The False Gospel of Witness Lee and the Living Stream Ministries
Witness Lee was born in China in 1905. He moved to the United States in 1962. Lee claimed to be an apostle who was leading and fulfilling “The Lord’s Recovery” of the church prophesied in books of the Old Testament like Nehemiah. He established the “Local Churches” by teaching that there should only be one church per city and to call a church anything other than “The Church in [Anaheim]” is fornication with the whore of Babylon.
The Christian Research Institute condemned Lee’s teachings in the late 70s. In 1977 E. Calvin Beisner co-authored an article for CRI The Teachings of Witness Lee and the Local Church. You can hear a lecture by Walter Martin (the original Bible Answer Man who founded CRI in 1960) delivered sometime in the 70s here http://server.firefighters.org/18000/18110.mp3 where he clearly lays out the heresies of Witness Lee and the Local Churches. There was also an open letter published online several years ago An Open Letter To the Leadership of Living Stream Ministry and the “Local Churches” signed by numerous apologists and Christian theologians.
In late 2009, the Christian Research Institute (which is now headed by Hank Hanegraff, who is plagued with controversy and criticism and whose proper succession to Martin at CRI is disputed) published a special issue of the Christian Research Journal simply titled “We Were Wrong.” The whole issue is an apology to the Local Churches and an explanation of how CRI was wrong and how the LC are actually “soundly orthodox.” Norm Geisler and Ron Rhodes wrote a response to the CRI piece http://www.open-letter.org/pdf/Geisler_Rhodes_Response_to_CRI.pdf to which Hank Hanegraaff subsequently wrote a response in the latest issue of CRJ.
My Encounter
Members of the Local Churches, also known as Living Stream Ministries, are very active on college campuses. A friend of mine ran into them several times at Cal State Fullerton. She went to one of their meetings and eventually had a few of the members meet with her, myself, my wife, and another friend of ours several times over the last few months to hear them explain their beliefs. The goal was to understand what they believe and then determine if they were a Christian group or not.
Much of what you may find online for and against the group can perhaps be a bit confusing and maybe even a little abstract. My friend considered the possibility that it may all be the result of a language barrier between us and Lee’s original writings. However, these meetings, along with further study of their writings, have made it very, very clear what these people believe – and it is not Christian at all. I’m writing this to give you an overview of what exactly the group teaches and how it is heretical. My goal is to teach you what the LSM Statement of Faith should teach you, if they were honest. I have not come across anything that summarizes the issue in this way, so I hope this may be of help rather than just spilling more ink on what has already been said.
Contrast
The title of my blog is contrast. If you look in the about page, you’ll find the following quote:
“When one author constantly criticizes other authors, the reader may be repelled by the negativism. Let it be repeated that contrasting views bring both sides into sharper focus.”
Gordon Clark : What is Saving Faith?
When a group like LSM uses biblical language and biblical imagery, it can be difficult to discern the error because when you read what they write, you think they mean one thing, but they actually mean something else completely. Thus things became clear to me when I was able see the negations made by LSM. This is the error of Hank Hanegraaff and those who are defending Lee and LSM. Rather than looking at the contrast, they have devoted all their effort to finding similarities. But what Lee and LSM believe becomes clear when they say what they do not believe. Thus this post will teach by way of contrast.
The Triune God
Much of the debate about Witness Lee’s teaching is focused on his view of the Trinity, so I won’t spend a lot of time discussing it. I encourage you to read Besiner’s article and Geisler’s article above.
The statement of faith on the Living Stream Ministries website says “God is eternally one and also eternally the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the three being distinct but not separate.” Sounds fine, but note what Beisner says in this 2003 article:
Look closely. Notice that it doesn’t say what the three are as “distinct”? What are the Father, the Son, and the Spirit? Cabbages? Angels? Compact discs? Extensive reading in Witness Lee’s writings discovers considerable hesitation to affirm what Christianity has affirmed through the ages: that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, though they are one God, are distinct Persons.
For example, Lee says:
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are not three separate persons or three Gods; they are one God, one reality, one person… God is triune; that is, He is three-one. In some theological writings, the preposition in is added between three and one to make three-in-one. However, it is more accurate to say that God is three-one.
Witness Lee, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man
(Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1970), p. 48
Lee clarified what he meant by triune. He meant three-one, not three-in-one. And, to make sure people did not misunderstand him, he said he was teaching something different than the “traditional” understanding of the Trinity:
“The traditional explanation of the Trinity is grossly inadequate and borders on tritheism. When the Spirit of God is joined with us, God is not left behind, nor does Christ remain on the throne. This is the impression Christianity gives. They think of the Father as one Person, sending the Son, another Person, to accomplish redemption, after which the Son sends the Spirit, yet another Person. The Spirit, in traditional thinking, comes into the believers, while the Father and Son are left on the throne. When believers pray, they are taught to bow before the Father and pray in the name of the Son. To split the Godhead into these separate Persons is not the revelation of the Bible, but the doctrine of the Nicene Creed”
Witness Lee, Life Messages
(Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1979), p. 164
These quotes are both found in the Open Letter. The people I met with gave me a binder full of Lee’s writings that corresponded to the quotes in the Open Letter. Their intent was to show me the whole context of the quotes. I’m not certain what they thought that would prove however, since none of the quotes were taken out of context. The context only worsened what Lee was communicating.
When I spoke with the Local Church members, they continually insisted that the Triune God is distinct, but not separate. They would then explain that by “not separate” they mean “The Son is called the Father; so the Son must be the Father.” And “the Lord Jesus is the Spirit.” But when the London Baptist Confession says the Triune God is not separate, it means
“the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son; all infinite, without beginning, therefore but one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties and personal relations.” LBC 2.3
Other examples include the French Confession of Faith (1559)
the three persons not confused, but distinct, and yet not separate, but of the same essence, equal in eternity and power.
Or
We believe and teach that God is one in essence or nature…Notwithstanding we believe and teach that the same immense, one and indivisible God is in person inseparably and without confusion distinguished as Father, Son and Holy Spirit
The Second Helvetic Confession, Ch 3
I shouldn’t even have to provide these examples as proof. Witness Lee already clarified himself that his view was different from the traditional view and that it was not Nicene. No orthodox statement of the Trinity ever says “not separate” means the Son is the Father and the Son is the Spirit. So again, the Local Church uses biblical and traditional language, but mean something entirely different by it.
But my purpose here is not to address each issue in depth, but rather to show how each issue works together to create a false gospel. I encourage you to read the Open Letter, as well as Beisner’s and Geisler’s articles to understand more.
The Processed God
The way LSM attempts to defend their view is to say ontologically the three members of the Trinity are distinct, but economically they are all one. However, LSM misunderstands what those terms mean and therefore misapply them. In his response to CRI, Norm Geisler notes:
The “operational [economic] Trinity” is, at best, only a way of speaking about the one and only essential Trinity’s activities, not His essential Being. But even here when one member of the Trinity acts in the world, He is still distinct from the other members, even if they are co-acting with Him. For example, when co-authors such as ourselves mingle our minds and act together by co-authoring the same thoughts and words in the same book, we are still in this action two different persons. And no such co-action justifies anyone calling Ron “Norm,” or calling Norm “Ron.” We are two really distinct persons with different names.
Using this artificial distinction, Lee and LSM teach what they call a “Processed God.”
The Bible reveals that God is immutable in His essence and that God has been processed in His economy. As the processed God, the Triune God has passed through crucial and interdependent steps in the divine economy in order to dispense Himself into His chosen and redeemed people…God’s process ultimately is related to becoming flesh through incarnation and becoming the life giving Spirit through resurrection.
Our Unchanging, Processed God
First in this process is the Triune God becoming flesh. Jesus Christ is not the Second Person of the Trinity. Instead,
“the Christ in whom we believe is the center of the Triune God.” Because of this, “the Triune God became mingled with man… He is not only the Triune God, but also a man… He is the Triune God mingled with man. Therefore, He is the Triune God-man.
Witness Lee, The All-Inclusive Spirit of Christ
(Los Angeles: The Stream Publishers, 1969), pp. 8-11According to our thinking the Son became flesh and the Son was the One who was manifested in the flesh. The Bible, however, tells us that the Word became flesh and that the Word was God. John 1:1 does not say that the Word was the Son, but that the Word was God. Do you believe that only one-third of God became flesh, one-third remained on the throne, and one-third was as a dove soaring in the heavens? The Bible does not divide God, the entire God, into thirds. Paul also tells us in 1 Timothy 3:16 that God was manifested in the flesh. This again shows us that the entire Godhead, the Triune God, became flesh… We believe that Jesus was the complete God and the perfect man. He was the Father, the Son, and the Spirit-man. He lived on this earth as the Triune God for thirty years…
Witness Lee, God’s New Testament Economy
(Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1986), p. 230We firmly resist the notion that the Son was incarnated as a man separably from the Father and the Spirit
A Confirmation of the Gospel: Concerning the Teaching of the Local Churches and Living Stream Ministry
Second in this process is Jesus, the Triune God-man becoming the Spirit.
