then a "Jesus" who does not bear those marks — or who dismisses the cross as unnecessary, or who treats the crucifixion as a misunderstanding that humans projected onto a peaceful teacher — is not the real Jesus.36
And in fact, the strongest Christian NDE reports consistently include references to the wounds. Ian McCormack, on encountering Christ, saw Him. When asked what He was like, McCormack described not a featureless radiance but a Person whose identity could be read from His hands. Jim Woodford, the Canadian businessman and pilot whose NDE led to his conversion, saw the crucifixion wounds and understood in that moment that this was the Lamb who had been slain.8 In Sabom's second Atlanta Study, a heart attack victim described his encounter with Jesus: "I looked at his hands and there were the scars where the nails had gone through."9 The underlying Christological point — that the risen Christ is ontologically identified by His wounded-but-glorified flesh — is grounded in the Chalcedonian confession of His full humanity.35
Positive indicators for this criterion include the following. The NDEr describes seeing the scars. Jesus shows them deliberately, almost tenderly, as if to say: you know me by these. The wounds are part of His glorified identity. They are not horrifying but beautiful — the evidence that He has borne what He needed to bear, and has come through on the other side. The encounter with the scars is often the moment when the NDEr is most undone, because the scars mean: He did this for me.
Negative indicators include the following. The being has no scars, and never shows any. The being's identity is completely detached from the historical event of the crucifixion. The being talks about Jesus's death in a dismissive or revisionist way: "The crucifixion was a misunderstanding — love does not require death." "The cross was your idea, not mine." "The blood sacrifice theology is a primitive projection onto a simple teacher of love." Any of these are serious warning signs.
Think of it this way. If I said I had met my grandfather, and then I described a man six feet tall with a full head of blond hair and no glasses, you might be skeptical. My grandfather was five-foot-six, completely bald, and could not see without his glasses. You would not say, "Well, people describe each other differently." You would say, "That is not your grandfather. I do not know who that was, but it was not him." Particular people have particular features, and real recognition involves real details. The scars of Jesus are the details by which He Himself asks to be recognized.
I want to be careful here. Not every NDEr who meets Jesus describes seeing the scars. Sometimes the encounter is brief, or the NDEr is focused on other features (His eyes, His voice, His embrace), or the NDEr simply never mentions the wounds in their retelling. Absence of the wound-description does not automatically disqualify. But presence of the wounds is a strong positive indicator, and explicit denial or dismissal of the wounds is a strong negative one.
The biblical Jesus taught things. Specific things. Recoverable things. The four Gospels preserve His teaching with enough detail that we know, centuries later, what He actually said about God, about sin, about salvation, about the afterlife, about how to live. Any "Jesus" who teaches during an NDE can be checked against this record. If the teaching matches, that is a positive indicator. If the teaching contradicts, that is a decisive negative one.
The biblical Jesus taught repentance from sin: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15). He taught salvation through faith in Himself: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already" (John 3:16, 18). He taught that He Himself is the exclusive way to the Father: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). He taught the reality of final judgment in vivid, sobering detail (Matthew 25:31-46). He taught love for God and neighbor as the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-40). He taught the coming kingdom of God, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the call to take up one's cross daily, the necessity of forgiveness, and the beauty of humility. The content is rich, varied, and specific.
A "Jesus" encountered in an NDE who teaches content that lines up with this — calling the NDEr to repentance where needed, to faith, to love, to service, to the local church — is very likely the real Jesus. A "Jesus" who teaches content that directly contradicts this is not.
Positive indicators include: the being's teaching aligns with Scripture. The being calls the NDEr toward discipleship — toward growing in holiness, serving others, loving enemies, forgiving, and pointing other people to Christ. The being does not teach anything that Jesus Himself did not teach in the Gospels.
Negative indicators include teaching that the biblical Jesus explicitly rejected or that contradicts clear biblical doctrine. If the NDE "Jesus" teaches universalism without faith, that is a contradiction — the biblical Jesus said "whoever does not believe is condemned already." If the "Jesus" teaches reincarnation — "you have lived before, you will live again" — that is a contradiction, because Hebrews 9:27 says "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." If the "Jesus" teaches that all humans are divine, or that "you are all gods," that is a contradiction; the biblical Jesus called His hearers to repentance, not to the discovery of their own divinity. If the "Jesus" teaches that the Bible is mistaken or incomplete, that is a contradiction; the real Jesus said "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35) and affirmed even the most controversial Old Testament passages.10 Miller's systematic review of 100 culled NDEs found that only three accounts included teaching directly contrary to Christian doctrine — a small percentage, but a real one, and precisely the minority this chapter's criteria are designed to address.32
The controlling principle here comes from the Apostle Paul:31
"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8-9, ESV)
The Greek word Paul uses twice for "let him be accursed" is anathema (ἀνάθεμα) — a word of severe rejection, something set aside under divine judgment. Paul is not being polite. He is saying: it does not matter who brings the message. Even if it is an angel from heaven — even if, I might add, it is a shining figure in an NDE who presents himself as Jesus — if the message is a different gospel, reject it. A "Jesus" teaching a different gospel is not the real Jesus. The NDEr's sincere conviction that "it was Him" does not change that. We have a standard outside the experience: the gospel the apostles preached and the Scriptures they wrote. Any claim that contradicts that standard fails the test.
A concrete example makes this vivid. Imagine two NDE reports set side by side. In the first, the NDEr reports Jesus saying something like: "Tell my people I love them. Tell them to come to me and find rest. Tell those who have wandered that I am still waiting." This sounds like the Jesus of the Gospels — the one who said "come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28) and who left the ninety-nine to find the one (Luke 15:4). In the second, the NDEr reports Jesus saying: "All religions are valid paths to me. Hell is a projection of human fear, not a reality. You are divine and always have been. You do not need the Bible or the church; you only need to remember who you really are." This does not sound like the Jesus of the Gospels. This sounds like a different message entirely.
