@divegeester saidMe too!
I’m unclear as you why you have posted this in reply to me?
Sand on the fire...fire on the mountain... one thought led to another.
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Sonship sonship sonship!
Yes. Go on.
I do wholeheartedly appreciate your passion. I agree with most of what you posted in the three posts above. I have no doubt that you and I are at the very least in agreement 97.5% of the time with what the Bible teaches.
I did not mean to get under your skin. I apologize if I have offended you.
Let's assume that you and I are sufficiently informed about church history and the "recovery" of certain aspects of the gospel during the last 4 or 5 centuries. But also the corresponding heresies that have sprung up over the last one and a half centuries.
Many teach a corrupt gospel, and many are being deceived.
So that brings me to my point of contention. The "deification" of man. Convince me. With The Word. And I will gladly receive it as Truth.
Deal? 🙂
I think the best thing is that we be clear what deification is not.
If we can get through what we do NOT mean by deification, maybe that can help.
The Godhead - the Father - the Son - the Holy Spirit are eternal and unique. In no way do we mean saved human beings become the Godhead.
As objects of WORSHIP the believers will never be.
As Creators of universes the believers will never be.
The omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of the Godhead are uniquely His and are not communicable to the saved.
There may be some other aspects which I could include. These are usually the non-communicable attributes of God I mention to qualify being "partakers of the divine nature".
Perhaps then if what we do not mean is appreciated I might attempt a further step below.
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So that brings me to my point of contention. The "deification" of man. Convince me. With The Word. And I will gladly receive it as Truth.
Deal? 🙂
I can only tell you why I believe what I do. I can give an answer for the hope that is within me. I cannot promise to persuade you.
Now another thing I would say we do NOT mean by "deification" or "divinization". We do not mean that any INDIVIDUAL can fully express and manifest God alone.
Rather the church as a corporate body is to be filled unto all the fullness of God. To Christ be glory in the church forever and ever. No one individual deified person can manifest God to the fullest.
It is the corporate, the collective, the universal Body of the saved which becomes the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
"And He subjected all things under His feet and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all." (Eph. 1:22,23)
The Head of the Body Christ is transmitting down into His mystical Body this headship over all things. Christ is to head up all the universe. And the expression "to the church" indicates a kind of transmission of what He is for the sake of His corporate Body.
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Though Paul and his companion workers labored to present every individual Christian "full grown in Christ" (Col. 1:28) it is the whole Body which is to collectively express the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
" ... that you [collectively] might be filled unto all the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:19b)
This is our destiny as a collective. We can delay it. We can procrastinate it. We cannot stop it. And we will all arrive eventually. Sooner or latter we will arrive at being "filled unto all the fullness of God".
Why not we arrive sooner rather than latter? Why not some of us pursue to allow the Spirit of the triune God to grow a corporate group around the globe into an expression of the fullness of Christ?
"Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown [corporate] man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
That we may be no longer little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a system of error,
But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head Christ." (See Eph. 4:13-15)
How about a vision that we are not all just in single file expecting individual blessing. But that we are a part of a great enterprise of the Triune God to produce a Body for His Son Who is to head up all things, transmitting this fullness down through His entire Body of saved human beings as a collective living receptacle transformed and fitted to contain all divine glory ?
We never heard much about these things until we came into the Lord's recovery.
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Now let's take the the local church in the city of Corinth.
In the church there God was growing life. What does it mean for God to be growing?
"I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth." (1 Cor. 3:6)
Do you think this means simply to increase in knowledge? Do you think Paul meant God caused the growth, the increase of more and more objective knowledge?
WHAT was growing then? God caused the growth of WHAT?
God caused the growth of CHRIST within the member of the church there.
"So then neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters, but God who causes the growth." (v.7)
Now many Christians have some sense that they should be growing somehow. They know that they should be maturing. But what is this growth and maturity?
It is the growth of Christ within them FOR the building up of the temple of God.
Your individual growth is not an end in itself. Your growth and my growth are for the growing of God in man for the BUILDING of the living temple of God.
Its right there in the passage -
... God causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor." (v. 8)
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God is interested in the LABOR that is all about planting, watering, and suiting the crop of Christ in human beings to grow. The church is a farm to grow God in people. The church is a building that is built as the life of Christ grows in man.
Huh? I is right there if we can rid ourselves of the veils over our eyes. The local church is a FARM to grow God in man for the BUILDING up of the living house of God.
"For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's cultivated land [or farm], God's building." (v.9)
Do you think, now, that the enemy of God, Satan WANTS God's people to know that the normal church is a farm to grow Christ in people ? And as Christ GROWS in people spontaneously the building materials for God's building are fitted together to produce the temple of God?
