Good Lee/Bad Lee: Can They Be Separated?

[OBW]

All this talk about the body in very literal terms. Has anyone considered that all of this "body" talk in the NT is descriptive in terms of the inter-workings, the relationships, etc. That it may not be intended to mean that Christ has a literal body that is the church and that means that we (the church) are part of God.

Paul's speaks of the workings of the church in terms of a body. A body has many things that must be done, accomplished. It has all kinds of features, functions, strengths and weaknesses. The same is true of this thing called the church that is comprised of the many different ones who have been redeemed. The descriptives of a body are quite useful. And since we actually are the hands and feet (and even voice) of God on earth today, there are some analogies in that way. But getting so literal about the church as the body of Christ meaning that we are literally everything below the neck of the Son, part of the Trinity, and therefore are part of the Three, making any kind of 4-in-1, even without sharing Godhead, is a long stretch of the purpose of the discussion of "body" in 1 Cor 12.

And since 1 Cor 12 is brought up, why do we feel that Paul's discussion starting at verse 12 using the analogy of a body is intended to mean something literal about a body? The description is about how we interact like different parts of a body. How we perform different functions. How everyone is not the same. It is not a discussion about how we are part of Christ and therefor present in the Trinity.

We are the body of Christ. I am not dismissing this point. But I'm fairly sure that the meaning of this is something quite different than what would get you attached to the Trinity as a 4th wheel.

What do you think when someone says "the church, which is his body"? I think it is quite a simple way to say something so profound. "Body" — one word of 4 letters — speaks so much about our relationship with each other and with God. We work as a unit. We are the physical presence of God (scary, isn't it?). We do (hopefully) operate under the direction of Christ, so there is a "head-body" relationship.

But to assert that it means that we literally are just the body part of an otherwise floating head called Christ is just nonsense. It is to take the meaning too far. Nothing in the use of the term asserts or requires such an understanding. Instead, it should be understood in the way it is given. And that is as a directive to see each other's contribution to the workings of the church as important no matter how important or unimportant you may think it is.

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by OBW

All this talk about the body in very literal terms.

OBW,

Your description of the Body of Christ sounds like you are talking about the 82nd Airborne. :rollingeyes2:

Besides the direct declaration of the Lord Jesus himself that we are members of His Body there are many examples in the Bible that are difficult to interpret any other way other than an organic life relationship - the Vine and the branches, the church being produced from Christ as Eve was from Adam, the seed and the harvest, rivers of water springing up from within the believer, the Body of Christ, etc.

However, I did agree with you specifically on one point. You said: "And since we actually are the hands and feet (and even voice) of God on earth today, there are some analogies in that way."

That is not a small point.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

OBW,

Your description of the Body of Christ sounds like you are talking about the 82nd Airborne. :rollingeyes2:

Besides the direct declaration of the Lord Jesus himself that we are members of His Body there are many examples in the Bible that are difficult to interpret any other way other than an organic life relationship - the Vine and the branches, the church being produced from Christ as Eve was from Adam, the seed and the harvest, rivers of water springing up from within the believer, the Body of Christ, etc.

However, I did agree with you specifically on one point. You said: "And since we actually are the hands and feet (and even voice) of God on earth today, there are some analogies in that way."

That is not a small point.

No one said it is a small point.

But to arrive at the conclusion that it is so thoroughly "organic" in the way that Lee taught, you have to take every one of those passages and milk them for every possible analogy you can dream up.

The vine and the branches speaks of a source of supply. It does not speak about every possible nuance of the trunk/branch relationship that can be dreamed up.

Of course the church came "out of Christ." It is the result of accepting Christ, and obeying Christ. Of becoming His follower/disciple.

Seed and harvest is quite different. That actually makes us no more than "relatives" of each other. Seed doesn't make you the body of the seed — it makes you the offspring.

The problem is not that all of these are separate items are not true. It is that there is nothing that makes any of them join up with all the others to cause any reference to the church as the "body" to mean more than what it means where it is written. In 1 Corinthians 12, the "body" reference is about the multitude of differing functions in the church, like it is in a body. It does mention Christ as the head. As it should. When and how we function should be a matter of interaction with Christ.

And since the term "body" is used in a lot of similar "organizations" such as the 82nd Airborne, a legislative "body," and others, I suspect that using the term "body" back in the 1st century AD likely also conveyed meaning without requiring such an all-encompassing meaning to be included without mention. This is the problem with Lee's teaching here. It is not that there is not a valid reference to "body," but that there are specific things meant by the analogy, not every possible connection imaginable. It does not mean that we should require the most unified connection with Christ and each other that we could be referred to as being there with Christ in the Trinity.

