YouTube Channel - The Lord's Recovery Unchained

[Cal]

Originally Posted by zeek

If Christ is both the life and God, what's the problem?

Because you know life by knowing God, you don't know God by knowing life. Because the ultimate point is God, not life. Because life does not sum up everything God or Christ is. Because if you focus on Christ as life, you begin to miss the other things Christ is, like righteousness, as exemplified by the fruit of "we don't care about good and evil, we just care about life."

Trying to know God by knowing life is like trying to drive to Denver in reverse gear. It's not a good way to make the trip. The best way is to know life by knowing God.

[Trapped]

Just some thoughts on the "law" issue brought up earlier. (SC this is not intended to pull you back into the thread since it sounds like you wanted to focus on other things. This is just my response directed to no one in particular).

-this account is in the Old Testament, and the law is a prominent feature of the OT, so it playing a definite role in Genesis 2-3 is not out of character

-God says in Genesis 3:11 "...Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" This is indeed a matter of disobeying a commandment. Romans 5 also shows it was an issue of transgression, trespass, offense, etc. In reference to Adam it says "the judgement that followed one sin". Law and commandments are definitely in the mix.

-Christ didn't abolish the law but fulfilled it, so we shouldn't think the law is a non-factor or something to wave away

-Even the New Testament contains Jesus telling us to follow His commandments. This, in my opinion, was heavily lost in the local church. As if all we needed to do was sit in a room on gold chairs reading rainbow colored books, and missing that the NT commands us to do good, commands us to love our neighbor, to love one another, shows the apostles were eager to help the poor, etc...

-Christ came to fulfill God's righteous requirements because we could not ourselves. All these are a matter of law. It doesn't mean that it's ONLY a matter of law, but the Bible doesn't present it that way anyway. It's also a matter of God's great love and Christ's love and sacrifice.

Trapped

[Cal]

Question: Why do LR people talk about "growing in life" but almost never talk about getting to know God? Why do they say "that brother really knows life," but don't say "that brother really knows the Lord?"

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Cal

Question: Why do LR people talk about "growing in life" but almost never talk about getting to know God? Why do they say "that brother really knows life," but don't say "that brother really knows the Lord?"

Let me answer my own question: Because "life" is a vague, mushy abstraction of God that can be manipulated to include a lot of things that aren't of God, like teachings of men, false institutions like "the Lord's Recovery" and anything else seemingly, including hiding sexual predators. Also, because if they encourage their members to get to know God, that leaves the door open for a person to get speaking from God that contradicts them, and they can't have that. They get God's speaking, you just get "life."

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Cal

Question: Why do LR people talk about "growing in life" but almost never talk about getting to know God? Why do they say "that brother really knows life," but don't say "that brother really knows the Lord?"

This doesn't answer your question, but I have heard anecdotally that when Lee passed, there was a meeting of the co-workers (you know, "Brother We") where they were trying to decide what direction to take "the Lord's recovery", or what to emphasize or focus on.

One brother wanted to focus on love. Ron Kangas wanted to emphasize life.

Ron won out.

Love lost and life won.

And it shows.

"Life" or "knowing life" or "the sense of life" in the local church is just group code-speak for "submitting to the unspoken legalistic rules in the church life". It doesn't usually mean the Lord at all.

Having gone back and re-watched one of the other two trees videos yesterday, I was struck with the point that noted that Watchman Nee taught we need to pay attention to whether "the life in us increases or decreases" as a determiner of right or wrong, and the narrator made the point that the Bible doesn't talk about life increasing or decreasing in us, but instead says "if you the Son, YOU HAVE THE LIFE". You have it. It doesn't come and go. If you have Him, you have it!

It's almost as if their salvation is subtly not secure, even though they overtly teach it is.

[LeftLR]

Originally Posted by Cal

Question: Why do LR people talk about "growing in life" but almost never talk about getting to know God? Why do they say "that brother really knows life," but don't say "that brother really knows the Lord?"

For LSM / LC, "growing in life" is only focus on the "Church Life" which is based on WL's teaching. CAl, you are right, LC / LSM never talk about getting to know "God", but talking about getting to know god though the teaching of WL.
I had conversation with few leading brothers where i was in Anaheim. Their thought process were totally based on WL's writing.

[Cal]

The tree of life means dependence on God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil means attempting to navigate your existence morally or otherwise outside of dependence on God. After all, why do you need God? You know good and evil. The first instance of knowing good and evil was to surmise that God was mistaken in prohibiting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve surmised that "good" was actually eating of that tree. Thus she actually ate of it before she ate of it. Or said another way, her eating of it was deciding independent of God that she should eat of it.

