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Originally Posted by immuno_oncology
2. I have to admit that I was so drawn to the footnotes/interpretations of the pictures in the Bible, such as Adam and Eve (Adam being Christ and Eve being the church), Noah's ark being the Body of Christ so that all believers are saved, being perfected and becoming overcomers in the millennial kingdom while non-perfected Christians will be in outer darkness, etcetc. Do you all still see the truth in this?
3. The concept of "God's eternal economy is for the building of his dwelling place which will consummate in the New Jerusalem" has been wrought into my soul. For the past few months, all I think about everyday is Christ and His Body and nothing else. Are you still under the rulership of this particular heavenly vision of God's economy?
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There is of course a lot to say. Forgive me for being brief. My own experience of #2 is that it is something added to the understanding of the Bible which makes it especially alluring to the believers. What initially gets us is that if we believe into Jesus Christ, then our sins are forgiven, we get eternal life, we get the promise of future glory, intimacy with the Father in heaven through His Holy Spirit.
Then, the Local Church adds "The Body of Christ". You now are in a special group, and identification with this group makes you special, even more special than "mere Christianity". Christianity is divided, fallen, hopeless, but now this super special group of Christians has been raised up which fully expresses and represents Jesus Christ on Earth. So it is like a blessing upon the initial blessing of salvation.
But your attention will be turned to this "second blessing", to the detriment of the first. You will attempt to be "one with the brothers" and "one with the ministry" even if your conscience is somewhat repressed. Remember that the voice from the podium is loud, and the crowd around you yells "Amen!!", and the still, small voice within is easily overlooked. If your wife is suffering, the wife God gave you, what is God telling you? To ignore her and focus on "The Body"?
#3 Again see "Christ and His Body" instead of Christ. The Assembly (Gk: "ekklesia") arguably is about Jesus Christ the sent One, bringing us back to our Father in Heaven. But if you go to the LSM meetings the focus turns to "The Body". See how they get you to shift your focus?
The irony for me, is that if "The Body" was really what God was after, why did these reformers leave the parent church in the first place, to start their own? Shouldn't they have toughed it out in "Degraded Christianity" if God was really after one expression? Why start a "New and Pure" move? Arguably John the Apostle on Patmos had an excuse to do that. The Asian Churches were a mess. Probably Jerusalem and Rome weren't much better if at all. But John "toughed it out". He stuck with the believers God gave him.
Yet people like Nee couldn't do that. But Nee's followers want us to stick with them, even when our families suffer. Why? For "the Body"? Where did that come from? Did "the Body" not exist prior to mainland China, circa 1923? It seems so, to hear them.