The difference between these two reports is not a matter of taste. It is a matter of content. The first aligns with what Jesus actually said; the second contradicts it at multiple decisive points. The criteria do not require elaborate theological training. They require patience to read the Gospels carefully and to compare. Any ordinary Christian with a Bible can do it.
One more observation. When a reported NDE "Jesus" speaks, the test is not only what He says but what He does not say. The real Jesus of the Gospels consistently pointed beyond Himself to the Father (John 14:28, "the Father is greater than I"), to the Scriptures ("Scripture cannot be broken," John 10:35), and to the eventual coming Kingdom (Matthew 6:10). A "Jesus" who keeps the spotlight on Himself as a therapist, who has nothing to say about the Father or the Spirit or the church or the Scriptures or the kingdom, is a curiously truncated Jesus. His doctrine of Himself has swallowed all the other doctrines. That is a red flag. The real Christ is a Person in fellowship with the Father and the Spirit, and His speech always opens outward from that fellowship into the life of the church.
Here is the comfort this brings. We are not required to weigh every NDE on the basis of who tells the most moving story, or who has the most credentials, or whose account was bestselling. We can test every account against the same objective standard — the Bible. That is a gift. It means discernment is not the private property of the elite. It is available to every Christian who reads the Scriptures.
One of the most striking features of the biblical Jesus is that His love and His holiness are not in competition. They are two faces of the same Person.
He loved the woman at the well and told her she had had five husbands and the man she was now with was not her husband (John 4). He loved the rich young ruler and told him to sell everything he had and give it to the poor (Mark 10). He loved Jerusalem and wept over it and also pronounced judgment on its leaders in the same chapter (Matthew 23). He welcomed sinners and also overturned the tables in the temple with a handmade whip. The New Testament does not present a tension between a "loving Jesus" and a "holy Jesus." It presents one Jesus whose love is holy and whose holiness loves.
This unity matters enormously for NDE discernment. Because a very common feature of problematic NDE accounts is a "Jesus" who is only one of these things. Usually He is only loving. The NDEr emerges saying something like, "He loved me completely. He did not care about anything I had done. He told me I was fine exactly as I was. He never mentioned sin. He never called me to change anything." Now, some of these reports are describing something genuine — the overwhelming experience of God's welcoming grace, which Scripture does teach. But when the account is entirely comfort and contains no element of the moral seriousness, the awe, the sanctifying conviction that Scripture associates with encountering God, something is off.
Consider what happens when real saints in the Bible encounter the real God. Isaiah cries, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips" (Isaiah 6:5). Peter falls on his knees and says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8). Paul is literally knocked to the ground (Acts 9). John, who had leaned against Jesus's chest in the upper room, "fell at his feet as though dead" when he saw the risen Christ in glory (Revelation 1:17). These are not reactions to mere warmth. They are reactions to holiness. The love is there too — Jesus lifts John up and says, "Fear not." But the love does not cancel the holiness; it rests on top of it.
In a genuine encounter with Jesus, we would expect some combination of these things. Comfort, yes. Overwhelming welcome, yes. But also a sense of being in the presence of the Holy One. An awareness, even a stinging awareness, of one's own sin — met with mercy, but not denied. A call to become something, not just affirmation that one is already everything one needs to be.
Listen to Howard Storm's description. When the Jesus who rescued him appeared, Storm was overwhelmed by love — but the love was not therapeutic. It was sanctifying. The encounter exposed Storm's atheism, his pride, his self-centeredness, and called him out of them. Storm did not emerge saying, "I am fine as I am." He emerged saying, "I have been radically wrong, and I want to follow this Lord for the rest of my life."11 That is the biblical pattern.
Positive indicators for this criterion: the being's love is palpable but so is the being's holiness. The NDEr experiences both overwhelming welcome and a deep, uncomfortable-but-healing awareness of their own sin. The encounter produces both comfort and sanctifying conviction. Often the NDEr comes back with a burden to repent of specific things, to make amends for specific wrongs, to begin a different kind of life.
Negative indicators: the being produces only comfort, no conviction. Sin is never mentioned, or is reframed as "just learning experiences." The encounter is entirely therapeutic — it heals the self-esteem, validates the lifestyle, absolves any need for change. The "love" is the love of a cosmic therapist, not the love of the Holy One who died for sins.
Be careful here. Not every NDE report includes explicit conviction of sin — sometimes the NDEr's description simply focuses on the love and leaves the holiness in the background. Absence of a mention does not mean absence of the reality. The red flag is not "they did not mention sin"; it is "they are teaching that sin does not exist, or that Jesus told them sin does not matter." The biblical Jesus never said anything of the kind.
The Gospels are striking about the authority of Jesus. When He taught, "the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes" (Matthew 7:28-29). When He commanded the storm, the disciples asked in fear, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (Mark 4:41). When He forgave sins, the religious leaders were scandalized because only God can forgive sins. When He rose, He gave a commission that covered the entire world: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:18-19).
The Jesus of the Gospels is not a buddy. He is a King. His love does not contradict His kingship; it expresses it. He is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life, but He is also the One before whom every knee will bow (Philippians 2:10-11). Genuine encounters with Him produce both deep love and deep reverence.
This is one of the most consistent features of trustworthy NDE reports. When NDErs describe meeting Jesus, they almost always describe something like awe, reverence, smallness, the sense of being in the presence of supreme authority. They do not describe a casual meeting with a pal. Here is Sabom's research subject Bobby Jean describing her encounter: the figure radiated love, but the NDEr's response was reverence. George Ritchie, whose account Sabom cites, spoke of being overwhelmed with "the stupendous certainty: 'You are in the presence of the Son of God.'"12 That specific, weighted recognition — this is not my size, this is someone infinitely greater — is a biblical mark.