I suspect that if that kind of thing were said to Paul, he would have ordered that such a thing never be said again.

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by OBW

The problem is not that all of these are separate items are not true. It is that there is nothing that makes any of them join up with all the others to cause any reference to the church as the "body" to mean more than what it means where it is written. In 1 Corinthians 12, the "body" reference is about the multitude of differing functions in the church, like it is in a body. It does mention Christ as the head. As it should. When and how we function should be a matter of interaction with Christ.

OBW,

Thanks for your response. I disagree in that all those items mentioned convey a life relationship. Seed to harvest, vine to branches, etc. Actually, you are going out of your way to deny the obvious in this case.

As pertains to the body of Christ, even if you were to relegate the meaning of I Cor 12 to simply a functioning of member, coordination, or cooperation like the 82nd Ariborne you deny the plain statement of the text for it does not say only that Christ is the Head, it says that Christ is the Body.

For, even as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the one body, being many, are one body, so also [is] the Christ, 1Cor 12:12

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

As pertains to the body of Christ, even if you were to relegate the meaning of I Cor 12 to simply a functioning of member, coordination, or cooperation like the 82nd Ariborne you deny the plain statement of the text for it does not say only that Christ is the Head, it says that Christ is the Body.

For, even as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the one body, being many, are one body, so also [is] the Christ, 1Cor 12:12

And when Jesus broke the bread at the last supper he said "this is my body," which is the logic the RCC uses when claiming the elements of the Lord's Supper become the literal body and blood of Jesus.

You've come full circle. Congrats.

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by Igzy

And when Jesus broke the bread at the last supper he said "this is my body," which is the logic the RCC uses when claiming the elements of the Lord's Supper become the literal body and blood of Jesus.

You've come full circle. Congrats.

Don't impose your faulty conclusions on me. I don't believe in transubstantiation either.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

Don't impose your faulty conclusions on me. I don't believe in transubstantiation either.

If you don't want people to claim you said things you didn't then don't make the claim about them.

I didn't say you believed in transubstantiation. My plain point was your logic for saying the Body of Christ is literally Christ is exactly the same as that which the transubstantianists use to claim the bread literally becomes Christ's body. You take one verse which may just be metaphorical and you insist it's literal.

[UntoHim]

Ok, anybody else got another classic example of Good Lee/Bad Lee?

[John]

Originally Posted by Cassidy

OBW,

... you deny the plain statement of the text for it does not say only that Christ is the Head, it says that Christ is the Body.

For, even as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the one body, being many, are one body, so also [is] the Christ, 1Cor 12:12

The text of 1 Cor. 12:12 does not plainly state that “Christ is the Body.”

[Thankful Jane]

Originally Posted by OBW

All this talk about the body in very literal terms. Has anyone considered that all of this "body" talk in the NT is descriptive in terms of the inter-workings, the relationships, etc.

I agree with you, OBW. Many, maybe all, Bible illustrations, comparisons, metaphors, etc. are used to teach us, in ways we can easily understand, about our relationship with God. They are not things in themselves that are to be taken in an exacting, literal way. For instance, the Lamb of God, clearly conveys something about Christ's relationship to us and His purpose for coming among us. He was not a literal little wooly lamb with four legs who belonged to God.

Two of the most outstanding relationship descriptors in the Bible are Father and Husband. These two speak volumes. We understand a lot by both of them about how God relates to us and we to Him. Even my grandchildren can understand me when I say God is our Father.

Now just what would they (or others who had not been soaked with Lee teachings) understand by the following verbage?

Originally Posted by Cassidy

This means that this Divine Trinity when He becomes one with His believers through the divine life forms a great corporate divine-human entity which Lee terms the "four-in-one" blended together by God Himself

I’ll can visualize the blank looks on my granddaughters faces if I were to make such a statement to them. But, I would never make such a statement because it’s not in the Bible. This statement is Lee's description of the New Jerusalem. He also said, similarly, of the New Jerusalem that it was the mingling of the tripartite man with the Triune God for eternity. These are just different ways of saying what he eventually spelled out, which was “man is becoming God.”

Please, anyone, show me where Scripture that says the New Jerusalem is a divine-human entity blended together by God or that it is tripartite man mingled with the Triune God.