You see as I said above - not only is Christ the Son of God a revelation not given to us by flesh and blood, So the church, its nature is also seen by revelation, by unveiling, by removing the covering over our heart's eyes from centuries of religious tradition.
Nee and Lee were just establishing many farms in many localities conducive to the planting, watering of the divine life God is dispensing into His people.
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You should start a blog, as you are clearly not interested in debate.
You asked a question. I answered your question.
Is there a debate somewhere about the answer?
Only a minority of Christians across the globe meet as local churches according to the principle of one city / one church.
There is no problem in realizing we are a small minority and others are meeting as - what I would call denominations, or state churches, or private churches or free groups. Free groups would include non-denominational and interdenominational groups.
You seem to be pressing me on "What do the leaders say to distinguish the believers in the local churches from those not meeting this way."
I told you. Now what else do you want?
Look at the Frequently Asked Questions here: https://localchurchesfaq.org/
Some interesting FYI explanations there.
Is your view of the Trinity scriptural?
Do you agree with a modalistic view of the Trinity?
Do you believe that only those meeting with the local church are Christians?
Do you believe that you are the only true church?
Why do some people call you “the church of Witness Lee”?
@sonship
"How about a vision that we are not all just in single file expecting individual blessing. But that we are a part of a great enterprise of the Triune God to produce a Body for His Son Who is to head up all things, transmitting this fullness down through His entire Body of saved human beings as a collective living receptacle transformed and fitted to contain all divine glory ?
We never heard much about these things until we came into the Lord's recovery."
Ok, sonship, I read all your posts on this page, and you said a lot. Too much really. You provided snippets of verses, and many statements of your own words describing what you think God is doing, and how and why.
So I selected the above statement, and I will give you my take on it.
"How about a vision that we are not all just in single file expecting individual blessing."
That is a strange way to characterize the relationship between God and an individual man. God is intimately involved with each believer, and interested in blessing each and every one. My personal relationship with God is not contingent on what anyone else is doing. I'm not in line waiting my turn.
"...transmitting this fullness down through His entire Body of saved human beings as a collective..."
It's a Borg thing? Collective? Why can't you stick with how Paul described the church? Why introduce into the narrative words not found in scripture and allow the Holy Spirit to use God's Words to form Christ in each individual? I follow after the Holy Spirit, not a "collective", and Christ is formed in me as my mind is "transformed" by the Word of God. Not the words of man.
"...a collective living receptacle transformed and fitted to contain all divine glory?"
"Contain all Devine glory?" Show me where in the Bible it says that.
I think you better pay closer attention to what you're being programmed with. It appears that Nee and Lee are adding words to the scriptures.
"We never heard much about these things until we came into the Lord's recovery."
You got that part right. God's Word was here long before Nee and Lee coined the term "Lord's recovery".
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So I selected the above statement, and I will give you my take on it.
Me:
"How about a vision that we are not all just in single file expecting individual blessing."
You:
That is a strange way to characterize the relationship between God and an individual man.
It is quite typical and even valid. Yet it is shortsighted considering the larger purpose. Individual blessing is not invalid. But individual blessings falls short of God's wanting to accomplish something on a corporate level for all His people.
That is all that I meant.
God is intimately involved with each believer,
Absolutely.
and interested in blessing each and every one.
Absolutely.
My personal relationship with God is not contingent on what anyone else is doing. I'm not in line waiting my turn.
We are related to the whole. That is why the Bible speaks of a Body of Christ.
A thumb here, a finger there, a foot here unrelated to the whole body would be monsterous.
Suppose you came into a room and saw an eyeball on a table? You'd know something is wrong. Where is the body to which the eyeball belongs?
Now this kind of fellowship is not meant to make anyone feel condemned. It is to see the larger picture. We are constituents of something larger then just ourselves.
Isn't this the spirit of chapter 12 of First Corinthians?
"For even as the body is one and has many members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ." (1 Cor. 12:12)
THE Christ there is the church. The church is also called "the Christ" because it is His body.
Paul could have written "so also is [the church]". But he did not.
Paul could have written "so also is [the body of Christ]". But he didn't write that either.
Amazingly he wrote about THE ... CHRIST .
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" ... yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, SO ALSO IS THE CHRIST."
When I came into the Lord's recovery the veils came off my heart's eyes and I realized that the church is "the Christ". What an uplifted vision was given to us right out of the New Testament about this hum drum word taken so much for granted "church".
Individual blessing is biblical, scriptural, valid, beneficial and wonderful.
But it is part of a larger picture in which God is doing something corporate.
"...transmitting this fullness down through His entire Body of saved human beings as a collective..."
It's a Borg thing?
LOL! Too much Sci Fi. Look reality is more fascinating then fiction. We are saved to be constituents of something Christ is building called the Body, called New Jerusalem.
