The Psalms are the word of Christ

[HERn]

Originally Posted by awareness

Really, I have to ask, I mean really, just how could Lee think that he could speak for God in proclaiming what is, and what is not, Gods' speaking in the Bible.

How could he ever have any credibility after doing and claiming that, as any kind of a man of the Bible? Who did he think he was? How could we buy it at all? How could any one in their right mind follow him after claiming and doing that?

Just wondering who out there really believed that WL was the minister of the age, or the oracle of God? While I was in the LC I don't think I ever believed that WL was the MOTA, but I did view him as being someone special whose reputation God would protect from slander.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by HERn

Just wondering who out there really believed that WL was the minister of the age, or the oracle of God? While I was in the LC I don't think I ever believed that WL was the MOTA, but I did view him as being someone special whose reputation God would protect from slander.

I never bought into all the talk about Lee being the MOTA. I attended the trainings in the mid-2000's when the blinded brothers started talking about Lee being the MOTA. Little did I realize then, it was mostly talk directed at those in the GLA who weren't using Lee's ministry.

I will say that I felt that Lee had a special reputation before God. I think it was something along the lines of him having more importance than other Christian teachers. That is probably how most LC saints viewed him up to a certain point in time. Probably once Lee started claiming to be God's oracle in the 80's, people started to feel that he was something more than just a Christian teacher that they greatly appreciated.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by HERn

Just wondering who out there really believed that WL was the minister of the age, or the oracle of God? While I was in the LC I don't think I ever believed that WL was the MOTA, but I did view him as being someone special whose reputation God would protect from slander.

I thought he was something like an apostle back in the late 70's. By the time I learned he was a MOTA and the acting God, there were too many in the GLA starting to back away from such claims.

[HERn]

I'm thinking that it is easier to leave the LC and ignore the blindeds if you're a Lee MOTA agnostic. When you realize that Lee was just a natural mortal man who discovered a successful business model, then you can dump the MOTA legend and move on to a more normal Christian life in a healthier group.

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

... concerning the fall in Genesis.. the real issue ... was that it was not that man got something added to him, or that he gained knowledge. Instead, it is more meaningful to state that we changed our allegiance from God to self. We changed our source of right and wrong from what God said to what we reasoned was right or wrong.

The fall was the result of disobedience, not fruit or snakes.

Knowledge is not the problem. Knowledge from our own counsel is.

Right and wrong is not a problem. In fact, right and wrong remain an important thing from the very beginning to the very end. But right and wrong decided by our flawed minds without the counsel of God is very much a problem.

The above quote is from the thread, "Good vs. Lee's Trees", because it touches on what I've been looking at in the text of the Psalms. The declarations of fealty and obedience aren't vain in the Psalms; rather they presage the restorative activities of the coming Christ. "I delight to do Your will", e.g. Psa 40:8, is truly a picture of the Obedient Lamb of God. Jesus said that David was in spirit and writing about Him, and Peter said that David was a prophet who looked to the promised Seed. But WL was blinkered by the "economy of God" as he presented it.

The obedience of Christ directly addresses the issue of the fall, or properly the falls. In the text we see three separate falls: Satan in Isaiah 14, humans in Genesis 3, and angels in Genesis 6. Note that each fall depended on the preceding. Satan tempted the human with fruit that was pleasing to the eye (3:6), and the daughters of Adam also were pleasing to the eyes of the angels (6:2). In both cases the trespass was made not on the act but on the turn from God's command, to begin to consider the alternative to God's will. The "seed" was already in the eyes, and the considerations of the heart, before the "fruit" was in the hand and then the stomach.

The fall of the angels is especially instructive, as the NT commentary doesn't say anything about them getting injected with sinful nature. No, the commentary (see e.g. Jude 1:6, also 2 Peter) says that the angels disobeyed, and left their divinely allotted places, just as Adam and Eve before them, and Lucifer, and as can any servant of God, who receives the commands and instructions of the Divine will.

It's not about being injected with the satanic nature. It's about obedience. The aspiration of the psalmist is good, as are the expressions, which give framework for the coming Messiah, who is Jesus the Christ, God blessed forever.

If it were about the satanic nature, then how is the Christ obedient? He was also born of a woman, born under the law (Gal 4:4). If satanic nature was the bugaboo here, Christ would be stumbled like the rest. But He believed, and obeyed, and through His obedience He was perfected (Heb 5:8,9). And now, just as He obeyed, we are to obey His commands, and be perfected as well - see the extended discourse in John 15. I wouldn't be so quick to wave off the claims of obedience in the Psalms. "I will not delay to obey Your commands." (Psa 119:60) Let's not look away so quickly from the word of God. It's there to instruct us, and guide us to the Christ, who fulfilled the law to the proverbial jot and tittle. Paul called these writings "the word of Christ", and it might behoove us to pause for a moment and consider why.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

If it were about the satanic nature, then how is the Christ obedient? He was also born of a woman, born under the law (Gal 4:4). If satanic nature was the bugaboo here, Christ would be stumbled like the rest. But He believed, and obeyed, and through His obedience He was perfected (Heb 5:8,9)...

