A Room Full of Regurgitators

@divegeester

There is no capital L, capital C "Local Church" group.

There are Christians throughout the world who have seen the vision of worhsipping God in spirit and standing on the ground of the local unity.

Many of them follow the ministry of the men who brought this vision to the Christian public - brothers Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.

You will see in print sometimes captital L, captital C Local Church because of a couple of reasons:

1.) Book titles usually capitalize all important words in a title, at least in English -
"The Beliefs and Practices of the Local Churches". And there is it plural churches. But capitalization in that sense is customary in English.

2.) In some counties the civil authorities require a legal entity in order to determine civil and financial accounting. And when some churches in the US went to court to battle defamatory libel cases not involving doctrinal criticism but untrue moral accusations, the law required some form of legal entity to be formed.

But we do not refer to all the local churches throughout the earth as "The Local Church". This is the sometimes unavoidable reaction of sociological perceptions that spiritual unity MUST be the result of some form of business conglomeration.

The seven churches in Asia to whom Christ spoke were not a conglomerate organization called "The Local Church". They were -
"seven churches ... Ephesus and ... Smyrna and ... Pergamos and ... Thyatira and ... Sardis and ... Philadelphia and ... Laodicea ( See Rev. 1:11 )

They were not "The Local Church in Asia" but "the seven churches which are in Asia" (1:4) .

Yet they were in spiritual fellowship. What Jesus wrote to each church was to also be heard by the other seven. So they were intended to be in a fellowship.

" He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (2:7) See also the same thing said to each church - 2:11, 17, 29, 3:6, 13, 22

None of the seven churches were perfect utopias.
All were either rebuked or exhorted for something that needed to be overcome.
One was not rebuked but told simply to hold on to what they had.

Before God they were all the same - golden lampstands.
Their differences lay in things which were problematic.

In positive aspects of their essential nature they were identical.
In ensuing problems they were different.

Christ was as a high priest walking in their midst to trim the wicks of their lamps, provide oil, keep them shining and testifying and calling for those within them to hear and overcome various deficiencies.

The number of genuine Christians meeting in this way is a minority to the majority in the earth who do not. Some choose not. Some do not know about it. Some know about it, disagree and oppose.

The spiritual messages put out by the co-workers are available to all Christians whether they do or do not desire to meet on the local ground. Nearly everything spoken as public ministry or ministered is available for review and study by the general public.

@divegeester

Sonship, do you or your church leaders draw a distinction of any sort between Christians who are members of your Local Church group and those who are not?

Above I corrected the capital L, capital C designation "Local Church".
Below I refer to what unites all believers in regardless of how we assemble together. And you have seen it in the booklet you often refer to.

In order to be saved, one must have a living faith in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Every genuinely saved one has what the Bible calls the “common faith” (Titus 1:4), which includes what we must believe in order to be saved: we must believe that the Bible is the complete divine revelation wholly inspired by God; that there is a unique Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God incarnated to be a man; that Christ died on the cross for our sins, shedding His blood for our redemption; that on the third day He was bodily raised from the dead; that He has been exalted to the right hand of God and made the Lord of all; and that He is coming again for His own and to set up His kingdom on earth.

Eternal salvation is by grace through faith, not by our works.

In order to be saved, one must have a living contact with Jesus Christ. Therefore, in bringing unbelievers to salvation, we emphasize prayer and calling on the name of the Lord. According to Romans 10:9 and 10, if a man is to be saved, he must believe in his heart and confess with his mouth.

Once a person has been saved, he may have both the assurance of salvation and the security of salvation. Once we are saved, we are saved forever.

https://www.localchurches.org/beliefs/salvation/

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Absolutely, especially when that ordinary man is a sandwich short of a picnic.

A reminder of his lunacy:

"The unique Creator, God, is triune, signified by the number three. Since the creation is represented before God by four living creatures (Revelation 4:6-9), the number four signifies creatures, especially man. Hence, three plus four means that God is added t ...[text shortened]... eation and then in the new creation, the church."

