Criteria for Identifying a Genuine Christ Encounter
A friend at church pulls you aside after the service. Her eyes are full. "My mom passed last week," she tells you. "But before she did, she told me she saw Jesus standing at the foot of her bed. She wasn't afraid anymore. She just kept smiling." She looks at you, hoping for confirmation. "Was that really Him?"
Or maybe it goes like this. A coworker who survived a serious car accident tells you he left his body, traveled through a tunnel, and met "a being of light" who told him that all paths lead to the same place and that hell is just a state of mind. He smiles. "I think it was Jesus."
Both people use the same word. Both make the same kind of claim. But are they reporting the same thing? When somebody tells us, "I met Jesus," what should a Christian do with that?
Three responses are common, and all three are inadequate.
The first is automatic acceptance. "She said it was Jesus. It must have been Jesus." This sounds humble and kind. It is not. It treats every near-death report as if it were the equivalent of Scripture, ignoring the Bible's own warnings that not every spiritual experience is what it appears to be. The Apostle Paul warns that Σατανᾶς himself "disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14), using the Greek verb metaschēmatizetai (μετασχηματίζεται), which means "transforms his outward appearance."1 Jesus Himself warned that "false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew 24:24). To assume that every claimed Jesus-encounter must be genuine is to ignore Jesus's own words.
The second bad response is automatic rejection. "Nobody meets Jesus in an NDE. It must have been a demon, or a hallucination." This sounds biblical to some Christians, but it ignores the actual research evidence. J. Steve Miller's careful study of consecutive NDE reports from the NDERF database found that Jesus appears with surprising frequency, including to people who never expected Him.2 It also ignores the long Christian witness of believers — many of them serious, sober, biblically grounded — whose lives have been transformed by what they describe as a face-to-face meeting with the risen Christ at the threshold of death.
The third bad response is suspension of judgment. "We can't really know one way or the other." This sounds modest, but it is actually a refusal to do what Scripture commands. The Apostle John writes, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God" (1 John 4:1). To refuse the work of testing is to leave the experiencer — and ourselves — without biblical guidance.
What we need is the middle path: active discernment. When somebody reports meeting Jesus, the Christian's task is not to nod blindly or to scoff dismissively. It is to weigh the report against criteria drawn from Scripture itself. That is what this chapter is for.
This chapter is not written to make you suspicious of your dying grandmother. Most reported Jesus-encounters by Christians at the end of life are likely genuine. The criteria below are not a hammer for hunting fakes; they are a framework for handling cases where the identification is doubtful. Read with charity. Test with care.
The being encountered is identifiable as the specific, incarnate, historical Jesus of Nazareth — not a generic "Christ consciousness," not a "universal Christ," not a vague loving presence by another name.
This matters because the New Testament insists on Christ's particularity. John writes, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). And again, "every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God" (1 John 4:2–3). The Definition of Chalcedon (AD 451) takes this even further: Jesus is one Person in two natures, fully God and fully man, with a real human body and a real human soul.3 Michael Wilkinson, in his recent Chalcedonian anthropology, presses the point: Jesus is not a principle. He is a specific Person who has assumed a specific human nature, and He remains incarnate forever.4
So the positive indicator is this: the being is recognized as a particular Person — Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish carpenter, the crucified and risen Lord. The being identifies Himself or accepts the identification. The negative indicator is this: the being speaks of "the Christ within everyone," refers to itself as cosmic consciousness, deflects to a higher impersonal source, or presents Jesus as one teacher among many. Those are old Gnostic and theosophical patterns. They are not the biblical Christ.
In some of the most reliable Christian NDE accounts, the figure identified as Jesus shows the wounds of His crucifixion. He shows them on purpose. He is not embarrassed by them; He treats them as part of who He is.
This fits the resurrection narrative directly. When Jesus appeared to Thomas, He said, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe" (John 20:27). And when John saw Him in glory in Revelation, he saw "a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain" (Revelation 5:6). The risen Christ keeps His wounds as the perpetual sign of His incarnation and atonement.
Many of the strongest Christian NDE testimonies — Howard Storm, Ian McCormack, Jim Woodford — include the wounds.5 By contrast, when an alleged Jesus has no scars, or when the being dismisses the cross as "a misunderstanding" or "unnecessary," that is a serious warning sign. A Jesus separated from His own crucifixion is not the Jesus of the Gospels.
