1. The Ghost Chamber
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    13 Apr '19 17:18
    Watchman Nee had a flawed view of man, practiced an allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture, believed denominations were sinful, and frequently called others to join him in his perpetual quest for the deeper spiritual life—a quest that smacks of perfectionism.

    Lack of clarity
    Perhaps the best way to describe Nee is to label him a confused Christian mystic. Here’s one lengthy but insightful example. I chose this example because it is indicative of his writing style, as well as an excellent example of his lack of clarity:

    'Some years ago I was ill. For six nights I had high fever and could find no sleep. Then at length God gave me from the Scripture a personal word of healing, and because of this I expected all symptoms of sickness to vanish at once. Instead of that, not a wink of sleep could I get, and I was not only sleepless but more restless than ever. My temperature rose higher, my pulse beat faster and my head ached more severely than before. The enemy asked, ‘Where is God’s promise? Where is your faith? What about all your prayers?’ So I was tempted to thrash the whole matter out in prayer again, but was rebuked, and this Scripture came to mind: “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)). If God’s Word is truth, I thought, then what are these symptoms? They must all be lies! So I declared to the enemy, ‘This sleeplessness is a lie, this headache is a lie, this fever is a lie, this high pulse is a lie. In view of what God has said to me, all these symptoms of sickness are just your lies, and God’s Word to me is truth.’ In five minutes I was asleep, and I awoke the following morning perfectly well” (The Normal Christian Life, 33-34).

    While Nee places heavy stock in personal “spiritual” experiences of that kind, the more significant danger prevalent throughout his books is his consistent lack of clarity. Nee does not come right out and say that faith can cure physical illness, nor does he claim outright that he receives direct revelation from the Lord. He doesn’t hold his experience up as an example to follow, but simply relates it as it happened, and then passes it along to us. Consider another example from The Normal Christian Life:

    “The fact of the matter is that, while Christians may enter into the deeper life by different ways, we need not regard the experiences or doctrines they stress as mutually exclusive, but rather complementary. One thing is certain, that any true experience of value in the sight of God must have been reached by way of a new discovery of the meaning of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. That is a crucial test and a safe one” (25).

    That’s the kind of ambiguity you’ll find in much of Nee’s writing. What does he mean by “the deeper life?” What is a “true experience of value?” How does one reach “a new discovery of the meaning of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus?” He never really defines those terms. And yet because he uses phrases like “the higher life,” he appeals to the growing number of American Christians who believe that the key to sanctification is to arrive at a place where one stops striving for it. Is that what Nee taught? Even after reading many of his books multiple times, I can’t really tell.


    http://thecripplegate.com/beware-the-writings-of-the-watchman/
  2. The Ghost Chamber
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    13 Apr '19 18:421 edit
    'Nee’s writings show that he adopted this two-tiered system of believers: there are those that are being sanctified by letting Christ live in them, and those that are still carnal (he uses the term “ripened” vs. “unripened” ). He also developed one of the first “partial-rapture” views, where only the sanctified believers would be raptured. This then leads to his strange view of the New Jerusalem as a place where unripened believers receive chastisement through the millennial kingdom, so that they will be ripened for eternity. Those secondary eschatological issues are just that: secondary. But they bear mentioning because the higher life approach to Christianity is often his main point, and is very misleading.'


    http://thecripplegate.com/beware-the-writings-of-the-watchman/
  3. R
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    13 Apr '19 19:491 edit
    This thread was started under the naive assumption that runs something like this:

    "When you get a bad article written by someone on the Internet, immediately believe everything you have read.

    If it were not so it would not have someone write up their complaints on the Internet. Beware! "
  4. R
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    13 Apr '19 19:561 edit
    Ghost's working assumption must be:

    The only things safe in the world that need not be warned against are people and things which have absolutely NO BAD statements written to criticize them on the Internet.

    That is things like ........

    And people like ........
  5. SubscriberSuzianne
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    13 Apr '19 20:25
    My exposure to these writings is only through what sonship has written here. I see these writings as just 'another voice' out there. I tend to give them more credence than, say, similar writings by televangelists or others who have made lots of money from speaking fees, and yet they read to me like what others have written before them. Reasonable, yet sometimes putting too fine a point on it.

