Experiencing God – Anton Bosch
I just did a search on the internet for the phrase “experience God” and came up with over 51 million references![1] Wow, that must be an important idea! “Well off course it is”, I hear you say. “We must experience God” has become such a common idea amongst Christians today that we all accept, without question, that this is God’s will for us. And of course none of us want to be so unspiritual that we don’t want to have an experience with God and so many who have not “experienced God” silently sneak away feeling embarrassed, cheated, and inferior. Then there are those special, highly spiritual ones who have experienced God and walk around feeling superior to the rest of those who have never experienced this level of spirituality.
But what is the truth about experiencing God? I did a search through the Bible and found that neither the King James nor the New King James version use the phrase “experience God” at all. The English word “experience” appears three times in the New King James[2] and three times in the King James.[3] None of these scriptures refer to experiencing God in any way.
The idea of experiencing God is simply not based on the Bible. It finds its source in ancient occultic and pagan practices, and the modern entertainment oriented world where the emphasis is on experiences to the degree that many will use any means, even narcotics and witchcraft, just to have some kind of an experience. The whole entertainment industry is built around the idea of giving people an experience. Even shopping is supposed to be a wonderful experience which, it seems, only the fairer sex are capable of enjoying.
There is just no scripture that enjoins us to experience God, or that Jesus died that we might have an experience with (or of) God. Is God like a movie or a theme park or a bungee jump that has to be experienced? Is He the ultimate thrill? I guess to some people He is just that. A denomination in South Africa used to run a full page, full color, advertisement in a trendy magazine showing the derrière of a curvaceous young girl clad in denims. The following words were embroidered on the pocket of the jeans: “You’ve tried it all, now try Jesus”. No wonder the leader and founder of the denomination was fired for multiple adulteries.
Did Abraham, Moses, Paul or anyone else in the Bible “experience” God? What was the experience like? What did they feel when the experienced Him? No, none of these men (or any others) experienced God. Some saw some aspect of Him and others heard him “speak” but none of the saints of the old or New Testaments “experienced” Him. The closest any one came to experiencing Him was John and the other disciples, who wrote “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled…” (1John 1:1). But that was unique to those who saw Jesus in the flesh and even they did not “experience” Him in the mystic way which is now being promoted.
If we were to experience Him, what would that experience feel like? Is it like the goose bumps we feel when they play the national anthem or the hair standing erect on our necks on an eerie night? Or is it like the experience of hearing a live orchestra play a stirring piece of music, or for some, the bagpipes or when the pipe organ hits those low notes that makes your very soul reverberate? Well, it seems that whatever experience some may claim to have, the world is able to produce exactly the same feelings, and even greater.
How do we get to “experience God”? One writer says: “Many have never had a personal experience of God’s presence with images as the primary medium”[4]. So God’s presence is in pictures? Yea right! Others will insist we can experience God through music, worship and meditation. None of these ideas have any biblical basis. Can you see Jesus on the mountain looking at a DVD so He could “experience” His Father, or Paul attending a contemporary Christian music concert so he could “feel” God?
And what are these experiences supposed to do? They are supposed to change us. Wilson and Moore speak about “…the power of digital media to create transformative experiences of God”.[5] Well, they have that partly right. These experiences are transformative and changing. But while the scriptures want us to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus (Rom 12:2), these experiences will change us into the image of the world. And no, it is not God you experience in the concert hall, at the parade or on a dark and stormy night and it is not God you experience when looking at the beautiful (often abstract) pictures of the PowerPoint presentation; neither is He in that magnificent cathedral with the powerful pipe organ. Oh, and was there not something about not making an image of God and worshipping it? (Exodus 20:4). (Sorry, I forgot that was Old Testament – modern Christians are far to clever to be bound by such ancient rules!)
Paul had this to say “we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising” (Acts 17:29). This kind of idolatry, for that is what it is, is exactly what Paul had in mind when he wrote about those who, “Professing to be wise… became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image…” (Romans 1:22,23).