Positive indicators: the NDEr describes reverence, awe, the sense of being before supreme authority. They feel small — not crushed, not diminished in worth, but appropriately small in the presence of the Most High. Their response includes worship. They may weep. They may fall to their knees. They may feel the strange combination of being perfectly loved and utterly unworthy, held together by a mercy that does not erase the gap between Creator and creature but bridges it.
Negative indicators: the "Jesus" is merely sweet. Merely comforting. Merely therapeutic. Friend-next-door with a white robe on. The NDEr describes the encounter as "buddy-buddy" or "like seeing an old friend I'd missed." The NDEr feels no awe. The NDEr comes back speaking of the encounter in casual tones, as if they had bumped into their college roommate at a coffee shop. This is not how the Scriptures describe encounters with Christ, and it is not how the most trustworthy NDErs describe Him either.
To be fair, I should note that once an NDEr has been with Jesus for a while, some describe a settling of the initial overwhelm into a deep, easy communion. This is probably true. The disciples, who fell down in fear at the Transfiguration, were later able to eat fish with the risen Jesus on the beach (John 21). Intimacy and authority do not have to fight. But intimacy without any awe at all, in the very first moment of meeting, is not the biblical pattern. The real Jesus overwhelms before He comforts, or comforts and overwhelms at once.
Here is a pattern I want you to notice. In almost every genuine Christian NDE account I have studied, when the NDEr is sent back, they come back with something to do.
They come back with a calling. Sometimes it is explicit: "Tell others about me." Sometimes it is more like a burden: a sense that they have been given more time for a reason. Sometimes it is a specific vocational redirection: Howard Storm, the atheist professor, went back and eventually became a pastor. Ian McCormack went back and became a traveling evangelist. Jim Woodford went back and has spent the years since his NDE sharing the gospel.41 Don Piper went back and has told his story thousands of times, always pointing to Christ as the center.
This pattern matches the biblical pattern. When Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, He did not merely comfort Paul with the knowledge that Christianity was true. He commissioned him: "I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness" (Acts 26:16). When the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples, He gave them the Great Commission. Encounters with the real Jesus are typically sending encounters. He meets people; He gives them something to do.
Now, what exactly does the real Jesus tell people to do? The pattern is clear from Scripture and from trustworthy NDE reports alike.
He tells them to love the people around them better. To share the gospel with those who do not yet know Him. To serve the poor, visit the sick, welcome the stranger, make disciples. To get involved in a local church. To read the Bible. To forgive people they have been holding grudges against. To make amends for specific wrongs. He tells them to live the ordinary Christian life with new depth and urgency, because they have now seen what is real.
What does the real Jesus not tell people to do? This is where the negative indicators get interesting.
He does not tell them to start a new religion. He does not tell them to write a scripture that supplements the Bible or supersedes it. He does not tell them to build a ministry around their own experience as the main authority. He does not tell them they have special psychic gifts and should start giving readings. He does not tell them to become mediums and contact the dead for other people. He does not tell them that all religions are equal and their new mission is to bring the world to that truth. He does not tell them that they are unique avatars or chosen ones with a revelation the rest of the world needs.
When a reported NDE "Jesus" gives a mission along those lines, we have a serious warning sign. The particular concerns will be taken up in later chapters — psychic and mediumistic practices in Chapter 26, the universalist-syncretist message in Chapter 25. For now the point is general: the missions the real Jesus gives look like the missions He gave in the Gospels. They do not look like the marketing plan for a spiritual self-help brand.
Positive indicators: the mission, when it comes, is biblical. It calls the NDEr toward gospel witness, toward discipleship, toward service in ordinary Christian life. The NDEr comes back with more love for the church, not less. More interest in Scripture, not less. More desire to tell others about Jesus, not a desire to tell them about the NDEr's own unique experience.
Negative indicators: the mission involves starting a new religion, claiming special psychic gifts, teaching that "all paths are one," founding a ministry centered on the NDEr's own authority, or promoting anti-biblical content. If the mission is the mission of the real Jesus, it will build up His church and lift up His name. If the mission centers the NDEr or spreads ideas Jesus never taught, we have reason to test the spirit carefully.
The sixth criterion looked at what Jesus does to the NDEr (gives a mission). This last criterion looks at what the NDEr does in response to Jesus. It is a close cousin of Criterion 5 (authority), but distinct enough to consider separately.
Encounters with the risen Jesus in Scripture consistently produce reverent responses. The women at the tomb "took hold of his feet and worshiped him" (Matthew 28:9). The disciples in Galilee, seeing the risen Christ, "worshiped him, but some doubted" (Matthew 28:17) — and even the doubters were already in the posture of worship. Thomas, confronted with the wounds, could only say, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). John, seeing the glorified Christ in vision, fell at His feet as though dead (Revelation 1:17). The Bible does not record a single case of someone meeting the risen Jesus and responding with a casual hug.29
The most trustworthy NDE accounts track this pattern. When NDErs meet the real Jesus, the dominant experience is not familiarity but reverence, often followed by embrace. Ian McCormack, seeing Christ, was undone. Howard Storm, rescued from the dark, was overwhelmed with tears and with the sense that he had always been loved but had always been running. Don Piper describes being absorbed into a chorus of worship.13 The experience changes them in the direction of worshipfulness. They come back more reverent, not less.
Positive indicators: the NDEr responds with tears, worship, the trembling awareness of the holy. They come away not with a pleasant memory but with a profound sense that they have stood in the presence of God. The encounter becomes a touchstone for worship for the rest of their lives.
Negative indicators: the NDEr comes away with casual familiarity. The relationship is transactional — "He gave me wisdom to share; I'll share it." The NDEr now speaks of Jesus with an almost possessive ease — "my Jesus tells me different things than the Bible tells you" — without the corresponding trembling that the real Jesus produces. The NDEr becomes a platform personality rather than a worshiping disciple. The encounter makes them bigger in their own eyes, not smaller.
The real Christ produces awe, not coziness. If an NDE produces coziness without awe, something is off.
1. Christological specificity — Is the being the particular, historical Jesus of Nazareth, or a generic "Christ principle"?