(The Recovery Version: Footnotes of Revelation)

I think the quote you provided bespeaks of a mysticism with regards to the relationship between God and creation that the scriptures don't specifically refer to.

I once entertained the notion that God created man as a replication (duplication?) of himself. I think the reality falls short of that idea.

While man was created in the image and likeness of God, man will live for eternity and never attain to anything remotely equal to God.

I think the idea expressed in the quote, i.e. that man actually becomes part of the Godhead, does what Billy Graham once said, which was, "man is never more like the devil than when he attempts to touch the glory of God". (I think it was Billy Graham, and I think the quote is relatively close to what he said.

The Bible is clear, God will not share His glory.

Isaiah 42:8
I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another,..

Isaiah 48:11
For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.

There's more, but I must refrain for now, for I fear sonship may feel I've abandoned him and the truth of God's Word.

@sonship said
None of the seven churches were perfect utopias.
All were either rebuked or exhorted for something that needed to be overcome.
One was not rebuked but told simply to hold on to what they had.

Before God they were all the same - golden lampstands.
Their differences lay in things which were problematic.

In positive aspects of their essential nature they were [b] ...[text shortened]... ing spoken as public ministry or ministered is available for review and study by the general public.

Sonship here is what I asked you, obviously it is another one of those difficult questions which causes you to go all furtive.

Do you or your church leaders draw a distinction of any sort between Christians who are members of your Local Church group and those who are not?

@divegeester

Do you or your church leaders draw a distinction of any sort between Christians who are members of your Local Church group and those who are not?

First I corrected your misrepresentation of our thought of a "Local Church" group - capital L, capital C. You ignored it. You ignored and re-asked the question.

Aside from that you were not dodged in the least. And the words most pertinent to your question I will highlight.

The number of genuine Christians meeting in this way is a minority to the majority in the earth who do not. Some choose not. Some do not know about it. Some know about it, disagree and oppose.

This may turn out to be another instance of you deciding unless certain words come out of my mouth that you want me to say, I somehow have not answered the question.

We do not regard the majority of saved Christians as meeting on the ground of locality. And usually, neither do other Christians. They have learned denominations as either unavoidable or so average as to be the norm.

We in the local churches have decided that we should just be what we are - merely the church. We do not say we are the only church. We say we are only the church. There is a difference.

What is it about this reply you don't understand ?

@SecondSon

There's more, but I must refrain for now, for I fear sonship may feel I've abandoned him and the truth of God's Word.

I don't feel that. And I don't think anyone here perfectly expresses the things needed to be said. I make mistakes.

In spite I am often forceful in my style of writing and come off perhaps overly polemic at times.

I can see how the understanding of "four-in-one" God might be taken. I can sympathize with someone being stumbled by the expression. After clarification I think it should be clearer that Lee was not saying man becomes part of the Godhead.

J. S.'s Misrepresentation of Brother Lee's Teaching

Stated succinctly, J. S. charges Brother Lee with espousing and propagating “the greatest and worst blasphemous heresy,” “the devilish heresy that man will become god (or God).” As quoted in the foregoing section, Brother Lee clearly and emphatically teaches that “the Godhead is unique” and that “He is the only One who should be worshipped.” Recall Brother Lee's balanced word that, on the one hand, the New Testament reveals that “the Godhead is unique and that only God, who alone has the Godhead, should be worshipped” and that, on the other hand, the New Testament reveals that we, the believers in Christ, have God's life and nature and that “we are becoming God in life and in nature but will never have the Godhead” (emphasis added). In speaking of deification—the process through which the believers are constituted with the Triune God to be made God in life and in nature—Brother Lee says that man becomes “God in life and in nature but not, of course, in the Godhead” (emphasis added). Of course, the Godhead is unique. Of course, we will never have the Godhead. Of course, God alone is worthy of worship. Of course, the believers will never become an object of worship. Of course, the believers will never be made God in the sense of having the Godhead. “Never have the Godhead” —this crucial phrase deserves the attention of every honest reader of Brother Lee's materials.