…When Jesus was glorified in resurrection, a change took place economically, not essentially, in the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God, who is the eternal Spirit, became the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of the glorified Jesus.
…The Gospel of John is also the autobiography and history of the “journeying” Triune God, and the destination of the journeying Triune God is the human spirit of His chosen and redeemed people. The word journeying describes the Triune God in His economical move and work to accomplish His eternal plan (see God’s Eternal Plan section below).
In summary:
…This process can be summed up in three words: the Word, the flesh, and the breath. The Word is God, the flesh is man, and the breath is the Spirit. The Word became flesh, and the flesh became the breath to be breathed into man to make him a regenerated man of God with the breath of God. The Word became flesh, and the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. These two great “becomings” were the major processes of the journeying Triune God in His move in man to accomplish His plan (again, see below).
…The move of the processed God is centered on man. Whereas the Old Testament reveals God’s indirect move with man, the New Testament reveals God’s direct move in man. God’s move with man in the Old Testament was a typological preparation for His ultimate move in man in the reality of the New Testament. God’s move in man is to deify man, making man the same as He is in life, nature, and appearance but not in the Godhead for the glory of God, the expression of God.
Mankind
Perhaps your ears perked up in what you just read about the deification of man. Man, according to Lee and LSM, is a tri-partite being made up of the body, the soul, and the spirit. Far from being a sideline theological debate between dichotomy and trichotomy, this is central to their faith. It is illustrated and emphasized in the introductory literature they hand out on campuses.
The spirit is a unique element within man. It was described to me as a baseball glove waiting to hold God’s life in it.
The man created in God’s image was merely an empty vessel. He could not express and represent God because he did not possess God’s divine life.
A Defense of the Gospel – Response to an Open Letter
Man, the highest created life, needs to receive another life for his completion…
…The function of the human spirit is to contact God. Our spirit was made by God for the purpose that one day we would exercise it to contact Him and receive Him into our being.
Faith, Regeneration, and the New Creation
This brings us to another one of the key focuses of LSM. Lee says “Regeneration is the central part of God’s salvation.”
Regeneration
This is another point where it is crucial to understand what Lee and LSM mean by regeneration and not simply assume they mean the same thing as you. The London Baptist Confession describes regeneration as:
1. Those whom God hath predestinated unto life, he is pleased in his appointed, and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.
2. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, nor from any power or agency in the creature, being wholly passive therein, being dead in sins and trespasses, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit; he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it, and that by no less power than that which raised up Christ from the dead.
As a consequence of the Fall, man is dead in his sin, has a heart of stone, and is in rebellion against God. So God removes the sinful heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh that is no longer in rebellion. That is regeneration.
But not according to Lee:
God’s purpose is that we may obtain His own uncreated life and be transformed by this life into His image to be like Him. Even if our human life had not been corrupted by the fall of man in Genesis 3, we would still need to be regenerated. In Genesis 1 and 2, Adam was without sin, yet he was void of God’s life. Thus, God placed him before the tree of life that he might receive the life of God and be regenerated. God’s purpose in creating man is not merely to obtain a sinless man, but even more to have a God-man, one who has God’s own life and nature.
The Lord Jesus was very wise in using Nicodemus as the example of regeneration. If He had used the sinful woman in John 4 as the example, we might conclude that only sinful people need to be born again… the Lord revealed that regardless of how good we are, we still need regeneration. Regeneration is the primary need of man. Moral people, as well as immoral people, need to be regenerated. Some Christians hold the mistaken concept that people need regeneration simply because they are sinful and fallen. However, if Adam had never fallen into sin, he still would have needed regeneration because he was lacking the life of God.
…Since we are human beings, we all have human life. The question is not whether our human life is good or bad. Regardless of the kind of human life we have, as long as we do not have the divine life, we need to be regenerated. To be regenerated simply means to receive the divine life in addition to our human life. God’s eternal purpose is for man to be a vessel to contain the divine life. We are earthen vessels to contain God as life (2 Cor. 4:7). This is the true meaning of regeneration.
Lee and LSM mean something utterly different than Christians do when they talk about regeneration. For them, it is the process by which we are deified. The entire Triune God enters into our spirit and we become a new creation. No longer human, we are now God-men.
Lee describes how this process works:
The divine life received through regeneration is the seed of our new being. Speaking of the one who has been begotten of God, 1 John 3:9 says, “His seed abides in him.” The seed here denotes God’s life, which we received of Him when we were begotten of Him. This life as the divine seed abides in every regenerated believer. This seed is actually the Triune God Himself. In regeneration the Triune God was sown into us as the seed of life. The believer has the divine seed in his spirit. It is a marvelous fact that this seed of God now abides in us…
…A seed is a container of life. The word of God as the incorruptible seed contains God’s life… God is mysterious and abstract, and for this reason it is difficult for us to receive Him. But the abstract, mysterious God is embodied in the word, which has been preached to us. When we heard the word and received it, we received God, who is embodied in the word. The embodiment of God in the word is the very seed of life sown into our being for our regeneration.
So the word of God is like a pill – something that makes the abstract, mysterious God digestible for us. It contains God in a digestible form. This happens through preaching.
The proper preaching of the gospel is the preaching not of a doctrine but of Christ, the Son of God, the One who is the embodiment of the Father and who is realized as the Spirit… The Christ who has been preached to them will become in them the faith by which they believe. (ibid)
At this point Lee changes the common phrase “believe in Christ,” which means to believe what the Bible says about Him (that He is God and has ransomed sinners from the wrath of God) to instead say “believe into Christ.”
…believe into the Lord…believe into His name…believe into Him…To believe into the Lord means to receive Him (John 1:12). The Lord is receivable…This faith creates an organic union in which we and Christ are one. The expression out of faith in Christ actually denotes an organic union accomplished by believing into Christ. The term into Christ refers to this organic union. (ibid)
Adoption
At this point we have become God-men, just like Christ.
Christ’s resurrection was a birth both for Him as the firstborn Son of God and for us as the many sons of God…in His humanity He was born as the firstborn Son of God through His resurrection. (ibid)
Although the incarnate Christ was the Son of God by virtue of His divinity (Matt. 16:16), His humanity, that is, His human flesh, was not the Son of God—for, though sinless, it did not have divinity. To bring Christ’s human nature into the divine sonship, God begot Christ in His humanity by imparting the divine life into His humanity in His resurrection.
Piper’s The Pleasures of God (A review/critique)In the same way that God begot Christ in resurrection, God has regenerated us to be His many sons (1 Pet. 1:3; Heb. 2:10).
Sproul’s Saved from What? (A critique)
We are literally the reproduction, the actual offspring of the Triune God. We are sons of God by birth.
By regeneration we refer to the organic process by which God makes us His children not simply by adopting us through the declaration of His sovereign decree but more intrinsically by begetting us through the impartation of His eternal life (John 1:12-13; 3:5-6; 1 John 3:9). We believe that, through regeneration, God becomes our genuine Father (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), and we become His sons genuinely, organically, and intrinsically, possessing His life and nature (1 John 5:11; 2 Pet. 1:4). Witness Lee understands deification as the full import of biblical sonship:
Man cannot be God in His Godhead, but he can be God in His life and nature. We are what we are born of. Anything born of a dog is a dog. Likewise, if we were born of a monkey, we would surely be a monkey. God created man not according to a monkey’s kind or a dog’s kind, but according to His kind, in His image and according to His likeness. Furthermore, the Bible tells us that the believers in Christ are God’s children (John 1:12-13; 1 John 3:1-2). The children of a man are also men. Because we are children of God, we are God in nature and in life, but not in the Godhead, that is, not in God’s position or rank. (The Organic Union in God’s Relationship with Man, 27).
When we say that we are one with God, we do not mean that we become the person of God. This is to make ourselves an object of worship and should be condemned as blasphemy. To be one with God is to be one with Him in His divine life and nature. Every life produces offspring after its own kind (Gen. 1:11, 21, 24). As children of our physical father we have our father’s life and nature, but we are not the same person as he is. A grandfather, a father, and a son all have the same life and nature, but they are different persons. In life and nature they are the same, but in person they are different. As the children of God (Rom. 8:16; 1 John 3:1) we have been “deified,” not in person but in life and in nature. We are one with God in His life and nature, but not in His person. (The Experience and Growth in Life, 209-210)
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. 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. (The Christian Life, 133-134)
The goal of God’s salvation in the divine life is to build up the believers into the Body of Christ, the corporate and organic expression of Christ. We maintain that the Body of Christ is not simply some apt metaphor for the unity of the believers in the church but the spiritual and intrinsic reality of the church (Eph. 1:22-23)—a divine-human organism that encompasses Christ, the firstborn Son, as the Head and the many believers, the many sons of God, as the members of the Body (Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12, 27).
