Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
That's why I explained that the danger was in its excessive promotion and not the teaching itself.
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I think that the teaching itself, while remotely possible as an explanation of the use of the term in the preferred setting (in the letter to Timothy), is too suspect in that setting, and further, is not supported by the remainder of the passage which describes it as something unlike Lee's dispensing theory. It is forced through tricks of rhetoric. It is part of the system by which we learned not to step out in faith and walk by the spirit. It was a reason by which we could skip reckoning ourselves as anything but a child of God. It was the excuse to not worry about being righteous because we did not yet have enough dispensing.
As taught, it was a nice-sounding ruse. It was enough like something actually true that we didn't see the error that it was wrapped in. We were taught not to obey and be righteous, but to claim that we have been declared righteous and skip the obedience part.
To the extent that we actually are declared righteous, it was not so that we did not have to actually be righteous. Since our living is supposed to be the witness to the world, any claim that actual righteousness visible to the people around us is of no use is not teaching the gospel of Christ. It is another gospel.
And that is where Lee should be found. Teaching a different gospel. Dismissing the one that Jesus actually taught. Dismissing the righteousness of the law by declaring that the law is now abolished.
It is not. That is not true so that we will become legalistic authoritarians, but so that we will take care for ourselves to hunger and thirst for that righteousness.