My Points of Contention With Lee on Mingling

[Russian95]

Hi everyone,

I am a first-time poster to this forum. I am a current member of "the Recovery" and am finding it less and less a place of growth in Christ and instead a place where you conform to the image of Lee's theology instead of experiencing the Word.

In any case, I've done some research on one of Lee's central themes, mingling and have written up some rebuttals to the standard Ministry replies to the "opposers" who don't see mingling as Biblical. I am interested in bringing this up at one of the home meetings or in speaking to a fellow "saint" one-on-one, but wanted to get some feedback if this makes sense.

My main point about mingling in Lee's ministry is that it seems like he is manipulating the English language and concepts to say that both the human and divine natures in Christ are mixed as two parts of a whole to produce Christ at incarnation AND that this does not produce a "third thing" because the two parts are still "complete" in some sense. To me this is wrong at it's face since when you combine two whole things (think blue ink and red ink or one element with another element), you produce a third thing, whether or not the parts are broken up to pieces or not (think purple color, or a new substance called a compound of two elements). So, basically Lee is playing with the word mingle, which means to combine two parts and saying Jesus is NOT part human and part divine (although, confusingly he also says this very thing in a different piece of "Ministry material") because look - both his humanity are completely mixed, we didn't just take a piece from one and a piece from the other. But, this completely twists the idea of what mixing and altering is - you can combine a whole thing with another whole thing and make a third whole thing that's a composite of the former two.

In The Experience and Growth in Life Witness Lee writes:

...in the mingling of the fine flour with oil to become the cake in the meal offering (Lev. 2:4), two elements are mingled to become one substance. They do not produce a substance with a third kind of element. The oil is mingled with the flour. Flour signifies humanity, and oil signifies God. This also speaks of the mingling of God and man. https://bit.ly/30A5Y49

Notice here that lee is saying that two elements produce a third substance, but he claims that's not a third thing, simply because it's not a third element. However, if we recall our basic chemistry, each element is a substance and when you combine two substances to make a third substance, you are making a third thing. So in this way, I believe Lee is trying to conceal what he's doing by claiming that what he's doing is just first element + second element = first substance, when what he's actually doing is first substance (humanity element) + second substance (divine element) = third substance (a mingling of divinity with humanity).

The analogy WL often for uses for mingling is tea mixed with water. Confusingly, he uses blending (mixing thoroughly so there is no distinction between parts) interchangeably with mingling (mixing so the two parts are still distinguishable) even though they have different definitions, so when he says mingle tea with water he most likely means blend them into a homogeneous mixture. In any case, in theological literature you frequently come across statements like the union of humanity with divinity in Christ is definitely NOT like mixing the two natures. Instead it's a mysterious process each nature is preserved unchanged and yet the two still exist simultaneously within the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, Christ. It appears that what Lee is trying to do is take a mysterious process and turn it into something that is relatable to us, but doesn't actually match scripture and that doesn't make conceptual sense.

In Life-Study of 1 & 2 Thessalonians Witness Lee writes:

Once again I would like to take as an illustration the simple matter of making tea. Tea is an element, and “tea-ification” is the process of making tea. Suppose you have a cup of plain water. In order to tea-ify the water, you need to place a tea bag into it. When a tea bag is first put into water, the water may seem to remain the same. It seems to be little more than plain water. But after a period of time and some action of stirring, the water will become tea-ified; that is, tea is added to the water and mingled with it. Hence, we may say that the water is under the process of tea-ification. Eventually, the tea is in the water, and the water is in the tea. This means that the element of tea is mingled with the water. As a result of this tea-ification, the tea and water are blended together to make one beverage. Actually, this kind of drink is tea-water. https://bit.ly/3qYofma

Notice here that in blending the tea and water, there is no distinction between the two (which is the meaning of the word blend – “combine so the separate constituents cannot be distinguished”).

As an example of a theologian explicitly mentioning that Lee's tea-fication of water is unorthodox (although he doesn't specifically have Lee in mind), Matt Perman of King’s College writes:

The truths of Christ’s two natures — his full manhood and full Godhood — are pretty well understood and known by Christians. But for a right understanding of the incarnation we must go even further. We must understand that the two natures of Christ remain distinct and retain their own properties. What does this truth mean? Two things: (1) They do not alter one another’s essential properties and (2) neither do they mix together into a mysterious third kind of nature. First, it would be wrong to think that Christ’s two natures mix together to form a third kind of nature [Eutychianism]. This is one of the heresies that the early church had to fight. This heresy taught that the human nature of Christ was taken up and absorbed into the divine nature, so that both natures were changed somewhat and a third kind of nature resulted. An analogy to [this] can be seen if we put a drop of ink in a glass of water: the mixture resulting is neither pure ink nor pure water, but some kind of third substance, a mixture of the two in which both the ink and the water are changed. Similarly, [this view] taught that Jesus was a mixture of divine and human elements in which both were somewhat modified to form one new nature. This view is unbiblical because it demolishes both Christ’s deity and humanity. For if Christ’s two natures mixed together, then he is no longer truly and fully God and truly and fully man, but is some entirely different kind of being that resulted from a mixture of the two natures. Second, even if we acknowledge that the natures do not mix together into a third kind of nature, it would also be wrong to think that the two natures changed one another. For example, it would be wrong to conclude that Jesus’s human nature became divine in some ways or that his divine nature became human in some ways. Rather, each nature remains distinct and thereby retains its own individual properties and does not change. As the Council of Chalcedon stated it, “. . . the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved . . .” Jesus’s human nature is human, and human only. His divine nature is divine, and divine only. For example, Jesus’s human nature did not become all-knowing through its union with God the Son, and neither did his divine nature become ignorant of anything. If any of the natures underwent a change in its essential nature, then Christ is no longer truly and fully human, or truly and fully divine. What we have seen so far about the deity and humanity of Christ shows us that Christ has two natures — a divine nature and a human nature — that each nature is full and complete, that they remain distinct and do not mix together to form a third kind of nature, and that Christ will be both God and man forever. But if Christ has two natures, does this mean that he is also two people? No, it does not. Christ remains one person. There is only one Christ. The church has historically stated this truth in this way: Christ has two natures united in one person forever. At this point we find another heretical view to beware of. This view, while acknowledging that Jesus is fully God and fully man, denies that he is only one Person. According to this view, there are two separate persons in Christ as well as two natures [Monophysitism]. In contrast to this, the Bible is very clear that, while Jesus has two natures, he is only one Person. In other words, what this means is that there are not two Jesus Christ’s. In spite of the fact that he has a duality of natures, he is not two Christ’s, but one. While remaining distinct, the two natures are united together in such a way so as to be one Person. To put it simply, there is a certain sense in which Christ is two, and a different sense in which Christ is one. He is two in that he has two real, full natures — one divine and one human. He is one in that, while remaining distinct, these two natures exist together in such a way so that they constitute “one thing.” In other words, the two natures are both the same Jesus, and thus are one Person. As the Chalcedonean Creed says, Christ is “to be acknowledged in two natures . . . concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ . . .” https://bit.ly/3CsYnRx

The takeaway here is that Lee's understanding of the "hypostatic union" of the two natures existing in one person Christ is what is specifically denied as heretical. But, the most frequent Ministry rebuttal you see to this criticism is that Christ is not a part man-part God third thing because the two natures were complete upon mixing. What they are missing is that it's the mixing part that the critics have a problem with, for in mixing you are by definition combining two parts into a third thing and turning what was whole into only a part of that third thing.

I found some further discussion of orthodox beliefs about the two natures of Christ in a forum called Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange. I would like to highlight the specific references to the fact that Christ was not some hybrid entity and that the two natures were not confused.

In the early church several alternatives were proposed and eventually declared heretical: That Christ’s human nature was only an illusion (Docetism). That Jesus had some sort of combined or hybrid divine-human nature (monophysitism, Eutyches). That Jesus does not have a complete human nature, having a divine mind in place of a human mind (Apollinarism). https://bit.ly/3CxgyWe

However, in A Thorough View of the Body of Christ Witness Lee writes:

The church, however, is not only men; there is God within. That which has only men and not God is not the church. A single constituent is not enough; there must be both the divine constituent as well as the human constituent. We can say that the church is both man and God. It is the mingling of God and man, the blending of humanity with divinity, a hybrid entity of divinity joined with humanity, with two elements or constituents. https://bit.ly/30wgHfr

Lee is explicitly using language of "hybrid entity" that is understood to be heretical (also note that he uses blending here, which is different from mingling). How is a hybrid entity not a third thing? It is by definition a product of two different parts to form a third (think horse and donkey producing a mule).

Another post on the same Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange forum is as follows:

According to Chalcedon, he is of two natures "unconfusedly, unchangeably." That is, his human nature and his God nature did not fold into one another to become a third thing [tertium quid] neither human nor God. https://bit.ly/30B8arN

In the post above, we notice that one nature being folded into and confused with another is explicitly brought up as unbiblical, yet another favorite illustration of mingling for is the oil "folded into" flour from Leviticus. Witness Lee in The Move of God in Man writes:

Because of the wrong teaching of Eutyches in the fifth century, most Christian teachers dare not to say that God and man are mingled together. The Eutychians denied the distinctness and coexistence of Christ’s divinity and humanity, and they asserted that the two natures were merged into one, resulting in a third nature being produced (see Concerning the Person of Christ). But this teaching is in contradiction with the revelation of the holy Word. We need to see the wonderful truth in the Bible concerning the mingling of divinity with humanity. According to Leviticus 2:4, the fine flour mingled with oil as the meal offering is a type of Christ as the One who was a mingling of divinity with humanity. Although oil and flour were mingled into one, they were still two in nature; they were not merged into one to become a third nature. https://bit.ly/3HCm9ye

Note here that Lee brings up the Eutychianist heresy of the "third thing being produced" and then goes on to speak of how oil and flour were mingled to one (is oil not literally folded into flour when making dough?). Note he immediately follows "mingled into one" with "not merged into one" as if the second sentence somehow makes us forget about the first. What is the "one" Lee was speaking of if not a third nature! In Leviticus, oil and flour were combined to produce a blended offering, where the two ingredients were no longer distinguishable, a single whole made up of two components folded into one another. That is not what the Word teaches us with respect to the two natures in the Second Person. Christ's two natures were not blended together into one, he was both fully (read NOT part) human and fully divine, mysteriously, in one Person not a commonplace blending of the two. That's why the old covenant was temporary and fading all the time, because it relied on human concepts and rituals, as opposed to the new covenant, which is based on the mysterious and divine work of the Trinity (and no, that doesn't mean the processed Spirit).