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Cal

The tree of life means dependence on God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil means attempting to navigate your existence morally or otherwise outside of dependence on God. After all, why do you need God? You know good and evil. The first instance of knowing good and evil was to surmise that God was mistaken in prohibiting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve surmised that "good" was actually eating of that tree. Thus she actually ate of it before she ate of it. Or said another way, her eating of it was deciding independent of God that she should eat of it.

Well put!!

[SpeakersCorner]

Okay, now I’ll answer my own question: Why God placed a forbidden tree in the pristine garden … a beautiful, tasty fruit that they were told DO NOT EAT?

Those of you who ascribe to the videomaker’s view that it wasn't a matter of life and death, that the fruit itself was fine and the eating of it didn't directly bring in death but the banned access to the tree of life did, you are forced to take the position that this fruit was a temptation, a test. What else could it be?

I reject that. I believe eating the fruit was toxic. I agree with Witness Lee that the disobedience of eating was not the real issue, it was the ingesting of the fruit itself that brought in death.

So the question you should have for me is, Why would God create a toxic but beautiful and tempting fruit? My answer: The fruit itself isn’t poison but it is toxic to Adam and Eve in their primal, innocent state. It's the same as introducing to a very young child things about human sexual behavior. This can be toxic, ruinous to the child for life. It isn’t that the information isn’t true: it’s that the child cannot process it at this point. I'm guessing many of you would agree that society is doing exactly this same serpentine deception to our children and that it is terrible.

That’s my take and I’m sticking with it … at least until someone comes up with a better one.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

I agree with Witness Lee that the disobedience of eating was not the real issue, it was the ingesting of the fruit itself that brought in death.

If disobedience isn't a real issue, what comes to your mind as an explanation of why God cursed Adam and banned A&E from the garden?

Romans 5 says death came through sin, not death came through a fruit.

Romans 5 repeatedly speaks of "the trespass", "the sin", "the disobedience", "the transgression", etc. in reference to Adam's actions.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

Okay, now I’ll answer my own question: Why God placed a forbidden tree in the pristine garden … a beautiful, tasty fruit that they were told DO NOT EAT?

Those of you who ascribe to the videomaker’s view that it wasn't a matter of life and death, that the fruit itself was fine and the eating of it didn't directly bring in death but the banned access to the tree of life did, you are forced to take the position that this fruit was a temptation, a test. What else could it be?

I reject that. I believe eating the fruit was toxic. I agree with Witness Lee that the disobedience of eating was not the real issue, it was the ingesting of the fruit itself that brought in death.

So the question you should have for me is, Why would God create a toxic but beautiful and tempting fruit? My answer: The fruit itself isn’t poison but it is toxic to Adam and Eve in their primal, innocent state. It's the same as introducing to a very young child things about human sexual behavior. This can be toxic, ruinous to the child for life. It isn’t that the information isn’t true: it’s that the child cannot process it at this point. I'm guessing many of you would agree that society is doing exactly this same serpentine deception to our children and that it is terrible.

That’s my take and I’m sticking with it … at least until someone comes up with a better one.

There is something to be said for this argument, that the first humans got premature knowledge. But it wasn't the premature knowledge that made them fallen. It was their disobedience that made them fallen. They sinned. Sin brings death the Bible says. The result was people who knew good and evil, but could do little about it in their fallen state. This was crushing.

God himself said, they are like us, knowing good and evil. He didn't say knowing good and evil was itself evil. It's just that we weren't ready for knowing it. It wasn't his intent that we have this knowledge at that time, but now we have it, and God is working with us in this state. We can't go back.

Witness Lee was trying to get us back to the garden state, where somehow we make it back to not knowing good and evil. This is what his whole good and evil vs. life argument adds up to. But it's not possible. It's interesting that the Bible really doesn't address the point of us not knowing good and evil anymore as a part of salvation. So what happens? Using the premature sexual knowledge metaphor, God works us through it until we arrive at a place where we are equipped to handle it. We are supposed to be like God, so surely eventually knowing good and evil was part of the plan.

So I can buy the idea that part of the problem was knowing good and evil in the sense that we weren't ready for it. But is knowing good and evil in itself bad? If that were true the Bible would not tell us to do good and reject evil, it would tell us never to think about either, and as TLRU says, the Bible over and over tells us the opposite.

