Chapter 23

A Field Guide for Testing an NDE

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” — 1 John 4:1

A. The Question on the Table

A woman in my church once told me about her father’s near-death experience. He had coded on the operating table during bypass surgery. When the team brought him back, he spoke of a bright figure in a meadow, a deep peace, and a voice telling him he still had work to do. The family was comforted. Their father was unafraid to die. He came home kinder. He read his Bible more.

Then she asked me: “But how do I know it was real? How do I know it was Jesus?”

That is the question this chapter was written to answer.

We have spent three chapters now in the discernment section of this book. Chapter 20 showed that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light and that some NDEs have been hijacked by demonic forces. Chapter 21 showed that a real experience can still carry false lessons, and that what a person saw and what they concluded from it are two different things. Chapter 22 walked through the troubling world of distressing NDEs.

All of that raises a sharp, practical question: So how do I actually test one? If some NDEs are genuine and some are corrupted, how does a pastor sort the gold from the dross? If most are broadly biblical but at least one in ten carries clearly unbiblical content, how does a grieving family member know which kind they are looking at?¹

That is what this chapter gives you. Not a theory of discernment. A tool. A layered framework you can walk through, step by step, whenever you hear an NDE story and want to know whether it lines up with God’s Word. I have built this framework from the work of several careful Christian thinkers, from the data in my doctoral research, and from the Bible itself. By the end of this chapter you will have a clear, repeatable set of tests. A printable version of the same framework is in Appendix C.

The framework is layered on purpose. No single test catches everything. But taken together, these tests form a net fine enough to catch the counterfeits and wide enough to let the genuine through.

I want to be honest about something before we begin. Building this framework was one of the hardest parts of my doctoral research. I wanted a tool that was rigorous without being cold. I wanted something a seminary professor could respect and a grieving widow could use. I wanted to guard the sheep without scattering them. What follows is my best effort at that balance. It is not perfect. But I believe it is faithful to Scripture, fair to the evidence, and useful to the people who need it most.

B. The Biblical Command to Test

The Bible never tells us to accept every spiritual experience at face value. It tells us the opposite. It tells us to test.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)

John wrote those words to a church already troubled by false teaching. Notice what he did not say. He did not say, “Reject every spirit.” He did not say, “Accept every spirit.” He said test. The Greek word is dokimazete, the same word used for testing metals in a fire to see if they are genuine.² The fire does not destroy gold. It reveals it.

Paul gave the same instruction to the church in Thessalonica:

Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:20–22)

Again, the command comes in a pair: do not despise, but do test. The Bereans won praise in Acts 17:11 because they received the message eagerly and they checked it against Scripture every day. Eagerness and careful checking went together. One without the other fails.³

This is the spirit I want to bring to the testing of near-death experiences. We do not start from fear. We do not start from gullibility. We start from obedience. God tells us to test, and He gives us the tools to do it.

What does a testing framework look like? I have drawn on the work of Shaun Tabatt and Randy Kay, who developed a nine-point system for evaluating whether an NDE is authentic. I have drawn on the method John Burke uses in Imagine Heaven of comparing individual accounts against Scripture and against each other. I have drawn on the theological criteria that J.P. Moreland and Gary Habermas have outlined for evaluating NDE claims. And I have drawn on my own doctoral research, in which I scored 5,278 near-death experiences for both evidential quality and biblical compatibility.⁴

From all of these, I have assembled a layered approach. Think of it as a series of filters, arranged from the broadest to the finest. The first filter catches the obvious problems. Each filter after that catches something subtler. Together, they give you a practical, biblical, and workable way to weigh any NDE.

Here are the layers. We will walk through each one in turn.

The first test is the Scripture test. The second is the Jesus test. The third is the fruit test. The fourth is the Tabatt and Randy Kay nine-point authenticity test. The fifth draws on the comparison methods of Burke, Moreland, and Habermas. The sixth is the red-flag checklist. And the seventh is a worked example that puts all the tools together on a single account so you can see the framework in action.⁵

C. The Heart of the Case: Seven Tests

1. Why We Test

Before we pick up any tool, we need to settle something. Testing is not unbelief. Testing is obedience.

