Chapter 4: Testing the Spirits

The Biblical Command That Shapes This Book

Here is something striking about the Bible: the same book that records visions of heaven, angelic visitors, voices from the throne room of God, and prophets caught up in the Spirit also warns repeatedly about false prophets, deceiving spirits, and counterfeit signs. Scripture takes spiritual experience seriously. Scripture also takes spiritual deception seriously. And — this is the key — these two postures are not in tension. They are two sides of the same coin.

The biblical approach to spiritual phenomena is therefore never pure credulity, where every claim is accepted because it sounds spiritual. Nor is it pure skepticism, where every claim is rejected because the natural world is all there is. The biblical approach is something more careful and more demanding than either of those: it is discernment. The Bible expects us to take spiritual experiences seriously enough to evaluate them, and seriously enough to test them.

That posture — that mixture of openness and care — is the posture of this book. And it is the posture commanded in 1 John 4:1, the verse that gives this book its name and its reason for being. We are looking, in this chapter, at the biblical command to test the spirits. I want you to see clearly that discernment is not optional for the Christian. It is not a personality preference for cautious people. It is a direct command, given in the New Testament and rooted in the Old. Christians who refuse to test spiritual claims are not being more spiritual; they are being disobedient.

The Apostle's Command: 1 John 4:1–6

Listen to the way the apostle John opens 1 John 4. Notice the warmth of the address and the urgency of the command:

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: 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. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error." (1 John 4:1–6, ESV)

Read that slowly. John calls his readers "Beloved." He is not lecturing strangers. He is writing to people he loves. And the very first thing he tells them — these dear, beloved Christians — is "do not believe every spirit." He assumes that some spiritual claims are false. He assumes that his readers are at risk of being deceived. And he gives them a job to do.

The Greek verb behind "test" is δοκιμάζω (dokimazō). It is a strong, deliberate word. In the ancient world, dokimazō was the verb for assaying precious metals — heating gold or silver in a fire to see whether it was genuine or counterfeit. It is the language of the metallurgist's furnace. John is not asking Christians to politely consider whether they prefer this spirit or that one. He is telling them to put spiritual claims into the fire and see what comes out.

And he tells them precisely what test to apply. The standard he gives is Christological — meaning, it has to do with Jesus Christ. "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." This was directly aimed at the early Gnostic and Docetist heresies — teachings that denied the real, bodily incarnation of the Son of God.¹ The Gnostics taught that the divine Christ only seemed to inhabit a human body, that matter was beneath God, that real salvation was an escape from the flesh. John says: any spirit who denies that Jesus Christ truly came in the flesh — fully, bodily, historically — is not from God.

That ancient test is alive today. Apply it to NDE claims for a moment. Any "being of light" that turns the experiencer away from the specific, historical, incarnate Jesus Christ — and toward a vague "Christ-consciousness," a universal love-energy, or a pantheon of equal teachers — fails the apostle's test. The being may be beautiful. The experience may have felt overwhelmingly real. But if the spirit deflects from the particular Jesus who was born of Mary, walked the dusty roads of Galilee, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and rose again bodily, John tells us not to call it from God. We will return to this test more carefully in Chapter 14, where we ask, "Was that really Jesus?"

Five Biblical Tests for Spiritual Claims

First John 4 gives us the Christological test, but it is not the only test the New Testament provides. Scripture, taken as a whole, offers at least five lenses through which spiritual claims should be examined. I will introduce them here briefly. The full discernment framework — the seven-test grid that grows out of these biblical commands — gets developed in Chapter 10.

1. The Christological test (1 John 4:2–3). Does the spirit confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh — the real, particular, incarnate, crucified, risen Jesus of the New Testament? Or does it deflect, soften, or replace him with something else?

2. The doctrinal test (Galatians 1:8). Is the message consistent with the gospel as delivered by the apostles? Paul's words here are some of the strongest in all of Scripture: "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." Notice the angel. Paul anticipates exactly the situation an NDEr might face — a luminous heavenly being preaching a message. His verdict is sobering: even an angel of light, if it brings a different gospel, is to be rejected. We will treat this passage in depth in Chapter 8.

3. The moral and fruit test (Matthew 7:15–20). Jesus said we would know false prophets by their fruit. Spiritual claims are not evaluated only by their content but by what they produce in the lives of those who receive them. Does the message produce love, repentance, holiness, deeper devotion to Christ, and care for neighbor? Or does it produce pride, occultism, sexual confusion, departure from the church, and increasing self-focus dressed in spiritual language?

