Lee's Trinity

[UntoHim]

Just as Witness Lee used the extra-biblical terms "essential" and "economical" to go beyond what is written in the actual text, our friends Drake and Evangelical use extra-biblical terms (hypostatic, etc) to go beyond what is written. Witness Lee was not a trained theologian, and it showed big time in his make-it-up-as-he-went-along "recovered" teachings.

I'm glad to see that Evangelical (Drake too?) are using other bible helps, such as Gill, when studying these theological matters. But, please, don't try to use the theological musings of legitimate scholars to bolster the teachings of Witness Lee. Even Lee himself would rarely reference the works of others (although he occasionally plagiarized them without giving credit), and he certainly gave little to no credit to anyone but himself for his "high peak truths".
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[Drake]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Just as Witness Lee used the extra-biblical terms "essential" and "economical" to go beyond what is written in the actual text, our friends Drake and Evangelical use extra-biblical terms (hypostatic, etc) to go beyond what is written. Witness Lee was not a trained theologian, and it showed big time in his make-it-up-as-he-went-along "recovered" teachings.

I'm glad to see that Evangelical (Drake too?) are using other bible helps, such as Gill, when studying these theological matters. But, please, don't try to use the theological musings of legitimate scholars to bolster the teachings of Witness Lee. Even Lee himself would rarely reference the works of others (although he occasionally plagiarized them without giving credit), and he certainly gave little to no credit to anyone but himself for his "high peak truths".
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UntoHim, its also known as communication through the medium of language. ;-)

But to your point I have removed all the extra-biblical terms in your post above. Would that be clearer now?

UntoHim's post without the extra-biblical terms:

"Just as Witness used the and to go beyond what is written in the actual, our friends and use to go beyond what is written. Witness was not a, and it showed big time in his teachings.

I'm glad to see that (too?) are using other such as l, when studying these . But, please, don't try to use the of to the teachings of Witness. Even himself would rarely the works of others (although he occasionally them without giving), and he certainly gave little to no to anyone but himself for his "high peak truths"."

Actually, I kind of like better,,,, much more succinct (I will have to see if succinct is in the bible... next time).

Drake

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Drake

UntoHim, its also known as communication through the medium of language. ;-)

But to our point I have removed all the extra-biblical terms in your post above. Would that be clearer now?

UntoHim's post without the extra-biblical terms:

"Just as Witness used the and to go beyond what is written in the actual, our friends and use to go beyond what is written. Witness was not a, and it showed big time in his teachings.

I'm glad to see that (too?) are using other such as l, when studying these . But, please, don't try to use the of to the teachings of Witness. Even himself would rarely the works of others (although he occasionally them without giving), and he certainly gave little to no to anyone but himself for his "high peak truths"."

Actually, I kind of like better,,,, much more succinct (I will have to see if succinct is in the bible... next time).

Drake

More word games by the master wordsmiths at LSM.

All of a sudden our dear brother Drake has become a literalist, and a "pure wordist," I knew he could do it!

As for the so-called heretical "high-peak" truths promoted by Witness Lee back in the early-90's, one should note the urgent timing of this diversionary ruse. At the height of scandal, with numerous men of God around the globe crying out for repentance and righteous action concerning immoral actions of the acting head at LSM, the profligate and unsaved son of Witness Lee, who took great pleasure molesting the volunteer help and lording over church leaders, Lee launched a two-prong attack:

Firstly, throw all these "rebellious" leaders under the bus, labeling them lepers and worse, publicly and in writing. (Notice how he dared not use LSM as a publisher, since he then would be accountable for libelous falsehoods. As it turned out, those he attacked never sued him, because they were limited by the Spirit and the plain words of I Cor. 6)

Secondly, claim to receive new "revelation" from the God of "recovery," resuscitating comments made by Athanasius almost two millennia ago.

[Drake]

OBW)"And you seek a verse, so here it is.

