Lee's "Economy" and the Fall

[OBW]

In the grouping “Apologetic Discussions” is a thread titled “God's economy vs Deputy authority.” The opening post provides the text of something titled “GOD’S NEW TESTAMENT ECONOMY VS. DEPUTY AUTHORITY,” signed at the bottom by an “A.F.” While it might be that I should know who AF is, it is not coming to me I and don’t see anything about them in the next few posts, so I will ignore the person.

The article sets out to defend “God’s Economy” as being opposed to “Deputy Authority” (so it is clear that this person was either set straight at some point, was run off, or was already out of the LCM).

But in the section titled “The Element of God's New Testament Economy” it says the following:

The primary elements of what Christ died to purchase for us as our New Testament inheritance are listed in Hebrews 8:10-12. They are:

(1) That God would impart His laws directly into the mind and heart of every believer (rather than necessitating them to either read them off a tablet of stone somewhere or hear them from an external spokesman).

(2) That the believers would no longer teach their fellow servants to know the Lord because all shall know Him (no longer necessitating a spiritual mentor because He now indwells us all).

(3) That God would be our God and we would be His people.

(4) The forgiveness of sins.

While I generally agree with the basic points, do you agree with the parenthetical assumptions as to what these mean?

Given what we know about humans who have become Christians, do you conclude that we really don’t need to be told what is right? Is it really so ingrained in us that we know righteousness without any external yardstick? I might buy it at some level. But I see too much that Christians just accept and even argue as proper — even declaring their God-ordained right or calling to be the way they are in [matter x, y, and/or z]. (I don’t want to discuss the contents of right and wrong, but the way we come to know it.

And similarly, do you think that we don’t need mentors? That we are simply led by what is within us?

I would submit that the place that these positions would tend to go is exactly where the original sin — the fall — went. Man decided he did not need to consult with God on matters of right and wrong. On good and evil. We took that over for ourselves.

Does claiming that because I have Christ in me mean that my positions on issues of morality, spirituality, etc., are from God? Or does claiming that I do not need to even consider the lists provided in tablets of stone, in the writings of the Pentateuch or the words of Jesus, or listen to anyone else teach us in these things really mean that I am continuing to declare my independence in matters of good, morality, righteousness, spirituality?

If it is the truth, and it is righteous, then why would someone declare that there is no need to compare your righteousness to what is commanded in the Bible? Do we presume that our shortcoming relative to what is clearly God’s righteousness is simply OK because we (erroneously, in my opinion) think that Hebrews has negated those sources?


I started looking at this thinking I was going to comment on the whole mystique of Lee’s version of “God’s Economy” or “God’s New Testament Ministry.” Seems that anything that Lee liked he declared to be important in God’s New Testament Economy. Everything that he didn’t like, he redefined (retranslated, declared it couldn’t mean that, etc.) because of “God’s New Testament Economy.”

But if we ignore the rhetoric of the term, the real question is whether its “primary elements” really mean what we were taught to think it meant.

And I am beginning to think that the version that is pointed to in this article was proof that the whole concept was grounded in furtherance of the fall rather than any true return to God and repair of the fall. I mean, if “God’s Economy” is the reason that a passage of scripture does not mean what it clearly says but instead means something else, hasn’t that pretty much continued the whole “I am the arbiter of right and wrong; good and bad”?