[aron]

I got interested in this subject because of the Seven Spirits before the throne in the Book of Revelation. Lee said it was the One Spirit, intensified sevenfold. But what did the elders of the church teach on this? Did Lee do any background check? Or was his logic the over-riding factor?

I have to confess here that I have not read nor heard the messages from the Life-Studies on Revelation. I just have my good old Recovery Version, where the footnote says "Seven Spirits = One Spirit, intensified sevenfold" But where did this formula come from? Are the seven angels in Revelation actually one angel, intensified sevenfold? Or the four living creatures actually one living creature, intensified fourfold? Or the twenty-four elders, one elder intensified twenty-fourfold? No? Why then, is this math applied to the seven spirits? Because Paul taught that there is only One Spirit along with One Faith and One Baptism, and Lee's logic overlaid the two subjects?

If so, then why are there seven spirits in Revelation? And, back to my main point: what did the apostles and church elders teach? Here, again, lacking access to the inner workings of Lee, I have to assume that because of the degradation of the church -- you know, with Constantine and all -- that Nee/Lee get "carte blanche" to skip over 2,000 years of church teaching and just reinvent the Bible whole cloth using their logic, with maybe Kittel and Vincent and Alford to back them up (assuming they agree), with the resulting interpretation equaling "the teachings and fellowship of the apostles". Neat, huh?

Well, it's not so neat. There was a guy called Clement of Alexandria, born around the year 150. Seems that Clement's writing held that the oral tradition of the elders was that the seven spirits were in fact the seven angels who stand before the throne in Revelation 8:2. Seeing that Clement was a lot closer to the apostles than Nee or Lee was, we should at least mention this, and consider it, before rejecting it (if in fact we do).

The truth is that probably we can't know for sure. It does seem attractive, at one hand: the seven archangels who stand before the throne "go out to all the earth" a la Revelation 5:6 and Zechariah 4:10. See, for example, Luke 1:19 And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news."

Admittedly, this interpretation brings a whole host of other difficulties. What, for example, happened to "The Holy Spirit"? What, other than ostensibly the oral teachings of the church elders, gave credence to this interpretation for Clement (and, following him, another Alexandrian writer, Origen)? How trustworthy is Clement, anyway? And how strong/widespread is the idea of an "oral tradition" among the early writings in the church?

None of this seems to matter to the Living Streamers. Just repeat after me: The teachings of Witness Lee = The teachings and fellowship of the apostles. Got it? No need to complicate things with what actually was written by the church fathers.