4. The prophetic accuracy test (Deuteronomy 18:21–22). When predictions are made, do they actually come to pass? A would-be prophet whose predictions fail is a false prophet. This is one of the simplest and most empirically testable criteria in Scripture, and it is devastating to many "psychic" claims that float through the NDE subculture.

5. The orthodoxy-against-signs test (Deuteronomy 13:1–5). This one needs special attention because it is profoundly important for NDE discernment. Listen to what God tells Israel:

"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, ESV)

Stop and let that sink in. God acknowledges, right there in the text, that a false prophet's sign might actually come to pass. The wonder might be real. The supernatural element might be genuine. And yet, if the message of that prophet leads people away from the true God, the prophet is to be rejected absolutely. The reality of the experience is not the same as the truth of the message.

That is the principle that more than any other shapes the discernment framework of this book. An NDE may be a real spiritual experience — a genuine encounter with the unseen realm — and still be false in its teaching. Spiritual reality is not the same as spiritual truth. The Bible never lets us collapse the two. A vision can be authentic and its message still be from a deceiving source. A sign can really happen and still need to be rejected because of what it teaches. This is why "I know it was real" is never, by itself, a sufficient defense of an NDE's theological content.

Paul's Balance: "Test Everything; Hold Fast What Is Good"

If 1 John 4:1 supplies the command, 1 Thessalonians 5:19–22 supplies the balance. Listen to the careful way Paul puts it:

"Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil." (1 Thessalonians 5:19–22, ESV)

Notice the rhythm. Paul does not say, "Reject every spiritual claim because most are fraudulent." He warns the opposite: do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophecies. He assumes that genuine spiritual activity is happening among the Thessalonian believers, and he refuses to let cessationist temperaments — even in the first century — shut it down.

But in the same breath, Paul commands testing. Test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. The Spirit's activity does not exempt anyone from evaluation. Genuine prophecy and false prophecy can show up in the same room. The believer's job is to weigh them — and to keep only what passes the test.

This is exactly the posture this book takes toward NDEs and DBEs. We do not quench the Spirit by dismissing every account. We do not despise the testimony of dying grandmothers and resuscitated cardiac patients by sweeping it all into a category of "deception." But we test. Carefully. Patiently. Lovingly. And we hold fast only to what is good — what aligns with Scripture, with the historic faith, with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Bereans embody this posture beautifully. In Acts 17:11, Luke commends the Berean Jews because they "received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so." Notice who they were testing: the apostle Paul. If Paul's preaching could be tested against Scripture by ordinary believers in Berea, then no NDE testimony, no popular author, no TED Talk neurosurgeon stands above evaluation. The Bereans were not commended for cynicism. They were commended for receiving the word eagerly and testing it daily.²

Jesus's Own Warning: Real Signs, False Christs

If anyone might be tempted to dismiss the language of "test the spirits" as Old Testament severity or Pauline anxiety, Jesus himself ends that conversation. In the Olivet Discourse, he tells his disciples something so unsettling that careful readers stop and reread it:

"For 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, ESV)

"Great signs and wonders." That is the phrase. Not feeble illusions. Not obvious frauds. Not shabby imitations easily detected. Great signs and wonders — significant enough that, if it were possible, the elect themselves could be misled. Jesus assumes that powerful counterfeit spiritual experiences are part of the landscape his church will face. The kingdom of God will share airspace with deceiving spirits performing real and impressive wonders.

This single sentence settles a great deal. Christians cannot say, "Well, the experience was so vivid, so transformative, so unmistakable — it has to be from God." Jesus has already addressed that argument. Vividness is not a reliable test. Power is not a reliable test. Even transformation is not, by itself, a reliable test. The test is doctrinal: does this experience and its message line up with what God has already said? Shaun Tabatt, drawing on a similar logic in The NDE Conspiracy, observes that Satan has been working from the same playbook since Eden — twisting what God said in order to lead people astray — and that NDEs are not an exception to that pattern.³

Applying This to NDEs and DBEs

All right. We have the command (1 John 4:1). We have the Christological test (1 John 4:2–3). We have the orthodoxy-against-signs test (Deuteronomy 13). We have Paul's balance ("test everything; hold fast what is good"). We have the Berean example. We have Jesus's warning that real signs can come from false sources. What does it look like to actually apply this to NDEs and DBEs?

First, it means we do not start with suspicion. The default posture is openness, because — as the next chapter will argue at length — most NDEs and DBEs are genuine. The dying grandmother who whispers, "Jesus is here," does not need to be cross-examined. The cardiac arrest survivor who returns saying he saw a being of light who looked at him with overwhelming love does not need to be debunked on the spot. We listen. We receive. We thank God for what he is doing.

