Quote:
Originally Posted by Cal
Again, they focus on process rather than relationship. For example, they concern themselves more with "being transformed" and "making the kingdom" than they do with loving God and getting to know him.
|
I agree. From my memory, the stress was on individual performance. "Eating Jesus is the way", "turn to your spirit", "let's all gain Christ", and similar phrases, got the individual to focus on their own "experience and enjoyment", versus the experiences of Jesus Christ adjudicated by his relationship with the Father.
The experience of Jesus, on earth, v/v the Father in Heaven is amply documented, and I've covered it in such detail that many readers will be bored to tears, so I'll keep it short. "He (the Father) rescued me (the Son) because He delighted in me" in Psalm 18, for instance clearly was corroborated by NT statements that the Father delighted in the Son. We hardly need to cite them, but here's a slow-pitch softball: "This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I delight. Hear him", e.g., Matthew 3:17; 2 Pet 1:17; cf Matt 17:5; 12:18.
When you see it, it's soooo obvious what's happening in the text: the Son loves the Father and obeys, the Father delights in the Son and raises him from the dead and gives him glory, and a kingdom that never ends. There's a relationship here that's constantly implied and often stated quite plainly, and is seen consistently in the doings of both parties.
Now, in covering Psalm 18, for instance, either WL would say, "No, God didn't delight in David - David was a sinner", or he'd say, "This is the NT believer enjoying grace on the proper church ground." But in the middle there's a big hole, where the actual person Jesus Christ lived - yes, in "coinherence" (or consubstantiation or what silly physics-level-term we use) - with the Father and by the Holy Spirit.
Sorry to rant but it's been a bit of a peeve - we arguably got short-changed, and the effect's been huge. Instead of focusing on Jesus the Christ as the Way to the Father, we'd focus on self-performance, which was whatever the MOTA wanted us to do, usually for 'ministry' benefit. Then the manipulative demands would begin - look at any HWMR outline, and count how many "we need to" and "we should" and "we must" are embedded in the text. It's rife with them. All WL's unmet needs got placed on the believer, with "making it" and "overcoming" and so forth connected with local church activities and performances. It became about one's relationship to ministry demands, with a distant and abstract "processed God" receding over the conceptual horizon.