Erroneous Teaching of Lee Concerning Natural Affection

Ohio · 07-13-2019, 09:01 AM

This quote is from STEM Publishers, the online go to site for Exclusive Brethren writers. Lee was not the source of this teaching, rather he merely "stole" it from the Brethren.

Quote:

Leaven and honey were excluded from the meat offering in Luke 2, and it may be well to look at this. Leaven represents evil, and could have no place in the perfect Man. Jesus was absolutely holy. Honey is rather the figure of natural affections, which are good in themselves, but form no part of the offering upon the altar. So our Lord could say to Mary, in John 2, "What have I to do with thee?" We have no doubt as to our Lord's care and love for her from other passages.

The Brethren became famous for inferring the most ridiculous of interpretations from O.T. passages, especially when warring with those they formerly met with. For them everything must be properly interpreted, and it's often amazing what they could dig out of scriptures to bludgeon their opponents and hold their people in bondage.

If you read Brethren literature, e.g. the vindictive GV Wigram, after the Newton and Muller excommunications, you would be amazed at the vitriol-laced interpretations extracted from the Torah, and heaped on these two brothers. For the faithful follower in the Darby Lineage, you would think brother George Muller deserved a far worse judgment than the devil himself. And to think that W. Nee told us these Darby Brethren should be the historical fulfillment of "Philadelphia" the church of brotherly love. Obviously the Savior thought otherwise, and George Muller, while caring for English Orphans, received more direct answers from prayer than perhaps any brother in church history.

The interpretation of honey as "natural affection" was used by Exclusive Brethren to keep their faithful loyal to the program, despite their love for friends and family who might be expelled. This is little different from today's Amish shunning, or what Jewish believers faced being "put out of the synagogue" for believing in Jesus.