June 10, 1984
When we add laws to Christ’s grace, we get legalism—but when we replace the Gospel with personal experience, we get mysticism. Alistair Begg considers how the apostle Paul warned Christ’s people to avoid teachers who claim special truth from intuitions or visions. False mysticism encourages us to expect joy from constant emotional experiences, with false “humility” that discourages us from perceiving reality and trusting in God’s sufficient Word.
18Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions,4 puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
Copyright © 2023, Alistair Begg. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Text provided by the Crossway Bibles Web Service.