2. Marks of the crucifixion — Does He bear (or not deny) the scars of the cross?
3. Biblical theological content — Does what He teaches line up with what the Gospels record Him teaching?
4. Holiness alongside love — Is the encounter both comforting and sanctifying, or only comforting?
5. Authority — Does His presence produce awe and reverence, or mere coziness?
6. Mission-giving — Is the NDEr sent back with a biblical mission, or with something unbiblical?
7. Reverence on the NDEr's part — Does the NDEr respond with worship and worshipful transformation?
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The seven criteria above already imply a set of negative indicators — warning signs that the being in an NDE may not be the biblical Jesus. But it is worth pulling them together in one place for easy reference. When you encounter any of the following, your discernment antennae should go up. One or two may not be decisive, especially in a brief or ambiguous report. A cluster of them — especially in the theological-content category — strongly suggests that whoever or whatever was encountered was not the real Christ.
(1) Denial of the particular historical Jesus. The being speaks of "the Christ within everyone," "universal Christ consciousness," "the Christ principle," or in any way deflects from the specific, named, crucified, and risen Jesus of Nazareth.
(2) Explicit contradiction of biblical teaching. The being teaches reincarnation, universalism without faith, the divinity of all humans, the irrelevance of the cross, the equivalence of all religions, or anything else that Scripture denies directly.
(3) Deflection from Scripture. The being tells the NDEr that they do not need the Bible, that the Bible was corrupted, that the church is unnecessary, or that the ordinary means of grace (Word, sacraments, prayer, fellowship) can be set aside in favor of direct inner guidance.
(4) Flattery of the NDEr. The being tells them they are divine, specially chosen for a unique mission beyond what ordinary discipleship provides, or possessing inside knowledge the rest of the church lacks. The biblical Jesus calls people to humility, not to a special-agent identity.
(5) Instructions toward occult or psychic practice. The being tells the NDEr to begin channeling, mediumship, giving psychic readings, astral projection, or contacting the dead. Every one of these is explicitly forbidden in Scripture (Deuteronomy 18:9-14; Leviticus 19:31), and an angel of God would not direct a person toward practices God forbids.14
(6) Absence of any moral or spiritual challenge. The being produces only comfort, never conviction. Sin is never mentioned, or is reframed as "just learning." There is no call to repent of anything. No challenge to love enemies, forgive, or walk in holiness.28
(7) The NDEr's subsequent trajectory drifts away from biblical Christianity. Over months and years, the NDEr moves from Christian orthodoxy toward syncretism, universalism, or spiritual-but-not-religious teaching. The "Jesus" they met seems to have diluted their faith rather than deepened it. When Jesus really meets someone, He grows their attachment to Scripture and His church. If the opposite happens, we have reason to wonder whether Jesus was really there at all.
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Principles are easier to grasp when we see them at work. Let me walk through five published NDE accounts — two that pass the criteria confidently, one with mixed signals, one that fails on several counts, and one that fails comprehensively. My goal is not to score these people's souls, which is far above my pay grade. My goal is to show how the criteria work when applied to specific, documented accounts.
Howard Storm was an atheist art professor at Northern Kentucky University. In 1985, on a trip to France with a group of students, he suffered a perforated duodenum and was hospitalized in severe pain. What followed became one of the most influential NDE accounts in evangelical circles: a distressing descent into darkness, a growing awareness of evil beings closing in, and a desperate cry to Jesus — whom he had never prayed to before — based on a hymn he half-remembered from childhood. From that dark place, a point of light appeared and drew near. Storm recognized Him, though he did not expect to, as Jesus.
Let us apply the seven criteria.
Christological specificity. Storm did not encounter "Christ consciousness." He encountered a particular Man who came for him personally, whom he later wrote about consistently as Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The encounter was specific. Pass.
Marks of the crucifixion. Storm's broader testimony, developed over decades, consistently ties his Jesus encounter to the biblical Jesus of the Gospels — the One who was crucified for him. Pass.
Biblical theological content. The teaching Storm received during his NDE, and the theological reflection he has done since, is generally consistent with Christian orthodoxy. Storm has been on a journey, and like every journey there are places where his particular positions can be questioned. But the core of what he says Jesus taught him — about love, about the call to discipleship, about the reality of judgment — is biblical. Pass, with the caveat that readers should evaluate his later teaching with the same discernment applied to any author.
Holiness alongside love. Storm's description of the encounter is saturated with love and with the devastating exposure of his own sin. He did not come back saying "I learned I am fine as I am." He came back saying, "I have been radically wrong. I need to repent." Pass.
Authority. Storm does not describe a buddy encounter. He describes being rescued by the Lord of lords, and responding with utter surrender. Pass.
Mission-giving. Storm went from atheist art professor to Christian pastor. He has spent the decades since his NDE telling people about Jesus and calling them to faith. The mission is the mission of the real Jesus. Pass.
Reverence on the NDEr's part. Storm has been consistently humble about his experience. He does not claim special authority; he points to Christ. He submits his teaching to Scripture. Pass.
Howard Storm's NDE passes all seven criteria. This does not mean every detail of his later writing is beyond question — Storm has pastored in the United Church of Christ, whose theological positions vary widely, and some evangelicals have raised concerns about particular elements of his later work. But the core NDE identification holds. When Storm says he met Jesus, the biblical criteria support the claim.15
Ian McCormack was a twenty-year-old New Zealand surfer, traveling the world in search of "the perfect wave, the perfect high, the perfect girl." By his own account, he had almost become a committed atheist by the time he was stung four times by box jellyfish while scuba diving off the coast of Mauritius in 1982. A single sting from these creatures is typically fatal.16 In the ambulance, his mother's voice came back to him from long ago: "Ian, no matter how far from God you are, no matter what you've done wrong, if you cry out to God from your heart, he will hear you and he will forgive you."39 He prayed, half-remembered lines of the Lord's Prayer, and then he was gone.
