LC Doctrine and Practice through the Lens of God's Love and Hatred for Sin

[bearbear]

After discussions with former LC members on the facebook group, it occurred to me that God’s revelation of himself through the word becomes clearer when we understand that God really, really, *really* loves us but at the same time he also really, really *really* hates sin and the ultimate proof of these attributes is displayed through the cross. God treats sin so seriously that he demands a perfect sacrifice that only he could give and he demonstrated his tremendous love for us by not sparing his own Son to gruesomely die on our behalf so that we who were once his enemies could become part of his family (Rom 5:10).

The root of sin is selfishness (Phil 2:3-4, Psa 119:36) and corrupts human love which results in finite conditional love with ulterior motives. In contrast, God’s love is pure and unconditional and infinite, hence God’s hatred for the selfishness of sin could even be born out of love– to the extent that he is at peace with banishing souls away from his presence in hell for eternity since their selfish nature would corrupt heaven and turn it into hell for those that he loves just like in the days of Noah before he judged the earth with a flood.

From attending a spectrum of evangelical churches after leaving the LC twelve years ago my experience has been that regardless of doctrinal stances (such as charismatic, non-charismatic, free grace, calvinist, arminian, etc.) a healthy church is one that emphasizes God’s tremendous love for us while at the same time recognizing the seriousness of sin and God’s hatred of it. Churches that emphasize one end of the spectrum without the other often run into problems, but perhaps the worst scenario is to not recognize either end and I think the LCs could actually fall into this bucket in both doctrine and practice.

Through losing the focus on God’s love and hatred for sin, a vacuum is formed in the LCs which is filled by a focus to build Witness Lee’s empire of local churches and raising up disciples to follow the teachings embodied by LSM. God’s love is corrupted in practice because from the testimony and experience of many here, the love demonstrated in the LC is conditioned based on how “absolute” one is for the ministry. Once someone starts opposing Witness Lee’s ministry they turn into an enemy who is cast off as leprous and poison which is contrary to Jesus’ teaching of praying and loving our enemies (Matt 5:43-48).

This lack of focus and worst of both worlds scenario is also demonstrated through the thousand year discipline in outer darkness doctrine for the disobedient believer. It not only communicates that God’s love and acceptance of us into his kingdom is conditioned on 1000 years of torment if we don’t live up to his standard but treats as eternally saved, a self-professed carnal believer who is a slave to sin and lives in hatred and hurt towards other believers. The result of this is when outrageous sins like sexual abuse occurs, the leaders give in to temptation to “cover” the sin since there are no eternal consequences as everyone in the congregation who professes belief in Jesus is treated as “wheat” and eternally saved, and we should just “move on” to build up Witness Lee’s empire.

However in healthy churches and even including ones which adhere to Free Grace theology but recognize there are true and false believers and tares and wheat (Matt 13:24-43), unrepentant sin is treated with extreme concern due to its eternal implications since it is either evidence that the person is unsaved (OSAS perspective) or in danger of falling away from grace (non-OSAS perspective). Hence scripture teaches us that any person promoting and practicing sin will be asked to either repent or face expulsion from the congregation (1 Cor 5:11).

The Apostle John recognized this and drew from Jesus’ parables of the wheat and tares to teach that self professed believers who are enslaved to sin and hate others are not real believers.

1 John 2:4
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,

1 John 3:8
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

1 John 3:15
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

On the other end of the spectrum the thousand year discipline doctrine is used to sow fear onto true believers, imposing the idea that if they don’t do enough to advance Witness Lee’s ministry through “fruit bearing” they will be tortured for a thousand years. It subconsciously dulls God’s love by making it conditioned on our “works”. But God loves us unconditionally and will grant us our desires if we choose to reject him or grant us entrance to join his family and kingdom forever when we repent and put our faith and trust in Jesus and become born again with his life. It’s this unconditional love that makes us feel safe, frees us from fear (1 John 4:18) and enables us to pour love into others. Yes it’s true, God really really *really* loves us and outside of violating our free will God will do anything to help us repent and trust in Him so we can come into his family and kingdom forever and ever (Luke 13:34).