Some Christians feel guilty about questioning a spiritual experience, as if doubt were the same as denial. But that is not the biblical pattern. The Bereans in Acts 17:11 were not skeptics. They were devout Jews who received the gospel eagerly. And yet they examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true. Luke called them “more noble” for doing it.⁶

John goes further. He tells us there is a reason to test: “for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). The danger is real. Satan is a skilled counterfeiter, as we saw in Chapter 20. He does not show up in a red costume. He disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). His counterfeits look beautiful. That is why they work.

So when I say “test an NDE,” I am not saying “suspect everyone who has one.” I am saying what the Bible says. Examine it. Weigh it. Hold fast what is good. Let the fire reveal the gold.

This matters more than ever. The NDE world has grown fast. Books, documentaries, podcasts, and YouTube channels pour out NDE stories by the hundreds. Some are moving and biblical. Some are laced with New Age teachings. Some are a mix of both. Without a framework, a Christian reader has no way to sort them. With one, the task becomes manageable. You do not need to be afraid. You just need to know what questions to ask.

2. The Scripture Test

This is the first test and the most important. Does the experience, or the lesson drawn from the experience, contradict the Bible?

Isaiah gave this standard long ago:

To the teaching and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no dawn in them. (Isaiah 8:20)

Paul sharpened it even further:

But 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. (Galatians 1:8)

Notice how strong that is. Even an angel from heaven. Even an apostle. If the message contradicts the gospel, it is rejected. The source does not matter. The content does.

How does this apply to NDEs? Here are the questions to ask. Does the NDE teach that all religions lead to the same God? Scripture says otherwise (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Does the NDE deny that sin is real or that judgment is coming? Scripture says otherwise (Romans 3:23; Hebrews 9:27). Does the NDE claim that we are gods? Scripture says otherwise (Isaiah 43:10). Does the NDE promote reincarnation? Scripture says otherwise, because it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment (Hebrews 9:27).⁷

If any clear teaching in the NDE contradicts a clear teaching of Scripture, the NDE fails the first test. The experience may have been real. The person may be sincere. But the lesson is wrong. As we saw in Chapter 21, a real experience can carry a false interpretation.

In my doctoral research, I found that about 71% of all NDEs scored as highly or moderately compatible with a biblical framework. Among carefully studied scholarly cases, the figure rose to about 87%. But at least one in ten NDEs carried clearly unbiblical content. The Scripture test catches those.⁸

3. The Jesus Test

The second test asks a pointed question: Is Jesus Christ present and honored in the experience?

This is not a simple pass-or-fail. Not every genuine NDE includes a meeting with Jesus. In my data, about 20% of NDEs involved an encounter with Jesus, while fewer than 1% involved any other named religious figure.⁹ So the absence of Jesus does not automatically mark an NDE as false. Many genuine NDEs involve only the out-of-body experience or a brief sense of peace and light.

But when a figure does appear, the Jesus test becomes sharp. Ask these questions. Does the figure identify itself as Jesus? Does the figure display marks or identifiers consistent with the biblical Christ, such as wounds, a name, or a holiness joined to deep tenderness? Does the figure honor the Father? Does the figure treat sin as real?¹⁰

And equally: Does the figure refuse to identify itself? Does it shy away from the name of Jesus? Does it teach something Jesus would never teach? As we noted in Chapter 13, a glowing being is not automatically Christ. Scripture warns us that Satan can appear as a being of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). A being that radiates warmth but dodges the question “Are you Jesus?” should make us cautious.¹¹

Cardiologist Michael Sabom pressed this question hard in Light and Death. He found that most NDErs who met “Jesus” identified Him by feeling, not by name. The figure appeared as a man of brilliant light, radiated love, and produced awe. But in nearly every case, the identification was what Sabom called “intuitive.” That raises a question: Was the figure tested? In one striking case reported by Maurice Rawlings, a man approached a radiant being who matched the typical description. He asked, “Are you Jesus?” The spirit replied, “No.” That single honest answer did more discernment work than most NDE accounts ever attempt.⁴⁶

Sabom went further. He compared what “Jesus” taught in two famous NDEs against what the biblical Jesus actually said. In one case, “Jesus” taught that humanity’s real problem is a negative self-image, not sin. He told the NDEr that “we also have to be gods and not lowly worms.” In another, “Jesus” said “we have no right to criticize any church or religion in any way” and taught pre-mortal existence. Since these teachings directly contradict Scripture, Sabom concluded that this figure “is clearly not the same as the historical Jesus of Scripture.” The test was simple. He compared what “Jesus” said to what the Bible says Jesus said. Where they clashed, the verdict was clear.⁴⁷