Because we are sons of God by birth, we are not sons of God by adoption. No one adopts their natural born children.
When we were born of our parents, we obtained human life. When we were born of God, we obtained God’s divine life… When we have the life of God, we are the sons of God. The life of God gives us the right and authority to become the children of God (John 1:12)… Since regeneration means to be born of God, it automatically causes us to become the children of God (John 1:12-13). We are His children and He is our Father. The divine life we receive through regeneration is our authority to be His children.
Faith, Regeneration, and the New Creation
[Sproul] writes that “Jesus is God’s only natural Son. All others enter His family through adoption in Christ” (110). Such a statement directly contradicts the revelation of the holy Scriptures, which tell us in unmistakable terms that we as believers have actually been born of God and are consequently His actual progeny.
Sproul’s Saved from What? (A critique)
This came out in one of our meetings. The LSM members became very passionate as they told us how Christians have completely misunderstood what the Bible says about adoption. They explained at length the argument above, telling me I would not adopt my son when he was born because he was my son. When I asked them if they then denied the legal aspect of adoption they said “Oh, no, absolutely not. We completely affirm the legal aspect.” I was thoroughly confused and had no idea how they could “completely affirm” what they were spending our whole time arguing against: adoption.
After I got home I did some reading and found out that I was very misled by these people. They do not affirm legal adoption at all. They actually argue that “adoption” is a mistranslation of uiJoqesiva, claiming it means “sonship” instead. They have absolutely no legitimate reason to do so based on the Greek meaning of the word, but insist that the Greek meaning simply does not fit with their understanding of regeneration, so it must mean something else.
The language of regeneration in the Bible, being drawn from the natural realm of birth and growth, indicates that regeneration is a birth, not just a judicial procedure of adoption. To translate the term uiJoqesiva adoption (according to its non-biblical Greek use) rather than sonship (having the place and quality of a son) is misleading and inconsistent with the language of regeneration and the ability of God to impart His life into those whom He has created in His own image.
The Language of Regeneration
For a good refutation of these claims, see http://localchurchdiscussions.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=615
Hopefully you can begin to see how all of these things work together in a chain, a system. Because Lee and LSM so passionately dispute the Christian’s legal adoption into God’s family, we must see how they view a Christian’s forensic, legal justification.
Justification
First off, for Lee and LSM, justification is a stepping stone. God justifies us so that He can regenerate us. Remember, regeneration/deification is the focus. Sin introduced an annoying speed bump along the course of “God’s journeying.” The title of LSM’s critique of Sproul’s book “Faith Alone” is called “Justification Alone” because “God’s judicial redemption as the procedure is purposeless without God’s organic salvation.” They criticize Sproul for focusing just on justification and not on the most important part of the gospel – our deification (organic salvation). Lee states:
“Through justification we have come up to the standard of God’s righteousness and correspond with it, so that now He can impart His life to us” (Recovery Version, Rom. 5:18, note 2).
But moving on to the legal question – watch this video of R. C. Sproul explaining the gospel:
Lee and LSM strongly reject what you just heard.
It is not accurate to say, as Lutheran and Reformed writers usually do, that the righteousness of Christ is reckoned to our account. We do not have something called “the righteousness of Christ”; rather, as those who have entered into an organic union with the Lord by believing into Him, we have Christ Himself, the person, as our righteousness.
Faith, Regeneration, and the New Creation
Keep in mind what Lee said about “believing into Christ.” He said “The term into Christ refers to this organic union (deification).” Lee and LSM profess that we are justified by faith, but they redefine what faith is:
“This faith is not of ourselves but of Him who imparts Himself as the believing element into us that He may believe for us” (Recovery Version, Heb. 12:2, note 3). This means that for our justification by God, we believe in Jesus Christ through Him as our faith. Paul, therefore, speaks of “the faith of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 3:22)…
…We would emphasize the fact that to believe in Christ is actually to believe into Him (John 3:15-16, 18, 36). When we believe in the Lord Jesus, we believe into Him. By believing into Him, we enter into Him to be one with Him, to partake of Him, and to participate in all that He has accomplished for us… Faith in Christ brings us into an organic union with Christ, and it is in this union that we are justified by God. If we would be justified by grace, by faith, and through the redemption which is in Christ, we must be in Christ, that is, we must be in Him as a realm, a sphere… To be justified by God, we not only must believe Him or believe in Him—we must be in Him as the One who was resurrected to be our Savior… justification is not only a matter of faith in Christ but also of being in Christ through believing into Him.
Justification
To clarify, they say that faith/believing is not an intellectual act of our mind/heart/soul with Christ as the object of our faith. No, instead, they say that Christ is our faith.
It is by means of our organic union with Christ that God can reckon Christ as our righteousness… We should not have a mere doctrinal understanding of justification by faith. According to the concept of some Christians, Christ is the just One, the righteous One, on the throne in the presence of God, and God reckons Christ to be our righteousness when we believe into Christ. This understanding of justification is not adequate.
…it is not unreasonable to say that faith is Christ. This is like saying that holiness, love, righteousness, patience, and endurance are Christ. Because the unique faith is Christ Himself, we who believe into Him have a common faith… The faith with which we believe is not ours but God’s. When the pneumatic Christ was revealed in us through the preaching of the gospel, He became the believing element and ability within us.
Faith, Regeneration, and the New Creation
My intention here is to show you how theology is systematic. You cannot alter one doctrine without it having an effect elsewhere. LSM understands this and have sought to work out the implications of their heretical view of God into all the other Christian doctrines:
It is my intention here, against the background of the classic forms of the doctrine thus far reviewed, to present a view of justification that respects the outlook of this journal, an organic view of God and His work in humankind… there is undeniably some dissatisfaction with the models of justification that have gone before, and these compel further consideration and refinement. In what follows, the studied reader will not find a wealth of innovation, except perhaps in the definition of faith, but instead a reapplication of a number of notions previously presented. Luther will echo [though they misinterpret Luther], as will also Trent [Roman Catholicism], and Osiander will come alive again, hopefully with some needed correction. Who will not be heard, in their most austere and radical forms, are Melanchthon and Calvin, and this, I hope, will not disappoint too many… Protestant justification, in the strident forensic form that Melanchthon and Calvin pressed on their followers, is in many respects like the emperor’s new clothes, which, even a child can see, leaves much to be desired for covering and propriety.
Justification of Life
So they are clear that they are rejecting the Protestant (Christian) doctrine of justification and replacing it with a new doctrine of justification that implements their heretical view of God and mankind.
Recall the video above. R. C. Sproul makes it clear that the debate of the Reformation was imputation vs. infusion. The Reformers argued that we are justified by the alien rightouesness of Christ imputed to us. It is something outside of us that is credited to our account (imputed). Rome, on the other hand, rejecting this idea and said righteousness is infused into our hearts, making us actually righteous. LSM attempts to form a hybrid between these views, using their newly invented (and absurd) definition of faith: infusion imputed.
We must say here, above the objections of the Protestants, that God infuses something into us for our justification, that is, the faith that justifies us. But for this we must understand the preaching to be something more than the simple delivery of gospel truths… It is important to realize that the faith infused into us through the gospel is not something different from Christ Himself; it is not some emanation from God into us. Rather, the Christ who is preached to us is infused into us through the word of the gospel. Faith is not merely a mental comprehension of the things preached but the apprehended reality of what is preached; it is the actual token of the things we believe.
Our believing in Him, initiated through the preaching and helped by His infusion within us, is indeed righteous because it is the first and only response within us that matches the real state of affairs with regard to the righteousness of God… for the first time in our lives there is a righteous and justifiable response within us… Contrary to the harsher forms of Reformation justification, this justification is real because it is indeed within the believer.
Luther described Christ’s righteousness as something imputed to the believers for their justification, and this need not be rejected… the righteousness that He is, is imputed to us, not simply through some judicial transfer of merit but more profoundly on the basis of an organic union and the certainty of what that union will ultimately do within us… Because our justification, even in this initial, objective aspect, is not based on a righteousness that is external or alien to us, there is no need to speak of a forensic notion of justification, that is, the notion that God justifies us without any regard for what is within us… This objective justification is actual because there is righteousness within us, indeed the righteousness of the God-man in both His divine and human natures, and our union with Him allows us to possess His righteousness for our justification. In this sense, God justifies our organic union with Christ. Our initial justification does not require a forensic judgment on God’s part because it is based on an actual reality within us. Further, our justification is not hollow or a mere “accounting trick,” because while being based certainly and solely on the accomplishments of Christ for our redemption, it also looks forward to what Christ will do within us as we grow in His life, are transformed, and are ultimately glorified.
