Chapter 13

Encountering Jesus

The Surprising Presence of Christ in Near-Death Experiences

Of all the findings in modern near-death experience research, none has surprised me more than this one. If near-death experiences (NDEs) were just hallucinations made up by dying brains, we would expect a wild mix of religious figures showing up. Hindus would meet Krishna. Buddhists would meet the Buddha. Muslims would meet Muhammad. Atheists would meet no one at all. The pattern would look like a kaleidoscope—a swirl of cultural expectations spilling out in dying minds. That is exactly what the critics predicted we would find.

That is not what we find.

Instead, when researchers look at large databases of NDEs from people of every background, one religious figure stands head and shoulders above the rest. That figure is Jesus of Nazareth. He shows up far more often than any other named religious person—and He shows up not only to Christians, but to Jews, to nominal believers, to lapsed church members, to non-Christians from other faiths, and even to atheists who mocked the very idea of Him an hour earlier. This pattern is one of the most theologically loaded findings in the whole field of NDE research, and in this chapter we will look closely at what it means.

A Surprising Statistic: Miller's NDERF Study

The most careful study of how often Jesus appears in NDEs comes from J. Steve Miller, an evangelical scholar who has spent years in this research. Miller wanted to test a common claim he kept hearing—the claim that NDEs are usually anti-Christian, that they push people toward Eastern religion, and that Jesus rarely shows up except when Christians project Him onto a generic light.

So Miller went to the largest NDE database in the world: the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) website, founded by oncologist Jeffrey Long, M.D., and his wife Jody Long, J.D. NDERF hosts more than five thousand experiences submitted from across the globe and translated from twenty-three languages.¹ Miller did something simple but very smart. He did not cherry-pick. He did not search for "Jesus" first. He read the NDEs in the exact order they were uploaded, one after another, and noted what he found.²

Out of 141 consecutive cases, 28 mentioned Jesus—right at 20 percent, or one in five. After Miller removed cases that were not really NDEs (drug experiences, dreams, or accounts with mental-illness red flags), he was left with 100 solid NDEs. Of those, 18 percent—again, about one out of every five—reported seeing Jesus.³ A smaller pilot study of 62 recent NDERF cases found 13 percent reporting an encounter with Jesus, and Dr. Michael Sabom, in his Atlanta Study, found that 36 percent of conservative Christian NDErs and 31 percent of liberal Christian NDErs reported seeing "Jesus" or "the Lord."⁴

Why is this so striking? Because in that same database of more than 5,000 cases, Miller found only three reports of Krishna and only two reports of the Buddha—both numbers so small they sit firmly in the "anomalous" category, less than one in a thousand. Of 80 self-identified Muslims in the database, none clearly reported Muhammad.⁵ Even more telling, all three of the Krishna cases also reported Jesus.⁶ If NDEs were just cultural projections, the math should look very different. Instead, Jesus appears with the same frequency as standard core elements like the life review (about 17–22 percent in the major studies) or seeing the deceased (around 13 percent).⁷ By any reasonable measure, encountering Jesus is part of the core NDE experience—not an outlier.

How NDErs Identify Jesus

When we read these accounts carefully, we notice that NDErs identify Jesus in four basic ways. Each of these tells us something important.

(a) Physical description. Many NDErs describe a man in flowing white or glowing robes, with a face that radiates light, eyes full of compassion, and sometimes nail wounds in His hands, wrists, or feet. Some report shoulder-length hair and a beard. We should be honest here: those features could be shaped by Western religious art that the experiencer has seen since childhood. But the wound markers are harder to dismiss, since they are scriptural rather than artistic, and several NDErs without much Bible knowledge have specifically described "marks" or "holes" in His hands. Four-year-old Colton Burpo, for example, told his father that "Jesus has markers"—red ones, in His hands and on the tops of His feet—long before anyone had explained the crucifixion to him.⁸

(b) Verbal identification. In some NDEs, the figure simply tells the experiencer who He is. "I am the Lord." "It is I." "Jesus." This kind of self-identification is theologically important, and it lines up with one of Shaun Tabatt's discernment principles, which we will meet shortly: a being that openly names Himself is more trustworthy than a vague being who refuses to do so.

