The ground on which the church should be built

[ZNPaaneah]

Everyone familiar with the LRC should be familiar with WN's seminal teaching on the "Ground of the Church". As has been pointed out something as important as this teaching should have had a clear NT teaching. Based on WN's thesis it didn't (he basically combines one verse where Paul refers to appointing elders in every church with another that says to appoint elders in every city, from these two verses he infers that "the ground of the church" is the boundary line of the city. A huge leap with no NT teachings to support this.)

However, the premise is based on the OT where the ground on which the Temple is built is critical. The piece of land has a very rich history and one in which it is very difficult if not impossible to ignore the spiritual significance. Likewise there are very many plain commands from God that they are not to build the Temple on any other land. This therefore provides two valid reasons why a Bible expositor would look for "the ground of the church" in the NT.

1. The church is the Temple of God. It is very clear in the NT that the OT temple is a type and shadow of the church.

2. The concept that you have to own the land before you can use it, build on it, bury your dead, etc. is a very strong concept in the OT law. Beginning with Abraham to the present. It is a very clear matter of righteousness. And it is closely associated with the Lord's redemption.

Therefore, although I agree that WN's teaching is seriously flawed and that the lack of a clear NT teaching to support it is it's most glaring flaw, at the same time I think we should not dismiss the concept of a "ground of the church". In brief I believe there is a very clear NT teaching as to the ground of the church, only that it is not what WN said it was.

I believe that Ephesians 4:3-6 gives us 7 ones and these are the things that all NT believers should be able to stand on. These are the things that make us one. This is the ground on which the church should be built. From this verse Paul moves to 4:12 which makes it very clear that the context of this chapter is the building up of the body of Christ.

In the LRC it is laughable the way 10 saints will go into a rented room, hold a Lord's Table meeting and declare themselves to have "taken the ground". If you look at the OT type it is very clear that the ground for the Temple was purchased by King David who had prepared everything for King Solomon to build the temple. This is a type of Jesus in His earthly ministry (typified by king David and supported by the NT where Jesus said He was the greater David) and His heavenly ministry (typified by King Solomon and supported by the NT where Jesus said He was the greater Solomon). Therefore it is not possible for 10 saints to "take the ground". The ground was purchased by Jesus.

[ZNPaaneah]

It occurred to me that the two verses that WN refers to could have a different and more plausible explanation. It could be that his coworkers had been given their own territory. So each worker was given a region with some cities to work in. Their work was not merely to preach the gospel but to raise up and establish churches. Hence, appoint elders in every city and appoint elders in every church could be referring to the territory assigned to the coworker, not to the ground of the church. (Within their territory they were to establish churches by appointing elders, and they had been instructed to raise up churches in every city).

[ZNPaaneah]

So then, in brief

1. Yes, I think it is a valid and Biblically sound exercise to look for the "ground of the church"
2. Yes, I agree that such a critical concept must have a clear word in the NT.
3. I think the verses provided by WN are not a clear word.
4. I think the OT type does not support and even rejects the application of WN's teaching. You cannot go into a city and "take the ground". According to the type and shadow the ground was purchased by Jesus in His earthly ministry.
5. Instead I think Ephesians chapter 4 presents 7 things that are one and that all believers should stand on when they meet together. There are many things we may not agree on, but as long as we agree on these 7 we should accept one another and fellowship with one another.

Therefore as to WN and WL's ministries I find it very disturbing that they would embrace such a flimsy teaching that should have been rejected and make it the cornerstone of their work. To me this suggests one of two possible conclusions.

1. They were very poor Bible expositors. I can understand a young WN suggesting this theory, but it should have been rejected within a couple of years. But for WL to embrace it and carry this torch for so many years tells me he had to be a very poor Bible expositor or

2. There was a very poor motive. If they knew this to be a false teaching then the fact that they continued to push it suggests they were false prophets motivated by covetousness in creating another sect.

James
5:1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
5:2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
5:3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

Therefore as to WN and WL's ministries I find it very disturbing that they would embrace such a flimsy teaching that should have been rejected and make it the cornerstone of their work.

I think it started with a genuine desire to discover how to "do church."

Sadly, that soon morphed into a belief that there must be a way to distinguish "true churches" from "false churches." (Of course the idea that the means of determination was quite simple made that belief even more attractive, aka deceptive.)

That in turn led to the belief that on-the-ground churches were true and not-on-the-ground churches were false.