What does the being teach? This is one of the sharpest tests we have, because the biblical Jesus left a record of His teaching. We know what He said about repentance (Mark 1:15), salvation through faith in Him (John 3:16–18; John 14:6), the reality of final judgment (Matthew 25:31–46), love for God and neighbor (Matthew 22:36–40), and the Kingdom of God.
If a being claiming to be Jesus calls the experiencer toward repentance, faith, love, and service — content that lines up with what the New Testament Jesus said — that is a positive indicator. If the being teaches reincarnation, universal salvation without faith in Christ, the divinity of all humans, or that all religions lead to the same place, that is a negative indicator. The principle to apply is Galatians 1:8: "Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed." A "Jesus" who teaches a different gospel is not Jesus. Period.6
The biblical Jesus is overwhelmingly loving. He is also overwhelmingly holy. He welcomes sinners and calls them to repent. He embraces children and overturns tables in the temple. His love does not cancel His holiness; it expresses it.
Genuine NDE Jesus-encounters tend to carry both notes. The experiencer feels welcomed beyond words, and at the same time becomes painfully aware of their own sin. They emerge with deep comfort and deep moral seriousness. Howard Storm's account is a striking example: rescued from a place of horror by a Christ whose love melted him, Storm also describes profound conviction over the way he had lived.7 When a reported "Jesus" produces only therapeutic comfort — "you're fine just as you are, sin isn't really a problem" — something is missing. The real Christ holds love and holiness together.
When Jesus walked the earth, He spoke with authority that astonished His hearers (Matthew 7:29). He commanded the elements. He forgave sins. His presence produced reverent fear alongside love. Genuine NDE Jesus-encounters typically include this note. The experiencer feels small — not crushed, not unworthy of love, but appropriately small in awed recognition of who is standing in front of them.
If an account describes a "buddy-buddy" Jesus, an "old friend" with no weight, no holiness, no commanding presence, that should give us pause. Not every casual description is wrong; people grasp for words after such experiences. But if the overall portrait is therapeutic and weightless — without any sense that this is the One before whom John "fell at his feet as though dead" (Revelation 1:17) — the portrait does not match the biblical Jesus.
In many genuine Jesus-encounters, the experiencer is given a mission. Not always — sometimes Jesus simply sends them back. But when He speaks directively, His directives line up with biblical discipleship: "Tell others about me." "Love the people I have given you." "Serve with what I have given you to serve with."
When the mission instead involves starting a new religion, beginning a psychic practice, teaching that "all paths are one," or building a public ministry around the experiencer's own spiritual giftedness, that is a serious negative indicator. The real Jesus sends people into ordinary discipleship, not into spiritual celebrity.
Finally, look at how the encounter affected the experiencer. The biblical encounters with the risen Christ consistently produced worship. The women at the tomb "took hold of his feet and worshiped him" (Matthew 28:9). The disciples "worshiped him" (Luke 24:52). Thomas exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). John "fell at his feet as though dead" (Revelation 1:17).
Genuine NDErs who meet Christ tend to come away with awe, tears, and a sense of having been in the presence of the holy. They speak of Him with reverence years later. If the experiencer comes away merely with a pleasant memory, or with a transactional sense ("He gave me wisdom; now I share it for a fee"), the response does not match the biblical pattern.
(1) Christological specificity — a particular Person, not a principle. (2) Marks of the crucifixion. (3) Teaching consistent with the biblical Jesus. (4) Holiness alongside love. (5) Authority that produces awe. (6) Biblical mission-giving. (7) Reverence in the experiencer's response. No single criterion is decisive, but the pattern matters. The more criteria fit, the more confident the identification.
The criteria above can be inverted into a set of red flags. When we see these patterns in an NDE report, we have good reason to question whether the being identified as Jesus was really Him.