This entity is going to bring back the Lord to this earth and put Satan into the lake of fire. He (the Devil) knows it if we don't . He (Satan) prefers we don't realize the corporate entity God is building.
"Now the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you." (Rom. 16:20)
Question criticism of the Lord's recovery.
Collective? Why can't you stick with how Paul described the church?
He describes us as members individually of the Body. The local churches are needed for the practical building up of the body.
And in the body Paul emphasizes that we must see the larger picture of how we all as believers fit it.
"For the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body, it is not that because of this it is not of the body.
And if the ear should say, Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body, it is not that because of this it is not of the body.
If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were the hearing, where would the smelling be?
But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, even as He willed. And if all were one member, where would the body be?
But now the members are many, but the body one. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
But much rather the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary." (1 Cor. 12:14-22)
You can read the whole chapter and see for yourself. It is crucial to get the larger vision of the body of Christ. And the church which is His body is crucial to come into existence practically.
Why introduce into the narrative words not found in scripture and allow the Holy Spirit to use God's Words to form Christ in each individual?
God of recovery wants some to see the bigger picture of what God is after. Especially what He is after to end this age and usher in the next age of the millennial kingdom.
Remember Joshua said "Oh Lord, what will You do for Your great name?" (Joshua 7:9)
Some of us are looking to God to do something for His great name in this matter of recovering the church life and the functioning body of Christ.
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Me:
"...a collective living receptacle transformed and fitted to contain all divine glory?"
You:
"Contain all Devine glory?" Show me where in the Bible it says that.
There is the typology and there is the plain teaching.
In the typology what happened to the tabernacle once it was finished? It was filled with the glory of God.
What happened to the temple once it was completed? It was filled with the glory of God.
What happens to the church? It is to be filled unto all the fullness of Christ. To Him be glory in the church forevermore.
This is in Ephesisans.
I
"To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations forever and ever. Amen." (Eph. 3:21)
See? Glory not only in our beloved Christ Jesus but glory also "in the church". And that unto all generations forever and ever.
Huh?
Just nice sounding words ??
"Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full grown man, at the measure of the stature of the FULLNESS of Christ..." (Eph. 4:13) [b]
God is working to cause the church to arrive at the full stature of the fullness of Christ, a collective full grown man.
The glory that God has given the Son He has transmitted to the church.
[b] "And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one." (John 17:22)
This is a mighty and powerful prayer. The answer to this prayer is the New Jerusalem which has the glory of God.
" ... and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
Having the glory of God." (See Rev.. 21:9,10)
God expressed in a collective man is the glory God intends to manifest.
Why do you think we who are Christians have been born again ?
think you better pay closer attention to what you're being programmed with. It appears that Nee and Lee are adding words to the scriptures.
What words did I add to the scriptures ?
Did the words I supposedly added to the scriptures change the meaning of any verses I have quoted to you above in this post?
"We never heard much about these things until we came into the Lord's recovery."
You got that part right. God's Word was here long before Nee and Lee coined the term "Lord's recovery".
Do not mock the matter of God's recovery. Be as the Bereans and examine these things in the Scriptures to see of they are so. Be more noble.
We may not all arrive at the same time. But we will all arrive. Did you not read that the saints will be marveled at because of the glory of God shining out from them in the Second coming?
"When He comes to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at in all those who have believed (because our testimony to you was believed) in that day." (2 Thess. 1:10)
Marveled at? Glorified in His saints?
Why do you think we have been born again?
You never read about the manifestation of the children of God in glory freeing the creation ?
"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed upon us.
For the anxious watching of the creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons of God.
...
In hope that the creation itself will also be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (See Romans 8:18-21)
@sonship saidA cursory glance over one of your posts...and there the cultist thinking straight away.
When I came into the Lord's recovery the veils came off my heart's eyes and I realized that the church is "the Christ".
@sonship saidDo you or your church leaders differentiate in any way between Christians who are members of the “local church” group and those who are not?
Me:
"...a collective living receptacle transformed and fitted to contain all divine glory?"
You:
"Contain all Devine glory?" Show me where in the Bible it says that.
There is the typology and there is the plain teaching.
In the typology what happened to the tabernacle once it was finished? It was filled with the glory of God.
What happened to t ...[text shortened]... corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (See Romans 8:18-21) [/b] [/quote]
@sonship
"When I came into the Lord's recovery the veils came off my heart's eyes and I realized that the church is "the Christ". What an uplifted vision was given to us right out of the New Testament about this hum drum word taken so much for granted "church". "
1 Corinthians 12:12
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
You know sonship, it has been said that if one tortures a text long enough one can make it say just about anything.
After reading that verse several hundred times I still can't see how it says what you are claiming it says.
You're reading into the text more than it is actually saying.