See The Truth Concerning the Ultimate Goal of God's Economy
https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=140102CDEA

@sonship said
See The Truth Concerning the Ultimate Goal of God's Economy
https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=140102CDEA

So I did "see" your link sonship. My reply will be emboldened and Witness Lee's statements are in quotes.

Recently, the Lord has opened up to us the high peak of His divine revelation. This high peak can be summarized in the following statement: God became man that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead. This statement embodies the entire revelation of God's New Testament economy in an absolutely scriptural and careful way. The following selected excerpts from Brother Witness Lee's writings make this abundantly clear.

The above statement by the individual rebutting the accusations made by the one claiming that Witness Lee's teachings are blasphemous are brazenly erroneous."Recently, the Lord has opened up to us the high peak of His divine revelation"? Are you kidding me? Is God now "revealing" something new that wasn't penned by the authors of the New Testament 2 thousand years ago?
The rest of that opening statement I will not waste my time on.

The following is by Witness Lee.
"In our recent life-study of the book of Jeremiah, I pointed out that in God's new covenant (Jer. 31:33-34), we have been made God in His nature and in His life, but not in His Godhead." In Witness Lee's statement above he asserts that "we have been made God in His nature..." and connects that idea to the new covenant, and quotes Jeremiah 31:33-34 as his proof text. This is what God said in Jeremiah: "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

Where in that text does it say anything about "...we have been made God in His nature..."? Witness Lee has blatantly misused the scripture to make an assertion not supported by the text.

"This is because we have been begotten of God (John 1:13). Dogs beget dogs; lions beget lions; and man begets man. Since your father is a man, and you are born of him, are you not a man? As believers in Christ, we have been born of God; we have been regenerated by God. God is our Father, and we are His sons. Since our Father is God, what are we, the sons? The sons must be the same as their Father in life and in nature. We have been born of God to be the children of God (1 John 3:1). Eventually, when Christ comes, He will make us fully the same as God in life and in nature (v. 2). However, none of us are or can be God in His Godhead as an object of worship. In a family, only the father has the fatherhood. The children of the father do not have his fatherhood. There is only one father with many children. The father is human, and the children also are human, but there is only one father. In the same way, God is our unique Father; only He has the divine fatherhood. But we as His children are the same as He is in life and in nature."

Again in the quote just above Witness Lee has tortured the text of 1 John 3:1-2 to support an idea he has that the verses simply don't support. He begins by asking the question, which is the bait in the trap, "Since our Father is God, what are we, the sons?" The question is erroneous and sets the listener's mind in a position to accept this answer; "He will make us fully the same as God in life and in nature". "Fully the same"? READ THE TEXT.

1 John 3:1-2 says;[/b] "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

"...we shall be like him;.." NOT FULLY THE SAME.

"The early church fathers used the term deification to describe the believers' participation in the divine life and nature of God, but not in the Godhead. We human beings need to be deified, to be made like God in life and in nature, but it is a great heresy to say that we are made like God in His Godhead. We are God not in His Godhead, but in His life, nature, element, essence, and image."

What "early church fathers" is Witness Lee referring to?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BEING DEIFIED THAT WE MAY BECOME
THE CORPORATE EXPRESSION
OF THE TRIUNE GOD
"In our spiritual breathing by the exercise of our spirit, we enjoy, receive, and absorb the divine substance with the divine essence, the divine element, and the divine expression. This will cause us to be deified, that is, to be constituted with the processed Triune God to be made God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. In this sense we may speak of the deification of the believers, a process that will consummate in the New Jerusalem.

Do you know what the New Jerusalem is? The New Jerusalem is a composition of God's chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, transformed, and glorified people who have been deified. On God's side, the Triune God has been incarnated to be a man; on our side, we are being deified, constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God so that we may be made God in life and in nature to be His corporate expression for eternity. This is the highest truth, and this is the highest gospel."