What followed was a distressing NDE — "so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face and it was bitterly cold"17 — with voices of other beings nearby, one of them telling him, "You're in hell. Now shut up." From that place, he cried out to God, asking why he was there if he had asked for forgiveness. A brilliant light appeared and literally drew him out of the darkness. And in that light he encountered a Person — whom he later, over decades of consistent testimony, has identified as the risen Christ.
Let us apply the criteria.
Christological specificity. McCormack met a specific Person, not a principle. The encounter was personal and directed. Pass.
Marks of the crucifixion. McCormack's testimony consistently ties the light-encounter to the crucified and risen Christ. Pass.
Biblical theological content. The teaching McCormack received called him to faith, to a change of life, to a mission of gospel witness. Biblical. Pass.
Holiness alongside love. McCormack's encounter was saturated with love, and simultaneously with the awareness that he had been living far from God and needed to change direction entirely. Pass.
Authority. McCormack describes encountering the Lord of glory. He was not casual; he was undone. Pass.
Mission-giving. McCormack was told to go back and tell others. He has done so, consistently, for over four decades. He entered full-time evangelistic ministry. The mission is biblical through and through. Pass.
Reverence. McCormack's public ministry has been notable for its humility. He is not selling a brand built on his NDE; he is preaching the Christ who met him. Pass.
McCormack's account passes all seven criteria, and unusually robustly. As a pre-conversion atheist who had no prior Christian framework to shape his interpretation, he meets one of the most evidentially strong categories of NDEs — non-Christians who were surprised by Jesus.48
Colton Burpo was four years old when he nearly died of a ruptured appendix and underwent emergency surgery in 2003. In the months after the surgery, he began to tell his parents — a small-town Wesleyan pastor and his wife — that he had left his body during the operation. He described watching his father pray in an adjoining room and his mother talking on the phone. He described meeting Jesus, angels, and his great-grandfather "Pop," whom he had never known. He described meeting a sister he did not know he had — a baby girl his mother had miscarried years before Colton's birth, a grief that had never been shared with him. When shown hundreds of artist portraits of Jesus over the following years, Colton rejected them all until he encountered a painting by the child prodigy Akiane Kramarik — at which point he said, "Dad, that one's right."18
The book Heaven Is for Real (2010), co-authored with his pastor father Todd Burpo, has sold millions of copies and has been a comfort to many grieving families. It has also attracted questions. Some critics — including J. Steve Miller, who is no enemy of NDE evidence — have been careful about taking the family's word alone for the details, noting that the account is told through the father's filter and that book-length self-reports carry potential for unintentional shaping.19 The child was very young. Memory, language, and the gap between experience and retelling are all legitimate complications.
Let us apply the criteria charitably.
Christological specificity. Colton's account features Jesus specifically, with details that match biblical description more than generic "light being" imagery. Pass, though transmitted through the filter of a young child and his father.
Marks of the crucifixion. The account includes references to Jesus's "markers" — the wounds. Pass, though with the same transmission caveat.
Biblical theological content. The book is broadly Christian. Jesus, angels, heaven, the Trinity, the promise of reunion with deceased believers — all are present and biblically coherent. Pass, with the caveat that some specific details have raised questions for readers.
Holiness alongside love. The account emphasizes love, comfort, and welcome. As a young child's account, it is less theologically developed on the holiness dimension, but there is nothing anti-biblical about this. Partial pass.
Authority. Colton's account preserves a real sense of Jesus's specialness — "nobody's old in heaven, and nobody wears glasses"20 — though a four-year-old's vocabulary for awe will look different from an adult's. Partial pass.
Mission-giving. The account does not have a strong mission-giving element. That is not a failure of the criterion; young children are rarely sent back with specific adult vocations. Not applicable in the usual sense.
Reverence. Colton and his family have stayed connected to the local church and have not built a personal brand that supplants biblical authority. They have continued ordinary pastoral life. Pass.
Colton's case illustrates something important: an account can pass most of the criteria and still raise legitimate questions about specific details. The charitable way to engage such an account is to affirm what passes, acknowledge the questions honestly, and recognize that a child's account may be both genuine and imperfectly reported. I do not think we are forced to choose between "it's all true" and "it's all false." A young child really had an experience that included genuine elements, and the retelling, mediated through an adult narrator, may contain human shaping of details. That is not scandalous; it is human. The careful Christian reader can take what aligns with Scripture and hold the rest lightly.
Betty Eadie was a Latter-day Saints (LDS) mother of seven living in the Pacific Northwest when, in 1973, she had a dramatic NDE following routine surgery. She did not publish her account until 1992, in a book called Embraced by the Light, which became a number one New York Times bestseller. Eadie describes meeting a figure she identifies as Jesus Christ. Her descriptions of the figure's appearance and her feelings of unconditional love are, on the surface, strikingly similar to the descriptions of trustworthy Christian NDErs.21
But read closely, the "Jesus" Eadie describes teaches things the biblical Jesus never taught — and, in many cases, contradicts.
Eadie's account includes the pre-existence of human souls. She says she "remembered" Jesus "from the beginning, from long before my earth life, because my spirit remembered him."22 The Bible teaches that humans are created at conception, not that souls pre-exist the body in a heavenly council (Psalm 139:13; Zechariah 12:1).42 Pre-existence of souls is a classic LDS doctrine that the Christian church has rejected since at least the condemnation of Origen on this point.
Eadie's account includes the teaching that no religion should be criticized: "We have no right to criticize any church or religion in any way."45 This is a direct contradiction of Jesus's own teaching (Matthew 7:15-20, the warning against false prophets) and of apostolic teaching throughout the New Testament. Paul publicly criticized the Galatian heresy; John warned against the false teachers he called antichrists; Peter spoke bluntly against false prophets who "will secretly bring in destructive heresies" (2 Peter 2:1).