And in order to crystal clear:
Objective justification is actual because there is righteousness within us, indeed the righteousness of the God-man in both His divine and human natures, and our union with Him admits us into His righteousness for our justification. In this sense, God justifies our organic union with Christ.
Objective justification is not forensic in the sense that it is based on a righteousness that is external or alien to us and is externally imputed to us by God without regard for any righteousness within us.
Justification of Life
With one single word, LSM has denied the gospel. They have given a very clear definition of the gospel, and then entirely negated it with the word “not”.
In summary, LSM describes how their doctrine of justification fits in with their belief that God’s ultimate purpose in all things is to express Himself through G0d-men.
In the final analysis, justification is the great act of God to make us like Himself in the matter of righteousness… It is not God’s intention to simply justify us on a juridical level, to get us “legal,” so to speak; His intention is to gain in us a degree of righteousness that expresses who He is, so that He may be glorified in His righteousness through us.
…Why does God justify?… [A] profound desire that we become what He is in righteousness so that He may be expressed in all that He is. Justification, based on who He is and because of our living out of Him, proves to be the aspect of salvation as deification relative to His exquisite attribute of righteousness.
So God uses man, an empty vessel, to process Himself into God-men, in order to express His righteousness through us.
It is true that the Bible describes man as a vessel of God’s attributes – but not righteousness.
Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:21-23).
We are not vessels of God’s righteousness, but of His mercy!
The Purpose of God
And so this brings us to the eternal purpose of God. Is God’s eternal purpose the glorification of Christ in the redemption of His people, all to the praise of God’s righteousness, mercy, and love? No:
Doubtless God rejoiced over becoming a man, for only this God-man could accomplish the redemption of God’s fallen creatures… Yet, more significantly, in view of God’s eternal purpose — formed long before the fall of man – God delighted in becoming a man to establish a prototypical God-man — a man who lives God for the expression of God in humanity. From the manger to the cross, Christ, the first God-man, unceasingly manifested God in His human living as the prototype for His believers, the many God-men, His mass reproduction (John 5:19; 6:57; 14:10).
…Pleasures neglects the crucial place humanity occupies in God’s eternal purpose. Though correctly underscoring God’s pleasure in His Son as the reflection of His perfections, the book falls short of underlining God’s pleasure in humanity as the means of His manifestation… with regard to His eternal economy to enlarge His expression through creation, God longs to reproduce His Son in humanity as His enlarged corporate manifestation.
…From the creation of humanity to the culmination of the New Jerusalem, the entire Bible abounds with intimations that God’s thought is focused and His heart is set upon humanity, for it is humanity that fulfills God’s heart’s desire for His corporate duplication and expression.
Nathan Betz : Affirmation & Critique 2003.01, Review of John Piper’s “Pleasures of God”
a
The End
A thorough re-alignment of thought must take place in the Christian community concerning the definition and thus the experience of the salvation that God has prepared for us.
Sproul’s Saved from What? (A critique)
the “Triune God and His regenerated, sanctified, transformed, and glorified elect will be joined and mingled as one to constitute an organism as the enlargement and expression of God in eternity”
Piper’s The Pleasures of God (A review/critique)
Some of Lee and LSM’s favorite verses to quote to try to prove their heretical view of the Trinity (that the Son is Father) are John 10:30 “I and the Father are one” and John 14:10-11 “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Now, a valid objection to this false interpretation, and one that I raised, is that John 17:11 says that the Body of Christ is one in the same way that the Father and Son are one – so Jesus must be referring to something else – namely, unity of mind. But some an objection does not phase LSM, because they believe that just as the Son is the Father, so also the Body of Christ is the Father.
The Son prayed that that those who believed through the preaching would be one, but He refined this oneness by making it equivalent to being in Him and the Father. He desired not just that we would believe the precious word of the gospel but that we would be made one through it, and this oneness is not simply a oneness of belief nor a oneness among the believers themselves but is more deeply a oneness that results from the believers being in the Father and the Son. Characterized in this way, this oneness that enlarges is the oneness that already exists between the Father and the Son. The Son prays that in the same way that the Father and the Son incorporate one another (“even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You”), the believers would also be incorporated into them (“that they also may be in Us”). Thus, this oneness is the enlargement of the divine and eternal incorporation to now include the believers and may be rightly called the divine-human incorporation (“I in them, and You in Me”).
…The Jesus of John, as we have seen, is not simply a man who happens to be God but God incarnate having a particular kind of human living that incorporates the entire Divine Trinity and who ultimately brings His believers into that same incorporate living.
The Johannine Jesus as Bridge and Model for the Incorporation of the Believers into the Divine Trinity (2)
And here, ladies and gentlemen, we reach the Grand Finale of Witness Lee’s false gospel: the Processed, Four-in-One God.
Ultimately, the church is a group of people who are in union with the Triune God and are mingled with the Triune God. The Triune God and the church are four-in-one. Because the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all one with the Body of Christ, we may say that the Triune God is now the “four-in-one God.” These four are the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the Body.
Witness Lee, A Deeper Study of the Divine Dispensing p.203-204
Because the believers are incorporated into Him, He as the heavenly ladder serves as the personal bridge to the Triune God, incorporating in Himself the Divine Trinity and the believers. This is the very center of the universe, for in Him God and man are joined together, and the ministrations of God are focused on Him as this heavenly bridge. Within Himself He incorporates the unique enterprise of God’s economy, that is, the Triune God operating through Him by the Spirit in the believers for the manifestation and expression of God the Father on the earth.
…In this way the believers become the reproduction, expansion, and physical continuation of the incarnate and incorporate Son of God and indeed the organism of the Triune God Himself.
The Johannine Jesus as Bridge and Model for the Incorporation of the Believers into the Divine Trinity (2)
The salvation of God is not primarily to save us from hell and to bring us into heaven, but rather to impart His divine life into us. By regeneration, we receive His divine life into our spirit. From our spirit, He is spreading into our soul by the process of transformation, and at His second coming, He will even saturate our body.
Faith, Regeneration, and the New CreationNew Jerusalem is actually a corporate person who includes the processed and consummated Triune God and, as the issue of God’s complete salvation, all the chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, built-up believers in Christ.
The Gospel in Romans
A False Gospel
Witness Lee taught a false gospel and Living Stream Ministries continues to propagate that false gospel throughout the world. They have successfully stopped many publishers from exposing them by bankrupting them in lawsuits. Perhaps in fear of facing such bankruptcy, Hank Hanegraaff led CRI on a multi-year journey to defend their teaching. If Hanegraaff and the others involved at CRI honestly believe that Witness Lee and Living Stream Ministries teach “sound orthodoxy” then they are just as damned as Lee. Update: Listen to this account of Hank’s experience with LC/LSM given by Minoru.
Side Note
On a side note, in my effort to clearly demonstrate the errors of Lee and LSM and show the contrast between their views and Christianity, I have to note how counterproductive Westminster Theological Seminary has been in this process. You can see just how necessary it is to clearly proclaim Christian doctrine in order to refute errors like Lee’s. WTS has not done this. Instead, they have enabled their errors. First, their most praised former professor Cornelius Van Til argued “We do assert that God, that is, the whole Godhead, is one person.” In CRI’s article, they note:
Lee’s thinking was very close to that of the late Reformed theologian Cornelius Van Til on this point, and although Van Til has been criticized for his view, no one that I am aware of has charged him with heresy.
Likewise, LSM looks to WTS Professor Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. for a defense of their false interpretation of 1 Cor 15:45:
In his approach, he begins to probe the seminal importance of Paul’s economical description of Christ – the last Adam, the life-giving Spirit. Professor Gaffin forcefully addresses the hesitation within evangelical circles to engage Paul’s utterance by arguing that 1 Corinthians 15:45 is at the center of Paul’s pnuematology. He confronts the theological concerns that inform this hesitation by identifying the life-giving Spirit with the Holy Spirit… Gaffin points out that the principal concern is a reluctance to identify the life-giving Spirit with the Holy Spirit. The underlying base of this concern, however, goes much deeper because it seemingly places proponents of this identification at odds with orthodox understandings of both the Trinity and Christology, including Paul himself. Consequently, his utterance is often diluted, rationalized, or ignored. Gaffin, however, does not ignore this verse.
Gaffin’s “Life-giving Spirit” (review)
In contrast, men like John Robbins who have clearly and sternly proclaimed the gospel in the face of its deviations cannot be looked to for support by LSM. No, instead Robbins’ proclamation forces them to confront the biblical gospel. For example, see their defense of Gaffin and attempted refutation of Robbins’. May we all learn to stand firm in the face of opposition and clearly differentiate the gospel from its deviations the way that John Robbins did.
