No, there is no higher plane, there's no surpassing experience; there is no deeper life. Christ is all in all.
This is John MacArthur from 7:56 on the sermon I mentioned in the last post on this subject, where he is preaching from Colossians 2:18 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0fETODHsoM),
The frustrating thing is that he's using the term mysticism only to refer to today's charismatics and televangelists who are fleecing the flock, selling "miracles," seeing angels and having other sorts of visions and so on. There are also some self-appointed teachers who claim o hear from God that are included among these deceivers, such as Beth Moore. I don't know anything about her except for the occasional You Tube clip, I just know she is one MacArthur and others identify as a false teacher, someone who claims to hear from God directly for her teachings. There are also some books I haven't read, such as The Shack and Jesus Calling and others that are warned against in the same way. I know very little of them and the little I know suggests that the criticism is quite correct.
But then these false teachers are not distinguished from the mystics Tozer presents in his books. There are teachers who do talk of a higher life, a deeper life who focus on the biblical portrait of God and Christ in a way that exalts them and builds affection toward them in the reader. These are very far from the signs-and-wonders kind of thinking MacArthur particularly condemns. He calls it all a big ego trip with false humility, using the terms from the Colossians passage to brand the whole range of phenomena that go by the term "mysticism" which unfortunately would vilify an Isaac Watts or a Gerhard Tersteegen along with an Oral Roberts or a Benny Hinn or a Beth Moore.
Again, I wish I had another term for the experiences I've been trying to talk about, that Tozer calls Mysticism, that do not deserve MacArthur's sweeping denunciations. He brands all "mysticism" in terms of the Colossians passage, as false humility, worship of angels etc., and sums them all up as a "big ego trip" that is all about denying the sufficience of Christ.
I'm not even sure Mysticism is the right word for the phenomena he is talking about. I'd be more inclined to call it a form of witchcraft myself. He already showed the falseness of the Charismatic Movement in his Strange Fire Conference. There is this Contemplative Prayer movement in some churches now too, that sounds like another big deception. Heard one practitioner of that movement, pparently a Roman Catholic, describe it as a constant awareness of God AND everything around us. So that everything is prayer. Pretty far from anything biblical I'd say.
So most likely everything he denounces as mysticism should be denounced. The problem is that the term also includes some of the very best devotional writing in the history of Christianity, most of which I'm sure he would himself acknowledge, such as the humns of Wesley and Watts. Others he may not be as familiar with, such as Madame Guyon and Gerhard Tersteegen, whose poetry Tozer includes in his book of Mystical Verse. They are both called Mystics by the scholars, but their writings are completely Christ-exalting.
He and others like Justin Peters rightly say the false teachers deny the sufficiency of Christ and the sufficiency of scripture. HOWEVER, what this does in practice is confine us all to a very limited idea of the sufficiency of Christ. As Tozer puts it, we are confined to a very narrow or shallow idea of Justification by Faith, and confined to avoid any kind of further seeking of a deeper life IN CHRIST, a deeper knowledge of Christ, a deeper love of Christ. And since some of those who do pursue THIS KIND of deeper life have superntural experiences they come under suspicion just for that reason and tarring them with the Word of Faith apostates is thereby seemingly justified in a way that is terribly unjust to some of the most serious Christians..
The "more" that is sought from this other mystical camp is more love of God, more knowledge of God, more mortification of sin, more growth in humility and compassion and all the fruits of the Spirit. This is because somehow we do get stuck in a rather worldly-feeling Christian life. Perhaps we shouldn't. Perhaps if we just pursued the means of grace more persistently we would accomplish what we are seeking, but I don't think it can be denied that the general tenor of many churches is really fleshly and hardly spiritual at all. So we look for a "more" that will crucify the flesh in reality and grow us in grace in reality and increase our love of God in reawlity because for whatever reason the usual methods employed in the churches are not doing that and when we get these exhortations that "there is no more," and "there is no higher life" and so on, we may just feel cheated and spiritually deprived. Yes you can have Bible studies and prayer times and have devotional times at home, regularly read the Bible and so on, and still somehow maintain what I'm calling this fleshly tone in the churches.
I want to include some lines from some of the verses in Tozer's book but I think I'll start with a few scripture verses mostly off the top of my head that I think call us to this higher life that is being denied us. It's not that these are not preached on, it's not that we aren't familiar with them, but their real power to change us and grow us somehow gets slighted.
Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength
John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Jeremiah 29:13 And you shall seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.
As the deer panteth for the waters so my soul panteth after Thee.
Song of Songs My Beloved is mine and I am His
John 14:17 He dwelleth with you and shall be in you
He who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him
I wanted to include some of Tozer's verse and maybe some more scirpture but now I just want to get this posted so I'll either add some to this later or start a new post for the purpose.
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