DEIFIED? Nowhere in the Bible is that taught. IT IS BLASPHEMY. There is not a shred of scriptural evidence to support that teaching. It's the doctrine of the devil.

I'm not going to waste my time addressing each sentence above since there's not one proof text supplied to support them.

I also perused the site your link provided and I found in the titles and topics language in over abundance in words and phrases as foreign to biblical teachings relative to doctrine as I have ever seen anywhere.

@sonship said
@divegeester

What is it about this reply you don't understand ?

The part where you fail to answer my simple yet pertinent question.

@secondson said

DEIFIED? Nowhere in the Bible is that taught. IT IS BLASPHEMY. There is not a shred of scriptural evidence to support that teaching. It's the doctrine of the devil.

I'm not going to waste my time addressing each sentence above since there's not one proof text supplied to support them.

I also perused the site your link provided and I found in the titles and topics ...[text shortened]... and phrases as foreign to biblical teachings relative to doctrine as I have ever seen anywhere.

The more I delved into Lee's writing the more I was aghast (genuinely) at how far he had strayed from scripture and how single-mindedly he strived for the deification of mankind (and de facto himself).

@ghost-of-a-duke said
The more I delved into Lee's writing the more I was aghast (genuinely) at how far he had strayed from scripture and how single-mindedly he strived for the deification of mankind (and de facto himself).

I can’t get a straight yes or no response from sonship, maybe you can.

Does sonship or his church leaders draw any distinction whatsoever between Christians who are members of the local church, and other Christians who are not?

By the way, the controversies generated by the teachings of Witness Lee have their own dedicated page on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Church_controversies

@sonship said
@divegeester
I corrected your misrepresentation of our thought of a "Local Church" group - capital L, capital C. You ignored it. You ignored and re-asked the question.

Why do you 'misrepresent' the common noun "atheist" by capitalizing it? Why do you ignore it when I ask you about this?

@divegeester said
I can’t get a straight yes or no response from sonship, maybe you can.

Does sonship or his church leaders draw any distinction whatsoever between Christians who are members of the local church, and other Christians who are not?

By the way, the controversies generated by the teachings of Witness Lee have their own dedicated page on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Church_controversies

I think the answer is 'self-providing' when one considers what Lee has said about churches outside of his recovery movement and how he rejoiced in their apparent destruction.

(Yep, read the Wikipedia stuff).

@ghost-of-a-duke said
The more I delved into Lee's writing the more I was aghast (genuinely) at how far he had strayed from scripture and how single-mindedly he strived for the deification of mankind (and de facto himself).

It is interesting isn't it that even atheists can discern the correct meaning of the plain text of scripture. For example: an individual sitting on a bar stool identifying himself as a Christian to the fellow sitting next to him who says, "if you're a Christian, then why are you here?"

I wish sonship could see that the idea of "recovery" coupled with the idea that "the Lord has opened up to us the high peak of His divine revelation" smacks of the claim to apostolic authority not given since the first century. It is a false assumption that gives rise to the claim of importance to certain specific individuals the scriptures do not endorse.

Jesus Christ is the central figure of the Bible, and whatever the Christian is he is subservient to His Lordship in all things, and is the recipient of all the benefits that come from above.

Any group, individual, denomination or institution that claims to hold to a "higher truth or special revelation" that hasn't already been dispensed in the scriptures, or that claims to have unlocked secrets or truths by some new revelation, is deluded and seeks to attract adherents for the purpose of control and the aggrandizement of themselves.

I don't care how sincere they may think they are. In practical terms all they are doing is making converts to themselves.

People will flock to the idea that they will be deified and follow like blind sheep. Makes the carnal appetites happy. It's an appeal to the flesh.

These "movements" have come and gone throughout history and the "Church" still remains. It is vibrant and alive and quite invisible.