Comments
I appreciate all comments from anyone who desires to interact with what I have written here. However, all comments that are not directly related to what I have written will not be approved. The Combox is not a place for you to share your personal opinions and experiences that do not interact with what I have written.
Brandon,
Since the topic is the gospel and Witness Lee’s interpretation thereof, the primary source for doctrine conveying the content of the gospel is the Bible. In your criticisms you merely relay your opinion and include hyperlinks to secondary sources like Norman Geisler, Ron Rhodes, etc. Since you claim to be so clear and knowledgeable of the correct doctrinal interpretations of the Scriptures, why don’t you refute the teachings of Witness Lee with verses? At least writers, such as Norman Geisler use Scriptural references. Such an error automatically exposes that your criticisms are personal, lack depth, and are without sufficient evidence, both qualitatively and quantitatively (no verses). I would be more interested if you could show using the Scriptures only how the teachings of Witness Lee are heretical. Until then your commentary is juvenile and poor.
This would be a good time for you to access those hyperlinks, cut and paste the verse references from the articles, and hide under the umbrella of someone else’s research while presenting it as if it were your own.
By the way, I find two of your comments especially interesting:
“Much of what you may find online for and against the group can perhaps be a bit confusing and maybe even a little abstract.”
– So rather than Norman Geisler, Ron Kangas, or Hank Hannagraff you’re the unique writer who is going to make everyone clear?
“I’m writing this to give you an overview of what exactly the group teaches and how it is heretical. My goal is to teach you what the LSM Statement of Faith should teach you, if they were honest.”
– If I want a recipe I go to Rachel Ray, not the person who ate her food. Logically if someone wants to know what these Christians teach they should ask them directly, not read someone else’s second-hand and in many more instances third-hand criticisms.
– If you’re going to “teach (us) what the LSM statement of faith should teach (us)” then why don’t you use the unique source for interpreting the Christian faith: the Bible?
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Jarrod, as I have already explained, my purpose was not an in-depth exegetical refutation of Lee’s false teaching. Instead, my purpose was to provide an overview of his teaching and contrast it with orthodox teaching that Christians already agree the Bible teaches. Perhaps if I have time I will do a more in-depth exegetical refutation, but for now I do not have that time and those who have ears to hear will understand the point of my post.
I will leave that for readers to decide for themselves.
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Thank you for exposing yourself and the primary problem with opposers to the ministry of Witness Lee. You don’t do qualitative, substantial, and complete research. You just shout “heresy!” without gathering all the facts and present a half-assed (sorry but there’s no synonym that’s more dignified) research project as if it were worthy of national publication and instant credibility. You’re apologetics is shameful and embarrassing. If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all. Laziness is no excuse for poor research.
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Why didn’t you post my comment, Brandon? Is it because it exposed the falsities of your research and lack of Biblical evidence against Witness Lee’s interpretations, which many biblical scholars share? If you really want to present things purely why not reference all the biblical scholars like Athanasius. St. Francis Assissi, Andrew Murray, etc. who share his interpretations? Do you believe the Plymouth Bretheren Assembly is also a heretical group? Why not include all of Witness Lee’s testimony like how he was born and raised in a Christian family under the fellowship of the Bretheren Assembly? Is it because you desire only to post what makes your “research” more credible? May the Lord Jesus judge all our speaking; repent Brandon and give no more ground in your being or otherwise for Satan to confuse and divide the members of the Body of Christ. These false criticisms, including yours, are just the work of the enemy Satan. He’s been doing this since the time of the Apostles and he continues to do so today. Man is not the enemy of God; our battle is not against flesh and blood but the evil forces of Satan (Eph 6:12).
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Yes Jarrod, that must be it. It couldn’t possibly be because new posters have to be approved first and I wasn’t moderating my blog on the Lord’s Day…
For all your hot air, you fall prey to the same criticism you throw against me: you have not defended your arguments with Scripture, but instead with references to men. Obviously I can discern that the point of your post was not to provide extended exegetical argumentation but to point people to others who do. Open your eyes – I am merely doing the same in my post.
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Brandon, and Alex
Jarrod is absolutely right.
I believe, most of the preachers and church leaders follow the teachings of main stream Christianity. Who said the main stream Christianity is right?
Everyone must repent and come to Christ because our God is a speaking God and wants to be expressed. The only way anybody can express God is when Christ is formed in them. It is Christ who is God’s Beloved Son not our human nature. All I was pointing was to build and not destroy. If we all accepted Christ, then we are brothers in Christ. As brothers we can edify each other to build each other so that Christ will be formed in us and under His Headship we can Fellowship and be a Testimony for God. God desires a home to live. Don’t we care for God to have a dwelling place on this earth? We don’t want to argue over Philosophical Ideologies. Arguments destroy the Fellowship and does not build. Argument destroys and gives ground to Satan which we don’t want to give a second of our attention to Satan to gain any ground. Instead, God must have 100% of our attention. I believe for us Christ, is not a Philosophical Ideology. He is God Incarnate. God became a man as Christ to bring man to God and to bring God to man. He did not come to bring people to Christianity. In fact Christianity is a religion. Religion by definition is a product of Satan that separates man from God in an attempt to frustrate God in His building. Think of how would the Gospel be taken to all parts of the world if everyone believed in Christ? Let us not argue, instead let us Praise The Lord Jesus Christ to build His dwelling place in this world and recover His Title Deed of this earth and everyone in it.
The following is the statement of Faith from LSM “Statement of Faith
Holding the Bible as the complete and only divine revelation, we strongly believe that God is eternally one and also eternally the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the three being distinct but not separate. We hold that Christ is both the complete God and the perfect man. Without abandoning His divinity, He was conceived in the womb of a human virgin, lived a genuine human life on earth, and died a vicarious and all-inclusive death on the cross. After three days He resurrected bodily and has ascended to the heavens. He is now in glory, fully God but still fully man. We look to His imminent return with the kingdom of God, by which He will reign over the earth in the millennium and in eternity. We confess that the third of the Trinity, the Spirit, is equally God. All that the Father has and is, is expressed by the Son; and all that the Son has and is, is realized as the Spirit. We further believe that mankind is in need of God’s salvation. Though we were absolutely unable to fulfill the heavy demands of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory, Christ fulfilled all the requirements through His death on the cross. Because of Christ’s death, God has forgiven us of our sins, justified us by making Christ our righteousness and reconciled us to Himself. Based on Christ’s redemption, God regenerates the redeemed with His Spirit to consummate His salvation, that they may become His children. Now possessing God’s life and nature, the believers enjoy a daily salvation in His Body in this age and the eternal salvation in the coming age and in eternity. In eternity we will dwell with God in the New Jerusalem, the consummation of God’s salvation of His elect.”
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Be In Christ and give every part of your soul for Christ to increase in you.
GALATIANS CHAPTER 4
1 But I say, As long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, though he is lord of all;
2 But he is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.
3 So also we, when we were children, were kept in slavery under the elements of the world;
4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under law,
5 That He might redeem those under law that we might receive the sonship.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father!
7 So then you are 1no longer a slave but a son; and if a son, an heir also through God.
4. Christ Needing to Be Formed
in the Heirs of Promise
4:8-20
8 However at that time, not knowing God, you were slaves to the gods which by nature are not gods;
9 But now, having come to know God, or rather having been known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and poor elements, to which you desire to be enslaved yet again?
10 You observe days and months and seasons and years;
11 I fear for you, lest I have labored upon you in vain.
12 Become as I am, because I also am as you are, brothers, I beseech you; you have not wronged me at all.
13 And you know that because of weakness of my flesh I announced the gospel to you the first time.
14 And that which was a trial to you in my flesh you did not despise nor loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, indeed as Christ Jesus.
15 Where then is your felicitation? For I testify concerning you that if possible you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.
16 So then have I become your enemy by presenting the truth to you?
17 They are zealous of you, but not rightly; but they desire to shut you out that you may be zealous of them.
18 But it is always good to be zealous in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.
19 My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you,
20 Indeed, I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone because I am perplexed about you.
5. The Children Born according to the Spirit
versus the Children Born according to the Flesh
4:21-31
21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one of the maidservant and cone of the free woman.
23 However the one of the maidservant was born according to the flesh, but the one of the free woman was born 1through promise.
24 These things are spoken allegorically, for 1these women are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bringing forth children unto slavery, which is Hagar.
25 Now this Hagar is Sinai the mountain in Arabia and corresponds to the Jerusalem which now is, for she is in slavery with her children.
