Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
WL had something that he called the "heart of the divine revelation", contained in Paul's epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, Galatians, and Philippians. I think of, for instance, the phrase, "until Christ is formed in you" in Galatians 4:19. Now, I'm no scholar and surely some could argue differently (or present the same argument differently), but I'd like to show how the conceptual Christ formed by WL deviated from that which was being presented in Paul's epistles.
Remember that at the time Paul was writing, they didn't have a New Testament (NT) corpus. The written gospels probably weren't in wide circulation either, at least in present form. What the Christian assemblies had was the extant scripture, which today we call the Old Testament (OT). So when Paul said for the word of Christ to dwell in you richly, was he talking about his epistles? Were the saints really supposed to pray-read his letters?
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WL presented his idea of the economy of God, which was (as I remember) God creating man in His image and likeness, then dispensing Himself into Jesus, then as the Life-Giving Spirit dispensing this Jesus into us to transform us fully back into His intended image. The "economy" part was based on Paul telling Timothy to "pay heed to God's economy, which is in faith" (I Tim 1:4) and the Ephesians "You have heard of the stewardship (oikonomia) of God's grace given to me for you" (3:2). But where did Paul suggest that this was to be carried out by praying over his (Paul's) writings?
We might respond that Peter told us that Paul's writings were equivalent to "other scripture" (2 Peter 3:16) and Paul said to "unceasingly pray" (1 Thess 5:17), so we should pray over Paul's writings, as with other scripture. And since Paul's writings are the heart of the divine revelation of God's plan for humanity in Christ Jesus, we should pay special attention to them. This can be seen in the RecV Bible, where you can get a page of small-print footnotes from a verse in Ephesians.
They're effectively held to be magical words, which can be incanted (chanted, declared, shouted, prayed over, recited) into existence. So we're counseled to bypass our mind, don't think, just shout repeatedly the magical words that Paul wrote and the LSM translated. Get that word into you and it will metabolically assimilate into your being and transform you.
But where did Paul suggest this methodology? I don't see it. It seems as if Paul didn't even know what he was writing, or at least withheld the critical details, and only WL saw it. WL's economy of God is for us to incant, imbibe, masticate, shout, the NT and especially Paul's writings to make us the total reproduction of Jesus the God-man. Again, where does Paul actual writing suggest this activity leading to this result? I don't see it.
What I do see is Paul repeatedly telling the saints, among other things, to sing the Psalms, that this will bring the infilling of the Spirit (Eph 5:18) and cause Christ to dwell in them richly (Col 3:16). But WL ignored this recommendation because... why? Because Paul didn't know any better? Was Paul being too modest, recommending the Psalms as a source of spiritual nourishment and transformation, rather than his own writings? The Psalms prominently contained the idea of obedience to the law, and recompense therefrom, which Paul had clearly shown in the epistles to the Romans and Galatians that it couldn' save anybody... so if the law profited nothing, then why did Paul encourage singing psalms, which stress obedience, righteousness, and reward? Perhaps, in the LC, Paul's teachings had now been superseded by those of WL? Was Paul that confused, awkwardly contradicting himself, that WL needed to rescue us from Paul's advice, and turn us fully back to the NT revelation - a revelation not based on the OT scriptures prophetically showing us God's Christ, but rather on dismissing those OT writings and understandings because they were now passe, irrelevant in the newly found grace of God's New Testament economy?
"Just masticate Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians and you'll become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead." Um, sorry but I don't see Ephesians, Colossians, or Philippians saying that. I only see WL saying that.
What I see instead is essentially a confidence trick. We're confronted with circular reasoning, but naively ignore it as we're smitten by the assurance and enthusiasm of its presenter, and we don't notice that we're going round and round the mulberry bush. WL could effectively by-pass Paul, and shunt Paul's writings somewhere they weren't intended, because WL had the revelation of the age. Only WL really knew what Paul meant with his 'oikonomia', it seems; perhaps even better than Paul himself? WL was God's oracle, after all, so if he "extracted revelation" that Paul didn't present us with, it might be a continuation of Paul (and others) extracting revelation from the OT. And how do we know WL had these special extractive giftss? Because he said so - and he has the body of work as God's oracle after all. So if God's oracle tells you that his output is God's oracle you'd better believe him, because... well, because he's got God's oracle, God's present speaking! So he can lead you by the nose wherever he wants - he can take you far away from scripture but you're still in the heart of the divine revelation. And all this is for sale, for just a few dollars. What a blessing.