(1) Denial of the particular historical Jesus. The being speaks of "the Christ within everyone" or "Christ consciousness" rather than identifying as the man from Nazareth. (2) Teaching that contradicts Scripture. Reincarnation, universal salvation without faith, human divinity, or other doctrines the Bible denies. (3) Deflection from Scripture. The being tells the experiencer they do not need the Bible, the church, or the ordinary means of grace. (4) Flattery. The being tells the experiencer they are divine, specially chosen for unique spiritual work that goes beyond ordinary discipleship. (5) Direction toward occult practice. The being instructs the experiencer to begin channeling, mediumship, or psychic work — practices Scripture forbids (Deuteronomy 18:9–14). (6) No moral or spiritual challenge. The being produces only comfort, never conviction. Sin is "not a problem"; it is "just learning." (7) A long-term trajectory away from biblical Christianity. Over months and years, the experiencer drifts toward syncretism, universalism, or spiritual-but-not-religious teaching. The fruit is dilution, not sanctification.8
Michael Sabom, the Christian cardiologist who studied NDEs in Atlanta, raises the point bluntly. He notes that the only proper test of a "Jesus" in an NDE that he could find in the literature was a case in which the experiencer simply asked the being directly, "Are you Jesus?" — to which the being answered, "No."9 That kind of straightforward testing is exactly what 1 John 4:1 calls for.
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Let us put the criteria to work. What happens when we apply them to specific published accounts?
Howard Storm was an atheist art professor who collapsed from a perforated stomach in a Paris hotel in 1985. His NDE began in horror — beings tearing at him in a dark place — and turned only when he remembered "Jesus loves me" from childhood and cried out, "Jesus, save me!" A figure of light appeared, lifted him, healed him, and held him as he wept.10
How does the account fare? Christological specificity: the being responded to the name of Jesus and acted as Jesus. Authority and love: present in abundance. Theological content: aligned with biblical Christianity. Mission: ordinary discipleship and gospel witness. Fruit: Storm went from atheist professor to ordained pastor and gospel preacher with decades of consistent Christ-centered ministry. The criteria pass strongly.
Ian McCormack was a young New Zealand surfer, near-atheist by his own description, stung by box jellyfish off the coast of Mauritius in 1982. He clinically died, found himself first in darkness, then drawn into light, and met a being whose voice he came to recognize as God's. The encounter produced overwhelming love, conviction over his sin, and a clear sense that this was the Jesus his mother had taught him about.11
McCormack's account is striking on multiple criteria. He had no Christian framework predisposing him to encounter Jesus — he was preparing to die and wondering whether to pray to Buddha, Krishna, or Shiva. The Jesus he met called him to repent, to forgive, and to "see in a new light." He returned and entered Christian ministry, where he has served consistently for over forty years. Specificity, holiness, authority, biblical content, mission, fruit — they all line up.
Colton Burpo was a four-year-old boy whose appendix ruptured during surgery in 2003. After he recovered, he began telling his parents about visiting heaven, sitting on Jesus's lap, meeting a sister his parents had lost in miscarriage (whom Colton had never been told about), and meeting his great-grandfather who had died decades before he was born — recognizing the latter only from a younger photograph.12
The account contains elements that fit the criteria well: Jesus is specific and personal, the content is broadly biblical, and the family's life shows the fruit of faith. Critics, however, have raised reasonable questions about specific details and about the influence of the boy's pastor-father in shaping the published narrative. My own assessment is charitable: a child's report can be both genuine in its core and imperfect in its retelling. The criteria neither all pass nor all fail. The right posture is to affirm the elements that pass, acknowledge the questions, and avoid both uncritical embrace and hostile dismissal.
Betty Eadie's bestseller Embraced by the Light (1992) describes an extensive encounter with a figure she identifies as Jesus Christ. The "Jesus" of her account, however, teaches things the biblical Jesus did not teach: that human souls existed before birth, that there are multiple heavenly parents, that all paths lead to God, that Lucifer is misunderstood.13 Sabom's careful analysis of these teachings shows that the being's content directly contradicts the New Testament's portrait of Christ at multiple points.14
Apply Galatians 1:8 honestly. A "Jesus" who teaches that the cross is unnecessary, that Lucifer is misunderstood, and that all religions lead to the same God is preaching a different gospel. The kindest reading is that Eadie had some genuine experience filtered through her LDS background; a less charitable reading is that the being was deceptive. Either way, the figure she calls Jesus is not the biblical Christ. This is not a judgment about Eadie's character. It is a judgment about a specific published claim.
