Life Study of Revelation Misses Mark RE: "First Love"

[JJ]

Witness Lee's Life Study of Revelation misses the mark on what "the first love" of the church in Ephesus was that they had forsaken. For reference here is a link to the verses that include the message sent to the church in Ephesus from the Lord.

https://biblehub.com/bsb/revelation/2.htm

If you read Witness Lee's Life Study on this section of scripture he says the love the Ephesians had forsaken is “love toward the Lord”.

While that seems to make sense, it is actually incomplete. Why do I say this? Because we have a record (in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians) that documents what their first love was. So, I checked every use of the word "love" in Ephesians (see links and verses below) to see whether their first love was their love for the Lord.

https://biblehub.com/ephesians/1-6.htm

https://biblehub.com/ephesians/1-15.htm


https://biblehub.com/ephesians/2-4.htm

3:17b-19 (Berean Study Bible)

"Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of His love, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.


https://biblehub.com/ephesians/4-2.htm


https://biblehub.com/ephesians/4-15.htm

https://biblehub.com/ephesians/4-16.htm

5:1-2 Be imitators of God, therefore, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.

6:23-24

Peace to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.



So, Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians uses love as being toward the Lord, and also “toward all the saints", says they were rooted and grounded in love so that they would together apprehend the height, depth, and breadth and know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ, and exhorted them to walk in love.

Husbands are also exhorted to love their wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

It seems then that the Ephesians’ first love is more than just “love for the Lord”. It also includes walking in it, realizing its vast dimensions together with the saints, knowing it, loving all the saints, bearing with one another in love, speaking truth in love to one another, and even loving spouses as Christ.

[aron]

Originally Posted by JJ

It seems then that the Ephesians’ first love is more than just “love for the Lord”. It also includes walking in it, realizing its vast dimensions together with the saints, knowing it, loving all the saints, bearing with one another in love, speaking truth in love to one another, and even loving spouses as Christ.

Great observation. The greatest commandment is to love the Father God with all our heart and soul and strength, and the second is like the first, to love your neighbour as yourself.

Those both are arguably the "first love". In the LC we got "we just love Jesus"... I saw teen-age girls burst into tears because they loved the Lord. Sounds good, right? But "we just love Jesus" became "Christ and the Church". So we love the Church, now. Right away you can see where this is going. The so-called minister has gotten the Church to look away from her (supposed) first love and to look at herself. Now "The Church loves the Church" and is dependent upon the so-called minister to reveal the Church (herself!!) to her. She becomes a vain harlot staring in the mirror. "I sit a Queen and lack nothing". No love.

But Jesus showed the way to love God: love your neighbor. "When I was sick you visited me" … "Lord, when did we visit you?"... "When you visited these the least of my brothers"... in other words, the neighbor that Jesus put you next to! If you really love Jesus you will love your neighbor!!

Instead we got "love the Church" which meant "closely following the ministry" and despising our neighbor who couldn't be "one with the brothers" etc.

JJ,

I think you are spot-on with your observation. Thanks for pointing it out.

[JJ]

Originally Posted by aron

Great observation. The greatest commandment is to love the Father God with all our heart and soul and strength, and the second is like the first, to love your neighbour as yourself.

Those both are arguably the "first love". In the LC we got "we just love Jesus"... I saw teen-age girls burst into tears because they loved the Lord. Sounds good, right? But "we just love Jesus" became "Christ and the Church". So we love the Church, now. Right away you can see where this is going. The so-called minister has gotten the Church to look away from her (supposed) first love and to look at herself. Now "The Church loves the Church" and is dependent upon the so-called minister to reveal the Church (herself!!) to her. She becomes a vain harlot staring in the mirror. "I sit a Queen and lack nothing". No love.

But Jesus showed the way to love God: love your neighbor. "When I was sick you visited me" … "Lord, when did we visit you?"... "When you visited these the least of my brothers"... in other words, the neighbor that Jesus put you next to! If you really love Jesus you will love your neighbor!!

Instead we got "love the Church" which meant "closely following the ministry" and despising our neighbor who couldn't be "one with the brothers" etc.

JJ,

I think you are spot-on with your observation. Thanks for pointing it out.

Gaylord Enns book “Love Revolution” is what caused me to review what the Ephesians first love was and recognize I learned incorrectly from Lee.

When our first love includes both loving the Lord and love for all the saints there is a correlation to Jesus’ own commandment “Love one another”.

[OBW]

And don't forget that while there are specific commands concerning love for the saints, there is also the generic "neighbor" that includes everyone else. This is often understood to mean love the saints first and then the rest. And that might be somewhat true. But if you are to love all "neighbors" in the same way that you love yourself, then the difference would seem to be more academic than real.

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

And don't forget that while there are specific commands concerning love for the saints, there is also the generic "neighbor" that includes everyone else. This is often understood to mean love the saints first and then the rest. And that might be somewhat true. But if you are to love all "neighbors" in the same way that you love yourself, then the difference would seem to be more academic than real.

The faith was called the "way", and one of the prime directives of the way was to love others. Jesus repeatedly taught to give to those who would not repay, and the heavenly reward would be great. He told Zechaias that he was near the kingdom of heaven, when Zechaias informed him that he'd given away half his goods to the poor.

Love does not seek it's own things, but the things of others. Who is the other? That selfsame neighbour who can't pay you back. Love is not calculating, it doesn't plan, it doesn't hold back. It gives.

I daresay all of this was expected of the flock in Ephesus. Love is not merely feeling, but action consistently done, even without reciprocity. We love God because God first loved us, but we love others even if they don't love us back. All of this is foundational for the way. Yes, calling on the Lord is included, but it is minuscule compared to love. Pray-reading is included, but it's nothing without love. Singing hymns of praise is involved, but without love it is empty sound.

[aron]

Originally Posted by JJ

When our first love includes both loving the Lord and love for all the saints there is a correlation to Jesus’ own commandment “Love one another”.

I repeat that love is not a feeling but an action of stretching out of one's selfish needs and giving of oneself and one's possessions, done even where there's no reciprocation. This is God's economy which is in faith.

Luke 6:32-36 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Luke 8:3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

Acts 4:32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

Acts 2:44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.

This is God's economy (stewardship/administration/plan) which is in faith (cf 1 Timothy 1:4)

Luke 14:13,14 But when you host a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed. Since they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

This is God's economy which is in faith

Proverbs 22:9 A generous man will be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.

Luke 19:8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."

Matthew 6:3,4 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

This is God's economy which is in faith

Matthew 6:19-21 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

2 Corinthians 8:15 as it is written: "The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little."

This is God's economy which is in faith.

Matthew 6:28-34 And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Galatians 2:10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

This is God's economy which is in faith.

I believe that Paul told Timothy to remain in Ephesus to charge certain ones to teach God's economy. Witness Lee said that this was to exercise one's spirit via pray-reading to take in God as spirit and become transformed into God. But the text doesn't say that, it merely says to charge them to teach God's economy. I believe the supporting text of the NT which I've referenced above suggests something quite different from what Lee taught.

And to go back to "love", the "God's economy" of Lee was self-oriented affair: I take in God, and then I become God in life and nature (but not the Godhead). But love is a reaching out of oneself, to the "other", i.e. one's neighbour, even when that person can't reciprocate in a mutually-beneficial material transaction. This then becomes faith in action, the exercise of which produces a result: "Your reward will be great in heaven".

[JJ]

Good and challenging verses and comments, aron.

I’d add the whole chapter 3 of 1 John has similar thoughts re love.

https://biblehub.com/bsb/1_john/3.htm

The whole point of checking what the Lord Jesus meant with His message to the assembly in Ephesus by “you have forsaken your first love” is so we don’t repeat their mistake. The first part is understanding what “your first love” is, the second part is heading “repent and do the first works” if indeed we too have left our first love for the Lord and all of the saints and don’t act to help our neighbor in distress.

[OBW]

What about the idea that the Lee/LSM/LC view of the Revelation "letters" has an overriding error — that there is no statement defining Philadelphia as "getting it right" and no exhortation to leave the other 6 churches and go join with Philadelphia?

And related questions:

Why was there only 1 out of 7 that rose Lee's understanding of perfection, yet had only a little strength and still needed to overcome?

Was this legitimately indicative of a 6/7ths failure rate?

Or, alternately, is Lee simply missing the point?

[Chris Fleming]

Honestly he lost me in that book when he said that the army from the east will be on horseback because it would be hard to shoot bombs at them.