Good land in Deut. 8 really means all inclusive Christ?

[Truthseeker]

Now, I have heard that Lcers are reading and meditating HWMR of Crystallized study of Deuteronomy. The main content is to take and possess All inclusive Christ as our good land. This All inclusive Christ seems to be first message in 1962 when Lee came to start Lord's recovery in USA.

It seems that the content of this book including crystallized study of Deuteronomy is very rich and full of divine revealation. But one thing that comes to my attention is the spiritual meaning of canaan land or good land as all inclusive Christ as all inclusive life giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Lee teaches that the more we enjoy All inclusive Christ as all inclusive and all extensive life giving Spirit, the more we possess and gain Him as good land.

In Deut. 8:7-9, Lee interpreted the description of good land as many aspects of all inclusive Christ as all inclusive and all extensive life giving Spirit. Eating the product of good land means that we eat and be filled and constituted with Christ in the all inclusive and all extensive life giving Spirit. But verses 12-14 say that we can eat(product of good land)and be satisfied and then our heart can be lifted up and forget Jehovah our God. If we eat and be satisfied by all inclusive and all intensive Christ typified by products of good land, why can we be lifted up and forget the Lord? If we are really filled with All inclusive and all extensive life giving Spirit, should we be constituted with Christ and be transformed? Why do the next verses say that we can be lifted up and forget Him ? So, eating Christ as the product of good land and being satisfied by Him cause us to be lifted up and forsake the Lord our God? What's kind of theology behind Lee's interpretation of Deuteronomy?

So, good land here can refer to material blessing more than Christ. We can prove through our experiences that we trend to be lifted up ourselves and forsake the Lord after enjoying and satisfying material blessing not Christ Himself. In Deut. 8:17-18, Moses continued to talk about wealth possession which caused Israelites to forsake Jehovah. So, according to the context of Deut. 8, the good land can refer to material blessing such as wealth more than all inclusive and all extensive Christ as life giving Spirit. Christ can't cause us to be lifted up and forsake Him. It's wealth or any kind of material blessing which causes it. This is erroneous interpretation of Witness Lee concerning the book of Deuteronomy.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Truthseeker

So, good land here can refer to material blessing more than Christ. We can prove through our experiences that we trend to be lifted up ourselves and forsake the Lord after enjoying and satisfying material blessing not Christ Himself. In Deut. 8:17-18, Moses continued to talk about wealth possession which caused Israelites to forsake Jehovah. So, according to the context of Deut. 8, the good land can refer to material blessing such as wealth more than all inclusive and all extensive Christ as life giving Spirit. Christ can't cause us to be lifted up and forsake Him. It's wealth or any kind of material blessing which causes it. This is erroneous interpretation of Witness Lee concerning the book of Deuteronomy.

Yes, you are right. The good land can refer to material blessings.

But the depths of the word of God can have multiple interpretations. Like Psalm 23 says, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," can refer to both material and spiritual needs. Sometimes spiritual needs spring from our material needs. God, as our loving Lord and Creator, would like to be involved with both.

As you mentioned Truthseeker, God gets upset with His people, Jewish and Christian alike, when He blesses them and they forsake Him for idols and other gods. Moses and the prophets regularly warned of this. Because we are so often willfully deceived, God uses all of our needs to help us return to Him in love by faith.

[Sons to Glory!]

I agree with Ohio. Also, I'm humbled by the fact that when I had the strongest experience of the Lord, how quickly I turned away to seek something else. As both Paul and Peter says, we can use our freedom for evil. ( see 1 Peter 2:16 & Gal 5:13).

[Truthseeker]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Yes, you are right. The good land can refer to material blessings.

But the depths of the word of God can have multiple interpretations. Like Psalm 23 says, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," can refer to both material and spiritual needs. Sometimes spiritual needs spring from our material needs. God, as our loving Lord and Creator, would like to be involved with both.

As you mentioned Truthseeker, God gets upset with His people, Jewish and Christian alike, when He blesses them and they forsake Him for idols and other gods. Moses and the prophets regularly warned of this. Because we are so often willfully deceived, God uses all of our needs to help us return to Him in love by faith.

But we always see that Lee's teaching and Blended Brothers just emphasize spiritual matter in their interpretation. Everything for them is just symbolic or spiritual. Lord's recovery is just a place where we find many imbalanced teaching and practice. Christians can be shortcoming of proper and healthy word of God because of their imbalanced point of view.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Truthseeker

But we always see that Lee's teaching and Blended Brothers just emphasize spiritual matter in their interpretation. Everything for them is just symbolic or spiritual. Lord's recovery is just a place where we find many imbalanced teaching and practice. Christians can be shortcoming of proper and healthy word of God because of their imbalanced point of view.

You are right. And this extreme pattern of exposition became one of Lee's greatest shortcomings -- he would often forsake the plain words of scripture for his own interpretations. To a certain extent all Christian teachers do this with the O.T. as e.g. the apostles often did. I Cor 10 is a good pattern for how Paul used O.T. stories for our admonition.

I found similar parallels to the Exclusive Brethren. They too used O.T. types to infer all manner of things for their teachings. They too took this to extremes, which Lee patterned after. Their expositions often became highly speculative, often with little justification, some good and some downright bizarre, and this became quite evident during the many splits, divisions, and excommunications in both groups. Both the Exclusives and LSM could ascribe all manners of evil to those they selected as their "enemies," citing obscure verses to vindicate their accusations.