The Gospel Versus "God's Economy"

[aron]

Originally Posted by InOmnibusCaritas

4) "I can't speak for you, of course, but I can speak for my self and others that I know, that have left the LC, and I and them agree that we were bewitched by Lee." (Awareness)

Awareness was referring to Gal. 3:1. It is true that we have all been under Lee's spell, subscribing only to his interpretation of scripture, many of which is suspect. But Paul was talking about the gospel -- the Judaizers were telling the Galatians that, "No, faith in Jesus Christ crucified is not good enough. You also need to be circumcised in order to be part of God's covenant people". What are criteria other than the gospel did Witness Lee imposed on us in order to be God's people?

But was Paul just referring to salvation alone in the epistle to the Galatians? Or was there a "high" gospel (to the Jews) and a "low" gospel (to the gentiles), and likewise a marginally-covenanted people (gentiles) and a fully-covenanted people (Jews) emerging? Was there in fact a sort of de facto tiered gospel going forth, that Paul struggled to combat? We know there's one gospel, and that to sinners. But in those days with the clear delineation of separation of peoples, ingrained deeply in centuries of teaching, culture and practice, there was a challenge for the Good News of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Look at Peter in Acts 10, after the resurrection, in reply to the voice from heaven, that had told him to "arise, slay and eat". Peter exclaimed, "By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean." Gentiles were unholy and unclean. This was a Jesus follower speaking! That "unclean" was gone with the blood of Christ, but the centuries of deeply ingrained Jewish practices struggled with that. So in those first decades, a new gospel arose, one with tiers of covenanted people: those who kept the law and those who didn't. Both were saved as we understand the word. But one had a "higher calling" as God's originally covenanted people. (I note that some Evangelicals still consider Jews as special, even after the blood of Christ).

So perhaps InOmnibusCaritas is oversimplifying. And perhaps Lee offered a "new Christ" with a "new covenant" of the local ground, which made you the equivalent of the law-keeping Christian Jews of the early NT era. Lee used to say, "Of all creatures, it is best to be a man because we are made in God's image. And of all men, it is best to be Christian because we receive God's life and nature. And of all Christians it is best to be on the local ground because we receive God's blessing."

So Lee was selling a supposedly higher gospel, which delineated he and his followers from "darkened" and "fallen" Christianity, which was called "demonic" etc. This "tiered Christianity" alone is a borderline bewitching, if not fully so. Salvation aside, it is a perversion of the gospel, just as keeping the law made the Jews somehow "special Christians" in Paul's era. "Being saved is of course good, but being saved and "special sauce #1" is the best"

(Please note that this is an argument that I am making for consideration's sake. I have no emotional attachment to the idea, and may abandon it or modify it. I'm just considering how Paul's Galatian warning may be applicable in the Christian faith and polity today, specifically with the LC case).