(c) Inner knowing. This is the most common form of identification. The NDEr simply knows—with a kind of certainty deeper than any earthly knowing—that this person is Jesus. There is no guesswork, no inference, no need for a name tag. One NDEr put it this way: "I knew this heavenly personage was Jesus because I recognized him as a familiar friend."⁹ Another said simply, "I knew Him without an introduction. I instantly knew who He was."¹⁰ This kind of immediate spiritual recognition fits Jesus' own words about His sheep: "I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me. . . . They will listen to my voice" (John 10:14, 16, NLT).

(d) The quality of the encounter. Some NDErs identify the figure as Jesus because of the quality of the love they feel. They have read about His tender care for sinners in the Gospels, and when they meet that very same kind of personal, persistent, costly love on the other side, the recognition is unmistakable. The character matches the portrait.

A Sampler of Jesus Encounters

Let me share a handful of cases drawn from Miller's research and other peer-reviewed sources. I have grouped them by the spiritual background of the experiencer, because the pattern across these groups is remarkable.

1. Committed Christians. For believers, an encounter with Jesus often deepens what was already there. A man whose NDE began with darkness wrote: "I asked to see Jesus. Soon I saw Jesus standing in front of me. He asked me what I wanted of him. I told him I had learned I would have to return to earth and I did not want to leave this Heavenly place. When I spoke with Jesus and felt his love radiating to me I knew once and for all that all I had been taught in Sunday school and church was absolutely true. No doubt now."¹¹ Notice the shift: faith became sight.

2. Nominal or lapsed Christians. Many NDErs grew up around church but had drifted. Their encounter with Christ acts like a homecoming. Darrell Pell, one of cardiologist Michael Sabom's patients, suffered ten cardiac arrests in a single week. During his NDE, he met a "spirit being he calls Jesus" who walked him through what was happening to his body. Darrell's faith, which had been weak before the arrests, came roaring back to life. He and his wife Alison joined a church on Easter Sunday after his recovery, marking what Sabom describes as "a physical and spiritual rebirth."¹²

3. Non-Christians. This is where the data gets really interesting. Yale pediatric oncologist Diane Komp recorded the case of a four-year-old Chinese boy from a family that had fled mainland China and had no contact with Christians. After being pronounced dead from drowning, he revived and told his mother about a man who had pulled him out of the water. When his mother asked who it was, the boy answered, "Don't you know? It's Jesus."¹³ Several Jewish NDErs—who do not pray to Jesus and would never expect to see Him—have reported the same thing. One woman after a head-on collision said, "There was Jesus Christ . . . and I never wanted to leave this man and this place. . . . I am Jewish and I do not believe in Jesus Christ." A Jewish man who had cardiac arrest reported that Jesus picked him up and said, "I'm going to carry you through this, my son."¹⁴

4. Former atheists. The most famous case here is Howard Storm, a tenured art professor and committed atheist. His distressing NDE, which we will treat in depth in Chapter 21, ended when he cried out to Jesus and was rescued. Storm felt Jesus rub his back like a parent comforting a child, and described being lifted into a vast realm of light. His worldview, his career, and even his vocation were upended. He left the university to train for the pastorate.¹⁵ If demonic deception were the explanation, we would not expect a consistent pattern of unbelievers becoming devoted Christ-followers afterward.

The "Real Jesus" Hypothesis Versus the Alternatives

How do we make sense of these encounters? Miller lays out five possible hypotheses.¹⁶ The two that matter most are these. The "Not Really Jesus" hypothesis says that NDErs see a generic being of light and—because of their Christian background—simply label it Jesus. The "Real Jesus" hypothesis says that some NDErs are actually meeting the risen Christ.