On the other hand, NDEs where Jesus is clearly present and clearly honored tend to produce the strongest biblical compatibility scores. In my research, NDEs that included an encounter with Jesus alone scored 72.4% as highly or moderately compatible with biblical teaching. Those that encountered both Jesus and God scored 76.3%. NDEs that encountered neither scored only 40.7%.¹²

4. The Fruit Test

Jesus gave us a simple and powerful way to evaluate spiritual claims: “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16).

The fruit test looks not at the experience itself but at what happened afterward. What did the NDE produce in the person’s life over time? Not in the first week. Over months and years. Did it draw them closer to Christ, or away from Him? Did it produce humility, or pride? Love for others, or self-absorption? Deeper faith, or a drift toward the occult?¹³

Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). These are the marks of a life the Holy Spirit is shaping. If an NDE led a person deeper into these qualities and deeper into devotion to Christ, that is strong evidence that the experience came from God.

I have spoken with people whose NDEs left them changed in exactly this way. One man told me his cardiac arrest NDE shattered his lifelong fear of death. He came back and called his estranged brother. He started volunteering at a hospice. He prayed more. He argued less. That is the fruit of the Spirit at work. Whatever happened to him during those minutes of flat brain activity, the harvest was good.

But I have also read accounts where the harvest was very different. Some NDErs return and begin channeling spirits. Others claim they no longer need the Bible because they have received direct knowledge from the light. Others turn away from Christ altogether and embrace a mix of Eastern and New Age spirituality. When that happens, the fruit tells you what the tree is.

But if the NDE led the person to consult psychics, to pursue past-life memories, or to declare that all religions are equally true, the fruit is bad. If the person insists that sin does not matter, that too is rotten fruit. The tree may have looked beautiful in the moment. But the harvest tells the truth.¹⁴

In my research, about 19.6% of the NDEs in the database promoted psychics or mediums in some way. About 12% promoted reincarnation. About 20.5% contained occult elements.¹⁵ These numbers remind us that testing the long-term fruit of an NDE is not optional. It is essential.

This test also protects the person who had the experience. Many NDErs report that their churches rejected them or told them the experience was demonic. The fruit test gives a fair way to evaluate without dismissing. If the person came back loving Jesus more, reading the Bible more, serving others more, that fruit speaks.

The research here is striking. Sabom studied the aftereffects of NDEs in his Atlanta Study patients and compared them directly to biblical principles. He found that NDEs lead to increased belief in God, deeper belief in life after death, and greater concern for others. They also produced a stronger desire to pray and a decreased emphasis on material things. He then noted that each of these changes lines up with a specific biblical text. Belief in God matches Paul’s argument in Romans 1:19–20. Concern for others reflects Paul’s instruction in Galatians 6:2. The turning away from materialism echoes Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 6:25. The fruit was good. And good fruit, Sabom argued, grows only on good trees (Matthew 7:16–18).⁴⁸

J. Steve Miller pressed the point further. He found that in Sabom’s study, NDErs who changed their Christian beliefs moved “to a more conservative Christian doctrine,” not toward New Age teaching. He also noted that Dr. Penny Sartori’s hospital study in the UK found the same pattern: all NDE patients reported increased prayer, church attendance, and Bible reading. If the fruit test matters, the research gives a clear answer. In the carefully studied cases, the fruit is overwhelmingly good.⁴⁹

The prospective studies confirm this over the long term. In the Dutch cardiac-arrest study led by Pim van Lommel, researchers interviewed NDE survivors at two years and again at eight years. They found that the transformation was not a flash-in-the-pan. Fear of death decreased. Belief in an afterlife increased. Love for others deepened. And all of these changes intensified at the eight-year mark. A cardiac arrest lasting only minutes had sparked a lifelong process of change. That kind of lasting fruit is hard to explain as hallucination or wishful thinking.⁵⁰

5. The Tabatt/Randy Kay Nine-Point Test

Shaun Tabatt and Randy Kay developed a nine-point framework for evaluating whether an NDE displays the core features that genuine NDEs tend to share. Tabatt brings years of experience in interviewing NDErs and a deep concern for biblical fidelity. His approach is practical and grounded.

