[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by Ohio

1. Martin Luther also believed in transubstantiation, that the communion bread is literally the body of Christ. Do you believe that too?

2. I am not aware that Catholics believe in deification. I was raised Catholic, with 12 years parochial education, and 6 years of Latin. I never heard of the teaching while I was there. But, for that matter, I never heard the gospel either.

3. The Eastern Orthodox church does believe in deification, so you are correct on that point. One of our long time posters InChristAlone left the LC and now meets with the E.O. church.

4. 2 Peter 1.4 says that "Jesus our Lord ... has granted us great promises, that thru these we might become partakers of the divine nature." How does that mean that "we become God in nature?" We also partake of God's marvelous grace. Does that also mean "we become God in grace?" How about we become God in promises? Do we become God in love?

5. Yes, I understand the exact quote is from the early church, Athanasius to be more specific. Now, while I have great respect for Athanasius and many of the church fathers, they are not the Apostles, and they did not write the scripture. I do appreciate the creeds, and while they are all helpful, they are not scripture either.

6. When I refer to orthodox evangelical scholars I am not referring to scholars from the E.O. churches.

Conclusion: Both WN and WL repeatedly claimed to be those uniquely "returning to the pure Word of God." They boasted that even if the whole world believed something, if it were not in the Bible, they would never believe it. WN's quote here is even plastered on the LSM "Shin Gee" building in downtown Taipei.

Now why the change? Both early Lee and Nee both rejected deification. If the Lord wanted something this crucial to be believed by the church, he surely would have spelled it out for us.

Don't you think it's really amazing that the two primary teachings for which LSM condemns all of Christianity -- the ground of oneness and man becoming God -- are not even spelled out in the Bible?

So we have mormons and Orthodox who promote this teaching. Do you believe Orthodox are aberrant cults too?