I can show that the Bible says plainly that the New Jerusalem is the tabernacle of God, the Holy City, the Lamb’s wife. It says there is a throne in that city that belongs uniquely to God and the Lamb. We can understand such statements … but a blended divine-human entity??? ... a mingling of the Triune God with tripartite man???

Revelation ends with a wonderful relationship. The Lamb of God marries the holy city Jerusalem. (Note that a lamb marrying a city is not a literal matter, either.) This marriage is a holy relationship that will last forever; it is not some kind of fourth thing called a great corporate divine-human entity which God has blended together.

Thankful Jane

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Thankful Jane

I agree with you, OBW. Many, maybe all, Bible illustrations, comparisons, metaphors, etc. are used to teach us, in ways we can easily understand, about our relationship with God. They are not things in themselves that are to be taken in an exacting, literal way. For instance, the Lamb of God, clearly conveys something about Christ's relationship to us and His purpose for coming among us. He was not a literal little wooly lamb with four legs who belonged to God.

I agree with this. Related to the "body" metaphor, Apostle Paul taught "if the foot should say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body." Paul spoke as if one member was "the foot." Who was this member? Is "the foot" still alive in some churches? Paul did not say some member was like the foot. No. He referred to that member directly as "the foot."

Here Cassidy follows WL to selectively make a certain metaphor literal to promote one's own teachings. As much as I love Martin Luther, I cannot agree that he maintained his power base in Germany by doing the same thing with the phrase, "This is My body." Using a literal interpretation of this phrase, he rejected all fellowship with the Swiss brethren, and maintained his own power base, creating a division in the body of Christ.

Had WL been willing to accept a little balance from other members in the body of Christ, we would not be having this discussion about the body being in the Godhead.

[John]

I was going to post to Cassidy earlier, but I was waiting for him to reply to Jane about 1st Cor. 6:17 (since he stated that he would reply after some consideration). Since it has been over a week and a half since his post to her, it seems that he may not return. And, since some have referenced the posts of his that I was going to address, I thought that I should put this out to try and get to the truth.


Cassidy,

I wrote in post #108 that the text of 1 Cor. 12:12 does not plainly state that “Christ is the Body.” This may not have registered with you, since you have not responded.


What you wrote

Here’s what you wrote in #87:

Originally Posted by Cassidy

OBW,

...

As pertains to the body of Christ, even if you were to relegate the meaning of I Cor 12 to simply a functioning of member, coordination, or cooperation like the 82nd Ariborne you deny the plain statement of the text for it does not say only that Christ is the Head, it says that Christ is the Body.

For, even as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the one body, being many, are one body, so also [is] the Christ, 1Cor 12:12

I find it interesting that you quote from the Bible and even bring in some Greek in other posts but seem not to really understand the plain English of 1 Cor. 12:12 to which you refer.


A degree of English

Notice that the text of 1 Cor. 12:12 is written as a comparison with two sides, if you will, like an equation. I will use different words (hopefully, disentangling it from the “Body” theology of Witness Lee), to express the basic meaning of the two sides of the linguistic equation that Paul gave us in this verse:

• A physical, human form is one whole made up of many parts.

• Christ’s form is the same (that is, one whole made up of many parts).

This is the most elementary description of the meaning of 12:12 read in isolation from the rest of the chapter. I am not maintaining that this is the only meaning that one can glean from this text. Keep in mind that I’m writing about the meaning of an English sentence and not about theology.

Regardless how you read the plain, basic English of 1 Cor. 12:12 and consider its structure, the text does not state plainly that “Christ is the Body,” as you emphatically stated, using red and underlined fonts. Not only that, the text doesn’t even state that “Christ is the Head,” which you also stated that it does.

Additionally, although I’ve limited my discussion to 1 Cor. 12:12, which was your text, I don’t believe you can find support for your “Christ is the Body” statement anywhere in chapter 12. In fact, chapter 12 says that the body is made up of many members (14) and it indicates that the head is just another one of the members (21).

[John]

Paul used the head and body imagery in several of his epistles; however, one would expect that Paul would use his imagery uniformly within any given letter. With this in mind, consider that he does not state that Christ is the body or even that Christ is the head of the body in Corinthians. In Corinthians, he uses the body as a way to describe how we members should fit together and work together for the body as a whole.

That being said, I am not suggesting that his usage of the body metaphor in Corinthians is the same in the rest of his epistles. Colossians 1:18 does state that Christ is the head of the body, the church; and, also, Ephesians 4:15–16 indicate that Christ is the head of the body.