That in turn led to a convenient way to keep members in the fold, by telling them "the only way to meet was 'on the ground,' and, oh by the way, we are the only ones doing that right."

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Igzy

I think it started with a genuine desire to discover how to "do church."

I wonder how much of it was a reaction by young Chinese idealism against perceived British colonialism manifested through denominational mission boards. Didn't Margaret Barber, Nee's earliest mentor, have a falling out with her own missionary board in London? In his ecclesiastical books, Nee addressed denominations and their failures head on. Lee, however, went way past this, and literally condemned all things Christian, except, of course, his own member churches.

Nee took the so-called "pattern" found in Revelations 2-3, John's 7 epistles, and then shoe-horned the rest of the New Testament into it. There's nothing wrong, for example, to say that your group is a "church in New York City," using the model of the church in Ephesus, but to use Acts 14.23 and Titus 1.5 to definitively declare that the entire "true" church in that city must be under one set of elders appointed by the self-appointed apostle is akin to those Appalachian snake handling churches trying to "recover" their long-lost "true" church based on Luke 10.19 and Acts 28.5.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I wonder how much of it was a reaction by young Chinese idealism against perceived British colonialism manifested through denominational mission boards. Didn't Margaret Barber, Nee's earliest mentor, have a falling out with her own missionary board in London? In his ecclesiastical books, Nee addressed denominations and their failures head on. Lee, however, went way past this, and literally condemned all things Christian, except, of course, his own member churches.

Nee took the so-called "pattern" found in Revelations 2-3, John's 7 epistles, and then shoe-horned the rest of the New Testament into it. There's nothing wrong, for example, to say that your group is a "church in New York City," using the model of the church in Ephesus, but to use Acts 14.23 and Titus 1.5 to definitively declare that the entire "true" church in that city must be under one set of elders appointed by the self-appointed apostle is akin to those Appalachian snake handling churches trying to "recover" their long-lost "true" church based on Luke 10.19 and Acts 28.5.

Yes, I think those verses may indicate that at the time of Paul and John the apostles worked in this way. They each had their own territory to work in (Paul talked about not wanting to work in a territory someone else was working in) and within that territory they raised up churches in every city.

However, as it has been noted there is no word at all in the NT about how large a gathering should get before it is too unwieldy, how many elders you need, how many meeting halls, etc. I think everyone agrees that division is wrong and that there should be a degree of oneness among all believers, but that degree is very clearly spoken of in the NT. If WN and WL had stuck to what the NT clearly does say about this oneness there would have been no issue, but to infer that oneness necessitates one eldership is a very big leap. To then say that the way to determine this oneness is with a magic formula "The church in ...." is to clearly veer off course. To then judge all other Christians as being in "Babylon" because they participate in the Lord's Table in a meeting that is not named "The church in ..." is evil, it is sin.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Igzy

I think it started with a genuine desire to discover how to "do church."

I also am inclined to believe that. The problem is this. WN's theory is based heavily on the church being the reality of the Temple. In the OT God spoke a clear word repeatedly that the temple could only be built on the ground He chose. They were forbidden from putting it just anywhere. Teaching this shadow (the temple is a shadow of the church) was done repeatedly by both WN and WL. For example the term "the recovery" is based on the OT recovery of the Temple when they returned from Babylon. The church grows into / becomes the NJ, etc. How many times did WN and WL give messages on "taking the ground" or participate in a "taking the ground" ceremony? Must have been very many times. Surely they looked for an inspiring OT analog to the "taking the ground" experience. To me this is where the teaching runs off the rails. To equate this one spot with the dimensions of the city is absurd. You cannot equate any of the spiritual significance of that spot with the arbitrary boundaries of a city, which frequently change with time. If WN and WL didn't realize that the spot God designated for His worship to take place was not equivalent to the boundaries of a city then they were either very poor Bible expositors or they were willfully blind.

Originally Posted by Igzy

Sadly, that soon morphed into a belief that there must be a way to distinguish "true churches" from "false churches." (Of course the idea that the means of determination was quite simple made that belief even more attractive, aka deceptive.)

That in turn led to the belief that on-the-ground churches were true and not-on-the-ground churches were false.

That in turn led to a convenient way to keep members in the fold, by telling them "the only way to meet was 'on the ground,' and, oh by the way, we are the only ones doing that right."

