Can we approach God in ways outside of scripture?
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In natural revelation God reveals himself through creation, but this is incomplete and insufficient revelation. “It reveals Him to us only as Creator. It does little, if anything, to reveal Him to us as holy, as Judge, as Son, as Savior, or as Spirit.” For us to know God as he is and for us to obey him, we must have more than the revelation God gives us through what he has created.
“Knowledge of God requires a message, a message from God, a perspicuous (clear) message from God. And God sent a self-attesting, manifestly clear message in Word form.” This was Jesus Christ, the very Word of God. But Jesus was not the only living and active Word of God. There is also Scripture, God’s words recorded and written. “This written Word which reveals God to us has a unique and supernatural quality to it, part of which is that these are the words through which God the Holy Spirit makes Himself known to us individually and calls us to Himself personally.”
Evangelicals hold to the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura, that is, the Scriptures alone--and not anyone’s individual experience nor the collected and distilled corporate tradition of the church--are our final authority. And the Scriptures are our final authority because the Scriptures are what God says. In this context sola scriptura means that the Bible is the ultimate authority in all matters of faith and Christian living, and thus the ultimate authority in spirituality.
The Bible will guide us not only in what we know of God but also in how we know God.“The boundaries of the forms and expressions of spirituality for disciples of Jesus are those consistent with the Gospel of Jesus, that is, those found in Scripture, or those inaugurated, guided, or interpreted by Scripture. We have no right to determine how we will experience God, but are to go to the Bible and there to see how God promises he will guide us, teach us, and allow us to experience him.
We cross a boundary of sola scriptura whenever we seek an experience with Him in a way not found in Scripture. In one sense it is difficult to think of an example of an encounter with God for which there is nothing remotely similar in the Bible. Yet in another sense mankind seems to have a unlimited capacity to invent ways to get in touch with God. And all these have in common the presumption of the ability to experience God apart from the forms He has selected, and/or the presumption of the ability to experience Him immediately, that is, unmediated by God’s ordained means of revealing Himself to us.
A second way to cross the boundary of sola scriptura is seeking to experience God in a way not inaugurated, guided, or interpreted by Scripture. Scripture should inaugurate many of our experiences with God, for the Scriptures are the clearest revelation of God. This is why He gave His Word to us, so that we would experience Him. And in a real sense we might say that all true experiences with God are ultimately inaugurated by Scripture.
We can undoubtedly all think of times that we have experienced some of the goodness, grace and nearness of God while holding a child in our arms or watching a sunset. Not all of our encounters with God involve an open Bible. However, this is consistent with sola scriptura if what we experience of God in that moment begins with, is guided by, or is interpreted by God’s Word.
So if in beholding the splendor of the sunset I find myself in awe of the goodness of God, the glory of God, or the power of God, I may rightly deem that an experience with God because the Bible tells me that God is good, glorious, and powerful. The key, of course, is that we constantly go back to the Bible to guide even our experiences, acknowledging that it is infallible and sufficient.
Sola Fide
The second great boundary we cross as we integrate mysticism into Evangelicalism is the boundary of sola fide, the doctrine that expresses that we are justified by grace through faith alone, without contributing any merit of our own. The danger here is that the majority of the people we look to as teachers of mysticism hold a very different view of sola fide or a view of justification that outright rejects sola fide. “Specifically, this means that to send our disciples by means of books and quotations to learn their sanctification and spirituality from those we would consider heretical on justification is a dangerous practice.” There are few mystics who hold to a robust doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone.Does this mean that we can learn nothing from the spirituality of anyone who embraces a theology which gets the Gospel wrong? No, but we should at the very least recognize the risk that this may lead some of our disciples to conclude that if Evangelicals are not right when it comes to knowing Jesus better, how can we be right about how to know Him in the first place.
Conclusion
God has given us his Word to guide us in all matters of faith and practice. When we commit ourselves to mysticism, we commit ourselves to looking for revelation from God and experiences of God that come from outside that Word. We reject his gift--his good, infallible, inerrant, sufficient gift--and demand more. Because God promises us no more, we quickly create our own experiences and interpret them as if they are God’s revelation. Yet the Bible warns us that we can do no better than God’s Word and have no right to demand anything else. The question for Evangelicals today is just this: Will God’s Word be enough? Because whatever does not lead us toward God’s Word will always, inevitably and ultimately lead us away.