Eadie's account includes a teaching about the creation of the earth in which "all persons as spirits in the pre-mortal world took part in the creation of the earth" — an LDS doctrine that contradicts the biblical teaching that God alone is the Creator (Genesis 1; Isaiah 44:24, "I am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself").23 The Christian anthropological tradition has consistently taught that human beings are creatures, not co-creators, and that the gulf between Creator and creature is not bridged by any sort of pre-existent divine status of the soul.43 A biblical theological anthropology, rooted in Christology, places the human person firmly on the creature side of that line.44
Eadie's account includes teaching that Lucifer was not truly fallen but misunderstood — a reframing that contradicts the entire biblical picture of Satan as the adversary of God.
Let us apply the criteria.
Christological specificity. Eadie uses the name "Jesus Christ," but the content of the figure's teaching aligns with LDS theology rather than biblical Christianity. The "Jesus" of her book is closer to the Jesus of Mormon cosmology than to the Jesus of the Gospels. Fails in substance, even though the name is used.
Marks of the crucifixion. The cross does not feature centrally. The being's identity is not organized around His death and resurrection.
Biblical theological content. The teaching is explicitly contrary to Scripture on multiple points: pre-existence of souls, shared creation by human spirits, Lucifer's rehabilitation, the equal validity of all religions. Fails clearly.
Holiness alongside love. The encounter is pure comfort, with no call to repent, no sense of the holiness of God. Fails.
Authority. The figure is described with warmth but without the biblical weight of Jesus's Lordship. Partial fail.
Mission-giving. Eadie's subsequent mission has been to spread the universalist and LDS-adjacent teaching of her book. Not the mission of the biblical Jesus. Fails.
Reverence. Eadie has built a substantial public ministry around her own experience. The teaching supplants rather than submits to Scripture. Fails.
What do we conclude? Applying the biblical criteria, we cannot identify the figure of Eadie's account as the real Jesus of Nazareth. That conclusion is not a judgment on Eadie as a person — I do not know her heart, her sincerity, or her salvation. It is a judgment on the teaching content of the book. Whatever the source of her experience — a deceptive spirit, the LDS interpretive framework shaping what she perceived, or some mixture33 — the figure she calls Jesus in the book is not the biblical Christ.34 I say this with no interest in scoring a point. I say it because the book has shaped many readers, and readers deserve to know that when they test this "Jesus" against Scripture, He does not pass the test.
Hank Hanegraaff, the Bible Answer Man, has been one of the most pointed critics of Eadie's book, and I think he is right on the substance even if sometimes sharper in tone than I would be. J. Steve Miller — who elsewhere defends NDEs against wholesale rejectionists like John MacArthur — agrees that Eadie's book is precisely the kind of account that justifies Hanegraaff's and MacArthur's concerns.24 The discernment required here is not extreme. It is ordinary biblical testing, applied carefully.46
My final case study is not a single person but a pattern — the sort of NDE report that has become common in the last few decades of secular NDE literature. The pattern goes like this.
The NDEr enters a tunnel of light. A warm, loving presence envelops them. The being does not introduce itself by any name; the NDEr simply knows it to be "the Light" or "the Source" or "Love." The being conveys a message, which the NDEr later summarizes in something like the following terms:
The NDEr returns and begins teaching this message. Often they identify the being of light as "Jesus" or "the Christ" in their retelling, though nothing the being said was specifically Christological. Sometimes they build a ministry around the message. Their books sell widely. Their podcasts attract followings.
Let us apply the criteria.
Christological specificity. The being was not identified as Jesus during the experience. The identification was added later by the NDEr (or the publisher, or the ghost-writer). The "Christ" category in the account is generic, not biblical. Fails.27
Marks of the crucifixion. Entirely absent. Fails.
Biblical theological content. Every teaching listed above contradicts Scripture directly. All religions as valid — contradicts John 14:6. No judgment — contradicts Matthew 25:31-46. Human divinity — contradicts Romans 1:25. Earth as a neutral learning-experience — contradicts the entire biblical framework of sin, grace, and redemption. Fails completely.
Holiness alongside love. Only love; no holiness. Fails.
Authority. The being's message is therapeutic, not commanding. Fails.
Mission-giving. The mission is to spread a message contrary to the apostolic gospel. Fails by Galatians 1:8.
Reverence. The NDEr emerges with a sense of their own special revelation, not with trembling worship of the Holy One. Fails.
Whatever the NDEr met in this pattern — and I am not saying they met nothing; the experience may well be a real spiritual event — what they met was not Jesus of Nazareth. It may have been a deceptive spirit. It may have been a genuine divine love-encounter interpreted entirely through a non-Christian worldview, with the interpretation so corrupt that the account is no longer trustworthy as a witness to Christ. Either way, biblical discernment gives us a stable judgment: not Him.
This is not a judgment on the NDEr's sincerity. Most of these people really believe they met Jesus, and their lives may show genuine love and kindness. The judgment is on the content of the teaching. Sincerity is not a substitute for truth, and an experience, however vivid, does not override the apostolic deposit that has been entrusted to the church (1 Timothy 6:20; Jude 3).
Before we move to the hard questions, I want to note a special category of Jesus-encounter reports that the criteria in this chapter can help us think about carefully — the reports from people outside Christian backgrounds who encounter a figure they come to identify as Jesus. This pattern deserves brief attention because it is genuinely common in the research and because it raises some of the most interesting discernment questions.
J. Steve Miller's systematic review of the NDERF database noted that among dozens of Hindu and Buddhist NDErs, only three reported seeing Krishna and only two reported seeing Buddha — extremely low incidences. Among the more than 5,000 reports in the NDERF database, there were no reports of Muhammad. Yet even in the few Hindu cases that reported Krishna, Jesus was also reported. Miller concluded that the frequently heard claim that NDEs promote a general move toward Eastern religions or universalism is simply not supported by the data when large consecutive samples are examined.37 The pattern that emerges instead is striking: Jesus appears, recognizably and by name, to many people who did not expect Him — including those from non-Christian religious backgrounds.
