Near-death experiences (I prefer to call them death and resurrection experiences) are well described in this important book, endorsed by John Burke, who wrote the amazing book Imagine Heaven. I have written about Burke’s book before. He is well educated and theologically astute, a leading pastor and theologian. Randy Kay is a medical professional and writes from a different perspective. He had his own experience of death and resurrection.
Kay documents many experiences that we have come to recognize as common: the lifting of the soul from the body at the time of death; amazing and accurate descriptions of what is going on in the room and nearby rooms, later confirmed; and then passage to heaven in most cases. Some, however, pass into Hell, call out, and are rescued. These experiences are authentic. They are evidence that the soul transcends the body and that heaven is real. What is most remarkable in Kay’s book is that some (not most) received instant creative miracles of healing, were completely restored, and showed that restoration in the hospital. These healings are documented. Sometimes medical professionals were totally astonished.
There are two things I want to emphasize. First, the experience of heaven cannot be overpressed for literalism. So how do we interpret what people report? Second, why is this happening today, along with a worldwide outpouring of miracles beyond anything seen in Church history?
One of the key aspects of the visions of heaven is that they all agree on the basics. Heavenly visions are glorious. The peace, the love, and the beauty of Yeshua himself, of angels, and of so much more are beyond description. Many times, people are shown loved ones who have died and meet with them. Yet no explanation is given that squares the vision of heaven with the biblical picture of our destiny on a renewed earth (see N. T. Wright on our resurrection in Surprised by Hope). It is also very difficult to put all these visions together into one literal, coherent description. Descriptions of the New Jerusalem are very different, landscapes vary, and so much more seems unique to the person who is given the experience. So I see these experiences as partly visionary and symbolic. We cannot tell for sure what is literal.
In addition, some experience Hell before they are rescued. There is never any message of hope for those who are finally condemned. Hell is a lasting place of suffering, but it is not clear whether it eventually ends in cessation (see John Stott, https://www.afterlife.co.nz/articles/john-stott-and-annihilationism/). Still, there is no word of eventual annihilation in the visions.
Why is this happening today? I think it is part of our entering the time of the final harvest. In God’s mercy and by His grace, miracles are happening all over the world, and experiences of death and resurrection are part of the miraculous. The information on this has grown and grown since the work of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Dr. Raymond Moody in 1975. The case reports now number in the thousands. Craig Keener’s great two-volume work, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, is an amazing study of 1,000 pages that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that God is showing Himself through miracles and in the name of Yeshua. We are entering, I believe, a period of the last great harvest and of the events of the last days connected to Israel before the return of Yeshua.