Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
Here is a classic example from the last chapter of Lee's book A Deeper Study of the Divine Dispensing (1990 ISBN: 978-0-87083-562-9). First is a paragraph of what I would call "good Lee," an enlightening insight into two aspects of our relationship with God. Lee, with his accountant's mind, was good at this kind of comparison and contrast: "The Father is both our God and our Father. His being our Father means that we are born of Him. His being our God means that we were created by Him. If we were only created by God but not begotten of Him, we are not in the church. By being born of God we enter into a life relationship and an organic union with Him. First, God created us, and then He begot us. Since we are created by God and born of God, our relationship with Him is twofold. First, we are God’s creatures, and He is our Creator. Then, we are God’s children, and He is our Father. If there were no children of God, there would be no church. We in the church have been both created by God and born of God. Thus, we are created as proper human beings and born as children of God. This is the church."
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I'll stop there.
I will agree that this could be good. But let me suggest why even this "good Lee" may be off-the-mark.
When he says "If we were only created by God but not begotten of Him, we are not in the church" I think he has said something that may or may not actually be true, but based on the revelation available, cannot be asserted in such a manner.
Why? Because there are many aspects of the church. And there is the notion of being begotten. But it is not simply any one thing that is the reason we are the church or that without that aspect in the way Lee taught it there would be no church.
What is the church? It is many things. The gathering, assembly of believers. It is the body of Christ. It is many things. But nowhere is it stated that being "begotten of God" is a requirement for being in the church. Unless we are going to note that those that are truly what evangelicals commonly called "saved" are, by definition, begotten of God.
Now, as someone has pointed out, Lee does not entirely ignore the basic process of salvation. But do we think that when he says "begotten of God" here, he simply means anyone who is simply saved?
And I think that the answer is in the rest of his speaking/writing. If the church is "a group of people who are in union with the Triune God and are mingled with the Triune God" then we have to know what it is that he says is "in union with" and "mingled with" the Triune God. And there is much more than "begetting" (in the sense of salvation) in Lee's version of "union" and "mingled." It takes much more.
It takes being "practically" joined with a certain kind of outward church. You can't just argue that we are the church. You are only really the church if you are practically meeting on the ground of locality. And so many additional requirements. Like accepting the teachings coming from the LSM. Agreeing wholeheartedly with every teaching in that great body of work. Establishing a standing order for a preset amount of regularly-generated new materials.
Yes. Begetting sounds so good. But even if he only means "saved" when he says it, he has then withheld materially important information about what else you need to be "in the church." It is a little like accepting that some religious nut (any type) says that the USA is correctly a country in the northern half of the Western Hemisphere, but then goes on to claim that it is illegitimate because it is not entirely following the OT law of God, or Sharia (sp?) law. Yes, the first part is correct. But they want to add provisos according to their own imagination as to what is truly correct.
So, unless you are going to read Lee like fortune cookies and be sure to only read the good ones (and never even get a hint of the caveats, exceptions, provisos, quid pro quos in other of his cookies) then you are best off to avoid even the supposedly good cookies. Once you read a bad one (and don't know it) how do you separate the good from the bad when you discover that you've been reading (and eating) a mixture of good and bad cookies?