Missions researchers have documented a parallel phenomenon in the Muslim world. Dying Muslims and Muslims in ordinary circumstances are increasingly reporting dreams and visions of a figure they identify as Jesus (often called Isa in Arabic), leading many to subsequent conversion to Christianity. This phenomenon, widely reported in missions literature, is evidentially significant: it represents encounters with Jesus by people whose religious framework actively discourages such identification and for whom such encounters carry serious social cost.38
How should we apply the criteria to these reports? Carefully. The same seven criteria apply. If the figure encountered by a dying Hindu is recognizably the biblical Jesus — if He displays the marks of the cross, teaches content consistent with the Gospels, produces reverence rather than casual familiarity, and leads the experiencer toward faith in Christ — then there is good reason to identify the encounter as genuine. Culture may shape the vocabulary the experiencer uses to describe what they saw, but the underlying reality tested by the criteria is the same.
Three possibilities are open to us in these cross-cultural cases. First, the encounter may have been with the real Jesus, whom the NDEr described in the categories available to them. This is the most straightforward interpretation in cases where the criteria pass robustly. Second, the encounter may have been with a deceptive spirit exploiting the NDEr's prior religious framework. This is the concern in cases where the "Jesus" teaches content inconsistent with the biblical Jesus. Third, the encounter may have been a mixed event — genuine in its core but filtered through a corrupt interpretive lens. Here the experience-interpretation distinction (treated in chapter 9) becomes essential for evaluation.
The good news, for the Christian reader of cross-cultural NDE reports, is that the criteria are not culture-bound. They are content-based. "Does this encounter look and act and teach like the Jesus of the Gospels?" is a question that can be asked about any reported encounter anywhere. The answer will be clearest when the NDEr's subsequent life trajectory can be observed. A Hindu NDEr who emerges from her experience and spends the rest of her life following Christ, reading the Bible, and becoming part of the local church has given us very strong evidence that whoever she met was the real Jesus. A Hindu NDEr who emerges with a reinforced Hindu framework and a "Jesus" who has been absorbed into the pantheon has not.
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Two questions commonly arise when readers try to apply these criteria to specific accounts. Both deserve honest treatment.
This is common. Many genuine NDErs report only that a loving being told them to go back — no extended theological teaching occurred. The being was warm, authoritative, clearly divine. But the NDEr cannot offer you transcripts of Christological doctrine. How do we apply the criteria?
The honest answer is: in these cases, positive identification of the being as Jesus specifically is less certain. The encounter may have been with Jesus — especially if the NDEr's life trajectory after the event is Christ-centered, if the fruit is biblical, if the impression of the being aligned with the biblical Jesus — but the data available from the experience alone does not force the identification. The encounter might have been with Jesus. It might have been with an angel sent by Jesus (Luke 16:22 teaches that angels escort souls). It might have been with the general presence of God experienced as a personal being.
This is appropriate epistemic humility, not cynicism. "I do not know for certain who this was, but it was clearly good and clearly from God, and the NDEr's life has been transformed in biblical directions" is a faithful conclusion. We do not need to decide every case. Some cases remain genuinely uncertain, and that is fine. The Christian reader can still receive such a report as a testimony to the reality of the spiritual world, the consciousness of the soul after death, and God's loving presence — without insisting that we know exactly which face of God the NDEr saw.
Where such a report produces biblical fruit over time, it is reasonable to conclude that whoever the NDEr met, it was not demonic. Demonic encounters do not produce long, stable, humble Christian discipleship. They produce the opposite. If a quiet NDEr goes home, joins a Bible-preaching church, raises their kids in the faith, serves the poor, and dies decades later leaning on Christ — whatever they met in their NDE was in the camp of the angels, not the camp of the enemy. We may not know whether it was Christ Himself or one of His ministering spirits. But we know enough.
This is the harder question. An NDEr tells you, with total sincerity and tears in their eyes, that Jesus appeared to them. The Jesus they met told them that all religions are paths to God, that no one is condemned, that the NDEr is divine. The NDEr insists: "It was really Him. I know it was Him. I felt His love. I cannot be talked out of it."
What do you do?
The biblical principle, again, comes from Galatians 1:8-9: "even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed." Paul has given us the most extreme possible case. Even if an angel from heaven — or, by clear extension, a shining figure in an NDE — preaches a different gospel, the answer is not to receive the new gospel. The answer is to reject it. The standard is the apostolic deposit, not the new experience.
This means an NDEr's sincere insistence does not override the criteria. A "Jesus" teaching a different gospel is not the real Jesus, no matter how strongly the NDEr felt His presence. Paul knew the pastoral cost of saying this — he faced emotional resistance from his own churches. But he said it anyway, because a gospel is what saves, and a false gospel is what condemns. We cannot be tender at the cost of truth.
Be tender in how you say this, though. Chapter 34 will address pastoral care for NDErs in more detail. Here I note only that the tone of the conversation matters enormously. "You were deceived by a demon" is rarely a helpful way to open a pastoral exchange. "Let's look at what Jesus actually taught in the Gospels, and then think together about what your experience might have been" is often more helpful. The criteria in this chapter are tools for your own evaluation; how you communicate the results to someone you love is a further pastoral question.
The key is to hold two things together. First, be clear in your own mind. An NDE "Jesus" who teaches a contrary gospel is not the real Jesus; Paul settles this. Second, be gentle in your conversation with the NDEr. The criteria serve evaluation of public teaching; they do not license combat with a person you love. Most NDErs with confused theology are not demonically possessed. They are humans trying to make sense of an overwhelming experience with inadequate tools. Your job is to be patient, to keep pointing them to Scripture, and to trust that God can straighten out in time what an NDE may have scrambled.
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Someone will read this chapter and push back: "If a deceptive spirit can impersonate Jesus in an NDE, does that mean Jesus is not sovereign over His own identity? Does the very possibility of a counterfeit somehow threaten the real?"