Second, we test the content of the experience against Scripture. Not the vividness. Not the emotion. Not how nice the experiencer is. The content. Does the experience point to the real Jesus, or away from him? Does it confirm the gospel, or contradict it? Does it produce holiness, or fascination with the occult? Does it square with what Scripture already teaches about heaven, hell, judgment, salvation, and the soul — or does it introduce ideas Scripture explicitly rejects?

Third, we apply the experience-interpretation distinction. (This will get its own full chapter — Chapter 9.) An experience may be real, and the experiencer's interpretation of it may be wrong. NDErs are not infallible interpreters of their own NDEs, any more than the rest of us are infallible interpreters of our own dreams, intuitions, and feelings. The fact that someone had a real encounter with the divine does not give them a pass on having their conclusions tested against the Word. J. Steve Miller puts the matter plainly: discern the difference between the experience itself, which may be legitimate, and the interpretation, which may be skewed by worldview.⁴

Fourth, we use the testing tools the saints have used for two thousand years. Tabatt closes The NDE Conspiracy with a list of practical evaluation questions: Does this account fit what I know about heaven and hell from the Bible? Does it match historic, orthodox Christian theology? Does it point me to Jesus, or to the experiencer's fame? What fruit do I see in the life of the experiencer?⁵ Those are not new tests. They are the same tests the church has applied for centuries to prophets, preachers, mystics, and movements. They simply meet a new phenomenon in our day.

Two Common Objections

Whenever I teach this material, two objections come up almost without fail. They pull in opposite directions, and both deserve a careful reply.

"Isn't testing NDEs cynical and unspiritual?"

No. Testing is the biblical command. The refusal to test is disobedience, not spirituality. The Bereans were commended for testing. The Ephesian church was commended in Revelation 2:2 for testing those who claimed to be apostles. The whole pastoral ministry of John's epistles assumes that testing is the daily work of the church. Saul's disaster at Endor, Israel's fall under the false prophets, the church's seduction in Galatia — these were failures of testing, not the side effects of healthy spiritual humility. The Christian who refuses to test claims because "it feels harsh" has not become more spiritual; he has just become more vulnerable.

"But if we test too hard, aren't we just rationalists who deny the supernatural?"

Also no. The same Bible that commands testing also records angels, voices, healings, visions, and signs. Testing the spirits is not the same as denying the spirits. C. S. Lewis named these two opposite errors in his preface to The Screwtape Letters: humans can disbelieve in devils, or they can grow excessively interested in them, and either error delights the enemy.⁶ The same applies in reverse to the angelic and the heavenly. We can flatten the world into pure naturalism — and miss what God is doing. Or we can credulously embrace every spiritual claim — and be led into error. The biblical path runs between the two: take the supernatural seriously, and test what it says.

This balanced posture has deep roots in the historic Christian view of the human person. As John Cooper has shown at length, the biblical witness assumes a real intermediate state, a soul that survives the body, and a spiritual realm populated by beings with intentions toward us — some of them holy, some of them fallen.⁷ If that picture is correct — and Chapters 6 and 7 will argue that it is — then both excessive credulity and excessive skepticism become impossible. The unseen realm is too real to dismiss, and too dangerous to enter without discernment.

Conclusion: The Mandate That Shapes the Rest of This Book

Let me pull this together. Scripture commands believers to test the spirits. That command is not a quirk of John's personality or Paul's anxiety; it runs from Deuteronomy through the prophets, through the words of Jesus, into the apostolic letters, and out to the Bereans of Acts 17. It assumes that the spiritual realm is real, that not everything in it is from God, that experiences and signs can be authentic and still false in their teaching, and that Christians have both the authority and the duty to weigh spiritual claims by the Word.

From this chapter forward, you have a biblical mandate. Every claim about NDEs and DBEs in the chapters that follow — including the ones I myself will make — is to be tested against Scripture. That is not cynicism toward the dying. It is not skepticism toward the supernatural. It is obedience to the apostle who began his command with the word "Beloved." Discernment is how we love the church. Discernment is how we love NDErs themselves. Discernment is how we honor the Lord whose authority every spirit will one day acknowledge.

So here is the posture this book is trying to teach: receive what is genuine; refuse what is false; weigh everything by the Word; do all of this in the warmth of love rather than the chill of suspicion. That is the apostolic mandate. And, by God's grace, it is the path we will walk together for the rest of these chapters.

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