    What I honestly see too much of out there is 'writing to their base'. Even Paul was guilty of this. This seems to me an effort to escape criticism, but interestingly enough, writings like these end up generating criticism because people misunderstand the target audience. As Paul showed, too often the ones who need 'encouragement' (read: chastisement) the most are already Christians in name, if not exactly in action. Apparently, most need to be reminded continually that being a Christian is NOT about self, but about others. True, this is needed because there seems to be too many who actually read the New Testament and come away thinking "Well, okay, this is all about ME". Well, some of it IS, but only BECAUSE of this common attitude that it is "all about me". Some of it IS about the re-alignment of our compasses, but only because we didn't get the message in the Gospels right the first time. Non-Christians view this material and say "How is this supposed to make me want to be a Christian?" Well, it's not. That is not its aim. I do agree that there is not nearly enough written with the audience of non-Christians in mind. Everyone seems only interested in pandering to their 'base'. I would have welcomed more in the New Testament speaking to those not yet "reached".
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    13 Apr '19 23:521 edit
    @sonship said
    When you get a bad article written by someone on the Internet, immediately believe everything you have read.
    You are just someone on the internet too, sonship.
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    14 Apr '19 00:111 edit
    @suzianne said
    there seems to be too many who actually read the New Testament and come away thinking "Well, okay, this is all about ME". Well, some of it IS, but only BECAUSE of this common attitude that it is "all about me".
    There seem to be a lot of Christians who think their religion is about what they believe about themselves [and about God] rather than how they should live their lives.

    sonship [i.e. the Witness Lee ideology he regurgitates here] has always been 99% about believing/ thinking/ theorizing/ ideological purity and 1% about doing/ living/ walking the walk.
  8. Standard memberBigDogg
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    14 Apr '19 00:121 edit
    @sonship said
    This thread was started under the naive assumption that runs something like this:

    "When you get a bad article written by someone on the Internet, immediately believe everything you have read.

    If it were not so it would not have someone write up their complaints on the Internet. Beware! "
    You're the one doing the assuming. Just because someone quotes as article does not mean that agree with every single thing in that article. You also do not know for a fact that Ghost read it uncritically. He may have, or may not.
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    14 Apr '19 00:19
    @sonship said
    When you get a bad article written by someone on the Internet, immediately believe everything you have read.
    In what way is it "a bad article"?
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    14 Apr '19 05:221 edit
    @sonship said
    This thread was started under the naive assumption that runs something like this:

    "When you get a bad article written by someone on the Internet, immediately believe everything you have read.

    If it were not so it would not have someone write up their complaints on the Internet. Beware! "
    I perceive that this OP by Ghost of a Duke has some traction only because of your inappropriate level of esteem of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee. They are just fallible men but there are indications from the breadth of your posting about them that they are perhaps approaching infallibility. They are the founders of your church group aren’t they?

    Recently you came under some scrutiny for using a hymn by one of your church matriarchs (I believe it was a lady) to support your defence of the “fountain of blood” topic. Why would you for one moment consider a hymn to carry any theological credence? Isn’t this the same issue manifesting itself ?

    Food for thought perhaps.
  11. R
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    14 Apr '19 08:065 edits
    @Ghost-of-a-Duke

    'Nee’s writings show that he adopted this two-tiered system of believers: there are those that are being sanctified by letting Christ live in them, and those that are still carnal (he uses the term “ripened” vs. “unripened” ).

    In First Corinthians 3:13-15 the Apostle Paul teaches that when Christ returns and examines Christians to determine their fitness to receive a reward during the next thousand years, there will be TWO possibilities:

    Those who are saved and are rewarded.
    Those who are saved but suffer loss.

    The work of each shall become manifest; for the day shall make it known, because it is revealed by fire, and the fire itself will test each ones work, of what sort it is. (v.13)

    If anyone's work which he has built upon it shall remain, he shall receive a reward. (v.14)

    If anyone's work shall be consumed, he shall suffer loss, but he shall be saved, yet so as through fire (v.15)


    I would ask Ghost of a Duke and the writer he quotes -
    How many categories of saved believers do you see coming from this examination ?

    Are there TWO ?