Rejecting both good and evil is synonymous with thinking that walking around naked will make you innocent again. But you know you are naked. You can't go back.

[Cal]

There are really two issues of the fall. The first is becoming fallen due to sin. The second is premature knowledge of good and evil. It's like the don't eat pork commandment. Disobeying it is one problem. That was a sin. The second problem is getting trichinosis. They are separate things. A crude analogy I know, but I hope you get the point.

[Zezima]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

I believe eating the fruit was toxic. I agree with Witness Lee that the disobedience of eating was not the real issue, it was the ingesting of the fruit itself that brought in death..

Here’s my take:

God commanded man not to eat of The TOKGE. I don’t think there was anything special about this tree, apart from it being the one God commanded man not to eat.

The serpent then convinces Eve that if she eats it, she will be like God. The thing is, man was made in the image of God. They are already like God. In fact god commanded them to exercise authority over all the beasts of the field, which includes the very serpent speaking to her. Side note in the Hebrew, the serpent doesn’t even refer to God as Yahweh, which should have caused Eve’s authority to kick in.

By obeying the serpent, they betray all God had commanded and gave them (image and dominion). This event isn’t just some act of disobedience, it’s an act of treachery.

Man committed treason, they betrayed God. I personally don’t think it was the content of the fruit they ate, but the content of their heart that drove their actions.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Cal

Question: Why do LR people talk about "growing in life" but almost never talk about getting to know God? Why do they say "that brother really knows life," but don't say "that brother really knows the Lord?"

One deceptive example of “knowing life” and “growing in life” in the Recovery is zeal for the ministry. Knowing the Lord, however, restricts us to righteousness and love; being zealous for the ministry, while supposedly “knowing life,” gives license to an array of sins.

[zeek]

Originally Posted by Cal

Because you know life by knowing God, you don't know God by knowing life. Because the ultimate point is God, not life. Because life does not sum up everything God or Christ is. Because if you focus on Christ as life, you begin to miss the other things Christ is, like righteousness, as exemplified by the fruit of "we don't care about good and evil, we just care about life."

Trying to know God by knowing life is like trying to drive to Denver in reverse gear. It's not a good way to make the trip. The best way is to know life by knowing God.

Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." He is the life. There is no conflict between Jesus, God, divine life, righteousness or the good. If one knows the divine life one knows God. There is no "ultimate point" that is God without divine life. There is no way to know God without knowing His divine life. To divide God from His divine life is to make a meaningless distinction. God is inseparable from His life. They are one and the same. You can't have one without the other.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by zeek

Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." He is the life. There is no conflict between Jesus, God, divine life, righteousness or the good. If one knows the divine life one knows God. There is no "ultimate point" that is God without divine life. There is no way to know God without knowing His divine life. To divide God from His divine life is to make a meaningless distinction. God is inseparable from His life. They are one and the same. You can't have one without the other.

True. But because you think you are experiencing life doesn't mean you are experiencing God, because the life is also a person, and we all know that the experience of "life" in the LR depersonalizes God. You can talk about God as "life" so much that you lose sight that getting to know life is getting to know a Person. This is the error of many false religions. They reduce God to a force, because dealing with God as a person means dealing with another mind, attitude and preference. It's much more convenient to deal with God as just a force that makes you feel good.

[zeek]

Originally Posted by Cal

True. But because you think you are experiencing life doesn't mean you are experiencing God, because the life is also a person, and we all know that the experience of "life" in the LR depersonalizes God. You can talk about God as "life" so much that you lose sight that getting to know life is getting to know a Person. This is the error of many false religions. They reduce God to a force, because dealing with God as a person means dealing with another mind, attitude and preference. It's much more convenient to deal with God as just a force that makes you feel good.

Jesus doesn't say he is "life", he says he is "the life." That isn't vague or impersonal. Those problems you speak of are real in the LR and elsewhere, but lets not let that rob us from the simple joy of the presence the omnipresent One who is "the life." That's our birth right. It's what we were born for.

By the way I watched one of your videos about the oneness. Jesus said we should be one as He is one with the Father. Now, that's not something we can achieve. And we don't have to. Because it's already true in Christ. Peace to you, bro.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by zeek

Jesus doesn't say he is "life", he says he is "the life." That isn't vague or impersonal. Those problems you speak of are real in the LR and elsewhere, but lets not let that rob us from the simple joy of the presence the omnipresent One who is "the life." That's our birth right. It's what we were born for.

