“Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven …”
(Matt. 13:11, NKJV)
We’ve noted that glory is thus not OUTSIDE the believer, as was the case in the Old Testament, but WITHIN us! People who search for glory in atmosphere, in places, in people, by participating in certain activities, in worship, prayer, intercession, have a total misconception of the nature of the New Testament “glorious appearing” (Tit. 2:13) as a religious experience. This experience with God is often referred to as mystical in nature. As a movement, mysticism is interested in striving towards an inner union with the Godly.
The term “religious experience” was coined in the domain of theology and philosophy by Harvard psychologist William James, in his 1902 book The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Herein he defines and describes the term mysticism, by listing two characteristics: ineffability, and the noetic quality:
- Ineffability — “no adequate report of its contents can be given in words. […] its quality must be directly experienced; it cannot be imparted or transferred to others. […] mystical states are more like states of feeling than like states of intellect. No one can make clear to another who has never had a certain feeling, in what the quality or worth of it consists.”
- Noetic quality — “Although so similar to states of feeling, mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge. They are states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain; and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority for after-time.”
This clear formulation of mysticism as a spiritual experience, as defined by James, is a radical departure from how other theorists write about experiencing God. In his De Achilleshiel van het Calvinis someone like Fred van Hulst for instance refers to the experience of becoming born again as “a characteristic faith experience” (p. 177). Henry Blackaby & Claude King’s Experiencing God defines it largely as listening to the voice of God, and to walk in obedience to it. Mysticism is however more encompassing, and more pressing. Someone like Ian Clayton, in his book Realms of the Kingdom, for instance notes that there are three kingdom realms “to engage (the) presence of God”. Note that the believer is the active party who needs to penetrate other realms through glory.
The fact that Clinton refers to kingdom realms brings a concept to the fore which mystics have a lot of confusion about, namely the so-called distinction between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the heavens. We look at this in our next teaching.
- Selah: Have you had any spiritual experiences?
- Read: 11-14
- Memorise: 13:1 (how important this Scripture is for our teaching! Compare to John 4:13-
14.)
- For a more in-depth understanding: Read one of the books mentioned in the teaching, with a discerning spirit.