John 17:20-21. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

Here Jesus said that we are to be one just as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father. We like to take this to extremes. And you have done so in a manner than puts the Father in Christ being crucified and therefore being there. But if the oneness that we human Christians can experience is likened to the kind of oneness that is described as "you in me and I in you" then maybe we aren't so clear about how far that goes, or exactly what it means. If it means that we are to be unified like the Father being present inside the Son as he is crucified, then there is an obvious extent in which we are simply not capable of being that "one."

OBW,

I am glad you brought this verse up. Perhaps it will provide clarity.

When Jesus referred to I in You, You in Me, they is Us ... He obviously was not referring to His physical body. He was apparently referring to something deeper. more intrinsic. We know now in retrospect that this refers to Christ's spiritual Body.

If we can be part of something intrinsic, like His Body, but not part of His physical Body nor share in His Godhead, then it is plausible, more than probable, that there is a distinction that can, and needs to made, concerning these lines of demarcation. That also applies to events on the cross as it does every other event such as incarnation. Clearly, the man Jesus, who became sin itself on the cross was abandoned by the Father, and He as the Son as that Man really died, but that does not alter in anyway the eternal status of the Father and Son and Spirit as coinhering, co-existing, and co-equals. That divine and holy relationship is maintained throughout. If you are willing (and maybe you are) to affirm that the essence of God and the Godhead (all the co's) never change then the explanation for the Father forsaking the Son must be understood apart from mentally tampering with a change in the Godhead. The ditch of Trithesim awaits those who try to explain a separation of the Son from the Father on the cross as in anyway related to the essential Trinity. To make that assertion and to make it stick would mean you have to trace that separation at the cross (if that is where you think the separation occurred) and then back through His human living, incarnation, and ultimately back into the Godhead. Or else, you have to show where along that same path a separation occurred.

Drake

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Drake

When Jesus referred to I in You, You in Me, they is Us ... He obviously was not referring to His physical body. He was apparently referring to something deeper. more intrinsic. We know now in retrospect that this refers to Christ's spiritual Body.

But if it is part of something "intrinsic," then it is not simply anything.

And what exactly is "instrinsisc"? Yet another extra-biblical term added into the discussion which covers for something we really don't know much about. But you are quite clear that it is beyond what the description actually provided infers.

And when it comes to inferring, if there is something "intrinsic" between us that is "as" the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father" (I am using the John verse here — there is no mention of in us) then intrinsic does not cause the Father to be "in the Son" in a manner that makes him actually experience what the Son experiences in the crucifixion.

I know that you will rush to warn about tritheism, but it would appear that the manner in which Jesus spoke of his relationship with the Father would seem to infer more nearly two (and ultimately three) that have an everlasting unity rather than one that has some sense in which there are three. But the God you try to force through the added terms is inconsistent with the God actually revealed. He is revealed as Father, Son, and Spirit, But also as One God.

The real evidence presents us with a mystery. One in which three are so one that there is never the opportunity to play one against the other (like one parent against another). There is no place in which they are at odds with each other. They are one. To take it to your extreme is to need it to fit within human understanding of one. Tritheism would be to worship three Gods that are not one in the manner that our God is one. But how that oneness comes to be is a mystery. How three could be truly one is not rational. It is a mystery.

We give the oneness funny terms like essence, hypostatic union, intrinsic. But these words do not define how it works. They are placeholders for what we cannot understand. But you, and Lee before you, and a few others before that, have tried to take some natural understanding of these terms and force it to define the unity of God. I will admit that there is a chance that it could actually be right. But there is nothing that makes it simply so. And nothing that supports that as more than conjecture.

However, there are some aspects of how God is revealed as three that makes that kind of thinking much more likely wrong than right. If the Father is there on the cross with Christ, then he can't turn his face because he would turn his face on himself. There isn't even a mystery in which that would be considered possible. Just because it would be a mystery if it were true does not make it a rational mystery. The trinity does not present us with something that is simply ludicrous to say out loud. It is just so ill-defined (if at all) and outside of our realm of reasoning that we cannot grasp the how. But it is still not an unreasonable premise. But determining that someone would turn his face from himself is to suggest a kind of schizophrenia in which two disparate minds take turns ruling a body. Sort of like the two-headed president of the galaxy in The Hitchhiker's Guide.