No. Satan's freedom to deceive is bounded by God's sovereignty, but within those bounds it is real freedom. God has permitted genuine tests of discernment all through the biblical story. He let Satan approach Job (Job 1-2). He let false prophets arise in Israel, and He explicitly said in Deuteronomy 13 that He uses such false prophets as tests for His people: "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 13:1-3).30
God permits deception because He wants a people who love Him not by accident but by attentive, wholehearted choice. Discernment is part of what it means to love God with all your mind. The existence of counterfeits does not threaten the real; it is the reason we cultivate the ability to tell them apart. A counterfeit twenty-dollar bill does not make the real twenty less valuable. A counterfeit Jesus does not diminish the real Jesus. In fact, the very existence of the counterfeit testifies to the reality of the original. You do not counterfeit what does not exist and is not worth copying.
This also means the real Jesus is not anxious about the counterfeits. He has always been. He will always be. His sheep know His voice (John 10:27), and even when imitators come, the sheep are given the grace to distinguish. The criteria in this chapter are not tricks invented by worried theologians. They are descriptions of the real Jesus, drawn from Scripture, that make counterfeits easier to spot. The Shepherd has given His sheep the tools to tell the difference.50
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I want to close with a pastoral note, because the way we hold these criteria matters almost as much as the criteria themselves.
When you are sitting across from a Christian woman whose mother saw Jesus at her deathbed, you are not conducting a trial. You are receiving a testimony. The default posture is reception, not cross-examination. Most reported Jesus-encounters in Christian contexts — especially DBEs, which tend to be simpler and less prone to doctrinal corruption than NDEs — are genuine. The criteria in this chapter are for the cases where something seems wrong, not for interrogating every good story.
Here is the order I try to follow. I start with charity. I listen to the account. I notice what is biblical about it — and in most Christian NDEs and DBEs, the biblical elements are significant. I ask gentle questions, not leading ones: "What did He say? What did He look like? How did you respond?" I pay attention to the fruit in the experiencer's life over time — which is often the most reliable indicator of all. Only if something in the account or the teaching is raising serious concerns do I begin to apply the criteria in a more evaluative way, and even then I do it privately, in my own mind, before bringing anything up aloud. Many conversations end at the charity stage. Good. That is the goal.
But some conversations move further. Sometimes the account really does contain contradictions with Scripture that a loving friend or pastor needs to address. In those cases, the criteria are a kindness, not a weapon. They are the tools by which we love the NDEr enough to tell them what they may not want to hear — that the "Jesus" they are describing, while the encounter may have been real in some form, is not the Jesus of the Bible on several specific points. We are not doing them a favor by going along. We are loving them better by telling the truth.40
I will also say this: the criteria work both ways. They help us distinguish genuine encounters from counterfeits, but they also help us distinguish paranoid over-rejection from appropriate caution. If a loved one's deathbed vision passes the criteria — simple, brief, Christ-centered, fruit-producing, biblically consistent — the right response is not "well, we can never really know." The right response is "thank God; receive it; rejoice." Christians have sometimes been so spooked by bad NDE literature that they treat every testimony as suspect. The criteria in this chapter should actually free the discerning Christian to receive good testimony with more confidence, because they now know how to tell the good from the bad. Discernment is a gift that makes reception possible.
Start with charity. Listen well. Apply the criteria quietly in your own mind. Where the account passes, rejoice. Where the account raises concerns, engage them gently, pointing to Scripture rather than attacking the experiencer. Remember: most Christian NDE and DBE accounts really were what they appeared to be. The criteria exist for the minority of cases where something has gone off the rails — and even there, the goal is to help the NDEr find their way back to the real Jesus, not to prove them wrong.
I began this chapter with a woman in a coffee shop, asking whether her mother's deathbed vision was really Jesus. Now I want to finish by telling you what I said to her.
I said: "From what you've told me, I think it probably was Him."
I said that not because I wanted to comfort her — though I did. I said it because her account, tested against biblical criteria, passed. Her mother had been a Christian for decades. The vision was brief, simple, Christ-centered, with no strange teaching attached. The figure was recognizably Jesus. The mother's whole life had borne the fruit of biblical faith. The criteria pointed toward "yes."
This is the point of the criteria. Not to make Christians stingy with belief. Not to turn every grieving family member into an interrogator. But to give us a principled way of saying "yes, probably Him" when the answer really is yes, and "no, probably not Him" when the answer really is no, and "I don't know, let's just trust God with the rest" when the honest answer is uncertain.
Most NDE Jesus-encounters are genuine. Most DBE Jesus-encounters are genuine. Jesus meets His people at the threshold of death — and sometimes He meets people who were not His when death came for them, people who are ushered from death into life by the very meeting. This is a profound biblical hope. It should strengthen our confidence in the reality of the risen Christ, who is alive and active at the gate of eternity, gathering His sheep to Himself.
At the same time, a meaningful minority of accounts do not describe Him. Some are deceptions. Some are genuine experiences filtered through corrupted interpretive frameworks. Some are fabrications. A chapter equipping Christians to tell which is which is not a chapter designed to generate suspicion; it is a chapter designed to protect real faith from bad imitations. The counterfeit does not threaten the real. But it does demand the discernment we have been given.
In the next chapter we will turn from the question of Jesus's identity to the question of other beings commonly reported in NDEs — angels and deceased loved ones. The criteria developed here will continue to help us. But the framework is in place now: know the real Jesus well, from Scripture and tradition and the historic creeds.49 When you know Him well, most imitations feel wrong in your hands the moment you pick them up. And most of the time, when a Christian says, "I met Jesus," the testimony you are holding is the real thing.
May God grant us the grace to receive His gifts with joy, and to test every claim with care, for His glory and the building up of His church.
Burke, John. Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God's Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2015.
Burpo, Todd, Sonja Burpo, and Colton Burpo. Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010.
Cooper, John W. Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
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