The nine points are these. First, the death of the individual, meaning a genuine medical crisis, not a dream or a vision during sleep. Second, an out-of-body experience. Third, heightened senses, where the person reports that colors were brighter, sounds sharper, thinking clearer than normal waking life. Fourth, encountering other beings, whether deceased relatives, angels, or a divine figure. Fifth, experiencing otherworldly realms, such as heaven or, in distressing cases, a place of darkness. Sixth, a life review, where the person’s life is replayed or examined. Seventh, receiving special knowledge, such as being told they must return or being shown something about their purpose. Eighth, a return to the body. And ninth, lasting post-NDE effects, where the person’s life is changed in ways that persist over time.¹⁶

The higher the score, the more features of a genuine NDE the account contains. A person who reports only a vague sense of peace during surgery may not have had a full NDE. A person who describes all nine elements has an account that fits the profile researchers have documented for decades.

I want to be clear about what the Tabatt score does and does not tell you. It measures structure, not truth. A high Tabatt score means the account matches the core pattern of a genuine NDE. It does not guarantee that every element of the experience came from God. Think of it this way. The Tabatt score tells you whether the patient really had a heart attack. The other tests tell you whether the treatment they received was sound. Both matter.

Tabatt himself is careful about this. He does not treat the nine-point framework as a substitute for biblical discernment. He uses it alongside Scripture, alongside the fruit test, alongside everything else we are covering in this chapter. The framework identifies pattern. The Bible evaluates content. You need both.

In my own doctoral research, I used the Tabatt framework to score all 5,278 cases in my database. The results were telling. About 97.3% involved the death of the individual. About 84.9% included an out-of-body experience. About 92.3% reported heightened senses. About 69% involved encountering other beings. About 78.1% included otherworldly realms. About 23.6% involved a life review. About 70.6% reported special knowledge. About 98.9% included a return to the body. And about 87.2% reported lasting post-NDE effects.¹⁷

But here is the finding that matters most for discernment. NDEs that included an encounter with Jesus also tended to score higher on the Tabatt scale. Those with high biblical compatibility averaged a Tabatt score of 7.5 to 7.9, compared to the overall average. In other words, the most authentically structured NDEs also tended to be the most biblically consistent.¹⁸

6. Burke, Moreland, and Habermas

Two other approaches deserve a place in the framework. I mention them briefly because they come from careful Christian thinkers and add something the other tests do not.

John Burke, in Imagine Heaven, compares individual NDE accounts against two measuring sticks at once: the Bible, and each other. His method asks whether a given account fits the broad pattern of what hundreds of other NDErs have reported. If one person claims an experience that no one else reports and that contradicts Scripture, Burke says that should give us pause. If many people across cultures and centuries describe similar features, and those features echo biblical themes, that consistency is evidence of something real.¹⁹

J.P. Moreland and Gary Habermas bring a more formal set of theological criteria. In their work on the evidence for life after death, they ask questions like these. Does the experience honor the nature of God as the Bible describes Him? Does the figure of Jesus in the NDE match the Jesus of the Gospels? Does the NDE affirm or deny the reality of sin and judgment? Does it uphold the authority of Scripture, or does it set personal experience above God’s Word? Is the gospel message honored or replaced?²⁰

These criteria overlap with the Scripture test and the Jesus test, but they sharpen the questions. The Moreland and Habermas approach reminds us that discernment is not just about catching false teachings. It is about seeing whether the whole shape of the experience fits the God we know from His Word. A genuine encounter with the living God will not shrink Him, replace Him, or revise Him.

Burke’s comparison method also helps with a practical problem. When you hear a single NDE story in isolation, it is hard to know what to make of it. But when you know the broad pattern of what genuine NDEs look like, drawn from thousands of accounts, you have a baseline. An account that falls wildly outside that baseline while also contradicting Scripture is unlikely to be genuine.²¹

I have found this comparison method helpful in my own work. When I was scoring thousands of cases for my dissertation, the pattern became clear. The core features of genuine NDEs are remarkably stable across cultures and decades. The out-of-body experience. The tunnel or passage. The being of light. The life review. The border or limit. The reluctance to return. These show up again and again. When an account departs radically from this pattern and at the same time delivers teachings that contradict Scripture, two warning signs fire at once. That is worth paying attention to.