These are all indications that the teaching is false, and that they were forcing a square peg into a round hole. Once again, these teachings should have alerted them to the fact that this teaching was erroneous, or it is evidence that they were willfully teaching falsehood.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

So then, in brief

1. Yes, I think it is a valid and Biblically sound exercise to look for the "ground of the church"
2. Yes, I agree that such a critical concept must have a clear word in the NT.

I think that these two statements need more than "think" and "agree" to make them worthy of consideration to think about whether we should consider a "ground."

Why is there a valid "biblical" reason to do this?
How does the purchase of the land that the Temple was built on create a need for a ground now?
Where is "ground" mentioned in the NT?
Is it ever mentioned in conjunction with the church?
If it is essentially missing from the NT, how does it rise to a "critical concept" that needs a "clear word"?
Why do we need a clear word when scripture provides none?

I honestly believe that we have to get over this hurdle before we wander into the realm of trying to answer the question of "what is the ground of the church." If there is no evidence that there is a ground or that it is important, then how can it be a critical concept in need of a clear word?

[OBW]

Ephesians 4:3-6 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Some important "ones" starting in verse 4. But I note that the predecessor verse speaks of us making effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. It would appear that the "ones" are provided as evidence that the thing that brings us together is One. So we should make efforts to be unified in a bond of peace.

Funny thing that it doesn't say "through the unity of doctrine," or "through the unity of form." And we know that the Jewish churches were different than the Gentile churches. And the mixed churches were even more interestingly different.

But they were all churches. And there is a record of some giving to the aid of others who were of different race and nationality. So the unifying factor is the Spirit. And we exercise our unity through the bond of peace. And, lest we forget, we are reminded that there are not two Christs. There are not two faiths. We don't get different baptisms (even if we may handle the water differently). There is only one God and he is the Father.

(And that last one is quite interesting since it seems that despite the verses that make it abundantly clear that Jesus is God, and the Spirit is God, when scripture says "God," it seems to be mostly speaking of the Father. I'm not suggesting anything one way or the other about it. Just noting that no one really seems to have it all down so well that we can declare a doctrine of the Trinity with great certainty.)

And yet, as ZNP has aptly pointed out, somehow Nee and Lee were certain that there is a ground of the church despite no such words in scripture upon which to start the question as to whether they might or might not be correct.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

I believe that Ephesians 4:3-6 gives us 7 ones and these are the things that all NT believers should be able to stand on. These are the things that make us one. This is the ground on which the church should be built. From this verse Paul moves to 4:12 which makes it very clear that the context of this chapter is the building up of the body of Christ.

Our Lord's own words in John 4.21 show us that this "ground" of the church, the place where the apostles have laid the foundation Christ, cannot be a place we can visit in our car. To those who think they can drive to the "proper" place to worship, the Lord would say to them, "You worship that which you do not know." (John 4.22) If there is such a proper ground of meeting and worship, then it must be as the Lord has instructed us "in Spirit and reality." (John 4.2-24)

It's also interesting to note that WL and the Blendeds loved to speak of the "oneness of the body," as if there was some scripture that spoke of this. Please note there is none! It may sound spiritual, but it is not scriptural. The Bible only speaks of "being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit." Someone needs to share this with the Blendeds.

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Ohio

It's also interesting to note that WL and the Blendeds loved to speak of the "oneness of the body," as if there was some scripture that spoke of this. Please note there is none! It may sound spiritual, but it is not scriptural. The Bible only speaks of "being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit." Someone needs to share this with the Blendeds.

Many Christians have been telling this to Witness Lee and his followers for almost 50 years. Lee never listened and now his "continuation - brothers we" don't listen either. Big surprise, right?

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Many Christians have been telling this to Witness Lee and his followers for almost 50 years. Lee never listened and now his "continuation - brothers we" don't listen either. Big surprise, right?

I never heard this until after Lee died.

TC would never refute things WL said, but after he passed away, TC started refuting a number of topics,just because the Blendeds were saying them.

[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I never heard this until after Lee died.

TC would never refute things WL said, but after he passed away, TC started refuting a number of topics,just because the Blendeds were saying them.

You never heard WHAT until after Lee died?

I think I kind of sort of understand the second part. But what particular topic are you referring to?

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Ohio

It's also interesting to note that WL and the Blendeds loved to speak of the "oneness of the body," as if there was some scripture that spoke of this. Please note there is none! It may sound spiritual, but it is not scriptural. The Bible only speaks of "being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit." Someone needs to share this with the Blendeds.

Originally Posted by UntoHim

You never heard WHAT until after Lee died?