There is a whole category of NDE reports in which the experiencer encounters a luminous being, never claims it was specifically Jesus, but receives messages such as: "all is one," "you are divine," "every path leads to the same place," "develop your psychic gifts." Whatever the being was, the criteria say plainly: it was not Jesus of Nazareth. The teaching does not match. The specificity is missing. The fruit is dilution rather than sanctification. Discernment says: not Christ.
A common pattern in genuine NDEs is that the encountered being is loving and luminous but says only a few words — usually some version of "It is not your time. You have to go back." There is no extended theological discourse to evaluate.
In these cases, the criteria cannot fully run. We can note positive signs (a loving authoritative presence, a sense of holiness) and the absence of negative signs (no anti-biblical content, no occult instruction). But positive identification as Jesus specifically may not be possible from the encounter alone. The most we can say is that it may have been Jesus — especially if the experiencer's life subsequently shows Christ-centered fruit. This is appropriate epistemic humility, not skepticism. Sometimes the right answer is "probably yes," and sometimes it is "we cannot be sure." Both are honest.
Galatians 1:8 again: "even if . . . an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed." If the being taught a different gospel, the experiencer's insistence does not change the verdict. We can say it tenderly. We must still say it.
This is a place where pastoral care matters enormously (Chapter 34 develops it more fully). For now, the principle is simple: love the person, but do not validate the teaching. Their experience was real. Their interpretation may be wrong. Charity toward the experiencer does not require dishonesty about the content.
Some readers will feel a tension here. If a deceptive spirit can impersonate Jesus, does that mean Jesus is not in control of His own identity? Has the enemy outflanked Him?
The answer is no. Satan's freedom to deceive is bounded by God's sovereignty, not equal to it. Scripture itself shows God allowing tests of discernment — most clearly in Deuteronomy 13, where the LORD warns that if a prophet performs signs but teaches the people to follow other gods, "you shall not listen to the words of that prophet . . . for the LORD your God is testing you" (Deuteronomy 13:3). The existence of impersonators does not threaten the real Christ's sovereignty any more than the existence of counterfeit currency threatens the value of the real. In fact, the counterfeit only exists because there is something real worth counterfeiting. The risen Lord rules. He simply rules in a way that includes calling His people to discernment.15
Discernment is not paranoia. The point of this chapter is not to make every NDE report suspect. It is to give Christians the tools to handle the cases where suspicion is warranted — and, just as importantly, to confirm with appropriate confidence the cases where it is not. Most reported Christian Jesus-encounters are likely genuine. The criteria help us tell which are which.
When a believer at the end of life smiles and says, "Jesus is here," the right Christian response is usually thanksgiving, not interrogation. Most NDE and DBE Jesus-encounters in Christian contexts are likely genuine. Jesus does meet His people at the threshold of death. The witness of the church across cultures and centuries supports this, and the modern research confirms it.16
And yet some accounts do not pass. Some published "Jesus" figures teach things Jesus did not teach. Some luminous beings turn out, on examination, to be something else. The Bible warns us this will happen. The Apostle John commands us to test. We are not free to skip the work.
The seven criteria of this chapter — Christological specificity, marks of the crucifixion, biblical theological content, holiness alongside love, authority producing awe, biblical mission-giving, and reverent response — give us a Scriptural framework for handling the question carefully. No single mark is decisive. The pattern is. When the pattern fits, we can confess with the church through the ages: yes, that really was Jesus. When it does not fit, we can say so with both clarity and tenderness, knowing that to test the spirits is itself an act of love. May the Lord give us the wisdom to do both well.
Burke, John. Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God's Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2015.
Long, Jeffrey. God and the Afterlife: The Groundbreaking New Evidence for God and Near-Death Experience. New York: HarperOne, 2016.
Miller, J. Steve. Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences? The Surprising Presence of Jesus, Scarcity of Anti-Christian Elements, and Compatibility with Historic Christian Teachings. Acworth, GA: Wisdom Creek Press, 2023.
Sabom, Michael. Light and Death: One Doctor's Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998.
Tabatt, Shaun. The NDE Conspiracy. Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2025.
Wilkinson, Michael A. Crowned with Glory and Honor: A Chalcedonian Anthropology. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2024.