7. The Red-Flag Checklist

This test draws together the warning signs we have encountered across the entire book. Not every red flag means an NDE is demonic. But each one should make a careful reader slow down and look more closely.

Here are the red flags.

First, a veiled or unidentified being of light. If the radiant figure at the center of the experience refuses to identify itself or deflects the question of identity, treat this with caution. The biblical Christ does not hide who He is.²²

Second, any teaching that directly contradicts Scripture. This includes the denial of sin, the denial of judgment, the claim that all religions are one, and the teaching that human beings are gods.²³

Third, the absence of Jesus in an NDE that makes large theological claims. An NDE where the person simply floated above the operating table and returned may not need a Jesus encounter. But an NDE where a being delivers sweeping spiritual teaching about the nature of reality, and Jesus is nowhere in sight, should raise a question.²⁴

Fourth, the presence of occult elements. If the NDE leads the person to consult psychics, practice mediumship, or seek contact with the dead, those are biblical red flags. Scripture forbids necromancy (Deuteronomy 18:10–12). About 19.6% of NDEs in my database promoted psychics or mediums in some form.²⁵

Fifth, the promotion of reincarnation. About 12% of NDEs in my research contained some promotion of reincarnation. Scripture teaches that each person dies once (Hebrews 9:27). Reincarnation and the Christian hope of resurrection are not compatible.²⁶

Sixth, an all-religions-are-one message. Some NDEs report being told that it does not matter what religion you follow. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). That claim is either true or it is not. An NDE that erases it is teaching against Christ.²⁷

Seventh, a living relative appearing as dead. This was the detail that unraveled Brian Melvin’s hijacked NDE, as we saw in Chapter 20. When a “deceased” family member who is still alive shows up in the welcoming scene, the deception is exposed. Not every reunion NDE involves deception, as we saw in Chapter 15. But this particular detail is a clear warning sign.²⁸

Eighth, a “we are all gods” message. This is the oldest lie in the Bible, the serpent’s promise in the Garden: “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). When an NDE echoes it, that is not a glimpse of heaven. That is a fingerprint of the deceiver.²⁹

8. Putting It Together: A Worked Example

Let me show you how this framework works in practice. I will take a representative NDE account and walk it through the tests.

Consider a composite case drawn from accounts common in the research literature.³⁰ A middle-aged man suffers cardiac arrest in a hospital. He later reports leaving his body and watching the resuscitation team from above. He accurately describes the position of the nurses and a specific instrument used during the procedure, details later confirmed by staff. He then moves through a tunnel into a place of brilliant light. A figure radiates overwhelming love and tells him, “You must go back. Your children need you.” He does not hear a name, but he feels certain the figure is Jesus. He returns. In the months that follow, he begins attending church, reads the Bible daily, and becomes notably more patient and generous with his family. He does not claim any new revelation. He does not consult psychics. He does not promote reincarnation. He simply says, “I know God is real, and I know I will see Him again.”

Now let us run the tests.

The Scripture test: Does the account contradict the Bible? No. It affirms the reality of God, the continuation of life after death, and the importance of loving one’s family. No unbiblical teaching appears.

The Jesus test: Is Christ present and honored? The figure is not named, but the man identifies it as Jesus, and the encounter produces deeper faith in Christ. The figure does not deny its identity or teach anything contrary to Christ’s character. This is positive but not conclusive. A cautious reader would note that the figure did not explicitly identify itself.³¹

The fruit test: What did this produce over time? Church attendance, Bible reading, patience, generosity, no drift toward the occult. The fruit is good.

The Tabatt nine-point test: Death of the individual (yes, cardiac arrest). Out-of-body experience (yes, watched the resuscitation). Heightened senses (yes, brilliant light, overwhelming love). Encountering beings (yes, the figure of light). Otherworldly realms (yes, the place of light). Life review (no). Special knowledge (yes, told he must return). Return to body (yes). Post-NDE effects (yes, lasting life change). The account scores eight out of nine. This is a high score, consistent with a genuine NDE.³²

The Burke comparison: Does this fit the broad pattern of reported NDEs? Yes, closely. The tunnel, the light, the loving figure, the command to return, and the lasting change are among the most commonly reported features across the literature.³³

The Moreland/Habermas criteria: Does the experience honor the nature of God? Yes. Is sin denied? No. Is the gospel replaced? No. Is Scripture set aside? No.

