[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by zeek

The question is whether or not deification actually ever occurs and if so to whom?...
But it's a tricky proposition. Seeking to be sanctified and glorified is seeking your own ultimate salvation. What did Jesus say? "...whoever desires to save his life will lose it..."
I saw that the leaders including Lee himself, sought their own "glorification." I saw him who was supposed to be the furthest along in the deification process suing Christians who disagreed with him....
So, the doctrine doesn't need to be recovered. It was never lost. The spiritual reality is the problem. If the proof is in the pudding, where's the pudding?

At some point (my memorial fails me when) there was a term thrown around the Local Church - "Christified". I actually think it is a better term than deification. For our identity and destination as Christians is most specifically wrapped up in the Person and work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Yes, our "God and Father, is over all and through all and in all", (Eph 4:6) yet the practical outworking and tangible experience finds that we are "in Christ" and "Christ in us" is truly "our hope of Glory". (Col 1:27)

Yes, there is "a Man in the glory", and yes we are called to share and participate in this glory. The apostle Peter knew very well about sharing and participating in this glory. He put it this way - "Partakers of the Divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4) For Peter, who spent 3+ years with the Lord Jesus, God's glory was on vivid display during the life and ministry of Jesus. Now we, as his disciples, have been entrusted with a life and ministry of our own. This is where the rubber of "the spiritual reality" meets the road. Are we expressing "the Divine nature" in our lives and ministries? Do we treat others, regardless of their love or respect for ourselves, as Jesus did? How do we react when we come across the man laying in the road, beaten and left for dead? Do we visit and care for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick or those in prison?

It's all too easy for us to shout, pump our fists and bloviate about being "baby gods"and "Godmen" in the friendly and self-righteous confines of a comfortable meeting hall. But what really counts before God and men is what happens after the meeting. Being "God in life and nature" in the meeting is virtually worthless to the man laying in the road if we just pass him by. "Eating Jesus" is an empty, worthless practice if we leave real stomachs empty, scorn the stranger, ignore the naked and sick and never visit those in prison.

Witness Lee and his followers were/are not the only Christians guilty of the hypocrisy I have outlined above, they are just the ones we are most familiar with. Also it doesn't help when you claim to be the sole recipients and guardians of all "the high peak truths" and proclaim your movement as "THE Lord's Recovery".

Ok, I'll get off my high horse....it won't be hard since he's only a Shetland pony anyway.