And if your insistence on the presence of the Father being with Christ on the cross is just about that intrinsic, hypostatic, essential unity, then you are missing that these are more like bonds that unite than factors in which they are physically inseparable. It is about the nature of their unity and not the obscuring of the separateness.

Could you say that the Father had a sense of the pain and suffering of Christ on the cross. Plausibly so. But can you say that the Father was there? Even in the death and burial? Not if he is going to turn his face from it. Not if he is going to be active during that time in which Christ was not present outside the tomb living and breathing.

[Drake]

OBW) "And what exactly is "instrinsisc"?"

Intrinsic is just the essential nature of a thing.

OBW) I am using the John verse here — there is no mention of in us"

21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:


OBW) "the manner in which Jesus spoke of his relationship with the Father would seem to infer more nearly two (and ultimately three) that have an everlasting unity rather than one that has some sense in which there are three" "How three could be truly one is not rational. It is a mystery."

The descriptors three in unison and one that are three is a imprecise definition of "Triune" because it is, as you say, a mystery and we all grapple with it.

OBW) "We give the oneness funny terms like essence, hypostatic union, intrinsic. But these words do not define how it works. They are placeholders for what we cannot understand. But you, and Lee before you, and a few others before that, have tried to take some natural understanding of these terms and force it to define the unity of God. I will admit that there is a chance that it could actually be right. But there is nothing that makes it simply so. And nothing that supports that as more than conjecture."

These are terms that have been used for hundreds of years... sometimes thousands. They are not Bro Lee's or Evangelicals, or mine. In trying to describe something as grand and mysterious as God the human language is inadequate but that is no excuse for not trying to understand and describe what is revealed in the Holy Scriptures."

OBW)" Could you say that the Father had a sense of the pain and suffering of Christ on the cross. Plausibly so."

I don't know about that one if you mean physical pain. I think not.

OBW, you do not appear to make a distinction concerning the Lord's humanity on this topic. As I read all your notes this seems to be missing. Jesus got His humanity from Mary. That humanity was subject to all the same temptations and weaknesses as ours. The divine life is indestructible and so God could not die unless as a man. It is okay to say that God died on the cross. He did.

Drake

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Drake

These are terms that have been used for hundreds of years... sometimes thousands. They are not Bro Lee's or Evangelicals, or mine. In trying to describe something as grand and mysterious as God the human language is inadequate but that is no excuse for not trying to understand and describe what is revealed in the Holy Scriptures."

And that is what I have been doing. The descriptions given would point to three that have a unity that we cannot comprehend. But it would seem that you (and Lee, and a few others before him) are determined to fill in the gaps beyond what the descriptions provide.

I do not disagree that the terms have been used for hundreds of years. But I notice that when someone manages to use a word that is more like what Lee used, it is presumed that they mean what Lee meant. But I find nothing that makes that true.

And the trend continues. When the portions from the Gill article said things like "hypostatic[al] union" either you or Evangelical swept in to further define that by saying that it meant that the three could not be so separate as for the Father to not be present at the crucifixion as a participant on the cross, not just observing. But there is nothing that makes that so. Nothing found in the scripture. No matter how one we are, if either of us goes out at rush hour and is run over by a truck, the other does not even know it happened until told. We do not feel the pain.

Of course I admit that on a good day we may have not arrived at the oneness that Jesus prayed about. But if he felt the need to pray about it, it should be something that we expect to happen at a point in which prayer for it is important. If it is only about the age to come, then why pray. It will come to be. So if it is for this age, then oneness is not likely something that extreme no matter what term you want o use to label it.

Why do we insist that the oneness of the Godhead be such that they are "simply" each other. That is what Lee would say. That is why he pushed that misreading of 1 Cor. 15:45 to declare that Christ became the Holy Spirit. He was going where the scripture did not go. Not even in that particular verse. The accounts in the scripture provide a rational understanding of "if you've seen me you've seen the Father" without declaring that the Son is simply the Father. (And I have already pointed those out so I will not bother again. If you really want to feign ignorance, ask.)