The red-flag checklist: No veiled being. No contradiction of Scripture. No occult elements. No reincarnation. No “all religions are one.” No living relative appearing as dead. No “we are all gods.” Zero red flags.

Now imagine a different account. A woman reports an NDE in which a being of light tells her that all religions lead to the same God and that sin is an illusion. The being also tells her she should seek spiritual guidance from a medium. It does not identify itself as Jesus. In the months afterward, she drifts from the church and begins attending psychic readings.

Run the tests. The Scripture test: multiple clear contradictions (John 14:6; Romans 3:23; Deuteronomy 18:10–12). The Jesus test: Christ is absent. The fruit test: drift from church, occult involvement. The Tabatt test: low score if the medical crisis was mild. Red flags: veiled being, contradiction of Scripture, occult elements, all-religions-are-one message. This account fails at every layer. A careful Christian should receive the person with compassion but reject the teachings as unbiblical.³⁴

For a printable version of this full framework, ready to carry in your Bible or keep in your desk, see Appendix C.

D. What the Researchers and Scholars Say

The testing framework I have presented does not come from one person’s opinion. It draws on the work of several careful researchers and thinkers who have been studying this field for years.

Shaun Tabatt brings a rare combination of access and conviction. As a publishing executive at Destiny Image and the host of The Shaun Tabatt Show, he has interviewed hundreds of people about their afterlife encounters. He has heard the genuine and the fraudulent, the comforting and the disturbing. His nine-point framework grew out of that experience, refined with Randy Kay across years of collaboration on books and media. Tabatt’s guiding principle is one I share: God intends NDEs for good, but Satan tries to twist them. The answer is not fear. The answer is discernment.³⁵

J. Steve Miller approaches the question as a rigorous researcher with a heart for the church. In Is Christianity Compatible with Deathbed and Near-Death Experiences?, Miller builds a careful case that NDE reports overlap with mainstream biblical teaching far more than most critics assume. He also insists that we should neither dismiss nor embrace all NDE reports, but use discernment to evaluate each case. Michael Sabom, a cardiologist and believer, echoes this in Light and Death, warning against both uncritical acceptance and blanket rejection.³⁶

John Burke, in Imagine Heaven, takes a different but compatible approach. He gathers hundreds of accounts and lays them side by side, asking what the common threads reveal. His method assumes that if God is behind many of these experiences, the pattern will converge. And it does. The love, the light, the life review, the reluctance to return, and the lasting change show up again and again, across cultures and decades.³⁷

Moreland and Habermas are two of the most respected Christian philosophers of our time. They insist that NDEs can support the case for life after death. But they also insist that such experiences must still be held to biblical standards. Their criteria bring the rigor of professional philosophy and theology to bear on the question. They argue that Christians should distinguish between the events that happen during an NDE and the interpretations that follow, a distinction this book has upheld from the beginning.³⁸

Sabom deserves more than a passing mention here. He is a rare figure in this field: a board-certified cardiologist, a conservative Presbyterian elder, and a researcher who brought both a stethoscope and an open Bible to the question. In Light and Death, he did something no one else had done so carefully. He compared the spiritual content of his patients’ NDEs directly to Scripture, text by text. He tested the “Jesus” figures. He measured the aftereffects against the fruit of the Spirit. He did it all while insisting that the NDE is “not an experience of the afterlife but a confirmation of its reality.” His work showed me that rigorous testing and genuine openness can walk in the same room.⁵¹

Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia, adds another dimension. In decades of aftereffects research, he found that people who had NDEs were more satisfied with life, reported greater spiritual growth, and showed increased daily spiritual experiences. He also found that specific NDE features predict specific changes. Meeting a divine being was tied to decreased fear of death. Seeing a brilliant light or meeting deceased loved ones was tied to greater acceptance of death. The fruit, in other words, is not random. It tracks with the content of the experience. That matters for discernment, because it tells us the lasting change is connected to the encounter itself, not just to the scare of almost dying.⁵²

What all of these voices agree on is a summary I would put like this. The core criteria for evaluating an NDE are consistency with Scripture, the centrality of Jesus, the fruit of the experience, and the avoidance of new revelation or unbiblical doctrines. These are not arbitrary standards. They are the standards Scripture itself gives us for weighing any claim to spiritual truth.³⁹

E. Counter-Objections

A framework like this will draw objections. Let me answer the strongest ones.

