The Experience of Christ

[OBW]

Early on I suggested that my timing was bad to start a topic. And it was. I have had little time to keep up with much of anything.

Originally Posted by Ohio

OBW says we should not say "experience" because his Bible does not say it.

I did not say that we should not say "experience." What I said is that we are prone to using the word "experience" about heavily fuzzy events, feelings, etc., that are "spiritual" in a world divided between spiritual and secular. In fact, other than Igzy's list, which I have not had time to more than read through, too many of the arguments for the generic have been about private time sensations of the presence of God or something like that.

I do not say those are false or that they are not experiences (although there is always the question as to how certain we are as to what they are since so many speak of these kinds of experiences and the result is something we could hardly call spiritually or scripturally sound — of course it is never what we do).

I suggest that rather than saying something generic that forces the interpretation that it was clearly of Christ —without argument or consideration — we talk about what was actually experienced. It is a little like declaring something to be biblical or not biblical. I can find the words in the Bible so it is biblical. But what do they mean? I can't find the words in the Bible, so it can't exist. (And before you rush to say that is exactly what I am doing, consider that my goal was not to crush things that are real, but to demystify something that is a catch-all. To stop and think what is actually being said when the term is used. To consider whether we actually engaged in something that was real, and when not sure, assumed it must be and gave it a label that squashed further consideration.

Not saying that this is all of the cases. But even when it is not, what more could be gained from the realization that Christ was working in me through the Spirit to actually be different during the day than just saying I had a real "experience of Christ." But as "real" and as much as that is "experiencing Christ," we don't use that term for those things. And we expect that such an experience will be followed by a desire to jump and shout. If that is the case, then the most mature Christians should be constantly unable to contain themselves because they would constantly be reminded that so many events of the day would have been different in their old life. The fact that they don't even have to think about being different in so many ways is the ongoing "experience of Christ" that does not come with a need for exuberance. Instead it comes with the realization that we are still short of the glory of God.

Yes, there are times for joyous shouting, or some kind of equivalent. But the presumption that there is a need for it to be so ongoing and yet so indescribable that you can only say that you had "an experience of Christ" makes me wonder. Was if real or was it uncertain and the label is required to force the understanding to be what we want it to be? Is it somewhat like saying "the Bible says" when we are not talking about what the actual words say, but rather what we take them to mean?

And a list of the occurrence of a word does not answer that question. And despite the number of instances noted, does not, in itself, make it a major construct of Christian life, nor force its meaning in the way that we so often insist. It is worthy of review, not push-back and incredulity on the part of some. Maybe even the list does not mean what we want it to mean.