Quote:
Originally Posted by Leomon
I do not know why they have different terminology. One of the reasons OBW said is that it a sense of spiritual superiority that they use those terms. Could be maybe.
Well,
I went to another meeting and well this time was similar and I finally got it out of them.
Jesus became the life giving spirit. Its not Jesus brought the holy spirit. Every time I say that in the meeting they get confused and think I'm talking about three gods.
However I feel as if we are getting into the "details". I mean this is the trinity and it is one god. So one could technically say Jesus is and is not the Holy Spirit. I find that modern day Christianity differentiates the trinity more often.
It is slightly modalist as they drew a diagram for me showing God came down to become Jesus and then became the Holy Spirit which is itself correct. Maybe I'm just getting picky.
However I am not sure if they believe Jesus and the holy spirit have and existed since the beginning I will have to get that from them.
Regardless... another meeting about Jesus being the life giving spirit and mingling with it. This time I read the weekly revival and noticed they regurgitated the notes.
One sharing was awkward, he was saying why do you need a Pastor? Its not in the bible? Whats the point?
I wanted to say... like.. why do you need Witness Lee he is your spiritual leader and "pastor" so I dont see you point. But i held my toungue..
anyways yeah...
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The problem with the LRC on this issue is that they are as dogmatic about the One as they claim the rest of Christianity is about the Three. The problem is that the Trinity is Three that are One, or One that is Three. And it is not parlor tricks, nor is it Three gods in a triumvirate.
Some say that the Three are distinctly Three and do not really consider that there is only One God except to assert that there is only One God. Lee and the LRC assert that there is One God, and obliterate the revealed distinctions of the Three yet acknowledge that there are Three.
My biggest problem is trying to insist upon the view of One God when discussing the things that are revealed in terms of the "separate" persons. It shows up no better than in their reading of 1 Corinthians 15:45, which I note someone else has already mentioned. The problem with this verse is that it is not talking about the Trinity, nor about the nature of God. It is talking about the change in the physical body that Jesus had upon resurrection. Paul is trying to answer a question about the kind of body we will receive when we are resurrected. And he eventually gets to the example of Jesus. A normal, human body died, and a spiritual body rose. It was not void of physical attributes, but it was also not limited by the physical. He didn't say much more about it than that. But Lee insisted that the only way to say "spirit" with respect to God was to say "the Holy Spirit," and so rather than say Jesus' physical body became spiritual, Paul was saying that Jesus became the Holy Spirit.
But that doesn't answer the question that the Corinthians had evidently asked. It says something entirely irrelevant. And I doubt Paul said something entirely irrelevant. So he must not have been talking about the Son becoming the Spirit, but about the physical body of Jesus becoming spiritual.
And after all of that, it is true that to go to either extreme — tritheism or modalism — is to miss the full nature of God. But since we cannot understand it so well, we tend to go toward one or the other. Both sides snipe at the other, but since neither is denying the person and work of Christ, and neither is claiming that there are three distinct and separate Gods, I am skeptical about the claims of serious heresy in either.
That does not let Lee and the LRC off the hook. Beyond this muddling up of the Trinity, they also teach a kind of deification of man. This is too much. I can accept that we receive things from God/Christ/the Spirit. But we don't receive deification.