falling backward

Originally posted on April 9, 2008 – by Andre Piet

Our daughter Naomi visited a youth church last Sunday together with a number of friends, where the pastor laid hands on people, after which they fell backward and had to be caught. She found it frightening (“it looked just like they had epilepsy”), but she was assured that it also often occurs in the Bible that people fall as soon as God’s Spirit touches them.
What are we to think of this?

ANSWER:
NEVER do we read in Scripture that believers who are confronted with God fall backward. If they cannot (or do not) remain standing on their feet, they kneel down or throw themselves on their face to the ground (see e.g. Josh. 5:14; Lev. 9:23; Judg. 13:20; Dan. 8:17, etc.). Forward, therefore.

If GOD causes people to fall backward, then that is not a good sign…

1. Eli fell backward from his chair and in doing so broke his neck.

When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward from his chair beside the gate, broke his neck and died.
1 Sam. 4:18

It was the fulfillment of a previously announced judgment (1 Sam. 3:11–13).

2. Unbelieving Israel would fall backward because it reduced the Word of the LORD to laws and demands.

So the word of the LORD will be to them: precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, so that they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.
Isaiah 28:13 (cf. Isa. 8:15)

Here again, not a blessing but a curse.
3. See for the drawing back in John 18:6, the footnote at the bottom.

Falling backward is (in the Bible at least) a depiction of a humiliating, divine judgment. It affects those who do not want to hear the Word of God or who distort this Word… Where today we consistently encounter this phenomenon in charismatic gatherings, we are warned in advance by this observation. The only other time we also read of a person who falls backward is when he is attacked by a serpent (Gen. 49:17). Not exactly a recommendation either…

Below is a video of a mass gathering (or one-man show, if you prefer) of Benny Hinn, who causes people by the hundreds (literally, but in any case figuratively) to fall on the back of their heads…
Watch and tremble.

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footnote:
As an example of falling backward, reference is sometimes also made to the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus. When Jesus said “I AM (He),” they all drew back and fell to the ground (John 18:6). However, there is no mention here of falling backward, but only of drawing back and falling to the ground. How these people fell to the ground (on their face or backward) is not stated. Moreover, there is no question here of believers…

Delen: