[OBW]

I decided to put this here rather than in the thread I started it in. It would be off-topic and probably not get enough interest to be its own thread. So this seems like the best place for it.

First, while I will use uncredited quotes from recent posts, I do not provide the credit because I do not consider anything to be peculiarly wrong with what they have said — maybe other than we may not be saying what we think we are saying (with due deference to Inigo Montoya’s “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”) I am not suggesting that I know what it means. But for various reasons, I have begun to think it is not what I have long thought.

Here goes:

When talking about the “pure Word of the Bible” comes this line:

What is even more puzzling is WL's admitting as divinely revelatory those portions quoted in the NT, yet even denuding the surrounding text of Christ!

This is an excellent point. But there is something not directly in this that I have been wondering about.

We have had a poster here in the past that was so big on the gospels only. Ignoring his other issues, I admire that he espoused the idea that the core of the NT is in the gospels, not in the epistles. But Lee (and I think also Nee) bases virtually all of his theology on the epistles, and most importantly, on those of Paul. In addition to the aforementioned poster, there is a significant groundswell in certain sectors of Christianity to downplay Paul. I’ve seen articles in which they are sort of allowing Paul back in by “rehabilitating” his writings.

But the problem is not Paul. It is us. Just like the problem is not the Psalms or James, it is us (or more specifically, Lee). It is not just a Lee problem. It is heavily an evangelical and fundamental problem. Most of our core teaching starts with Paul rather than with Jesus in the gospels. That would be OK if we truly understood Paul. But when we declare that our new life in Christ is by grace and not works, we prove our misunderstanding of that passage. It did not dismiss works other than with respect to what it is that provides salvation.

And when we read that I am free from the law of sin and death and declare that the law is abolished, we clearly have not read Christ. He said it remained. He said it was harder than we originally thought. (Funny, we think the Jewish leaders were simply stupid adding on so many more nuances to the actual laws. But Jesus took it even further!) If we started with Jesus — with the gospels — and allowed the following material to provide further understanding, we would never use the words of Paul to dismiss the words of Christ.

But Lee seemed to do it a lot. Jesus says "you think that not committing actual adultery is enough. I say that if you think about it you did it!" Lee says that it technically does not matter because the law is abolished. He thinks that is what Paul said.

And sometimes we do it too. We allow the epistles (ignoring James for some) to not only “denude the surrounding text of Christ,” but to denude Christ’s text. To refuse his own words.

The second thing that is bothering me was:

. . . and still find the "pure Word of the Bible," which Christ Himself.

Simply as words, this is as real as it gets. The Word of God is God. But John more specifically put it as “the word became flesh.”

So the first response should be “what could be wrong with that?”

On the surface, I agree. But what do we mean when we say that? What did John mean when he wrote that? (Or more correctly, what did God mean when he inspired John to write.) I don’t think I know for sure. But we have been operating on the premise that it is one particular thing to the exclusion of other possibilities. And we probably have never considered that there is even one other possibility.

The Word is the spoken/written expression of who God is. Since he does not lie, it is an accurate description. But as written, every word is not necessarily descriptive of God in itself. “In the beginning, the earth was waste and void” (or whatever translation you want to use) does not describe God. But the narrative in Genesis 1 tells us a lot about God. But when I juxtapose a statement like “the pure Word of the Bible which is Christ himself” up against Genesis 1:1, I am left with a resounding “Huh?”

There is something about this statement (and there are similar statements outside of the LRC, so this is not personal to us) that seems to be making more out of words than what they are. The description of the death of Judas is not Christ. But in the context of the story of his life on earth, his betrayal, death and resurrection, we learn something about mankind in the description of the destruction of someone who rejected Christ. So, as a whole, we learn much about Christ. But in isolation, it is not “simply Christ” (to borrow from our favorite debunked MOTA).

The very things recorded are at God’s behest. The specific words used to say it may or may not have been key. (It is a case-by-case issue and I am not the one to ask. I think this is one of the reasons that which translation, or translation method, is often not as important as some often think. I even wonder if reading something as different from the norm as The Message might be enlightening because it removes the presumptions from what is said, how it is said, and what we already think it means. The alternate rendering could open our eyes to reconsidering meaning — which will still need to be checked against the literal words/phrases. Sometimes we just need to get our default answer set aside to be able to see something new.)

The point is not that the Word is not God. Or the Word is not Christ. It is just that it is not in the way of some kind of magical thing (like that Book of the Dead in “The Mummy” that you had to be careful how you spoke it out loud). So somewhere between “every word is specially ordained by God” and “that part is the natural concept of man” is the truth.

And the truth is that the story of God — the revelation of God — is the revelation of his person and relationships. Relationship within the godhead. Relationship with man. The parts that tell us who and what God is are often direct. But not always. Sometimes we learn who his is through the story. The details of the story are not God. But the story is. So in one sense, the word is Christ. In another the word is not, itself, Christ, but tells of him.

Just like we don’t consider that a book became flesh. Rather, the thing told of in the story became flesh. The God who spoke to few directly came in body and spoke to everyone. The crossing of the Red Sea did not become flesh. But the God who caused it did.

So what do we mean when we say “the pure Word of the Bible is Christ Himself”? If we mean that the cause of it is Christ, or the force behind its very existence is Christ, I understand. If we say that the words “now the serpent was more crafty than . . .” is Christ, what does that mean? Unless it just means that when put with a lot of other words, we learn something about God and about his relationship with man.

I’m coming to the thought that the words are, in themselves, nothing special. But when we see how God is revealed in its narratives, descriptions, and in the very words that he spoke on various occasions, nothing is meaningless. Nothing is “natural concept of man.” Nothing is worthy of derision.

I guess that what I am saying (in way too many words) is that making bald declarations like “the pure Word of the Bible is just Christ himself” doesn’t solve anything or do anything. It even could be argued to suggest something that I don’t think we mean. But finding God, Christ, the Spirit revealed in so many ways and aspects throughout its collection of words does a lot. The catchphrase too often distracts from the revelation that is really there.

Almost like ignoring grace because Christ is grace. If Christ is grace, then what is grace? If I do not need grace, but only Christ, then why mention it?

If the Pure Word is just Christ, then I don’t need the word. I just need Christ and it all comes to me. If so, then why the word? If so then why do we stray so far when we think we are so spiritual and only caring for Christ?

This may be as much of the problem with where Lee and the LRC have gone as anything else. Replace the truth found in the Word with a catchphrase that allows you to do without it.