The Psalms are the word of Christ

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

In the Psalms, WL would pan David's expressions of fealty to God, as the vain imaginations of a sinner. WL couldn't see the coming Son of David, Jesus the Christ, in spite of the NT's repeated invitations to do so. ... WL pointed either to the "fallen psalmist" under the law, or the "seeking Christian" under grace, but in either case he misaimed ... The Bible is not about David, or even about us; it is about Jesus Christ...

Jesus said, "These things were written of Me" (e.g. Luk 24:44,27; Heb 10:7 &c), and WL replied, "No, they're not; they either represent the concepts of the fallen, law-keeping psalmist, or the grace given to the New Testament (NT) believer." Unless NT usage forced him, WL typically was unwilling to see Christ Himself unveiled in psalm.

Originally Posted by Freedom

I became disillusioned with the LC, all the ranting and raving about the "richness" of WL's ministry really started to get to me... LCers talk this way because they need the constant reinforcement that these "high peak" teachings actually mean something...

The excitement of that should have died off along time ago, but it hasn't. I see all the posts on Facebook. After each of these trainings, there's talk about how the Lord has been moving and the "last revival" has been initiated to "end the age". It's actually kind of funny how this same supposed "revival" keeps happening over and over again...

I sarcastically included the idea of revival in a recent post, while paraphrasing LSM's verbiage. I suppose this makes me a scoffer; in fact I don't oppose or dismiss the idea of revival, even a 'great' and 'final' one. I'd surely love to see the knowledge of God cover the face of the earth, as waters cover the sea, per Isa 11:9 (also Hab 2:14; cf Num 14:21).

But the question here is, how to base a revival on a ministry which advances itself at the expense of the word of God? Here's a comment on the psalms of David, found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is therefore dated at approximately the time of Jesus Christ:

Originally Posted by DSS 11QPs Psa 151 prose interlude

And he [David] wrote psalms: three thousand six hundred; and the songs to be sung before the altar over the perpetual offering of every day, for all the days of the year; three hundred sixty four; and for the Sabbath offerings; fifty-two songs; and for the offering for the beginning of the month, and for all the days of the festivals, and for the day of atonement: thirty songs. And all the songs which he composed were four hundred and forty-six. He composed them all through the spirit of prophecy which had been given to him from before the Most High....

It says, "He composed them all through the spirit of prophecy which had been given to him from before the Most High"; all NT reception of the psalms essentially agrees with this. And, equally important for evaluating WL's psalms treatment, there's no contemporary work (i.e. Second Temple Judaism, NT, or shortly after) which regards David's lyrical oeuvre as the equivalent of "fallen human concepts".

If the NT scripture doesn't treat OT source texts that way - in fact, the opposite - how then to give ourselves such license? I scoff not at great revival, but rather at the hubris of treating the word of God so cavalierly. And I summarily dismiss the idea of building any work, great or otherwise, upon such foundations.

No; there's a spirit of prophecy at work in the words before us, including Psalms, and if we do diligence to extract the life, as WL once urged us, long ago, we'll indeed be equipped to revive this land. May God have mercy on us all, and forgive me for my often adversarial tone while writing here. I simply must categorically disagree with the treatment of the word of God. Period. And I'd be willing to let go of pretty much everything "negative" written on this site, that I was simply being crabby, contentious, etc; you know, the "bitter ex-member." Perhaps that's true. But even as a bitter ex-member, I ask, How can we treat the word of God, thus? And, how can we base any work upon such treatment?

I think the Word is bigger than any of us, as is both the life and the works (power, or Gk 'dunamis') it contains. It will take all of us, LC included, to usher its fullness in. So I do apologize to them for my attitude, and for my crabby comments - most have been poorly presented. But I still ask, how can we pass by the word of God in such manner? And how can we expect anything good to follow, if we do so?

Sorry for carrying on, thus... as you see I'm rather passionate about the subject. Thanks for giving me a forum.