    The answer is YES, there are TWO. If he wants to call them "tiers" It doesn't hurt.

    Watchman Nee and others before him were simply faithful to warn AS THE APOSTLE PAUL WARNED that at the coming of the millennial kingdom there Christ and Christ alone will assign two possibilities of situations to believers:

    1.) Eternally saved and REWARDED.
    2.) Eternally saved yet so as through fire, suffering loss.
  12. The Ghost Chamber
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    14 Apr '19 08:21
    @sonship said
    Ghost's working assumption must be:

    The only things safe in the world that need not be warned against are people and things which have absolutely NO BAD statements written to criticize them on the Internet.

    That is things like ........

    And people like ........
    Not at all.

    I am simply counteracting what is called the 'Dasa effect.' (For years Dasa was pretty much the only person posting here about Hinduism and so never really received any objective criticism about his beliefs while he felt at liberty to attack Christianity and the like on a daily basis. - He crumbled like a cheap biscuit however when I started looking a little more deeply into the Vedas and questioned him on some of their abhorrence and peculiarities.

    As Suzianne indicated, the only thing any of us here really know about Watchman Nee and Witness Lee is what you tell us about them. These threads, therefore, are intended to readdress the balance and examine their teachings from a different perspective. This really shouldn't concern you if you stand by what they have said.
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    14 Apr '19 08:30
    @ghost-of-a-duke said
    These threads, therefore, are intended to readdress the balance and examine their teachings from a different perspective. This really shouldn't concern you if you stand by what they have said.
    sonship's churlish, ruffled-feathers reaction is interesting though, for sure.
  14. R
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    14 Apr '19 08:383 edits
    @Ghost-of-a-Duke

    He also developed one of the first “partial-rapture” views, where only the sanctified believers would be raptured.


    It is evident that rapture is a kind of reward and testimony to the world of the soon coming of Christ and of the believers who have been approved in their walk to be worthy of an Enoch like taking out of the world.

    Christ tells the church in Philadelphia and all who have an ear this:
    Because you have kept the word of My endurance, I also will keep you out of the hour of trial which is about to come on the whole inhabited earth, to try them. (Rev. 3:10)


    The word "Because" shows that what follows is conditional. The being kept out of the hour of trial is not automatic upon being a Christian but conditioned on being a Christian who has kept the word of My endurance.

    Do all believers keep the word of Christ's endurance?
    Sometimes I do not keep that word of enduring in Christ.
    We should be learning to.

    We have to be realistic. This is conditional based on the judgment of Jesus Christ. It is not my judgment or Watchman Nee's choice. But it IS Christs condition.

    If at the moment of His secretive rapture He deems a believer has met and is meeting the condition, she or he is ready to go up out of the world and kept from the hour of world wide tribulation.

    The converse must be obviously that if the condition is not met she or he stays that he or she may LEARN (late) to live in the condition THROUGH the great tribulation.

    The indication of RIPENING early and RIPENING latter is strongly seen in Revelation 14 where those taken up from the earth are of two groups.

    Before the great tribulation Firstfruits (Rev. 14:1-5).
    At the end of the great tribulation Harvest (Rev.14:14-16).

    Notice that the entire crop of believers is reaped.
    The entire crop is not reaped at the SAME time.
    There are Firstfruits taken and latter there is the Harvest taken.
  15. R
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    14 Apr '19 08:424 edits

    This then leads to his strange view of the New Jerusalem as a place where unripened believers receive chastisement through the millennial kingdom, so that they will be ripened for eternity.


    The critic thinks of New Jerusalem too much as a place rather than a state of maturity of God's people.

    During the millennial time Christians will be rewarded and Christians will suffer loss. They will be disciplined.

    What it leads to is what the BIble teaches that during the millennial kingdom:

    There are overcomers who are rewarded in participation in New Jerusalem for the first thousand years.

    And there are defeated who are saved who need more time to be matured for New Jerusalem.

    Since after the millennial kingdom there is no non-perfected believers we know that ALL have been prepared for the New Jerusalem in full. Therefore God's promise for all believers (rewarded and disciplined) is fulfilled in the eternal age:

    "Because whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He should be the firstborn among many brothers.

    And whom He predestinated, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified." (Rom. 8:29,30)
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