Praise God, He can be known, heard and seen but not with natural senses and not through the use of technology and techniques. “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1Cor 2:14). God is hidden from natural eyes, ears and emotions. There is only one way to the Father and that is through Jesus Christ. No service, multimedia show, picture, music or drama can bring you into His presence – it is only by the shed blood and broken body of His Son that we are able to draw near to God. (Heb 10:19-22)
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[1] Google
[2] Gen 30:27, Ecc 8:5, 1Pet 5:9.
[3] Gen 30:27, Ecc 1:16, Rom 5:4.
[4] Len Wilson and Jason Moore. Help! My Pastor Won’t Plan Ahead. Technologies for Worship. October 2005. p15. (The article deals with how to get the pastor to allow the “media minister” more freedom to manipulate people’s emotions through the use of media)
[5] Ibid
Next – Part two of four.
DiscernIt 
23 comments
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June 21, 2008 at 5:19 am
John Burton
This is one of the strangest and saddest posts I’ve read in a long time. Surely you know that God’s seeking intimate relationship with us versus simply introducing us to a religion?
It’s basic Christianity- God wants to be known. Encounters and experiences are to be expected because God is real. He’s a person. He feels and can be felt.
All throughout the Bible, from cover to cover, over and over again we witness encounters with God- both OT and NT. It’s a core biblical reality.
I am having a hard time understanding this post, as what you are saying simply and, I think, very obviously not true. You’ve missed it on this one.
Maybe it’s the definition of ‘experience’ that we’re not understanding.
Moses experienced God dramatically, Paul did, John did, Gideon, Elijah, the disciples, Daniel, and on and on.
A biblically normal life is a life that includes encounters- dreams and visions, prophecy, praying in tongues, etc.
Here’s a great quote:
“When Paul, one of the world’s most intelligent men, was on the road to Damascus, he saw the light flash. Ironically all of the knowledge built up in him did not change him like a sudden flash of light. A man who had the greatest education needed an experience.”
June 21, 2008 at 6:36 am
das1217
John – who said this?
June 21, 2008 at 9:55 am
Kim
I believe that God wants us to seek Him through his Word. Religion is how we try to connect to God using our own means instead of obeying scripture. We find our strength in the Lord (Ephesians 6:10) not in a prayer formula or ritual.
I would rather one seek a “relationship” with God than an “experience”.
If we have an “experience” we are to test it. I like some (not all) of A. W. Tozer’s work. This is from “How to Try the Spirits”.
“Again there are psychic experiences that thrill the seeker and lead him to believe that he has indeed met the Lord and been carried to the third heaven; but the true nature of phenomenon is discovered later when the face of Christ begins to fade from the victim’s consciousness and he comes to depend more and more upon emotional jags as a proof of his spirituality.”
“The truth is that the Bible does not teach that there will be new light and advanced spiritual experiences in the latter days; it teaches the opposite….beware of any man who claims to be wiser than the apostles or holier than the martyrs of the Early Church.”
“If the new doctrine, the influence of that new teacher, the new emotional experience fills my heart with an avid hunger to meditate in the scriptures day and night, I have every reason to believe that God has spoken to my soul and that my experience is genuine. Conversely, if my love for the Scripture has cooled even a little, if my eagerness to eat and drink of the inspired Word has abated by as much as one degree, I should humbly admit that I have missed God’s signal somewhere and frankly backtrack until I find the true way once more.”
“A good rule is this: if the experience has served to humble me and make me little and vile in my own eyes, it is of God; but if it is has given me a feeling of self-satisfaction, it is false and should be dismissed as emanation from self or the devil…If I am tempted to be complacent and to feel superior because I have had a remarkable vision or an advanced spiritual experience, I should go at once to my knees and repent of the whole thing. I have fallen a victim to the enemy.”
