Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
It is not a metaphor and your insistence that it is doesn't change that fact. Psalms 2 says that it was a decree at the time of Jesus being enthroned. Hebrews reiterates this saying repeatedly "of which of the angels has God ever said". The term refers to a legal recognition of status. Romans says that Jesus "was declared to be". Jesus status as Lord of all is not a metaphor, it is a declaration of fact and one day everyone will bow their knee to this fact.
"Many Christians"? I think you have proven that it is virtually all Christians in the LRC. Not only have you demonstrated that Christians in the LRC have this erroneous concept, and that it perpetuates, but that they have also adopted WL's practice of rewriting the Bible.
Everyone, in every culture "assigns an heir". That is what this is referring to. When Jesus was declared Lord of all he was made heir of all things. Being born of your father does not guarantee that you are appointed heir.
Finally, no verse says that we have "been adopted". It says that this is the goal, not the accomplished fact.
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For me discussions like this expose serious flaws and deficiencies in the ministry of Witness Lee. He was all about himself and his work rather than the actual exposition of the New Testament. One serious flaw was that WL had no peers, no balance, no tempering, or in his own words,
no "
blending" with other ministers and mature teachers. Hence, misconceptions such as Paul's us of "
adoption" go on for years unchecked.
Here is a portion of what Vine says in his
Expository Dictionary of N.T. Words ...
Quote:
In Eph 1.5 they [the believers] are said to have been foreordained unto "adoption as sons" through Jesus Christ, RV;
the KJV, "adoption of children" is a mistranslation and misleading.
God does not "adopt" believers as children; they are begotten as such by His Holy Spirit through faith.
"Adoption" is a term involving the dignity of the relationship of believers as sons; it is not a putting into the the family by spiritual birth, but a putting into the position of sons.
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Firstly, it appears like the source of Lee's initial error was the mistranslation in the KJV, the version originally used in the LCM before the Recovery Version was developed.
Secondly, Vine's Dictionary, nearly the de facto standard for Bible semantics among all Christians, clearly delineates that adoption does not refer to our birth, our regeneration, into the family of God.
This is why today's Christians are not troubled by the "problems" Lee and Company claim for them.
Adoption is a manufactured crisis, one that exists only in the minds of the LC faithful.