I think I kind of sort of understand the second part. But what particular topic are you referring to?

Like I said in that previous post quoted above, that the phrase "the oneness of the body," which the Blendeds constantly herald in their sermons as some all-encompassing guiding principle, is not in the Bible.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Our Lord's own words in John 4.21 show us that this "ground" of the church, the place where the apostles have laid the foundation Christ, cannot be a place we can visit in our car. To those who think they can drive to the "proper" place to worship, the Lord would say to them, "You worship that which you do not know." (John 4.22) If there is such a proper ground of meeting and worship, then it must be as the Lord has instructed us "in Spirit and reality." (John 4.2-24)

It's also interesting to note that WL and the Blendeds loved to speak of the "oneness of the body," as if there was some scripture that spoke of this. Please note there is none! It may sound spiritual, but it is not scriptural. The Bible only speaks of "being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit." Someone needs to share this with the Blendeds.

WL shared in John chapter 12, Section 2

"In typology, the worship of God should be (1) in the place chosen by God to set His habitation there (Deut. 12:5, 11, 13-14, 18), and (2) with the offerings (Lev. 1—6). The place chosen by God for His habitation typifies the human spirit, where God’s habitation is today—Ephesians 2:22, “an habitation of God through the spirit” (KJV), should read “a dwelling place of God in spirit.” The offerings typify Christ; Christ is the fulfillment and reality of all the offerings with which the people worshipped God. Hence, when the Lord instructed her to worship God the Spirit in spirit and reality, it meant she should contact God the Spirit in her spirit instead of in a specific place, and through Christ, instead of with the offerings, for now, since Christ the reality has come (vv. 25-26), all the shadows and types are over. The Lord Jesus told the Samaritan woman that God is Spirit, that worshipping God means to contact Him, and that contacting Him is not a matter of place, but a matter of the human spirit.


If you compare what WL shared on these verses with WN's teaching you will see that the verses in the OT regarding the "Place" which were used to surmise that there is a "ground of the Church" are not referring to a place. This to me is the hypocrisy. Yes, the Temple is a shadow of the church. Yes, in the OT shadow the place where the Temple was built was very important. However, the NT makes it clear that the place is the human spirit indwelt by the Spirit. You can't have it both ways. You can't teach that Jesus was exposing religion in this chapter and pointing out that the shadow was done away with now that we had the reality of our spirit. And then on the other hand use this shadow as a basis for the "ground of the church" teaching. WL condemns this teaching with his exposition of John 4.

On the one hand there is no clear teaching in the NT to support such a divisive and critical teaching of the "ground of the church". On the other hand there is a clear word from Jesus condemning this teaching and lumping it together with all religions.

[Cassidy]

"The narrow way is not the ground of oneness, it is the way that leads to life. Our ground is not oneness with the body, it is Christ. Listen to what Paul teaches us in Ephesians 4.1-6"

Ohio,

okay, I did.

Verse 4 says "One Body.."

Verse 5 says "One Lord..."

There are seven ones there in Ephesians 4:1-6 (Body, Spirit, Hope, Lord, Faith, Baptism, God & Father) and all contribute equally to the ground we stand on as believers.

On what scriptural basis do you eliminate the oneness of the first item listed (the Body) in your statement above?

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

"The narrow way is not the ground of oneness, it is the way that leads to life. Our ground is not oneness with the body, it is Christ. Listen to what Paul teaches us in Ephesians 4.1-6"

Ohio,

okay, I did.

Verse 4 says "One Body.."

Verse 5 says "One Lord..."

There are seven ones there in Ephesians 4:1-6 (Body, Spirit, Hope, Lord, Faith, Baptism, God & Father) and all contribute equally to the ground we stand on as believers.

On what scriptural basis do you eliminate the oneness of the first item listed (the Body) in your statement above?

Ohio did not deny there was one Body. He denied that "oneness with the Body" was a proper directive. This was my earlier point as well. Oneness with the Body implies you need to always conform to the group at any cost. It also suggests that conforming to the group is the same as conforming to the Lord. It isn't. But this is how the LRC interpreted it.

Accepting there is only one Body is actually liberating, because it establishes that the directives of any subset of the Body (e.g. the LRC) cannot be absolutely binding, because they cannot claim to be the whole Body that presumably (on their part) you need to be one with.

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Ohio did not deny there was one Body. He denied that "oneness with the Body" was a proper directive. This was my earlier point as well. Oneness with the Body implies you need to always conform to the group at any cost. It also suggests that conforming to the group is the same as conforming to the Lord. It isn't. But this is how the LRC interpreted it.