26 But the 1aJerusalem above is free, which is our mother;
27 For it is written, “Rejoice, barren one who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not travailing, because many are the children of her who is desolate rather than of her who has her husband.”
28 But you, brothers, in the way Isaac was, are children of promise.
29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.
30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the maidservant and her son, for the son of the maidservant shall by no means inherit with the son of the free woman.”
31 So then, brothers, we are 1not children of the maidservant but of the free woman.
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My argument above was that your critiquing of Scripture interpretation lacked Scriptural evidence as a support and is therefor elementary. My argument as stated does not attempt to interpret scripture; therefor, I do not need scriptural support. There is no verse reference necessary to support my statement that a researcher who criticizes one’s interpretation of scripture without providing scriptural evidence to warrant their critique is elementary in their scholasticism. If you can’t understand that then that’s too bad.
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Hello Brother,
Thank you for your continued support. Let us bring Christ to those who have turned away from Him and were fooled by Satan and the things of this world. We are followers of Christ and I appreciate your understanding of the Scriptures. Let us Praise The Lord and be a Testimony to God.
Always In Christ and Praise God
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Jarrod and Andre,
I have not refuted LSM’s interpretation of Scripture on this site. I happen to differ with Brandon on this issue and believe LSM has a strong interpretation of the higher teachings contained within Christianity (especially the Early Church Fathers) and that much of the problem can be attributed to semantics and culture, that is, Lee’s writings–which can be confusing and misinterpreted from a Western viewpoint.
My contention with the so-called recovery is based on it’s fanaticism and exclusive sectarianism, which on the surface is appealing to followers of Jesus Christ, especially those who have experienced our fallen humanity in other denominations and are seeking a Christian nirvana experience here on earth; that is, a genuine experience among Believers.
Concerning the first issue–fanaticism–all lovers of Jesus want to abandon family, job, and life for Christ. Yet we are faced with two real economies–the spiritual and the material. Certainly Jesus does not require every Christian to follow the way of quitting your job, leaving your family, and pursue a life of a hermit in the desert. Jesus did not ask the Father to take us out of the world but to keep us from the evil one while we live in the world (John 17:5), Paul was a tentmaker and cautioned against spiritual fanaticism (if you won’t work you won’t eat – 2 Thess 3:10), Jesus Himself was a carpenter, and Christ’s warning that when judgement comes “two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left (Matt 24:40)” clearly shows the import of work until the end. Fanaticism is emotive and can lead to great harm in the Body. The recovery has many fanatical elements, which, again, is explained by pointing to its Asian heritage: the pressures to attend the full-time training, the pressures to attend weekly meetings, the pressures to attend seminars around the world, the pressures to evangelize and be a so-called “full-timer”, the pressures to bring in so-called unrecovered Christians into the recovery, the pressures to hold Friday night meetings in the home, the pressures to sojourn, and so forth. These external pressures all stand in the way of “doing” rather than “being” and all fall in front of the tree of knowledge rather than life. Many Christian churches founded in Asia are similar in intensity. Many Korean churches, for example, are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and prayer meetings are held into the early hours of the morning. This fanatical element is seen in the West, as well. It is well-known, for example, that the Vineyard Christian Fellowship drove many Believers out the door because of its extreme, fanatical focus on the works of the Spirit–namely, speaking in tongues and prophecy. We are always looking for miracles to sustain our faith. Yet Christ will say to those seeking miracles, “Your faith has saved you” (Matt 10:52). That is all that is needed. You do not need to abandon all and move to Anaheim or Texas or Pasadena. All you need is faith.
The second issue here is the barrier the recovery has constructed between Christianity (and therefore the Body of Christ) and itself, a barrier so high the saints of the recovery will not even fellowship with Believers outside the recovery unless it is to proselytize the teachings of the recovery; and therefore attempt to “enlighten” and teach–rather than love–with the ulterior motive of bringing the so-called “unrecovered” Believer into the recovery. The belief that only by fellowshipping with the saints of the recovery can one enter into the full economy of God–and only then earn the label as “brother”–is false. This teaching by the recovery is a great error because it errs on the side of uniformity of the Body rather than what Christ has asked, which is unity of the Body, and the recovery is judged for standing in front of the tree of knowledge for this great error. Jesus said at the Last Supper that the Body “may all be one, as you Father are in me and I in you . . . that the world may believe that you sent me (John 17:21). The sectarianism found within the recovery makes this teaching void.
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Alex,
I am so glad you mentioned Matthew 24:40. The cross reference is Luke 17:34-36. The Bible is very clear about this. The two men in the field and the two women grinding at the mill must be brothers and sisters in Christ. taken and one is left. Taken refers to “This is to be raptured before the great tribulation. This rapture is a sign of the Lord’s coming (parousia) and a sign to the Jews.” The one left is the one who is a believer in Christ and part of church except they have not reached the maturity of the over-comers who were raptured as the Man Child. Please see Revelation 12:5-6 and 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
17 Then we who are living, who are left remaining, will be 1acaught up together bwith them in the cclouds to meet the Lord 2in the air; and thus we will be always with the Lord.
171 I.e., snatched up speedily and in a way that cannot be resisted. It is the same Greek word as in Acts 8:39 and 2 Cor. 12:2, 4. The mentioning here of the rapture of the believers at the Lord’s coming is in a general way, as a word of comfort. Details concerning this matter are revealed in other books of the New Testament, such as Matthew and Revelation.
The man-child is in Revelation12:5 which is referring to 1 Thessalonians 4:17. 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is referring to rapture or snatched up speedily and in a way that cannot be resisted. The mentioning here of the rapture of the believers at the Lord’s coming is in a general way, as a word of comfort. Details concerning this matter are revealed in other books of New Testament, such as Matthew and Revelation. In Revelation12:5 the man-child, i.e., the over-comers is caught up, raptured, to the throne of God in the third heaven before the great tribulation, the last three and a half years of the present age (Revelation12:5-6, 14). Here, the majority of the believers, including those who are resurrected from the dead and those who are living at that time are raptured to the air at the end of great tribulation, at the time of the Lord’s coming (Parousia.)
Revelation 12:6
6 And the woman fled into the 1wilderness, where she has a place there prepared by God so that they might nourish her there a athousand two hundred and sixty days.
61 After the rapture of the man-child, the woman is left on earth to suffer persecution (v. 13). During the time of the great tribulation, God will prepare a place where she can be nourished for a thousand two hundred and sixty days before He brings His people into the millennial kingdom. (This is similar to the time when Pharaoh persecuted the children of Israel and God brought His people to the wilderness, where He nourished them before bringing them into the good land.) That the woman (the remaining and living majority of the believers) will be preserved and nourished by God for a thousand two hundred and sixty days during the great tribulation is a strong proof that their rapture will take place on the last day of the three and a half years of the great tribulation, that is, the last day of the one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
On other items that you mentioned like money and alike I tried to explain in the following paragraph.
The Spiritual Significance of Idols
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bible Verses ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gen 35:1 And God said to Jacob, Rise up, go up to Bethel, and dwell there….
(2) Then Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, Put away the foreign gods that are
among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments.
(3) And let us rise up and go up to Bethel, that I may make an altar there to God…
Phil 3:19 Whose end is destruction, whose god is their stomach, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Explanation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jacob told his household and all that were with him to put away the foreign gods that were among them….
Many may claim that they have never had anything to do with idols. Materially speaking, it may be true to say that you have no idols. But we must know, spiritually speaking, what an idol is. An idol is anything that replaces God. Your education, your ambition, your position, your name, your desire, and your intention may replace God in your life and thus become idols. If you view the matter in this light, then you will have to admit that you have had many foreign gods.
People worship idols for the sake of gaining long life and happiness. Satan threatens people, telling them that if they do not worship idols, they will not have long life and happiness, but that if they worship idols, then they will have long life and happiness. Happiness includes many things: money, position, ambition, fame, a name. Many have idols due to their desire to be healthy. Why do you have something that replaces God? Simply because that thing may make you happy…. Today, man has lost God and, pursuing foreign gods, seeks his happiness in idols. But God is our long life and happiness.
All I am trying to convey is we are followers of Christ and are not followers of human made organizations. We should keep in mind that Christ has to increase and we must decrease. There are many people that serve full time or part time. The pressures are there because we all need discipline. Without a dedicated time very few will come to the Lord so if any ministry is providing the means for the Body of Christ to Fellowship with one another to build each other up I suppose we all should be thankful and embrace it not destroy it. If you look at Matthew 16:16-28 is shown below. I will try to be brief after I show the Scriptures.
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in the heavens.
18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
The critical point is shown on verse 16. Christ, the Son of the living God. The Lord said to Peter, now that you told Me Who I am the I will call you Peter (meaning stone). The significance of stone is for building. Here the Lord is telling Peter and everyone that the Rock is Him and we should be clear that Christ, the Son of the living God is the Rock which He will build His church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
19 I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatever you bind on the earth shall have been bound in the heavens, and whatever you loose on the earth shall have been loosed in the heavens.
