The Gospel Versus "God's Economy"

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

What I see in the New Testament is, the church between Jesus and Paul being Jewish, and then with Paul gentile. And their Jesus's weren't the same.

Let me make an analogy here. Suppose I want to learn about Fred Smith, what he was like. Suppose I say, "Well, I surely want to interview his neighbour. They lived next door for years. But I won't ask his child, because the boy was young, and he's obviously biased." Does that make any sense?

Surely the neighbour and the boy have unique views, but of the same man.

Paul was clearly necessary; without Paul, you and I would not be writing about James, here. Christianity would have died when Jerusalem was destroyed.

And to simplify the Jerusalem/Jewish wing of the church as "James" oversimplifies to an extreme. As I said, Peter and John were law-keeping Jews. And I see no evidence that John ever stopped. And Paul said in Acts 22 that he was baptized by a law-keeping Jew.

If we want to simplify, let's say that, "Love fulfills the law"; beyond that, I think all voices should be heard. It's the sound of many waters. God did it, to His glory and honour. The spiritual crime of Lee is that he only wanted to hear his own voice. And he convinced us this was necessary. "To avoid confusion."

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

The spiritual crime of Lee is that he only wanted to hear his own voice. And he convinced us this was necessary. "To avoid confusion."

I love this.

[UntoHim]

These terms "another Gospel" and "another Jesus" are kind of like the explosively controversial term "cult".... They can and actually often do mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Now this is all well and good for the term cult, but to be frank with all of you, the terms another Gospel and another Jesus should not be "moving targets". To say "another Gospel" is an absolute truth-statement. To say "another Jesus" is an absolute truth-statement. These were not given as "truth-suggestions" or "truth-options" by the apostle Paul. There was no room for negotiations when it came to the Gospel or to the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. Paul was absolute, non-negotiable, immobile and inflexible when it came to the truth of the Gospel. I'm sure we are all familiar with the passage that tells us about how Paul confronted a senior apostle, Peter, for not being "in step with the truth of the gospel"(Galatians 2:14)

So how are we to be sure when it might be appropriate to tag a Christian group as a "cult"? Who has the qualifications, right and privilege of declaring that a person or persons are preaching and teaching another Gospel or another Jesus? Pretty difficult questions, to be sure. But I must tell you all that we should be able and willing to answer these questions as best we can. For decades Witness Lee railed upon his brothers and sisters in Christ for being "poor", "blind", "degraded" and even "christless". Can there be any doubt that Lee was at least implicitly, if not explicitly, making a claim that "poor, poor Christianity" was preaching another Gospel and another Jesus? I believe that it is now abundantly clear that Witness Lee made these claims as a distraction and diversion to draw his own followers' attention, hearts and minds away from the fact that it was he that was preaching and teaching another gospel and another Jesus.

I think it is now clear (or should be clear) to many of us that the teaching of "God's economy" is indeed another gospel, and the teaching of "the processed triune God" is indeed another Jesus. I think it is fair and appropriate for us to ask: what are the fruits of these two teachings? What kind of people have these two teachings produced? As a longtime former Local Church member I can tell you what these teachings produced in me, and many of the followers of Witness Lee I observed, knew well and even lived with for years. We were not humbled by any of these supposed "recovered truths". We were proud, haughty and conceited, and even worse, decidedly ignorant of what God was doing for, in and among the other Christians around the world in general, and among other Christians in our various localities specifically. Of course I have painted with a fairly broad brush here...time and space restrict me for the time being, however, I hope others can fill in the blanks for me over a period of time, right here on this thread.
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[Nell]

An excellent and eloquent message indeed, UntoHim.

Nell

[awareness]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

I hope others can fill in the blanks for me over a period of time, right here on this thread.
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Me too UntoHim. And thanks for pointing out Lee's 'other gospel' of, God's Economy, and the processed triune God. In truth, Lee's 'high peak's' were mostly another extra-Biblical gospel.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

If we want to simplify, let's say that, "Love fulfills the law"; beyond that, I think all voices should be heard. It's the sound of many waters. God did it, to His glory and honour. The spiritual crime of Lee is that he only wanted to hear his own voice. And he convinced us this was necessary. "To avoid confusion."

Well it's okay if he preaches another Jesus. As I pointed out, there's many Jesus's. Just don't push it on me. ; then Lee would be violating my sovereign relationship with Christ.

But ... unless I missed something ... we still haven't figured if Lee taught another gospel. Cuz even early on, in the history of Christianity, there's been other gospels ; early on, besides salvation by grace, there were, for example, salvation by following the law, and salvation by gnosis. There were actually early Christian groups that held to a different gospel other than grace. Didn't Paul have problems with some of them? That's how early other gospels sprang up.

Lee certainly didn't teach the latter two, law and gnosis. So if Lee taught another gospel, what was it? And what was the original genuine gospel, to measure it by?