Accepting there is only one Body is actually liberating, because it establishes that the directives of any subset of the Body (e.g. the LRC) cannot be absolutely binding, because they cannot claim to be the whole Body that presumably (on their part) you need to be one with.

There is no NT teaching that would suggest that "being one with the Body" trumps heeding your conscience or the Lord's speaking to you or the Lord's word.

On the contrary you cannot "be one with the Body" if you are not "abiding in Christ". If the Blendeds or anyone else taught such a thing it is akin to usurping the headship of Christ. It seems the judgment day just gets better and better.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

"The narrow way is not the ground of oneness, it is the way that leads to life. Our ground is not oneness with the body, it is Christ. Listen to what Paul teaches us in Ephesians 4.1-6"

Ohio,

okay, I did.

Verse 4 says "One Body.."

Verse 5 says "One Lord..."

There are seven ones there in Ephesians 4:1-6 (Body, Spirit, Hope, Lord, Faith, Baptism, God & Father) and all contribute equally to the ground we stand on as believers.

On what scriptural basis do you eliminate the oneness of the first item listed (the Body) in your statement above?

Look at Paul's admonition carefully ...

The one body, "with all lowliness and meekness, bearing one another in love, is diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit." (Eph 4.3)

It may seem like a technical point, but the one body does not equal the oneness of the body, and that's why the Bible never uses this expression. The source of our oneness is not in the body, it is only in the Lord Spirit. That's why we must keep the oneness of the Spirit. God alone defines the rules for this oneness, and administrates its reality.

If this oneness were "of the body," then the leaders of the body could define the parameters of this oneness, and this, unfortunately, has been done many times in church history. That is why I have repeatedly said that distorted oneness is perhaps the most destructive heresy of all. Rome today still administrates her version of the "oneness of the body." LSM has their version of the "oneness of the body," and they make up all the rules governing this "oneness."

[ZNPaaneah]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Look at Paul's admonition carefully ...

The one body, "with all lowliness and meekness, bearing one another in love, is diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit." (Eph 4.3)

It may seem like a technical point, but the one body does not equal the oneness of the body, and that's why the Bible never uses this expression. The source of our oneness is not in the body, it is only in the Lord Spirit. That's why we must keep the oneness of the Spirit. God alone defines the rules for this oneness, and administrates its reality.

If this oneness were "of the body," then the leaders of the body could define the parameters of this oneness, and this, unfortunately, has been done many times in church history. That is why I have repeatedly said that distorted oneness is perhaps the most destructive heresy of all. Rome today still administrates her version of the "oneness of the body." LSM has their version of the "oneness of the body," and they make up all the rules governing this "oneness."

You cannot use "oneness of the Body" in the same way you say "houses of brick". Our oneness is not constructed with the Body. Hence the NT says "Keeping the oneness of the Spirit". The oneness is constructed with the Spirit.

However, the expression "One Body" does allow the expression "oneness of the Body" in the sense of "the plays of Shakespeare". The Body, composed of many members, has an expression that is "one". So then the Body may act in a way that demonstrates miraculous coordination pointing to Jesus as head of the Body. For example Ananias goes in to lay hands on Saul so he can receive his sight, even though Saul has come to the town to find Christians to haul off to prison.

So then WL and the Blendeds use a phrase that is fair and reasonable and create a meaning that is rejected and false. It is as though they have disguised a false teaching in robes of light. Quite artful.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

So then WL and the Blendeds use a phrase that is fair and reasonable and create a meaning that is rejected and false. It is as though they have disguised a false teaching in robes of light. Quite artful.

This becomes more than obvious when they infer that they alone can know the "taste of the body, the feeling of the body, and the sense of the body."

Let me be painfully honest here. This whole line of teaching was developed in the Recovery due to rivalry and selfish ambition for power and glory.

Let me give an example. I heard this testimony back in the late 70's when WL sent out Max to shake up the TC-led Midwest. One of the SoCal young people who was part of Max's entourage to bring us "brother Lee's burden," gave this testimony. "I was traveling across the country enjoying the Lord, until I came to Ohio, and then something started to stink." This was offered as added proof in the meeting that we were not "in the flow," and had somehow deviated from WL's leading because of TC.