June 21, 2008 at 3:14 pm
John Burton
Steve Gray, Smithton revival… http://www.worldrevivalchurch.com
June 21, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Lee
Judging by the video of the nine year old boy with the ‘anointing’ I’m not surprised he is the originator of that quote.
June 21, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Kim
John,
So this is the revival you spoke of in Kansas City?
This verse makes my heart weep
Luk 18:8 However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
June 23, 2008 at 8:52 pm
John Burton
I’m curious, what does an outpouring look to you? A revival atmosphere? It seems as if anything expressive is renounced by you.
June 24, 2008 at 7:33 am
Mary
John,
I posted this on the grey coats but thought anyone here might be interested. It gives what I think a revival or awakening might look like
albiet a violent account:
“A really great book I read which had an account of an instantaneous healing and the implications from it is found in this book:
“A Distant Grief: The Real Story Behind The Martydom of Christians in Uganda” by F. Kefa Sempangi.
Has anyone read it? This book blew my mind and has challenged me like nothing I have read.
The man who wrote this book was a pastor in Uganda when Idi Amin came to power. In the beginning he gives an account of a young boy who was crippled. The boy’s mother took the boy to a shamen or witch doctor who tried a number of things and the boy was not healed. One day, the woman and her son were crossing the street when she heard the pastor preaching to his congregation. Suddenly the boy was healed at the sound of this man preaching the word of God.
The woman took her son back to the shamen and proclaimed God of the Bible healed him. The shamen was astounded and word quickly spread throughout the occult community. A hundred or more witches and various occultists brought their occult paraphenalia and made a big bonfire and burnt their occult trinckets. Then they renounced their occult beliefs and became believers in Jesus Christ.
The pastor who wrote this book equates this mass conversion of occultists with Idi Amin’s murderous rampage and rise to power. The rest of the book tells of the martydom of christians and any who stood in Amin’s way.
That is quite a different picture than what happens at a Todd Bentley healing service . ”
Also as Amin rose to power, this pastor’s church grew to 5,000.
June 24, 2008 at 7:49 am
Kim
I think of John the Baptist and the many who lined up at the river to be baptized.
I think of people on their knees in prayer and repentance.
I think of people who are living lives of regeneration and seek sanctification which is a gracious work of God. A renewing so that one may die to sin and live to holiness..
I think of the women i pray with at bible study and how we first praise God thinking of all His atttributes, then we thank Him for all the miracles He has performed in our lives.
I watched the video of the students at Asbury who banded together in prayer and bible study determined to obey the truths they found in scripture. This brought an outpouring of repentance and restoration. These students were confessing their sins to each other. Then they went out and witnessed to others who saw how blessed they were and were convicted.
All these are beautiful expressions and atmospheres to me.
June 24, 2008 at 1:15 pm
John Burton
That’s all good, but it’s not a comprehensive description of revival. There is so much more.
The bottom line is that God is tangible. It’s not just learning about him, doing good, being nice, etc. It is that, but that alone is not revival. When the knowledge is experienced at very deep levels, and God breathes upon us as a wind, we’re in the right place.
If you research revival you’ll see it. For example, when you pray in tongues and the deep fiery groan erupts in your spirit, the intercession that results will pierce the darkness and prepare the way for the manifestation of God’s power in people’s lives. The harvest will rush in.
Keep in mind the dramatic experience that John and Paul had. It’s an extreme encounter of God that invades our intellect and humanness.
It’s the deep groanings in our spirit, dreams, visions, and revelation of the glory of God. When God’s power touches someone, we can’t help but to be overcome, to tremble, to pray in the spirit, to have dreams and visions, etc. God is that powerful… and much more so.
June 24, 2008 at 1:19 pm
John Burton
God will also manifest in many ways- the story that Mary shared is very cool. However, God is visiting people in Todd Bentley’s meetings too. That is absolutely undeniable. I know people personally who have been transformed by Jesus there very, very dramatically.
One girl went to heaven twice and was dramatically healed of a life threatening disease while on the platform in Lakeland. The doctor’s reports came back negative!
