[aron]

Today there is widespread agreement that the Psalms prefigured the coming Christ. Psalm 2, Psalm 8, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Psalm 91, Psalm 110 are heavily quoted in the New Testament, for example.

But when Paul twice (Col 3:16, Eph 5:19) urged the saints to let the word of Christ dwell in them richly as they sang psalms, singing praise to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, do you think he was thinking of limiting them to those few? I don't get any indication of that. What about all the other chapters, which Lee passed over without mention, other than that they are "natural"? Do you think Paul had the same judgment, the same caveat? I don't get that impression.

Do you think, when the Psalmist wrote "In the midst of the assembly I will sing hymns of praise to you", that this applies only when we sing Lee's "revelation of Christ" psalms? That Christ will not/cannot join us if we sing the "natural concept" psalms? Child, please.

I personally think the psalms are much deeper and more revelatory of Christ than Lee realized. It is not that the Psalms are lacking the revelation of Christ, but that Lee was lacking the revelation of Christ. Which brings the next question: why? How could a man who teased images of Christ from the badger skins and silver sockets on the ark of the covenant, and from the windows on Noah's ark, not see Christ there in so many of the Psalms?

I think it is two-fold. First, he had a bias against the "law" by Paul's expositions (see Galatians 2, Romans 7, etc). So when the psalmist expressed a love for the law, Lee recoiled instinctively. The voices of Paul the apostle and Martin Luther the expositor shouted "No!!!" within him. This prevented him from seeking, or seeing, any Christ there.

Secondly, the man clearly had control issues. When the saints actually began to take the apostle Paul at his word and sing the Psalms, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks/so panteth my soul after Thee, O God", then Lee got worried because they were enjoying the Word outside his ministry and this to him was most dangerous. Lee wanted to be the sole mediator of man's revelatory experience in the Word of God. So Lee told the fellowships in the Lord's Recovery to stop singing the Psalms, because they were too low. I have heard this verbally from several people who were there.

He didn't, of course, say "Stop singing the Psalms"; he said, "It would be better if you sang verses from Ephesians than from Psalms". Then he imitated in a mocking way the saints as they praised God using the words of the psalmist. His "shaming" actions were enough to discourage the saints.

So Witness Lee was willing to directly contravene Paul's encouragement, if Paul's encouragement led to a loss of his (Lee's) control. The Spirit was starting to move among the assemblies, and it was moving away from Lee's dominion, and this probably threatened him. Loss of control could not be tolerated. So he stopped it.

And the "spirit of wisdom and revelation" which Paul asked for in Ephesians 1:17 got frustrated. The psalms then were declared to be the "natural concepts of men", versus revelatory pictures of the persecuted, praying, believing, hoping, trusting, declaring, thirsty, hungry, stricken, suffering, fighting, struggling Jesus the Nazarene. "Oh, that's just David (or Asaph, or Lemuel, etc) trying to be good." No, that is Jesus fulfilling the destiny of humankind. That is none other than the "Savior of the world" (1 John 4:14) revealed in detail far beyond Lee's capacity to see.