New Covenant Dreams: Simple, Clear Guidance
- Michael E.B. Maher
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Genesis 20:3 “But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, "Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.”
As with the other gifts that we have looked at, in this section we will examine examples of this gift in scripture so that we can have a better understanding of the working of this particular gift. We will look at dreams first, as this is the lowest level of the different types of visions. Firstly, let me say that even though a dream is a manifestation of the gift of discerning of spirits, it does not mean that if an individual receives a dream from the Lord that they then have this gift, for it is not uncommon for God to use dreams from time to time to communicate His will to people, even to unbelievers. For example in the above quoted passage of scripture we can see that God spoke in a dream to Abimelech, who was a gentile king. The context of this passage is that Abimelech was about to take Sarah, Abraham’s wife as his own. And so God stopped him from doing so through the dream that was given to him. Another example of God using dreams to speak to unbelievers, is the dream that Pontius Pilot’s wife had, in which the Lord impressed upon her to warn her husband not to get involved in judging the Lord Jesus (Matthew 27:19). As an aside, we need to understand that the vast majority of dreams that everyone has are a just a natural part of how our minds work while we sleep. For example the bible teaches us that one of the causes of dreams is a very active lifestyle (Ecclesiastes 5:3), which means that our brains have to work through all of our activity during the day, as those memories are processed and stored. Nevertheless, one who has the gift of discerning of spirits however, will experience dreams from the Lord more frequently than others.
Acts 16:9-10 “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." (10) Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
Even though we have already seen in scripture that dreams form part of the experiences of the new covenant, other than in the gospels, dreams “as such” are not mentioned in the New Testament. So why is that? We can answer that question by looking at the Apostle Paul’s ministry, for we have accounts recorded in scripture of the apostle Paul receiving “visions” in the night. So why does the Holy Spirit refer to these particular visions that Paul had, as visions in the night? The reason is because; in fact these were dreams that Paul had, which is why the Holy Spirit specifically calls them visions in the night. Had they simply been visions, the Holy Spirit would have referred to them as such, without specifying what time of day they occurred. And so the reason that the Holy Spirit specifically recorded these, as visions in the night, is to let us know that dreams from the Lord fall into the same category as spiritual visions. The above quoted passage of scripture is one of the accounts where the Holy Spirit speaks about Paul’s vision in the night, i.e. his dream. In this dream the Holy Spirit gave Paul clear guidance (a word of wisdom) as to where he and his ministry team should go to preach the gospel. And so we see that because this was a very simple dream, Paul and his team easily concluded what God’s leading was. We will see this truth clearly communicated in all the examples we will discuss, i.e. New Testament dreams from the Lord are simple and easy to understand.
Acts 18:9-10 “Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, "Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; (10) for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above we have another example of the apostle Paul receiving a vision in the night. In other words Paul had a dream. In this dream we see that the Lord Jesus Himself appeared to Paul, and gave him both a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge. The word of knowledge given was that the Lord had many people in the city, and that therefore no one would attack Paul to hurt him. The word of wisdom given was the instruction to continue to preach the gospel in that city. Again we see in this example that this was a very simple dream, not requiring any interpretation, in which the Lord gave Paul clear guidance.
Acts 12:6-9 “And when Herod was about to bring him out, that night Peter was sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers; and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. (7) Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, "Arise quickly!" And his chains fell off his hands. (8) Then the angel said to him, "Gird yourself and tie on your sandals"; and so, he did. And he said to him, "Put on your garment and follow me." (9) So, he went out and followed him, and did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.”
It was not only in Paul’s ministry that dreams occurred however, for in the passage of scripture quoted above we have an account recorded which implies that the apostle Peter also received dreams from the Lord. In this account the angel of the Lord had woken Peter up from sleep and supernaturally let him out of prison. And so this is an account of an open vision, because the angel stepped into this natural realm and interacted with Peter. The point I wanted to focus on in this passage however, is that Peter was convinced that he was seeing a vision, “while he was sleeping”. In other words Peter thought he was receiving a dream from the Lord. And so clearly Peter had been exposed to dreams from the Lord before this incident, because his first response to what he was seeing was that he must be dreaming.
Matthew 2:13 “Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”
Just as with words of wisdom and words of knowledge from the Lord, the majority of dreams that one receives under the new covenant communicate clear instructions that do not require much thought as to their meaning. The above quoted passage of scripture is another clear example of the type of dream that the saints receive under the new covenant dispensation. In this account we see that Joseph received a dream in which the angel of the Lord communicated to him, both a word of knowledge and a word of wisdom. The word of knowledge was that Herod would look for the young Child to kill Him. The word of wisdom was the instruction to take the young Child and His mother to Egypt and stay there until the angel brought him word to return. And so we see that because of the simplicity of this dream, Joseph clearly understood what God wanted him to do. So what about dreams requiring interpretation? Although we see many of these types of dreams recorded in the Old Testament, such as the dreams that Joseph and Daniel had for example, nevertheless there are no incidents of this type of dream recorded in the New Testament. And of the numerous visions recorded in the New Testament, there are only two recorded that required some form of interpretation. The vision that stands out most prominently in this category is obviously the book of Revelation. The other incident recorded, is the vision that the Lord gave to Peter regarding the sheet let down from heaven showing him all sorts of creatures, and the Lord’s instruction to him to “kill and eat”, for what God had cleansed he must not call common (Acts 10:10-17). In this incident, although Peter did not understand the meaning of the vision straight away, the meaning became very clear to him as events unfolded directly after this vision. And so we can see that outside of the book of Revelation, there is only one vision recorded out of many, which required some form of interpretation. This will be the case with dreams as well. One who has the gift of discerning of spirits and operates in this gift at the lowest level of dreams, will mainly have simple dreams that are clearly understood (as in Paul’s case), and very few dreams that require some form of interpretation. And if they do have the occasional dream requiring interpretation, then the interpretation will be revealed to them soon after they have had the dream. And so under the new covenant there is no gift of the Spirit called, “the interpretation of dreams”, and the Lord has also not placed “Josephs” in His church, who interpret dreams that people have had. Saints who consult books or go to “prophets” to have their dreams “interpreted”, open themselves to deception, for both practices are completely unscriptural and are in fact demonic.
Michael E.B. Maher
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