The data points strongly toward the second view. Three observations push us in that direction.

First, the appearances are not generic. NDErs do not say, "I saw a light, and I figured it must be Jesus." They say, "It was Jesus. I knew Him. He spoke to me. I saw the wounds in His hands." That is identification, not interpretation. Second, the experience changes lives in distinctly Christ-shaped ways: increased prayer, increased Bible reading, deeper love for others, and—per Sabom's careful Atlanta Study—a noticeable shift toward more conservative Christian doctrine, not less.¹⁷ Third, the parallel sightings of Krishna, Buddha, and Muhammad—which the "interpretive projection" hypothesis would predict in similar numbers—simply do not exist at anything close to the Jesus rate.

Theological Significance: The Risen Christ Is Alive and Active

Why should this finding not surprise believers more than it does? Honestly, the surprise should run the other direction—we should be surprised if Jesus did not show up in NDEs. Let me explain why, looking at four biblical truths.

(a) The risen Christ is alive and active right now. Jesus is not a dead historical figure stuck in the first century. He rose from the grave, ascended to the Father, and made a stunning promise to His followers: "Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20, ESV). Wilkinson, drawing on the Chalcedonian tradition, reminds us that as God the Son, Christ has "all authority over life and death" and is now reigning from the throne of God.¹⁸ If Jesus is genuinely alive and reigning, then encounters with Him at the threshold of death are not strange at all. They are exactly what we should expect.

(b) Jesus is the light of the world. "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12, ESV). The being-of-light figure that sits at the center of so many NDEs may, in many cases, simply be Christ Himself. This is exactly what Burke argues throughout Imagine Heaven—the brightness people describe matches the biblical glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus, just as John saw Him at the Transfiguration and again on Patmos.¹⁹

(c) Jesus seeks the lost. The parables of Luke 15—the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son—paint Jesus as a relentless searcher who goes after the wandering. He is not waiting passively in heaven; He is reaching down. If He pursued sinners during His earthly ministry, why would He suddenly stop pursuing them at the moment they are most likely to listen? An NDE seems to be precisely the kind of moment in which the Good Shepherd would draw close.

(d) Jesus' loving demeanor in NDEs matches His character in the Gospels. Some Christians worry that Jesus appears too tender, too welcoming, too non-judgmental in NDE accounts. But this is exactly the Jesus we meet in the Gospels: "a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Matt. 11:19), the One who told the woman caught in adultery, "Neither do I condemn you" (John 8:11), the One who wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35). We will return to this in Chapter 22, but for now, just notice that the character matches.

John 11:25–26: The Resurrection and the Life

The biblical anchor for this whole chapter is one of the most stunning sentences Jesus ever spoke. Standing outside the tomb of His friend Lazarus, surrounded by mourners, He turned to Lazarus' grieving sister and made an "I am" statement that would have been blasphemous in the mouth of anyone else.

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25–26, ESV)

Two things in this passage matter for our chapter. First, Jesus does not say, "I bring resurrection." He says, "I am the resurrection." Resurrection life is not a separate gift He hands out—it is wrapped up in His very person. Wherever He is, life is. To meet Him is, in some sense, to taste resurrection itself.

Second, the way Martha and Jesus discuss the timing of resurrection is theologically rich. Martha says her brother will rise "in the resurrection on the last day"—a future bodily resurrection, the standard Jewish hope. Jesus does not correct her on the timing. He affirms it: Lazarus will indeed rise. As John W. Cooper carefully argues, this passage shows that Jesus locates the bodily resurrection at a future single event, not as something already accomplished for individuals at death.²⁰ But Jesus also adds something new: the believer "though he die, yet shall he live." Even when the body falls, the person who is united with Christ continues. Death is not extinction. It is a doorway.