Paul does not, however, according to what I’ve found, state in any of his writings that Christ is the body. That is a concept that Mr. Lee arrived at by using human reason, an activity that he warned us against, by the way. Witness Lee seems to have gone farther than Paul to come up with the idea that Christ is the Body; and, that idea can lead to a distortion of what it means to live a Christian life.

For example, if one thinks that Christ is the Body; then, a reasonable corollary might be that the Body is Christ. This kind of thinking can have a huge negative impact on an individual. Consider just one slogan that I recall from the earlier days of the Living Stream Ministry: “The voice of the Body is the mind of the Lord.” If this is the case, then all I have to do to know the mind of the Lord is to ask the Body (since Body=Christ), which usually translates in the Local Church system to following the instructions of Mr. Lee and the elders.

Doing this, not only is a person manipulated into following men slavishly to likely detriment, this “theology” robs a person of experiences of Jesus Christ, the only One Who should be our Lord and Master.

[John]

Another passage that Lee used to support his notion that Christ is the Body (and Cassidy mentioned) is from Acts. In the passage, an interchange between Jesus and Saul went like this, beginning with Saul speaking:

And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. (Acts 22:7–8)

Mr. Lee reasoned that Paul had not been persecuting Jesus but only those of the way. Further, since Jesus said that Saul was persecuting Him, Lee reasoned that Christ is the Body (or, maybe, the Body is Christ).

Again, this may sound reasonable in the land of Lee, but using these verses does not prove his point; because, it is an interpretation based on an arcane understanding of English. What would be another way to understand that kind of a statement? I could say, for example, that someone who persecutes my son is persecuting me. Native speakers of English would understand that I would consider a person coming against my son as coming against me. I doubt that any sane native speaker of English would think that my son is me.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by OBW

And since 1 Cor 12 is brought up, why do we feel that Paul's discussion starting at verse 12 using the analogy of a body is intended to mean something literal about a body? The description is about how we interact like different parts of a body. How we perform different functions. How everyone is not the same. It is not a discussion about how we are part of Christ and therefor present in the Trinity.

This is the fruit of the whole "Recovery" mindset, that is their central hermeneutic regarding the existence of major hidden truths in the Word which are more important than what the Word plainly teaches. Lee's focus on finding meaning where meaning wasn't apparent led to most of the defining doctrines of the LRC movement being ideas that the Bible does not plainly teach. E.g.:

• Recovery
• Only one church per city
• Son being Father, Son being Holy Spirit
• Economy being dispensing
• Mingling
• Becoming God
• Minister of the age

All these things are not plainly taught in the Bible. But they are major pillars of the LRC. Lee's focus on being different and being independent led to this. The Body becoming part of God is just another example of the kind of fringe teachings produced when one looks for hidden messages in the Bible and doesn't regard the counsel of others.

Amazingly, at the same time, Lee and the LRC ignored or marginalized plain biblical teaching. E.g.:

• Loving God and people as the primary commandments.
• Ministering to the less fortunate.
• Leadership as an act of service.
• Not lording over the members.
• Not thinking of oneself more highly than one ought to.
• Not being of a particular minister.
• Submitting to one another (including to those who don't meet with you).

The last one is telling. Had Lee submitted to the Body, meaning the whole Body, he might have been balanced by it. But he took the path that he was his own best counsel and the rest of the Church had nothing to offer. The result is fringe ideas which will probably never become mainstream.

This phenomenon of a single leader thinking he or she had the inside track on the truth has happened again and again in history, both in Christian and non-Christian movements. It happened with Lee. It happened Herbert Armstrong. Also with William Miller, F.E. Raven, Mary Baker Eddy, Ayn Rand, Elizabeth Prophet, and many others. The result is always the same. The leader is elevated to the status of a special prophet far and above others by a small and highly devoted but highly myopic group of followers.

The single most important factor in creating these imbalanced, fringe movements is that the founder or leader claims to be a special vessel of revelation and leadership. Lee did this as well. It was one of his biggest errors, and he erred in such spectacular fashion that he basically sealed his fate as being at best considered a devoted but highly eccentric fringe religious leader.

For for all Lee's talk about blending, he never blended with any teacher after Nee left the picture. He only blended with himself. The results speak for themselves. He became quite imbalanced and produced a cult-like exclusive following. Just like every other mistaken teacher in history who has claimed to have the inside track on the truth.