The Lord is very clear in the above verse.
20 Then He charged the disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ.
b. The First Unveiling of the Crucifixion and Resurrection
16:21-27
21 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.
22 And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, God be merciful to You, Lord! This shall by 1no means happen to You!
23 But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.
In verse 22, it was Satan talking not Peter so you see we may think that we are 100% in Christ whereas the Lord tells Peter in the following verse Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his across and follow Me.
25 For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it.
The Lord is very clear in verse 24. He said ” If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his across and follow Me.” and He said in verse 25 ” For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it.”
26 For what shall a man be profited if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul-life?
Christ also told us in Matthew 6:24 ” 24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
27 For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will repay each man according to his doings.
c. Transfiguration in the Miniature of the Kingdom
16:28–17:13
28 Truly I say to you, There are some of those standing here who shall by no means taste death until they see the Son of Man 1acoming in His kingdom.
This is why, I left my everything for Christ. It was not because of LSM or anything else. LSM simply pointed to the verses and Christ made me understand by coming to my spirit.
Be In Christ and God Bless
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Gents, I am sorry, there were two typographical error from my text.
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
The correct version should be:
The Lord is very clear in verse 24. He said ” If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” and He said in verse 25 ” For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it.”
The Lord is very clear about His Followers. He said,
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
Always Be in Christ
Take care, Andre’
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That’s a misinterpretation of scripture and that verse has nothing to do with this point. And if you bothered to read verse 16 of 2 Peter 1 you would see the word “eyewitnesses” which clearly points to something experiential; maybe it wasn’t so clear to you apparently. But i guess that’s what happens when you read the bible with an impure motive according to your own natural concept. But even then what’s your misinterpretation for John then? He said in 1 John 1:1-3 that they beheld, handled, seen, heard with their eyes and ears; that is their experience of being with Christ who is the Word become flesh and tabernacles among them (John 1:1, 14). Sorry but to say the bible is not written based on experience is completely naive and ignorant. The more you write, Brandon, the less credible you become, as if you had any credibility to begin with.
John rested on his experience of Christ to deal with the heretical teachings that Christ was not a man in the flesh; thus, he emphasized the Word which they beheld (experiential) and handled with their hands.
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Brandon, if you are a Christian then you should know the faith you believe in, and for you to attempt to contrast the faith of Witness Lee with other Christians then you must presume to know what the Bible reveals concerning the Christian faith. Let’s make this simple: please tell me in your own words what a person must believe in order to be considered a genuine Christian? Please don’t refer me to a web-link, please don’t cut and paste the creed of some religious organazition; just speak from the Bible and your inner constitution with the divine truth what a person must believe in order to be a genuine Christian. Thank you in advance and I believe we will be pleasantly surprised with the result of this little endeavor.
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Shame on you….judge not least you be judged. who are you to say LSM are Christian or not…are YOU GOD? Leave them alone..if you don’t like or agree, thats your right, why bash them? Is that being Christian?…..we are all believers of CHRIST why can’t you just accept that. Funny how the enemy is found his way into CHURCH, and you sir are holding the door open for him.
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Yes. Galatians 1:6-10
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Brandon, In your response please read the following,
See (1 Corinthians 1:13)
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?
Galatians 1:6
6 I marvel that you are so quickly removing from Him, who has called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel,
Here Paul came to his subject. Because the churches in Galatia were deserting the grace of Christ and backsliding to the observance of the law, Paul was burdened to write this Epistle. The grace of Christ is the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — processed to become our enjoyment. This grace is versus the law of Moses (John 1:17 and description above).
This was the Judaic observance of the law. Paul’s gospel, which is outside the Judaic law, includes all the major items of the four Gospels. Moreover, it covers many more items so that the revelation of the word of God in the New Testament might be completed (Col. 1:25) with crucial items such as Christ in the believers as the hope of glory (Col. 1:27); the Spirit of God as a seal and a pledge (Eph. 1:13-14); God’s Son being revealed in us (v. 16), being formed in us (4:19), making His home in us (Eph. 3:17), and filling us unto all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19); and Christ as the mystery of God (Col. 2:2) and as the One in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col. 2:9). The focal point of Paul’s gospel is that the Son of God, God’s anointed One (the Christ), has entered into our being to be our life today (Col. 3:4) and our glory in the future (Col. 1:27) that we may be the members (Rom. 12:5) of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:16), of which Christ is the Head (Eph. 4:15).
Galatians 1:7
7 Which is not another gospel, only there are some who trouble you and desire to pervert the gospel of Christ.
The observance of the law could never be a gospel that could set sinners free from the bondage of the law and bring them into the enjoyment of God; it could only keep them as slaves under the bondage of the law, entangling them with the yoke of slavery of the law (5:1). The Judaizers, whom the apostle Paul considered false brothers. The Judaizers troubled the churches by perverting, distorting, the gospel of Christ, thus misleading the believers into going back to the law of Moses.
Galatians 1:8
8 But if even we or an angel out of heaven should announce to you a gospel beyond that which we have announced to you, let him be accursed. See( 2 Cor. 11:14)
9 As we have said before, now also I say again, If anyone announces to you a gospel beyond that which you have received, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:10
10 For am I now trying to win the assent of men or of God? Or am I seeking to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.
10 Or, persuading men or God; seeking to conciliate, to satisfy, men or God.
I am not defending any man made organization, I am a follower of Jesus Christ alone. I don’t want to argue with anyone. Arguing does not build.
I think you are so closed minded that you do not want to let Christ to operate in you. I am not sure why you are so afraid to let Christ in. You were robbed and we care for you and want to bring you to Christ. But to receive Christ you have to be willing and have to be open. You have to be willing to eat. This is similar to feeding a three year old baby who wants to play at the table. But there are other hungry children who are willing to be fed. Look at the Jewish people, they replaced Christ with the Law of God given by Moses. The law was a temporary child conductor and could not give life. The law always demands and cannot give. Since this is your way, I am going to shake the dust off my feet and edify those who are willing to accept Christ. As the Lord said in Matthew 7:6
6 Do not give that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the hogs, lest they trample them with their feet, and turn and tear you.
If you change your mind, please let me know.
Thanks,
Andre’
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GOD BLESS YOU BROTHER FOR CONTINUING TO DESPENSE CHRIST…….OH LORD JESUS.
CHURCH IN PLANO TX.
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Praise The Lord my dear Brothers in PLANO TX. God Bless you my brothers. We are In Christ and have accepted The New Covenant as our food supply. Thank you for your support and for your prayers. We are filled with Christ and cannot be offended. We care for God to have a dwelling place on this earth in order for one day we can all say Praise The Lord. O Lord how excellent is Your Name in all the earth.
Rom 14:8 For whether we live, we live to the Lord, and whether we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s.
1 Thes 5:24 Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.
Brothers, I asked the Lord to be my speaking and I don’t want to talk silly things myself. As long as there is air in my lungs, I will praise the lord for His speaking and for being my life, my happiness, and my everything. I cannot do anything worth mentioning but it is the Lord who is the builder and the building material that will withstand the test of fire. We only Boast in Christ because we are the Lord’s and the Lord belongs to God. we have been crucified with Christ.
Galatians 2:3
3 But not even Titus, who was with me, though he is a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised;
This indicates that in his move for the Lord’s testimony, Paul did not care for the observance of the Law.
Galatians 2:4
4 And this, because of the false brothers, brought in secretly, who stole in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into Slavery under the law.
In 2:4 Paul says, “And it was because of the false brothers, brought in secretly, who stole in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into slavery.” The King James Version renders the Greek word for slavery as bondage. Although this is not wrong, the root word in Greek means to be a slave. Hence, the thought here is not simply to be in bondage, but to be enslaved, to be held in slavery.
If we would understand the contrast between freedom in Christ and slavery under law, we need a proper definition of the terms freedom and slavery. As we read these terms in the Scriptures, we may take them for granted without having a proper and adequate understanding. In 2:4 Paul speaks of false brothers who stole in to spy out our freedom. Such strong negative terms as “false brothers,” “stole in,” and “spy out” should impress us with the fact that freedom in Christ is a great matter. Otherwise, the Judaizers, the false brothers, would not have crept in to spy out this freedom.
What is this freedom in Christ? First, freedom in Christ implies liberation from obligation. Because we are free in Christ, we are no longer obligated to the law and its ordinances, practices, and regulations. Anyone who tries to keep the law makes himself a debtor to the ordinances, practices, and regulations of the law. Hence, if you try to keep the law, you will place yourself under slavery and you will serve the law as a slave. Freedom in Christ, however, liberates us from all such obligation.