The salvations that are occurring are off the charts. The focus on Jesus is astounding. The power is extreme.
June 24, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Mary
John, I just can’t disagree with you more. Todd Bentley’s “revival is nothing like the real thing. I think revival really has nothing to do with the experiences you mentioned and everything to do with God stripping away anything man centered. We are after all grasshoppers. Todd does nothing but relish in his own glory.
June 24, 2008 at 8:17 pm
John Burton
It’s ok to disagree, and to have an opinion… but it’s immature and irresponsible to discredit someone simply because you disagree with some non-essentials of scripture that they hold to.
To renounce a man of God, who loves him very much… because you don’t agree with his style of ministry is to be way out of line.
It’s a violation of biblical love and protocol.
You all are so very, very wrong on this issue of revival… and you are attempting to hold people to a standard that is much more restrictive than what the bible calls for.
I just got out of a burning, fiery night of revival here in Detroit. I’m still trembling. The burning in my spirit is extreme. Others had astonishing encounters that resulted in dramatic freedom. The joy of the Lord exploded.
God is real, and often, when he manifests in great power, and the measure of his activity increases, he is felt, experienced and encountered.
June 24, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Kim
We can examine leaders for their fruit. The New Testament is full of instruction to watch for false leaders and false teachings. This is an essential teaching in my Bible. We can also ask if they have tested their experiences against 1 John 4:1-3 This is not out of line. Error can usually be traced back to disobedience to this verse.
All manifestations need to be tested, a manifestation proves nothing in itself. If it causes one to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, this is good. But a manifestation can also be caused by Satan. He is a master counterfeiter. That is his job.
What i look for in a leader is the FRUIT of the spirit. Galations 5:22-23
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and SELF-CONTROL.
Yes, God is real and I pray for all the above fruit in your life, John.
God Bless….
June 24, 2008 at 9:17 pm
John Burton
That verse is excellent! It shows us how very simple the act of discernment is:
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
It’s easy- if one acknowledges that Jesus has come in the flesh, he is of God. Todd Bentley does this continually! The debate should be over.
The reason your ‘ministry’ is suspicious to me is because you have yet to affirm an experiential, encounter, supernaturally driven revival as godly. If some are of God and some are of the devil, surely you’d be revealing both, right?
June 24, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Kim
Actually the person is not tested but the spirit. There is a process that the testers use.
“But try the spirits”
The word revival has began to bother me a bit. It is man-made word and concept. I do believe the word revive is in the Bible but not revival. The end-times do tell of an outpouring of the spirit but this refers to the Day Of The Lord.
I do wish that many would call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The world is getting more sinful as time goes on.
I also want and desire people to come to Christ, that is why i teach the Word of God. I want them to know how to come to know Jesus Christ and then learn how to live lives of holiness. The change in a persons life is supernatural, because it is only accomplished by the Holy Spirit which is promised to every believer. But to purposely seek supernatural experiences is warned about in Deuteromony.
God is so wise. He knew we would exploit and desire the ‘secret knowledge’ that is off-limits to man. Oh how we love to be the recipient of a secret….it makes us feel so special, when instead we are to meek and maintain a lowly servant attitude. Gnosticism was an immediate problem during the times of the apostles and it is still present today.
I am not asking for your approval of my ministry, but i understand your dislike of it.
June 24, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Kim
If you read my post about the asbury revival you will understand what i believe is holy move of God.
https://kimolsen.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/the-asbury-revival-the-great-experiment/
June 25, 2008 at 6:41 am
Mary
John,
” but it’s immature and irresponsible to discredit someone simply because you disagree with some non-essentials of scripture that they hold to.”
Joel’s army was declared heresy. There are so many heretical things he does John but you don’t want to test Todd to the Bible.
June 25, 2008 at 9:31 am
Kim
Ah Joel’s Army….
