Belief not necessary

@ghost-of-a-duke said
"All they have to do is to open their mouths and say, “O Lord, O Lord.” Even if they have no intention of believing, still they will be caught!"


You understand that? - "All they have to do." Lee does not add the caveat that an atheist has to then go on to believe in God to be saved. He clearly states that mouth worship is 'all' that is required, even when there i ...[text shortened]... - Witness Lee is completely at odds with scripture on this, you are just too sycophantic to see it.

@rajk999 said
A mouth worshipper will naturally gravitate to another mouth worshipper, and be at odds with anyone that preaches good works and righteousness.

@rajk999 said
A mouth worshipper will naturally gravitate to another mouth worshipper, and be at odds with anyone that preaches good works and righteousness.

@pb1022 said
You have a complete misconception about what righteousness is and how it’s obtained.

I posted these verses before,

@rajk999 said
I dont really listen to anyone to be honest, pertaining to righteousness and what is required for eternal life. I just listen to Jesus Christ [who apparently is God] the sole authority. So your posting mostly is ignored.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke


After tracing down more of the context of this quotation and where your criticism was likely to have arisen from, I will soon be ready to show you how you are being deceived to echo the criticism that it teaches unbelief and being saved.

And if I cut and paste portions of the original debate around the controversy, don't whine then that I cut and paste too much. Though I can hardly stop you on that hypocrisy.

Copied and Pasted from Contending For the Faith
Portions only. [my bolding]
For further reading see https://contendingforthefaith.org/en/the-truth-concerning-salvation/

The Accusation Regarding Calling and Believing

According to the false accusations of the CRI writers, Witness Lee teaches that “salvation is simply and only a matter of calling on the name of the Lord” (p.9). They accuse us of teaching that salvation does not have anything “to do with the belief of the individual, but just with the words he says.” The CRI claims that we say, “All that is necessary for salvation is that one say ‘Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord.’ Nothing else is necessary.” The conclusion of their so-called research concerning this point is that we in the local churches teach that it is not necessary to believe in order to be saved.

This accusation is based on a paragraph from an article in The Stream magazine (February, 1970, p.6). Here is the relevant passage:

We have seen that to reach the unbelievers, no preaching is necessary. If we help them to say “O Lord” three times, they will be saved. If they open the window, the air will get in. All they have to do is open their mouths and say, “O Lord, O Lord.” Even if they have no intention of believing, still they will be caught! Regardless of whether they have the intention or not, as long as they open the window, the air will get in. It is not a matter of teaching; it is a matter of touching the seven Spirits of God.

According to the CRI researchers, this isolated excerpt is sufficient to prove that the teaching of Witness Lee and the local churches concerning salvation is that a person only needs to say the words “O Lord” without believing anything. They go on to argue that, according to the Bible, the “belief that all who say ‘Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord,’ regardless of belief, will be saved is not true” (p. 10). It is significant that the CRI writers base this accusation on an isolated portion of Witness Lee’s writings taken out of its context; they ignore many other relevant writings of Witness Lee on this subject.

@ghost-of-a-duke said

So, according to Witness Lee (and presumably Sonship) an atheist can be saved even if they have no intention of believing in God. They only need to speak hollow words. (I have just done that and safeguarded my own salvation.)

Notice that Witness Lee does not say that it is unnecessary to believe in the Lord Jesus in order to be saved. That is the unwarranted conclusion drawn by the CRI writers. As we shall see, Witness Lee strongly and emphatically states elsewhere that believing in Christ and His redemptive work is necessary for salvation. Here he simply says that people can be caught by the Lord “even if they have no intention of believing.” To be sure, such a statement cannot reasonably be denied. Did Saul of Tarsus intend to believe in the Lord Jesus when he was on the way to Damascus? Certainly not! Although he had no intention to believe in the Lord, he came in contact with Him, spontaneously called on Him, and, through his experience of personally meeting the risen Christ, came to believe in Him wholeheartedly. Through the Lord’s sovereign mercy, a good number of unbelievers have been brought to Christ, even though they were neither willing to believe in Him nor able to do so. By coming into living contact with the resurrected Christ, they believed into Him and were joined to Him in faith. How far-reaching is God’s grace in His salvation!

@Rajk999

Copied from Contending For the Faith at
https://contendingforthefaith.org/en/the-truth-concerning-salvation/

What We Believe and Teach Regarding Salvation [my bolding]

We in the local churches believe and teach that eternal salvation is obtained through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our belief and teaching are absolutely according to the Bible. The basis of our salvation is not man’s works; it is God’s grace (Eph. 2:8-9; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5; Acts 15:11). The foundation of our salvation is the very Person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He Himself, and no other, is the Savior (Acts 13:23; Luke 2:11). In fact, Jesus means “Jehovah the Savior.” Matthew 1:21 declares, “Thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” In John 10:9 the Lord Jesus says, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” According to Acts 4:12, “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” We can be saved only because the Lord Jesus “came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

The way of salvation is by faith (Eph. 2:8). In Luke 7:50 the Lord Jesus said to the woman who washed His feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head, “Thy faith hath saved thee.” According to Paul’s word in Romans 1:16, the gospel “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” For this reason, Paul and Silas told the jailer in Philippi, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). Our believing in the Lord Jesus should be accompanied by calling on His name (Acts 2:21; Rom. 10:13) and by confessing. Furthermore, according to Romans 10:9 and 10, we need to believe in our hearts that God has raised Christ from the dead, for “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.”

@ghost-of-a-duke said
“We have seen that to reach the unbelievers, no preaching is necessary. If we help them say “O Lord” three times, they will be saved. If they open the window, the air will get in. All they have to do is to open their mouths and say, “O Lord, O Lord.” Even if they have no intention of believing, still they will be caught! Regardless of whether they have the intention o ...[text shortened]... God. They only need to speak hollow words. (I have just done that and safeguarded my own salvation.)

After giving the example of a young man who was saved by contacting the living Spirit, Witness Lee applies the experience of the Spirit as the fire and the water to the matter to bringing unbelievers to the Lord. This is where he says that preaching is not necessary to reach unbelievers, for they can be saved simply by opening to the Lord and touching the seven Spirits of God by calling on the Lord’s name. If they open the “window” of their being, the “air” of the Spirit will come in. The purpose of this illustration and application is not to cover in an exhaustive way our belief concerning salvation; it is to point out that our need today is not mere doctrine, but living contact with the burning and flowing Spirit of God.

@sonship

Please don't spam my thread with multiple posts. Try being succinct in just one, like everybody else.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Brevity does not mean you're right. Sorry.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Brevity does not mean you're right. Sorry.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Copious amounts of twaddle which you are unable to prove wrong.

Better slip on the apathy hat, the atheist who doesn't care anyway.