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Tuesday, November 1, 2016

The Missing Doctrine of Experience


What is your doctrine of experience? We are quite familiar with the idea of taking the things we see in Scripture and summarizing them into doctrines, what we believe captures the essence of what God has breathed-out on any particular matter.

What then is your doctrine regarding experience? Have you settled what the Scriptures say about people experiencing the things God has revealed so you know how to view experiences in your own life, and how to be fair and true as you consider what other people testify about their own experiences of God and his word?

Now, as is the case with every belief we discuss, there are the three positions to keep in mind. Two positions are the pendulum-extremes where people emphasize some of the Scriptures involved and neglect others. In the middle is the plumbline where people seek to live by the whole counsel of God on the matter.

With respect to the doctrine of experience, the three positions look like this (the plumbline position in the middle, the two pendulum extremes on either side):



The reason I raise the question is that most of the focus I have heard on such things is a battle between the two pendulum-extremes. Those who know that experience without doctrine is wrong imagine that the only other option is to have doctrine without experience. Those who know that doctrine without experience is wrong imagine that the only other option is to let every experience count as doctrine.

Of course, when we seek to live by the whole counsel of God instead of the bits and pieces we may prefer, we realize that all the doctrines of God speak of experiencing God in the ways described, and so our doctrine of experience must express how experience fulfills sound doctrine.

Have you ever considered how much of the Bible we would need to cut out if we removed anything that described an experience? Gone is Moses’ burning bush experience; gone is the Israelites crossing the Red Sea on dry ground, and Peter walking on the water. Remove experience from God’s Book and we can’t expect healing for the brokenhearted,[1] liberty for the captives, recovery of sight for the blind,[2] or anything else someone would have to describe as an experience once the breathed-out words of God were fulfilled in their lives.

In fact, since the four gospels and the book of Acts are primarily descriptions of experience, what are we to do with them if there should be no experience corresponding with the work of God? Clearly the experiences described in these breathed-out books are “according to sound doctrine,”[3] or God would never have presented them with his approval. So, why would we want to dissociate our experiences from doctrine on one side, or deny the experiences described by doctrine on the other?

What we believe in our doctrine of experience must include an identification of whether or not the doctrines of Scripture demand or deny experience. Does the doctrine of God (Theology, Christology, Pneumatology) speak of impersonal bits of information, or does it speak of a person who wants to be known by experience? Does God tell us he is love just so we can have an objective understanding of what he is like? Or does he reveal every facet of his love so that we “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”?[4] Both comprehending and knowing the love of Christ are descriptions of experience Paul was praying would happen in the churches.

What about the doctrine of the church (Ecclesiology)? Does this doctrine describe in textbook fashion the answers we need to pass a test on doctrine, or does it describe the things we should expect to experience as the church of the living God? When we read the description of the church being devoted to one another in brotherly love,[5] or having hearts knit together in love,[6] or people making every effort to keep and maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,[7] do we sit around feeling good about ourselves that we know these soundbites of doctrine, or do we sit around loving one another as brothers, testify to healing and maturing relationships within our churches, and glorify God for uniting the children of God in a way that only the Holy Spirit could accomplish through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus?

If the doctrine of the kingdom of God reveals that the kingdom is about “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”,[8] is this for impersonal information alone, or so that we could describe experiences of growth in righteousness, experiencing the peace of God that transcends understanding,[9] and feeling filled up with Christ’s joy so that our joy is also made full?[10]

I’m sure you can gather how I would answer all such questions. My doctrine of experience is that all the doctrines of Scripture describe corresponding experiences. Those that apply to the present life of the church in these last days ought to be described in our life experiences. Even the doctrine of suffering in the church will result in experiences of the church suffering throughout the ages. Both the denial of doctrine in our experiences, and the denial of the experiences that fulfill the doctrines, should be rejected in favor of seeking and living the very things God’s breathed-out doctrines reveal.[11]

Now here’s a new one going around: popular teachers on the no-experience side of doctrine teach their disciples that, if someone claims to experience something the Bible says we should experience, they are automatically lifting their experience up to the level of the breathed-out Scriptures, which could only mean that their claim to experience must be unbiblical (even though it is what the Bible describes as an experience of the Christian life).

Because these teachers often seem preferable to the weirdos who exalt experience independent of doctrine, many are deceived into thinking we must judge and condemn anyone who testifies of an experience, even when that experience matches what is described in sound doctrine.

The encouragement I want to present from my place in the body of Christ is that we are to welcome and seek every experience the doctrines of Scripture tell the church we ought to experience. When our experiences match what is described in Scripture, we are not exalting our experiences to the level of Scripture, but exalting Scripture as the breathed-out words of God that have awakened our faith to trust God for the very things he reveals in his word, and provided the corresponding experiences that are just as his word describes.