By the way I watched one of your videos about the oneness. Jesus said we should be one as He is one with the Father. Now, that's not something we can achieve. And we don't have to. Because it's already true in Christ. Peace to you, bro.

There is nothing wrong with the idea Christ is the life. The Bible teaches this. The question is what does that really mean, how should we view it and what it says about how we should believe and live.

When I analyze the LR, I look for clues of how they went wrong, and one conclusion I have come to is they value knowing life more than knowing God. You can't just say one equals the other and that's that, because if that were true then why not just talk about knowing God? That's what the Bible teaches to know. The Bible never tells us to "know life."

The Greek word for "life" is zoe, which in Greek means the highest form of life. This can imply life as an essence or life as something lived out. But it doesn't imply, to most people, personality. The word "God" is definite. It implies everything about God including his personality. "Life" can be taken as something impersonal, especially when emphasized in the way the LR does.

Yes, God is life and his life includes his personality. But that's not the mindset of the LR. Their mindset is that life is a force that is somewhat impersonal, as if God is mindless and everything about him comes "spontaneously, automatically" from his life without even Him having to think. It tends to make us view him as less than a person. And that's what I observe in the LR. Ideas like the "processed God" and the "all-inclusive dose" do the same thing.

I'm talking about tendencies here. It's not black and white.

[Cal]

My question is, if "knowing life" is the best way to maximize our Christian experience, then how does it facilitate getting leading from God which might contradict the LR leaders? In fact, it does just the opposite. Because "life" is vague. God's speaking is definite. Thus the members get to enjoy God as life, but not God as a person who might contradict Witness Lee. This is part of the error. Thus they say "you don't know life, brother." Why don't they say "you don't know God, brother?" Is knowing life more important than knowing God? Or is it that it's easier to hoodwink someone into thinking they don't know life than into thinking they don't know God?

Simply put, if you don't get to know God yourself then you are leaving the door open to being manipulated by someone who claims to "know life" better than you.

[SpeakersCorner]

A leading brother from outside our locality a while ago asked me concerning another brother -- let's call him Brother L -- who was meeting with us, "Yeah, Brother L's okay but does he know life?" Brother L was very weak in Bible knowledge and completely ignorant of LR theology. The question really annoyed me but I chewed on it for weeks.

During my ruminations I recalled this: One Lord's Day before a meeting Brother L came up to me and said, "Could we avoid talking about being a preterist today? Because I'm worried about Brother S getting offended." Context: we were going through Daniel and the topic of Preterism (believing the events described in Revelation already happened in the first century) had come up. Brother S, who had a Phd. in theology, had said in a previous meeting, "I just discovered Preterism. Why was I not taught this in seminary?" He was going through some thorough re-thinking of his past positions. Brother L didn't really understand Preterism, he just wanted to avoid controversy and wanted to keep Brother S among us.

Is that not knowing life? I say yes. I think the LR turned this honestly important topic of knowing life into a dead metric. It isn't that we shouldn't think about knowing life, having life, receiving life, eating from the tree of life, it's that we would actually do those things instead of catchecizing tem into a dead corpse of dogma.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by SpeakersCorner

Is that not knowing life? I say yes. I think the LR turned this honestly important topic of knowing life into a dead metric. It isn't that we shouldn't think about knowing life, having life, receiving life, eating from the tree of life, it's that we would actually do those things instead of catchecizing tem into a dead corpse of dogma.

Where does the Bible tells us to know life? How is speaking of knowing life better than speaking of knowing God? Why say "know life" when you can say "know God?" After all, the Bible does say eternal life is knowing God.

I just don't understand this need to talking in terms of knowing life. It just seems a bait and switch. Life = LR culture.

[zeek]

Originally Posted by Cal

There is nothing wrong with the idea Christ is the life. The Bible teaches this. The question is what does that really mean, how should we view it and what it says about how we should believe and live.

When I analyze the LR, I look for clues of how they went wrong, and one conclusion I have come to is they value knowing life more than knowing God. You can't just say one equals the other and that's that, because if that were true then why not just talk about knowing God? That's what the Bible teaches to know. The Bible never tells us to "know life."

The Greek word for "life" is zoe, which in Greek means the highest form of life. This can imply life as an essence or life as something lived out. But it doesn't imply, to most people, personality. The word "God" is definite. It implies everything about God including his personality. "Life" can be taken as something impersonal, especially when emphasized in the way the LR does.

