New Age and the Bible

How interesting it is that the New Age movement, or rationale, is paralleled to the Bible. It seems that everything that comes from the mouth of a New Ager is a principle taken from the Bible, with one exception: God is dethroned in the New Age.

The more I paid attention to this the more obvious it became. The New Age movement uses principles, which they call universal laws, that have been in the Bible all along. This is exciting for us in one way because it sort of reinforces our beliefs, but it’s bothersome in another way because it challenges our foundations of our beliefs. That is not a bad thing, necessarily, it’s just something to be ready for.

New Age Claim: Law of Attraction – think it and it can be so…
Biblical Source: Proverbs 23:7 – For as he thinketh within himself, so is he…
Believe in something and it can come to pass such as in Mark 11:20-29, where Jesus says to speak to the mountain, and Jesus spoke to the fig tree.
[updated 9-13-11] Proverbs 13:21 – Trouble chases sinners, while blessings reward the righteous.

New Age Claim: Believe and it can be yours
Biblical Souces: Matthew 21:22 says “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”  James 1:6 says to ask in faith without doubts. If you doubt you are double-minded.  John 14:13 says You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.

New Age Claim: We are all one.
Biblical Source: We are all one in Christ.

New Age Claim: Law of Action
Biblical Source: Faith without works is dead.

New Age Claim: As above, so below.
Biblical Source: Eph 6:12 – For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

New Age Claim: Law of Cause and effect.
Biblical Source: Gal 6:7 – God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap

New Age Claim: Law of compensation.
Biblical Source: Proverbs 19:17 – He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done.

New Age Claim: Law of Relativity – you will be tested.
Biblical Source: Rather, because we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, we speak as we do, not trying to please people but God, who tests our motives.

New Age Claim: Law of gender.
Biblical Source: Mark 10:6 – But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female.

There are surely tens, if not hundreds of examples I could give for some of those points, but it should not be necessary to go to that length unless I’m writing a reference book… which I’m not.

The New Age movement is not different than Christianity in its principles, per se. It is only different in who credit is given to for these principles occurring.

The New Age movement says that we are god. It relates things to karma. It suggests that there is some guiding force within us that is from us and is us. That force is god. It becomes hard to pin down what they mean by “god” because most ways we have to communicate who God is can be paralleled in their New Age world. Any question you ask them about God they can say ‘yes’ to, if they want.

In my estimation, they have taken the principles from the Bible and adopted them into their system. Then they removed the one true God and replaced Him with themselves; themselves as an individual or collective unit of mankind in its entirety.

Faith

The important part of both beliefs is faith. The Bible teaches that faith is what empowers your prayers. As stated above, Matthew 21:22 says: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Without faith it is impossible to please God, says the Bible.

God is capable of anything. Your prayer is not simply begging God for action whereby He decides to answer it or not. Rather it is you willing (or creating your will) something to come to fruition. God doesn’t work through the unfaithful.

Two Worlds

There are two worlds that we live in. Again, the Bible and the New Age belief agree. There is the material world and there is the spiritual world. These two worlds are dependent upon each other.

The material (physical) world and its laws are the baseline or default level of everything when operating in 0 (zero) faith. Things fall to the ground when you have no faith that anything different will happen. You fall through water when you walk on it when you have no faith. All natural laws that exist are the base level of things as they will occur with zero faith. These laws are not bad or anything. They just are the baseline of our world when no faith is applied.

With faith, you can walk on water, as Jesus demonstrated in His perfect faith. He fed 5000 men and their families, then 4000 men and their families, with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, with food to spare. This contradicts natural laws but with faith it can happen.

Did Jesus have any inherent abilities outside of what you and I can access? He was all man. He was born of a woman. He prayed a lot. He was in constant communication with His Father. I believe it’s safe to say that He got His power from His Father, not from His own being. His power, from His Father, was accessed through faith. His body, without the Father, probably didn’t contain anything that we don’t also have. (debates welcome)

People can access this power without even loving or obeying God, by way of faith. It is not recommended because it’s ultimately detrimental. Matthew 7:21 says: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”

So you can do things by accessing the power of God through faith, which they must have had to prophesy, cast out demons, and do wonders. Many healings of the New Testament came about when people had faith in it. “Your faith has made you well”, Jesus said in Luke 18:42. He didn’t say “I have healed you”. He didn’t say “My Father has made you well”. He said “Your faith has made you well”.

Luke 8:44-47 states: She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed.

This woman, through faith took power from Jesus without His explicit direction. This verse could be a rebuttal or support for the other points made here. It says that faith can get you what you want even without God’s approval or allowance. It also says that Jesus may have had the power within Him. It could, however, also mean that Jesus was more like a channel to the Father and he sensed the power travel through him.

Either way, multitudes were touching Jesus without receiving power (presumably), but this woman who was touching him had faith that something would happen and her faith accessed His power and she was healed.