I should pause to note that this same passage is one of the strongest texts against the physicalist version of Conditional Immortality, which holds that the person ceases to exist at death and is re-created later. Jesus' words "though he die, yet shall he live" do not naturally read as "though he die, yet shall he later be recreated." They read as continuation. We will treat the intermediate-state argument in depth in Chapter 20; here I simply observe that the very Lord NDErs report meeting is the One who promised that His followers, even in death, would live.

A Cautious Position: Not Every Bright Being Is Jesus

I want to say something carefully here, because Christians can fall into two opposite ditches. The first ditch is dismissing every NDE as fake. The second ditch is accepting every glowing being as the genuine Christ. Neither is biblical.

Sabom himself raises this concern. He notes that Jesus warned of "false Christs and false prophets" who would "perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible" (Matt. 24:24), and that the apostle John commanded us to "not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God" (1 John 4:1).²¹ Tabatt sharpens the point: "I'm always nervous about NDE accounts where beings, especially those that the experiencer believes to be God, is vague and nondescript. If the being claiming to be God in the experience isn't readily identifying itself, I find it suspect."²²

So how do we tell the difference? I will develop a full framework in Chapter 29, but four quick tests are worth naming here.

(1) Does the being's character match the biblical Jesus—holy love, truth, compassion, authority? (2) Does the being's message agree with Scripture, or does it contradict it (for example, by teaching reincarnation, by claiming all religions are equal, or by denying judgment)? (3) Does the encounter produce Christlike fruit in the experiencer's life—deeper prayer, love for Scripture, repentance, holy living? (4) Does the being identify Himself clearly, rather than dodging the question? When all four tests are passed, I think we have strong reason to believe the experiencer met the risen Lord. When even one fails, caution is in order.

"Doesn't This Undermine the Uniqueness of the Gospel?"

Some thoughtful Christians worry about a different objection. If Jesus appears to a Hindu in Mumbai or a Jewish woman in Brooklyn or a Chinese child who has never heard the gospel, doesn't that undermine the church's mission? Doesn't it suggest that everyone gets a private visit from Christ, so why send missionaries?

I do not think so, for two reasons.

First, this is exactly what Jesus already did. He appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road. Saul was not a Christian. He was actively hunting Christians down and dragging them to prison (Acts 9:1–9). Jesus' appearance to Saul did not undermine the gospel; it was the means by which Saul received the gospel. Saul, becoming Paul, then spent the rest of his life preaching the very Christ who had appeared to him. If Jesus interrupted history's most committed persecutor of the church, why would we be shocked that He sometimes interrupts a four-year-old in China or a hemorrhaging Jewish mother in labor? The Damascus Road tells us this is exactly the kind of God He is.

Second, an NDE is not a person's final death. It is an intermediate experience. Every NDEr we have on record came back. They were sent back. And they almost always describe being told, in some form, that they had a job to do, a life to live, a message to share. The encounter was not the end of their spiritual journey; it was a wake-up call that drove them deeper. As I have argued in another book, and as I believe Scripture teaches, God's mercy reaches further and longer than many of us have assumed. NDEs may be one of the means by which Christ draws people who would otherwise never hear the gospel. The missionary task remains—because most of the world will never have an NDE. But for the few who do, the risen Lord apparently considers it worth showing up in person.

A Concluding Word

The data is what it is. About one in five NDErs in the largest global database report meeting Jesus. They identify Him by sight, by His own self-naming, by inner knowing, and by the unmistakable quality of His love. The numbers do not match what we would predict if NDEs were cultural projections. The numbers do match what we would expect if Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be in John 11:25–26—the resurrection and the life, the Lord of the living and the dying, the One who promised to be with His people always.

For me, this is one of the quiet thunderclaps of NDE research. The Jesus of the Gospels still walks among the dying. The Lord who wept outside Lazarus' tomb still meets people at the edge of theirs. He is not absent from the threshold. He is on it.