Quote:
Originally Posted by InOmnibusCaritas
Yes, Paul was referring to salvation.
The Judaizers' teaching can be found in Acts 15:1, "But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.'"
Paul's intimation of his journey to Jerusalem in Gal. 2:1-10 makes it clear that Acts 15 backgrounds Galatians.
The Judaizers weren't saying, "Being saved is of course good, but being saved and special sauce #1 is the best". They were saying, unless you have special sauce #1, you cannot be saved. This is ANOTHER GOSPEL.
For Judaizers there are no tiered Christianity - it's Jesus + circumcision or nothing. You cannot be saved!
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Thanks for taking the time and effort to carefully address my remarks. I'm content to let the question drop as resolved. But I do think WL's "new, new, new" mantra was an opening for dangerous forces, which may have seemed "fresh" initially but eventually led to imbalance, and lawsuits with the cult-watchers. As I said, WL claimed to be fully grounded in historical, orthodox Christianity through WN's extensive reading. But there's a tad of hubris in such a statement, and pride comes before the fall. And there was a fall.
On the idea of "tiered Christianity", WL had a habit of saying that not many Christians know this or that, or have experienced some aspect of the rich Christ. So while I don't think it cost him or his listeners their eternal salvation before God (if we can in any way understand the term, and we should, or at least should try) I do think it cost him, and them. Jesus taught that those who elevate themselves will be thrown down. The first will be last. Maybe not to eternal perdition, but there is a loss. Those who claim they are "rich" are really poor (Google "the rich ministry of Witness Lee" and see how many hits you get), and those who claim to be great in the kingdom of God will be the least. Notice that Jesus doesn't say, "Those who claim to be great won't get in", but that they will be the least. And Jesus told the Pharisees, "The harlots and sinners will get into the kingdom before you", He didn't say that the Pharisees wouldn't ever get in. Just that they tried to be the first and best but were thereby the least and the worst.
The LC's had a phrase: "God's best". I heard it in some of the songs. It wasn't clear if it was to some aspect of Jesus' salvation, which I can understand (we can make value judgments there) or to our experience of that salvation, or to our group itself. Certainly we talked about ourselves as if we were the latest and greatest. And I think that entails loss. Not of salvation but of the true enjoyment of salvation. Because if you think that you are something, on this side of the Bema (the Judgment Seat), you risk unpleasant surprise. Either way God will surprise you. God apparently likes to surprise people.
Isaiah 2:9-11 "So the common man has been humbled And the man of importance has been abased, But do not forgive them. Enter the rock and hide in the dust From the terror of the LORD and from the splendor of His majesty. The proud look of man will be abased And the loftiness of man will be humbled, And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.…"