At the time I heard this I was in awe that such a person had such a keen nose, and wondered what in the world we were doing that was so wrong. Besides the obvious hilarity of this testimony, we now must consider what was happening behind the scenes in SoCal to cause this novice to travel across the country and make such an outrageous claim. Were all their young people infected with these ugly seeds of suspicion? They obviously came to the midwest to sow these same seeds of discord into all the young people here. And it worked! We had some horribly chaotic and antagonistic meetings as a result. The Bible says, "mark them which make divisions."

What was the source of evil there? Was it simply misunderstandings? You know, "everyone is entitled to mistakes." Absolutely not! The root of the problem was rivalry and selfish ambitions between the workers in the Recovery. That was the source of the teachings which developed into these extraordinary manipulations we now know as "the feeling of the body, the sense of the body, and the taste of the body," which were all built upon their misunderstanding of the "oneness of the body."

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by Ohio

This becomes more than obvious when they infer that they alone can know the "taste of the body, the feeling of the body, and the sense of the body."

Let me be painfully honest here. This whole line of teaching was developed in the Recovery due to rivalry and selfish ambition for power and glory.

Let me give an example. I heard this testimony back in the late 70's when WL sent out Max to shake up the TC-led Midwest. One of the SoCal young people who was part of Max's entourage to bring us "brother Lee's burden," gave this testimony. "I was traveling across the country enjoying the Lord, until I came to Ohio, and then something started to stink." This was offered as added proof in the meeting that we were not "in the flow," and had somehow deviated from WL's leading because of TC.

At the time I heard this I was in awe that such a person had such a keen nose, and wondered what in the world we were doing that was so wrong. Besides the obvious hilarity of this testimony, we now must consider what was happening behind the scenes in SoCal to cause this novice to travel across the country and make such an outrageous claim. Were all their young people infected with these ugly seeds of suspicion? They obviously came to the midwest to sow these same seeds of discord into all the young people here. And it worked! We had some horribly chaotic and antagonistic meetings as a result. The Bible says, "mark them which make divisions."

What was the source of evil there? Was it simply misunderstandings? You know, "everyone is entitled to mistakes." Absolutely not! The root of the problem was rivalry and selfish ambitions between the workers in the Recovery. That was the source of the teachings which developed into these extraordinary manipulations we now know as "the feeling of the body, the sense of the body, and the taste of the body," which were all built upon their misunderstanding of the "oneness of the body."

Ohio,

Your objections now are quite similar to those of WL and the co-workers back then.

Shortly thereafter, Max was escorted out for such behavior.

Wasn't that an appropriate thing to do at the time?

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Look at Paul's admonition carefully ...

The one body, "with all lowliness and meekness, bearing one another in love, is diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit." (Eph 4.3)

It may seem like a technical point, but the one body does not equal the oneness of the body, and that's why the Bible never uses this expression. The source of our oneness is not in the body, it is only in the Lord Spirit. That's why we must keep the oneness of the Spirit. God alone defines the rules for this oneness, and administrates its reality.

If this oneness were "of the body," then the leaders of the body could define the parameters of this oneness, and this, unfortunately, has been done many times in church history. That is why I have repeatedly said that distorted oneness is perhaps the most destructive heresy of all. Rome today still administrates her version of the "oneness of the body." LSM has their version of the "oneness of the body," and they make up all the rules governing this "oneness."

Ohio,

Strictly speaking in the Bible there is not the phrase "the oneness of the Body". Nevertheless, that does not mean the thought is absent and a more detailed review of these verses will reveal that it is.

V3 is a charge to the believer to keep the "oneness of the Spirit" in the uniting bond of peace.

That is further defined by the "ones" that follow in verses 4-6 the first mentioned is the One Body.

Or rather think of the ones in v4-6 as the ingredients of V3. to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace means to keep the One Body as the first item if you prefer to say it that way. Saying it that way does not feel as grammatically fluid but it is the same thought.

All the ones make up a further definition of V3 and the One Body is the first item.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

Or rather think of the ones in v4-6 as the ingredients of V3. to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace means to keep the One Body as the first item if you prefer to say it that way. Saying it that way does not feel as grammatically fluid but it is the same thought.

Again, it's a matter of subtle suggestion. Once you start talking about the oneness of the Body, rather than the Spirit, the next step is group-think, which is not what oneness is.

Anyway, certainly "keeping the One Body" should not mean setting up shop and declaring that everyone needs to be one with you, as Lee and the LRC did. But of course one reason they made that mistake is they fell in for phrasing like "keeping the oneness of the Body." Which is exactly my point.