Is it really fair to say that Lee's doctrine regarding the life-giving Spirit is solely based upon 1 Cor. 15:45b?
What about his coordinated appeal to John 7:39 and 2 Cor. 3:17-18?
I mean, you could almost leave 1 Cor. 15:45b out altogether to get to the same place Lee got in citation of these other two verses.
I'm observing that there seems to be an ease of ditching Lee's teaching regarding 1 Cor. 15:45b simply because it was Lee's teaching and diverged from mainstream orthodoxy. That's your choice, I suppose, but it seems like maybe there's at least a possibility of some discarding of the baby with the bathwater in that approach.
Personally, I'm not all that impressed with academic credentialing, particular with regard to religious academia. No offense meant to anyone here but neither traditional study nor extra letters behind your name makes you any better able to know God or God's Word than the rest of us poor layman peons.
I'd like to pose this question for your honest consideration: has anyone looked elsewhere, say in the volumes of the Early Church Fathers, for support for Lee's teaching on this point? I believe there's something to be said about being cautious in embracing wholeheartedly the results of Post-Nicene theological formulations for the same reasons I view academic credentials as of limited utility in knowing the truth of God. Further, I'm pretty sure if I dug around enough I could find at least a few with theological cred of some kind to corroborate Lee's reading of this verse. (For instance, see the discussion beginning on p. 322 in
http://books.google.com/books?id=CEkyo7Wb7hgC)
I'll be honest with you. My cursory review of general Christian literature on this verse mostly seems to demonstrate people struggling to avoid the conclusion that Lee so gleefully reached. There are of course a few who dogmatically declare that it cannot mean any such thing, but most seem to see what it rather clearly says and then in honesty feel they have to struggle with its meaning within the confines of traditional orthodoxy. I'll note in this context that the "Open Letter" scholars do not directly address this one as an issue, although they are generally critical of Lee's theology on related points (such as implicit patripassionism and modalistic phraseology.)
I'm not really advocating for Lee's position here, although I do hold it, or at least something similar, myself. I just don't think any of us should become those who likewise deal loosely with things in an attempt to overthrow whatever looseness we have been burdened and bound with. It seems too easy for us to become what we hate.
If it makes someone happy to speculate concerning a Christ whose life-giving spirit is meaningfully distinct from the Holy Spirit who is the third Person of the Trinity, that is of course your right, but I won't follow that myself. According to my experience, that is a corrosive doctrine that will eventually leave you without any reality.
I think there is something infinitely profound to be learned about God's purpose and work in verses such as John 1:14 and 1 Cor. 15:45. God's entry into human history and His accomplishments while among us are what infuse us with the interest to take up this topic at all. If the the Word that became flesh has not in turn become the life-giving Spirit, I'm pretty much done with Him, I'm afraid.
I have the joy to participate in the living God in His assembly.
I have no more use for an orthodox creed than I do for a statue of the Buddha.
Of course, as they say in the commercials, your mileage may vary.