Second, freedom in Christ includes satisfaction with a rich supply. If we are free outwardly but do not have anything to support us or satisfy us, this freedom is not genuine. Proper freedom is not only liberation from obligation; it is also full satisfaction because of an adequate supply and support.
Third, to be free in Christ is to enjoy rest. Those who still observe the Sabbath day do not have true rest because their efforts to keep the Sabbath place them under a heavy burden. But in Christ we have true rest.
Fourth, freedom in Christ implies the enjoyment of Christ. Because we are free in Him, we enjoy all that He is. Real freedom in Christ is the full enjoyment of the living Christ.
If we would have a proper definition of freedom in Christ, a definition that matches our experience, we need to see that such a freedom involves liberation from obligations, satisfaction through the Lord’s rich supply, genuine rest, and the enjoyment of Christ. Those who have this kind of freedom are not enslaved by anything. Although Satan may sometimes put us into a difficult situation, we can still be at rest. We need not be enslaved by any situation. Instead, we can enjoy the Lord. This means that we are free in the depths of our being. This is our freedom in Christ.
As you consider this description of freedom in Christ, you will find that it corresponds to your experience with the Lord. Our experience may differ in degree, but it does not differ in nature.
Freedom in Christ is a treasure. Satan, the subtle one, sent in the Judaizers to spy out this freedom and to deprive the Galatian believers of this treasure. He wanted to take away their liberation from obligation and their satisfaction, their rest, and their enjoyment of Christ.
BY FAITH IN CHRIST
It is by faith in Christ that we enter into such an organic union with Him. I have pointed out that faith is the appreciation of Jesus. This appreciation is implied even in Galatians 2:20. In this verse we see that we have been crucified with Christ. This refers to one aspect of our history. We also see that Christ lives in us and that the life that we now live in the flesh we live in the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. It is significant that in this verse Paul specifically refers to the Son of God as the One “who loved me.” If we do not have any consciousness of Christ’s love for us, we shall not be able to have faith in Him. Living faith comes from our sense of His love. This indicates that the faith by which we believe in Him is related to our appreciation of His loveliness. As we sense His preciousness, spontaneously an appreciation for Him wells up within us. This appreciation is our faith. When Paul referred to the Son of God as the One who “loved me and gave Himself for me,” he was filled with appreciation for the Lord Jesus. This appreciation is the very faith about which he speaks in this verse. The life he lived in the flesh he lived in this faith, the faith of the Son of God.
Whenever we say from the depths of our heart, “Lord Jesus, I love You,” our faith is strengthened. Our organic union with Christ is strengthened also. Furthermore, we sense that we have been cut away from sin, the world, the flesh, and religion. Some who have seen the light concerning the church have not been willing to give up the denominations. But one day they told the Lord how much they loved Him. Spontaneously they had the sense within that they should give up their association with the denominations. Because their organic union with Christ was strengthened, they experienced more cutting. The more we say, “Lord Jesus, I love You,” the more we sense that we have been cut off from everything other than Christ.
As we tell the Lord Jesus that we love Him, we experience the operation of genuine faith that is implied in our appreciation of Him. By this faith we realize our union with Christ. In this union we realize that His history is our history; with Christ we have been crucified, buried, and resurrected. We are dead to everything other than God, and we are living to God.
How foolish the Galatians were in turning from the Lord to the law! Did they not realize that they had been cut off from the law and joined to the living God? Through the organic union we are released from slavery under law. In this union we enjoy the freedom that is ours in Christ.
THE LIVING PERSON OF THE SON OF GOD
The crucial point in this message is that this living Person, God’s Son, is versus man’s religion. This was true at the time of Saul of Tarsus, it has been true throughout the centuries, and it is true today. Instead of focusing his attention on this living Person, man has a natural tendency to direct his attention to religion with its tradition. But from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22 the Bible reveals a living Person. God cares only for this living Person, not for anything else.
The record of the experience of the disciples with the Lord Jesus on the mount of transfiguration illustrates this (Matt. 17:1-8). After bringing Peter, James, and John up into a high mountain apart, the Lord Jesus “was transfigured before them, and His face shone as the sun, and His garments became white as the light” (Matt. 17:2). Along with the other two disciples, Peter saw the Lord’s glory. He also saw Moses and Elijah speaking with Him. Although it is doubtful that Moses and Elijah were in glory, they nonetheless were speaking with the glorified Jesus. According to Matthew 17:4, Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You are willing, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” In making this suggestion, Peter was elevating Moses and Elijah to the same level as that of the Lord Jesus. He was heir of the centuries-old tradition concerning Moses, who represented the law, and Elijah, who represented the prophets. To the Jews, Moses and Elijah were the representatives of the entire Old Testament. Hence, even on the mount of transfiguration, Peter was zealous for the traditions regarding Moses and Elijah. But while Peter was still speaking, “behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I delight; hear Him!” (Matt. 17:5). Moses and Elijah then disappeared from the scene. When the disciples lifted up their eyes, “they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.” This indicates that in the eyes of God there is no place for religion or tradition—only the living Person of His Son has a place.
Unfortunately, Satan has blinded the eyes of many with religion in an effort to frustrate God. They don’t even know it themselves. In their view they are trying to do everything according to the Law but they don’t look at the following passages in the Bible.
Matthew 26:28
28 For this is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
Mark 14:24
24 And He said to them, This is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many.
Luke 1:72
72 To accomplish mercy with our fathers and to remember His holy covenant,
Luke 22:20
20 And similarly the cup after they had dined, saying, This cup is the anew covenant established in My blood, which is being poured out for you.
Acts 3:25
25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God covenanted with your fathers, saying to Abraham, “And in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
Romans 11:27
27 And this is the covenant from Me with them, when I take away their sins.”
1 Corinthians 11:25
25 Similarly also the cup after they had dined, saying, This cup is the new covenant established in My blood; this do, as often as you drink it, unto the remembrance of Me.
2 Corinthians 3:6
6 Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
2 Corinthians 3:14
14 But their thoughts were hardened; for until the present day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant, it not being unveiled to them that the veil is being done away with in Christ.
Thank you my brothers.
Andre’ Petrossians
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Dear brothers in Plano TX. Praise The Lord saints. We have God with Us. I came to the following conclusion for Brandon. I believe, he is not open to receive the Lord. Unfortunately, he will suffer tremendously because he gave his full attention to other gods. Others like him are those who share the same views. They replaced the True God with their idols and Philosophical ideas and debates. They think Christ is a political debate. That is why, they gave ground to Satan to steal their True Joy which is Christ Himself.
Our Ministry on the other hand is very rich with Christ. We are In Christ and enjoy the Dispensing. I thought to share something for those who do not yet know Christ so they would repent of their ways and enjoy the Flow of Life .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bible Verses ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Matt 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel” (which is translated, God with us).
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and tabernacled [dwelt] among us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Words of Ministry ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In [Matthew] 1:23 we have another wonderful name–Emmanuel. Jesus was the name given by God, and Emmanuel was the name called by man. Emmanuel means “God with us.” Jesus the Savior is God with us. Without Him we cannot meet God, for God is He, and He is God. Without Him we cannot find God, for He is God Himself incarnated to dwell among us.
Jesus is not only God; He is God with us. The “us” refers to the saved people. We are the “us.” Day by day, we have Emmanuel. In Matthew 18:20 Jesus said that whenever two or three are gathered together in His name, He will be with them. This is Emmanuel. Whenever we Christians gather together, He is in our midst. In Matthew 28:20, the last verse of this Gospel, Jesus told His disciples, “Lo, I am with you all the days, even until the completion of the age.” Jesus as Emmanuel is here today. According to Matthew, Jesus came, but He never went away. He was buried in the tomb for three days, but He came in resurrection and never left. He is with us as Emmanuel.
Sometimes, we Christians are rather stupid. We call on Jesus and we find God; yet we wonder whether or not Jesus is God. Jesus is God! He is not only God–He is God with us. When we call on Jesus, we have Jehovah, we have the Savior, we have salvation, and we have God with us. We have God in the very place where we are.
Romans 16:25,
Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel,
the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery,
which has been kept in silence in the times of the ages.
Christ in you,
Andre’ Petrossians of Church in Glendale, CA.
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wow.i see now more clearly why the apostle ministry to some was death and to some life.some just argue about the recepy to their death whiles others just enjoy christ.
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I will continue later.
Thanks,
In Christ, Andre’ Petrossians of Church in Glendale, CA.
OH! Lord Jesus, we Love You Lord Jesus.
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No, you will not continue later. Please stop flooding the combox. If you wish to post a link to the text you are copying and pasting from, please do so. Any further comments that should be links or references instead of massive posts will be deleted.
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