The other interesting thing about Christ's obedience, as contrasted to the disobedient angels in what I call "the third fall" (Genesis 6:1-6; for NT ref. see also Jude 1:6, Rev. 12:4) is that this act of continual and steadfast obedience caused Him to be the vector of God's rule on earth, and this could be seen in apposition, and opposition, to the disobedient "unclean spirits" that He met again and again in the gospel records. Christ had pure dominion, because He was a "man under authority" (Matt 8:9) and as such all the forces of darkness had to fall back before Him.

For those who may be puzzled by the link between the fall of the angels in Genesis 6, and the unclean spirits which Jesus continually rebuked and cast out, there was a sizable "intertestamental" literature, exemplified but not limited to the Enochic corpus. For example, jesus probably referenced this in saying, "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it flies through waterless places seeking rest...etc". This kind of speaking would not be uncommon to the Second Temple or Intertestamental period, most of the literature of which didn't make it into the canonical status but nonetheless informed the understanding of the day. Jude and 2 Peter probably also reference this intertestamental body of work.

In the NT gospel record you see someone who has faith, who lives by faith, who obeys the commands of God without hesitation, and whose obedience makes Him a beacon to those seeking light, as well as a terror to the forces of darkness who continually press in from all sides.

"May those who fear You rejoice when they see Me". - Psa 119:74

"Ah! What have we to do with You, Jesus, Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us before our time?" - Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34

And in the Psalms you also continually see the forces of light in opposition to the forces of darkness. WL mistakenly believed that the author(s) of the Palms were natural, and fallen, unable to extricate themselves from the effect of the fall. However, I believe that they genuinely aspired to the light, and those aspirations set the stage for the One who followed - He that followed was the True Light who came into the world, and who came after them because He was before them. They rejoiced to see Him. "Truly I say to you, your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day". As did David, Lemuel, and Asaph. And many, many more.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Romans 1:17

For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed--a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

I believe that Paul was quoting Habakkuk 2:14 "See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright-- but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness --"

The faith that Habakkuk was writing about was a continual action. Being faithful. This is Jesus Christ. We Christians, we disciples of this Jesus, believe, and attempt to follow. We hold that the faithful actions of Jesus were not vain (God furnished proof of this by raising Him from the dead), nor were the declarations of faithful action by the psalmist. The power in those declarations is that they pointed to the coming Messiah. Today through those words we can see the Faithful One, re-orient ourselves to the Father's House via Him, and begin our journey home. The Word of God in this process is key: it reveals Christ to us who becomes our Way home. To disparage the word of scripture as darkened, low, or merely of fallen men's concepts is to miss the point, and fall into grave error.

[aron]

I wanted to copy a quote from another thread, and respond here, because it matches a theme I've been exploring on this thread: obedience.

Originally Posted by awareness

Terry was speaking of individualism and anti-individual ... and communism and democracy are examples of the two extremes. A Theocracy on the other hand is even more anti-individual ... .

(The following isn't presented as 'truth' per se, but some current thoughts).

The paradox of "He who loses his soul-life will gain it" is relevant in the discussion of individualism, and I'd use a quote from the Psalms to shed light. The psalmist wrote, "I run in the pathways of Your command/For You have set my heart free." There's a juxtaposition here, of complete obedience and complete freedom. The writer is a slave to God's every command, but in being obedient has found his true "self", his real being.

We once were slaves to sin, now we present ourselves as slaves to righteousness. The paragon of this latter aspect is of course Jesus Christ Himself, who was completely subsumed by the Father's will, and in so doing became the complete and real human being, i.e. the only true Individual. Hebrews 5:8,9 says that Jesus alone was "made perfect in obedience"; the rest of us, tainted by the fall, became automatons, driven by the flesh and the fallen soul. Jesus alone was completely dependent upon God's command, and thus completely independent of the fallen human sphere.

WL completely misunderstood obedience in the context of the psalmists' writings. He passed it off with, "Nobody is obedient. All are sinners", and held up David's many sins as an example. But he ignored the coming Messiah. Again and again the NT writings point to this, that the OT declarations of piety, obedience, and salvific rescue were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. WL said, "No; David rescued himself", and unwittingly repeated the same charge the scoffers made at the cross: "He trusted in God, let Him save Him (Jesus) now". Hey Jesus, You did so many miracles - Let's see You climb down from that cross! Nyah-nyah-nyah!

No, we know this isn't the case. Jesus obeyed the Father, and the Father delighted in His Son, rescued Him from the grips of death, and gave Him glory.

True individualism is thus to find the Christ who's there before us in the Word. Not the Christ that Lee's theology presents, one shorn of historical context, but the real and true Man who walked in the reality that was set before Him by God's commands. That those commands were previously written in scripture, by fallen men like Moses and David, is not irrelevant, not at all.

In one sense I'm like WL, captured by an idea. But in another sense my idea is different, in that it requires nobody to line up behind me or anyone else. True freedom is to obey God. Only Jesus found this freedom, and only through faith in Jesus Christ will I find it, as well. Only in Jesus can I run in the pathways of His commands; only in Jesus is my heart set free.

"If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." For me, this is the only true individualism. All other attempts are crushed by hard reality.