[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

Those very verses [Psalm 133] were pray-read in the meetings, to support the Flow of Oneness that Mel Porter, the lead elder in the church in Ft. Lauderdale, came back from Anaheim with.

The Flow of Oneness was supported with Rev. 22:1. It was said that the river of life, carried the authority of the throne, to the apostle on the earth: Witness Lee.

And Lee was likened to Aaron in Psalms 133. It was said. that, the anointing came down from Lee, thru the elders, and finally, to the "garments," or us little ones.

"I'm Witness Lee - I'm the meaning of the universe;

I'm Witness Lee - I'm the meaning of the universe."

This little man fufills God's plan,

He's the center and the meaning of the universe.

(To the tune of "O I'm a man", with apologies.)

The irony here, and one of many, is that WL said that David was being ego-centric: that David was thinking that the Holy and Righteous God of heaven paid attention to him, a sinner, and declared that God had saved him out of death (see e.g. 34:4); WL's commentary said that David saved himself and that David's fallen natural concepts had ascribed this to God's intervention (see accompanying RecV footnotes). Yet when WL fortuitously came into the foment of the "Jesus Movement" of the 1960s, he skimmed off a few hundred unsuspecting young souls as his own personal acolytes, and set about anointing himself as the center of God's move on the earth today. Fallen human ego, much?

Originally Posted by OBW

The funny thing about this argument is that even we "rot in the grave" until the resurrection. So David is in no worse position than we are. And unless there was truly a different covenant in that day (which there was), not a single one of them have any hope for the future... Even Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, etc. But they did have a hope. And it was not simply that the Messiah would come an save those who live after them at the time of the Messiah or after. That is no hope at all if it only resides in those who are as yet unborn.

Eventually I realized that what I found so deeply appealing about the Psalms was their universal character. The psalmist makes a bold declaration of piety: "I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart." (Psa 40:8). But this declaration is not merely David's ego-centric fallen human nature, or Jewish religious culture, or WL's "New Testament believer", although arguably all three can be seen. But it's drawn Jews and Christians for centuries because of its transcendent nature: it may be embodied in the Christ, but even though it was fulfilled in Him ("Then he said, 'Here I am, I have come to do your will.'" [Heb 10:9]) it speaks to and of the aspirations of all creation.

Revelation 5:13

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"

It has been slowly dawning on me that even as I speak of a post-Protestant world today, I could also speak of a reality in which "Christianity" itself is no more. Paul told the crowd that he was a Pharisee of Pharisees (Acts 23:6). But that was an acknowledgment of his journey through time and space and human culture. But Paul wasn't looking back; he was headed for the stars. His home was in the Father's house. And this "house", or "family" or "kingdom" is not merely a Christian realm. Rather the Christian realm, on earth today, allows us access to it. But it is not itself exclusively Christian. Yes Christ is enthroned as Head over all, but if you look at the denizens of the open heavens (e.g. John 1:51 - "you will see heaven opened") you slowly realize that the Christian faith is pointing at them. "You shall be like angels in heaven" in Matt 22:30 is not exclusively pertaining to the issues of marrying and being given in marriage, but rather the issues of marrying and being given in marriage are subsumed by the experience of "being like an angel in heaven".

And the Psalms give voice to this. In exquisite and magisterial detail they portray this. Yes they were penned by frail mortals who ultimately faltered, fell, and lay still, yet the voice is from heaven. "Your word O LORD is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues to all generations" (Psalm 119:89). When the angel told Mary, "No word from God will ever fail" (Luke 1:37), he was declaring something that included but transcended all of Jewishness, Christianity, and even humanity. This is something that's true at all times, and in all ways that truth can exist. Christianity certainly points to it, and draws from it, but ultimately it is not dependent upon Christian understanding. It just is. The angel was neither a Jewish angel nor a Christian one; merely a vessel bringing something forth from the presence of the eternal God. In their purest form the Psalms draw us deeper into this realm, a realm which includes WL's Christian "New Testament believer", the psalmist, certainly Jesus Christ(!), the angels, and everything that lives and breathes. Even the heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). There is a tremendous universal character and aspiration here: to orient oneself to the Source, to praise and thank and bless and obey. The Christian experience, through our faith in the Person of Jesus Christ, allows us full access to this. But we shouldn't be so presumptuous to think that we, and our experiences, are the "center and the meaning of the universe". At least I'm not comfortable declaring this. I sense that God is bigger than my theological notions.