Leaders in this movement place their revelations above scripture and disregard Israel. “The Day of the Lord” is changed to mean that the Church on earth will possess supernatural qualities to hand out judgment. Also this morphs into the Manifest Sons of God.
Bill Hamon has written “When the Church realizes its full sonship, its bodily redemption will cause a redemptive chain reaction throughout all of creation” (This is also taught in new-age books)
This is a different gospel….it must be rejected. Spiritual revelations apart from the Word of God, all have a similarity. Man is divine. Man is Holy. We can achieve Oneness with God.
This is Gnostism….it is found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation and unscriptural meditation. The source is the same. The secret knowledge is presented to all who seek it. It is presented in different methods that the seeker will accept. The secret knowledge is Unholy. It is Satanic. It is Strange Fire.
The Overcomers, The Latter Rain, MSoG, Joel’s Army. All deify man. All cater to mans self-love, fleshy desires, and self-esteem.
June 25, 2008 at 2:00 pm
cheryl
please excuse me for butting in here, but John…Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses and even Charles Manson acknowledged that Jesus came in the flesh. There’s more to it than that. We cannot pick and choose proof texts. Read scripture as a whole book.
June 25, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Lee
I want to respond to this whole testing the spirits thing; but, I will have to wait till when I have more time to gather my thoughts.
As cheryl says, it’s more than just 1 John 4:1-3 text — there’s the whole counsel of the Word. There’s more to the interpretation of those 1 John verses as well.
June 26, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Lee
John,
I have a response for you regarding the 1 John 4:1-3 verses. Here goes.
You wrote:
It’s easy- if one acknowledges that Jesus has come in the flesh, he is of God. Todd Bentley does this continually! The debate should be over.
I’ve never heard Bentley actually utter these words explicity. He uses the name ‘Jesus’ but never does he talk over Jesus’ virgin birth or His death, burial and resurrection.
I firmly believe that Latter Rainers like Peter Wagner, Todd Bentley, Bob Jones, et al, all subscribe to the idea that Christ will return in Spirit only [to inhabit the perfected MSoG ‘saints’] which in essence appears to deny His incarnation thus identifying them as antichrist as per 1 John 4:1-3. Since in their view Jesus is only coming again in Spirit, does this not deny his bodily resurrection as well?
From the NIV Study Bible:
Warning Against Antichrists
18Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
20But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. 23No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. [1 John 2:18-23]
By believing the Manifest Sons of God doctrine of ‘perfected saints’ being inhabited by Jesus’ Spirit at the 2nd coming they deny Jesus Christ’s exclusivity as THE Christ — that is, the one and only Christ/Messiah.
24See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25And this is what he promised us—even eternal life.
26I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him. [1 John 2:24-27]
It’s clear here that John is talking about the Holy Spirit indwelling when he refers to the anointing. But, just what is the counterfeit?
The Greek word translated as ‘Christ’ is ‘Christos’ which according to Strong’s: ‘Christ = “anointed'” and is defined as:
1) Christ was the Messiah, the Son of God
2) anointed
While Jesus’ own words speak of ‘many Christs’ there have not really been that many in history to actually claim they were Christ himself; so, substituting ‘anointed’ in the following passages we see what Jesus was likely saying in Matthew 24:5,23-24:
5For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ [anointed],’ and will deceive many.
23At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ [anointed]!’ or, ‘There he [the anointed] is!’ do not believe it. 24For false Christs [anointeds or anointings] and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible.
Bentley passes on an ‘anointing’ even though all Holy Spirit indwelled Christians already have the true anointing thus identifying his as false. What does this say about the approving ‘apostles’ at Bentley’s ‘knighting’ ceremony the other night?
July 10, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Comment on Experiencing God by Anton Bosch - Part One by Lee at Anointed
[…] Comment on Experiencing God by Anton Bosch – Part One by Lee While Jesus’ own words speak of ‘many Christs’ there have not really been that many in history to actually claim they were Christ himself; so, substituting ‘anointed’ in the following passages we see what Jesus was likely saying in … […]