Let me share some examples so it is somewhat clearer what I mean by this.

When God’s word gives us the doctrinal truth that, “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear”,[12] we are invited to bring our fear-based identities into the real experience of God’s love until we can testify that the perfect love of God has cast out our fear. We can also minister to people with this doctrinal hope that, if they allow themselves to hunger and thirst after this righteousness of love,[13] that they will most certainly be satisfied with the love they long for, since it is God’s love that is promised.

The apostle James gives us the doctrinal teaching about the elders praying for people’s healing, with the promise that the prayer of faith will make people well.[14] The only way we can look at this is as doctrine teaching us to expect experience. The doctrine tells the sick person to go to the elders. This means that a sick person in a specific church will go to the specific men who are elders among them, ask for healing, experience the men anointing him or her with oil, laying hands on them, and praying for their healing. All that is experience. At the same time, when the prayer of faith is offered to God, and God answers the prayer, the person will experience the healing that is described in the doctrine.

It is no small thing to me that I once had reason to go to the elders of the church we were in at the time and ask if we really believed what James had written. The pastor said we did (whew!). My wife had experienced some debilitating paralysis after the birth of our second child, and we felt desperate for God’s help. We took God at his word, believed the doctrine as it is taught, had the men come, anoint, lay on hands, pray, and, while they were praying, my wife felt a tingling sensation going through her body. By the time the men had finished praying, she was able to go up the stairs, pick up our little girl, and carry her back down the stairs.

How do I explain this? Simple. The doctrine of Scripture told us God’s will on the matter; we acted according to the breathed-out words of God, and, when we did so, we experienced the answer to prayer described in God’s Book. This has never made us elevate our experience of answered prayer above the Scriptures that taught us what to do, but neither has it taught us to treat the doctrines of Scripture as though knowing what they say is enough. While there are times when God tells people his grace will be sufficient for them (something they should also experience, by the way),[15] we still knew that the doctrine given to us by James was something we wanted to experience, and it is no dishonor to God to testify that this is what happened for us.

The doctrine of leaders equipping the church for ministry as described in Ephesians 4 will turn into experiences where specific elders in specific congregations provide distinctive training and equipping in real life situations so that specific people now know how to do the kind of ministry that builds up the body of Christ.[16] Congregations will then speak of the experiences that have come to their church where specific circumstances of need have been met by specific people doing ministry to those needs so that people are built up in the Lord. Congregations will be able to gather together in prayer meetings, and small groups, and church fellowships, and Sunday gatherings, and give testimonies of how specific acts of ministry drew people to Christ, or delivered them from oppression, or brought healing to their broken hearts, so that everyone gives thanks to God for his glorious gift to the church.

I know that God does not want us to live by sight. That’s sound doctrine. Instead, we are to live by faith; also sound doctrine.[17] However, when we live by faith (the experience of faith, not just the beliefs we share with demons[18]), there are things that must be experienced in order for God’s promises to be fulfilled. Will some of those experiences take place at the return of Christ rather than in the here and now? Yup; just like the doctrines make clear. However, our hope in what we will experience then arises from the revelations of God’s word that tells us what God’s people have experienced of him in the past, and our faith in what he says we can experience right now in this foreign land of the world.

For practice, when you get together with other believers, look at passages of Scripture you have been studying and consider what the Scriptures tell you to expect to experience as a result of your faith in what is written. As you seek God for the genuine experience of what he describes in his word, accept that both extremes of the pendulum will likely judge you as being with the other guys. This may result in us experiencing the same ridicule and judgment as Jesus our Lord experienced when he walked this earth, both of which also happen to be just as the revealed doctrines of God have already described.[19]

© 2016 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)






[1] Psalm 147:3
[2] Luke 4:18-19
[3] Titus 2:1
[4] Ephesians 3:18-19
[5] Romans 12:10; I Peter 1:22
[6] Colossians 2:2
[7] Ephesians 4:3
[8] Romans 14:17
[9] Philippians 4:7
[10] John 15:11
[11] I’m referring to the doctrines relating to the church. There are doctrines relating to the lost, and to Satan and his demons, that will be experienced for sure, but not by those who have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
[12] I John 4:18
[13] Matthew 5:6
[14] James 5:13-18
[15] II Corinthians 12:7-10. It should be noted that, Paul’s testimony is a description of what he experienced in his relationship with God.
[16] Ephesians 4:11-16
[17] II Corinthians 5:7
[18] James 2:19
[19] Isaiah 53 revealed what people would think of the Messiah God sent, how they would treat him, and the victory of God in providing salvation.

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