Yes, God is life and his life includes his personality. But that's not the mindset of the LR. Their mindset is that life is a force that is somewhat impersonal, as if God is mindless and everything about him comes "spontaneously, automatically" from his life without even Him having to think. It tends to make us view him as less than a person. And that's what I observe in the LR. Ideas like the "processed God" and the "all-inclusive dose" do the same thing.

I'm talking about tendencies here. It's not black and white.

If what you are describing by making this distinction between God and divine life is a situation in which the term "life" in this context was abused, I heard Witness Lee do that and wondered about it when I was there. The "Unchained" videos deal with that problem in various ways. Witness Lee stripped the Christian life of its ethical content and that content is based on God's personhood. I see that.

What I am insisting is that what happened there was an abuse of what Jesus means by the word in John 14:6, 11:25 and elsewhere. "The Life" is the life of Christ which is a life that perfectly integrates righteousness and compassion. It's not the life of a MOTA and his zombie followers.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by zeek

If what you are describing by making this distinction between God and divine life is a situation in which the term "life" in this context was abused, I heard Witness Lee do that and wondered about it when I was there. The "Unchained" videos deal with that problem in various ways. Witness Lee stripped the Christian life of its ethical content and that content is based on God's personhood. I see that.

What I am insisting is that what happened there was an abuse of what Jesus means by the word in John 14:6, 11:25 and elsewhere. "The Life" is the life of Christ which is a life that perfectly integrates righteousness and compassion. It's not the life of a MOTA and his zombie followers.

I agree completely.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Cal

True. But because you think you are experiencing life doesn't mean you are experiencing God, because the life is also a person, and we all know that the experience of "life" in the LR depersonalizes God. You can talk about God as "life" so much that you lose sight that getting to know life is getting to know a Person. This is the error of many false religions. They reduce God to a force, because dealing with God as a person means dealing with another mind, attitude and preference. It's much more convenient to deal with God as just a force that makes you feel good.

Excellent observations here.

The more I think back about this matter of "knowing life," the more upset I get remembering the stories. For years in the LC "brother's meetings" we would hear reports of interactions with brothers from other regions, including HQ's in Anaheim. Brothers would mention rivalries, backbitings, deceptions, false witnesses, man-pleasings, pretenses, prejudices, partialities, playing favorites, etc. I'm not talking about the gentiles here, but so-called leaders in the Recovery.

Eventually some "wise" brother in the meeting would make the conclusion, "well, they just don't know life." And I would silently and proudly conclude, "so glad I know life." Yet here we were with brothers who spent more time talking about "life" than any Christians in history, yet they don't know life.

Don't know life!?! They don't know the scripture either. Neither do they know God the Father nor the Son. What do they really know? They know the ways and words of Witness Lee. Period. His ways supersede everything, including the life of God, knowing God, and knowing His word.

[Sons to Glory!]

I still wonder why God used the fruit of trees . . . Fruit is something eaten and therefore becomes part of us. If it's only about obeying Him, why didn't He use some other object? Like, as an example, perhaps ponds of water. So therefore it would have been, "Of every pond you may bath and swim in, except that one." That would fit the need of seeing if we would obey, would it not? But, instead God used the fruit of trees as something that would be eaten, and I find that interesting. What was the point of doing that?

[PriestlyScribe]

Originally Posted by Cal

You can talk about God as "life" so much that you lose sight that getting to know life is getting to know a Person. This is the error of many false religions. They reduce God to a force, because dealing with God as a person means dealing with another mind, attitude and preference. It's much more convenient to deal with God as just a force that makes you feel good.

Cal I think it's possible that Witness Lee wrongly reduced God to some kind of impersonal force which he labeled THE FLOW. Lee then went further to claim that God as this so-called FLOW will always come through or issue out of one particular ministry. Hmm let me see, FLOW always comes through MOTA? How convenient is that? If you want this FLOW then there is only one place to get it - MOTA! Sounds like a contrived monopoly to me.

Thinking back over the decades I spent in the LR movement, I do recall how this FLOW had several characteristics, unfortunately none of them had anything to do with Love. To me Witness Lee's FLOW always came across as militaristic, like a commander in chief or some kind of a war lord or a Pharaoh.

Would you please do me a favor and listen to what WL taught about this FLOW thing in my "Chicken Dung Video" @ 34 min 40 sec?



It was part of this same message that was examined in the first Unchained Introductory Video.

I would value your impression.

P.S.