As I said before, when I take the preponderance of the evidence, I find that there are three that have a unity that is greater than man can achieve. And that unity is not transient or temporal. It is constant and forever. But it does not reach so far as to deny the separation of the three. It would seem that while they are equally capable, they also tend to have their roles to "play." God the Father is not the one who was to come to earth as a man, live, die, and resurrect. That was the Son. And the primary interface with man after the ascension of the Son was through the Spirit. There is nothing in that to deny any of them a part in anything. But the part they take is not forced on them because of hypostatic union, or essence, or some other intrinsic element. That is not supported by any of the verses that I see, including the ones that you and/or Evangelical have brought out for consideration.

Instead, I notice that each verse says something in a context and you or EVG are determined to deny the context and force it into permanent service in all cases and all situations. Your paradigm for how to read the Bible is excessively rigid with regard to words. And Lee pushed that kind of thinking. If there is a word, he would find the first mention, determine its meaning in that place (and in some cases, tell a story to cause it to mean something it really didn't mean) and then declare that it must mean the same thing everywhere it is found.

That is a trap for the ignorant. The only question is whether Lee was truly that ignorant or just his followers.

As for the quotation from John 17, that is not the way all translations read. I will not try to defend one over another except to say that it must not be so certain as to the meaning or they would agree.

[Drake]

OBW)"But it would seem that you (and Lee, and a few others before him) are determined to fill in the gaps beyond what the descriptions provide.".

OBW,

Lets look at some of the descriptions for major events of God's work concerning man.

Keeping in mind the essence of a God, what He is, the essential Trinity, remains the same from eternity past to eternity future.

Perhaps we can agree on this: Through incarnation something special happened that never happened before. Divinity entered humanity.


Drake

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by OBW

And that is what I have been doing. The descriptions given would point to three that have a unity that we cannot comprehend. But it would seem that you (and Lee, and a few others before him) are determined to fill in the gaps beyond what the descriptions provide.

I do not disagree that the terms have been used for hundreds of years. But I notice that when someone manages to use a word that is more like what Lee used, it is presumed that they mean what Lee meant. But I find nothing that makes that true.

And the trend continues. When the portions from the Gill article said things like "hypostatic[al] union" either you or Evangelical swept in to further define that by saying that it meant that the three could not be so separate as for the Father to not be present at the crucifixion as a participant on the cross, not just observing. But there is nothing that makes that so. Nothing found in the scripture. No matter how one we are, if either of us goes out at rush hour and is run over by a truck, the other does not even know it happened until told. We do not feel the pain.

Of course I admit that on a good day we may have not arrived at the oneness that Jesus prayed about. But if he felt the need to pray about it, it should be something that we expect to happen at a point in which prayer for it is important. If it is only about the age to come, then why pray. It will come to be. So if it is for this age, then oneness is not likely something that extreme no matter what term you want o use to label it.

Why do we insist that the oneness of the Godhead be such that they are "simply" each other. That is what Lee would say. That is why he pushed that misreading of 1 Cor. 15:45 to declare that Christ became the Holy Spirit. He was going where the scripture did not go. Not even in that particular verse. The accounts in the scripture provide a rational understanding of "if you've seen me you've seen the Father" without declaring that the Son is simply the Father. (And I have already pointed those out so I will not bother again. If you really want to feign ignorance, ask.)

As I said before, when I take the preponderance of the evidence, I find that there are three that have a unity that is greater than man can achieve. And that unity is not transient or temporal. It is constant and forever. But it does not reach so far as to deny the separation of the three. It would seem that while they are equally capable, they also tend to have their roles to "play." God the Father is not the one who was to come to earth as a man, live, die, and resurrect. That was the Son. And the primary interface with man after the ascension of the Son was through the Spirit. There is nothing in that to deny any of them a part in anything. But the part they take is not forced on them because of hypostatic union, or essence, or some other intrinsic element. That is not supported by any of the verses that I see, including the ones that you and/or Evangelical have brought out for consideration.