Objection two: “This framework will cause people to reject genuine experiences.” It might, in the same way that a metal detector might beep on a harmless coin. No tool is perfect. But the alternative is having no tool at all, which leaves people exposed to deception. The framework is designed to be generous. Most genuine NDEs pass every test. In my data, about 87% of scholarly cases showed high or moderate biblical compatibility.⁴⁰ The framework rejects what needs rejecting and lets the rest through.

Objection three: “The framework is too rigid. Spiritual experiences are fluid and personal.” The framework is layered, not rigid. It does not require a perfect score on every test. It asks whether the overall picture is consistent with Scripture and the character of Christ. A genuine NDE might not include every core element. A genuine NDE might leave the person with questions. That is fine. The framework catches the clear counterfeits while leaving room for the mystery of God’s work.⁴¹

Objection four: “Who has the authority to judge another person’s experience?” God does. And He delegates that authority to His people through His Word. Paul told the Corinthians to evaluate prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:29). John told the church to test the spirits (1 John 4:1). The Bereans were commended for checking Paul’s teaching against the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). The authority to judge is not mine or yours in a personal sense. It belongs to the standard God gave us: His Word. We are not judging the person. We are testing the content of the experience against what God has already said.⁴²

Objection five: “If you need a framework, you do not trust the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit wrote the Bible. The tests in this framework come from the Bible. Using biblical criteria to evaluate spiritual experiences is not a substitute for the Spirit. It is how the Spirit works. He does not bypass our minds. He illumines them.⁴³

F. Conclusion: Comfort You Can Trust

This chapter has given you something the NDE world badly needs: a practical, biblical, layered way to test any near-death experience. The framework is not complicated. It asks six plain questions.

Does the account contradict Scripture? Is Jesus present and honored? What fruit did it produce? Does it match the core structure of a genuine NDE? Does it fit the broad pattern of other accounts and sound theology? And are there red flags?

If you can work through those questions with an open Bible, you can weigh any NDE story you encounter. You do not need a degree in theology. You need the Word of God and a willingness to use it.

I want to close with a pastoral word, because I know that many of the people reading this chapter are not academics. They are family members. They are pastors sitting across from someone who just lost a loved one. They are people who had an NDE themselves and are not sure what to make of it.⁴⁴

If that is you, please hear me. The framework is a tool, not a weapon. Use it gently. When someone tells you about an NDE, listen first. Let them speak. Let them grieve, or wonder, or hope. Then, when the time is right, walk through the questions with them, not as a prosecutor, but as a friend with an open Bible.

I have seen both mistakes. I have seen pastors who dismissed a genuine experience because they were afraid of anything supernatural. The person left the church hurt and confused. I have also seen people swallow a deeply unbiblical NDE account whole because the story was moving and the person was sincere. They ended up in spiritual trouble. Both mistakes are costly. Testing prevents both.

If a loved one shares an NDE with you, you do not have to decide on the spot whether it was from God. You can say, “That sounds like it meant a great deal to you. Can we look at it together, with the Bible open?” That sentence alone does most of the work. It honors the person. It honors God’s Word. And it opens the door to a conversation where truth and love walk in together.

The goal of testing is not to steal comfort. The goal is to make sure the comfort is real. False comfort is cruel. It feels warm for a moment and then collapses when you need it most. True comfort rests on the solid ground of God’s Word. And that comfort can bear any weight.

I think of that woman in my church again, the one who asked me about her father’s NDE. When we walked through something like this framework together, she was not discouraged. She was relieved. Every test her father’s experience passed made her confidence grow. By the end of the conversation she was smiling. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew it was real.” The testing did not steal her comfort. It confirmed it.

That is what good discernment does. It separates the genuine from the counterfeit so that what remains can be trusted. And what remains, when the testing is done, is the God who made us body and soul. He keeps the soul alive in death. He meets His people at the edge of life. And He tells us to test because He is not afraid of the results.

The God who tells us to test the spirits is the same God who sends genuine comfort to the dying. He is not threatened by your questions. He built the tests Himself. Use them. Trust His Word. And let the fire reveal the gold.⁴⁵