THINGS YOU THOUGHT WERE TRUE
Part 8
“Spiritual Portals—Are They Real?”
Genesis 28: 11-17 NLT “At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep. As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”
“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!’ But he was also afraid and said, ‘What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven!’”
Malachi 3:10 NLT “Bring the tenth part into the store-house, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this, says the Lord of All. See if I will not then open the windows of heaven and pour out good things for you until there is no more need.”
_______________
Okay, this time we’re talking about portals—a teaching that has become accepted and popular in many church circles.
First, the dictionary definition of a portal is, “a doorway, gate, or other entrance.”
Or, “a website or web page providing access or links to other sites.”
So a portal is essentially an entrance or doorway to another place, world, or dimension.
________________
Now first off we find that this whole notion of portals is one of the key beliefs of people involved in New Age!
According to New Age beliefs, a portal is a gateway to another world, either of the past, present or future, to supernatural powers and entities, or to some form of higher consciousness/expanded awareness.
Many New Agers believe that geographical locations are portals into other dimensions. Some of the most famous among New Agers are Sedona in Arizona, Stonehenge in England, and the famous New Age hubs of Esalen in California and Findhorn in Scotland.
New agers believe there are more than 1,000 of these “major power centers” or portals scattered throughout the planet.
_______________
Okay, with that in mind how in the world did this belief find its way into Christian churches?
By bad and outright false teaching!
For instance, one ‘Christian’ proponent of the ‘portals’ teaching writes regarding the Jacob’s ladder and “windows of heaven” texts we read:
“These verses describe portals, or what some people refer to as open windows, of heaven. There are certain locations in the earth, where the veil between the natural realm and the spiritual realm is thinner, as if there is an established opening that allows God’s angelic messengers to pass through unhindered.”
Does this sound eerily similar to the New Age beliefs we just read about?
__________________
Before going further, let’s pause a moment and let me explain a very important principle of Biblical interpretation.
When reading Bible verses like we read at the start, the following principle should be your guide:
“If the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense.”
When seeking the actual meaning of a verse or verses, we should lean on the natural interpretation of the words as they are joined together into sentences and paragraphs.
The writers were normal, rational people who communicated in the same basic ways that we do, only in different languages and historical contexts.
So, when you are interpreting a biblical text, if the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense!
Don’t try to allegorizing it, or hyper-spiritualize it.
Don’t put layer upon layer of ‘hidden meaning’ or ‘mystical symbols onto it.
Just stay with what it plainly said!
Secondly, there are two ways one can interpret a verse or verses. One is called exegesis. “Ex” is the Greek word for “Out of.”
The idea is that correct interpretation of a passage is achieved when you draw out of the text what God intended for it to say.
Then a second way a verse or verses can be interpreted is through eisegesis. “Eis” if from the Greek word “into.”
When a person eisegetes a passage it means they are reading into it something it doesn’t say by placing their own meaning on it, not the meaning God intended.
So good Bible interpretation is when a person interprets a verse or verses by drawing out of it through careful word study and context the plain sense the author intended.
__________________
Now, back to the portal teaching.
It’s interesting to me that portals, mystical doorways to other worlds or dimensions, is also a popular concept in modern secular fiction, science fiction, and entertainment.
Science fiction movies introduce portals to other dimensions and worlds all the time.
_______________
—But what does the Bible actually say about portals?
Well, the Bible does not directly mention portals at all!
We find no mention in the Bible of portals or mystical doorways to the supernatural.
One well-known yet now deceased Christian teacher on portals wrote:
“A heavenly portal is a spherical opening of light that offers divine protection by which angels and heavenly beings can come and go, without demonic interference. God has designed portals to begin in the third Heaven, travel through the second Heaven and open upon Earth.”
But where is this found in the Bible?
________________
Another ‘Christian’ teacher on portals says:
“When you are under a heavenly portal, answers to prayer come quicker, the gifts of the Spirit operate more freely, and the atmosphere is one of peace and rest. Supernatural occurrences are more frequent, and the interference of the enemy is weak.”
Pause. Is there any verse in the Bible that supports this claim…That under some ‘portal’ prayers are more quickly answered? What does the Bible really say?
The Bible says that prayers are answered by placing faith in God’s promises!
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”—1 John 5:14-15
The person teaching on portals goes on to reference the story of Jacob’s ladder and other scriptures about doors and gates, mostly from the Old Testament, to provide some justification for this teaching.
He continues, “Such portals exist over nations, states, cities, and even specific people and their property. Christians can usually sense when the heavens are open over a certain area.”
Pause. Did the passages we read at the beginning say anything about ‘portals existing over nations, states, cities, or someone’s personal property?’
He closes out by saying, “God wants to open the windows of heaven and pour out His blessings through His heavenly portals. Our obedience allows for portals to be opened. For example, when we tithe as He directs, He is able to open portals and bless us.”
“Through continued prayer and intercession and using our authority, we can create portals and establish an open heaven over ourselves and our communities so the blessings of God can flow!”
______________
Again, where is any of this in the Bible?
Is this teacher practicing exegesis or eisegesis?
Now, the Bible DOES say that “The Lord curses the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the upright.”—Prov. 3:33
But this has nothing at all to do with some special access to heaven by way of a portal on a person’s property.
________________
We need to remind ourselves here about another important foundational principle for interpreting scripture: That the Old Covenant is the shadow of the New and the New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old.
I learned in Bible school, “The New Testament is in the Old concealed, and the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed”!
What this means is the fulfillment of all the scriptures about doors, gates and spiritual access to God is found in Jesus!
Jacob’s ladder was not about a portal, it was a prophetic symbol representing the Mediator, Jesus Christ, who would one day come to earth and become the ladder or stairway for us to reconnect our relationship with God that was severed because of sin!
Romans 5:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”
According to the Bible, Jesus was our ideal “Jacob’s Ladder” who came to earth, from the lineage of Jacob, through the provisions of God, and redeemed us so that we may live in heaven for eternity.
Jesus’s declaration in John 10 makes this abundantly clear: “I am the door”!
So if you’re looking for a way into God’s Presence and blessing, Jesus is your portal!
He said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Without Him there is no going, without Him there is no knowing and without Him there is no living!
Jesus is the door!
Whatever happened to “And I am with you always?” Not just when or if you find a portal!
Bottom line: The portal teaching is taking new age teaching and putting a twist on it to repackage it for Christian consumption.
Next time: P.S.—A one time look at 2nd and 3rd John.