Instead, I notice that each verse says something in a context and you or EVG are determined to deny the context and force it into permanent service in all cases and all situations. Your paradigm for how to read the Bible is excessively rigid with regard to words. And Lee pushed that kind of thinking. If there is a word, he would find the first mention, determine its meaning in that place (and in some cases, tell a story to cause it to mean something it really didn't mean) and then declare that it must mean the same thing everywhere it is found.

That is a trap for the ignorant. The only question is whether Lee was truly that ignorant or just his followers.

As for the quotation from John 17, that is not the way all translations read. I will not try to defend one over another except to say that it must not be so certain as to the meaning or they would agree.

Perhaps you have not thought this through enough to its logical end, to realize that the belief you hold is in error.

If Christ lost his divine nature on the cross then only a man died on the cross. Consider the implications of such a doctrine in regards to eternal salvation and Christ's once for all sacrifice for all mankind. Rather than believing that just a perfect man died on the cross, we believe that a perfect God-man died on the cross. The humanity and the divinity together accomplished salvation for all eternity - it was not an act of humanity alone, or of God alone, but of both the human and divine.

Now we could say that the Father could leave Christ and Christ still retain His divinity on the cross (but it still seems like a step towards Nestorianism to me). But this is not possible, because Christ's divinity came from its divine source - the Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ's Father was divinity and His mother was humanity. Take away the Father and it takes away from Christ's divinity.

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Just as Witness Lee used the extra-biblical terms "essential" and "economical" to go beyond what is written in the actual text, our friends Drake and Evangelical use extra-biblical terms (hypostatic, etc) to go beyond what is written. Witness Lee was not a trained theologian, and it showed big time in his make-it-up-as-he-went-along "recovered" teachings.

I'm glad to see that Evangelical (Drake too?) are using other bible helps, such as Gill, when studying these theological matters. But, please, don't try to use the theological musings of legitimate scholars to bolster the teachings of Witness Lee. Even Lee himself would rarely reference the works of others (although he occasionally plagiarized them without giving credit), and he certainly gave little to no credit to anyone but himself for his "high peak truths".
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You say that Drake and I use extra-biblical sources yet you used the Athanasian creed to support your version of the Trinity, written about 500 hundred years after Christ...

I believe that if we quote only the Bible without resorting to extra-biblical sources, then Lee's version of the Trinity is the one that would result. Afterall, Lee's methods of interpretation is to let the Bible explain the bible, in a simplistic and literal way - we accept that Jesus is the Spirit and Jesus is the Father because the Bible says so. Lee and us are possibly the only ones who are letting the Bible speak for itself.

You and others say this is wrong, not because the bible says so, but because the Athanasian Creed says so. Who is using extra-biblical sources now?

What you are constrained to do, is refer to extra-biblical sources such as the Athanasian Creed to defend your version of the Trinity. In this respect you are no different to the Catholics who point to the Church traditions and early church fathers to support their teachings and practices. The version of the Trinity that you hold onto is a version which depends upon extra-biblical sources, and the large religious institutions such as the Catholic church which enforce and uphold them.

If we reject the Creeds and let the bible speak for itself then Lee's version of the Trinity is the result. If you had no prior knowledge of the Creed's and had only your bible then I believe you would believe the same as Lee about the Trinity.

The word hypostatic is no more extra biblical than the term Trinity.
It means a technical term in Christian theology employed in mainstream Christology to describe the union of Christ's humanity and divinity in one hypostasis, or individual existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypostatic_union

Although Lee does not often use that terminology, whenever Lee refers to Christ as the God-man, he is essentially referring to the hypostatic union.

I am not using theological resources to bolster the teachings of Lee. Rather I am showing that there are multiple ways to interpret God "forsaking" Christ on the cross, and most bible commentaries I have read agree with me (and Lee etc) that the Father departing Christ, was likely not one of them. At least two bible commentaries - Gill and Clarke show that the Father did not *leave* Christ on the cross. The leaving was in regards to God's manifest presence, but the Father still indwelt Christ the whole time.