The Psalms are the word of Christ

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

I think there is some Christ to be found in more than 3 of the first 21 Psalms.

According to Lee, Psalm 2, Psalm 8, and Psalm 16 had revelation of Jesus Christ. They were words in, of, for, and to the "gospel of God... concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord" which Paul referred to in his letter to the Romans. (1:1 & 1:3). This gospel was promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Sciptures (v2), and these promises are seen in Psalms 2, 8, and 16. The New Testament usage of these texts makes this clear.

But if the NT didn't make such use of the Psalms, Lee wasn't interested, and this constituted the bulk of the material in question. Today, if you walk up to a LSM'er and quote Psalm 14 or 114, they will stare at you blankly. It has no meaning.

My argument here, has been that this corpus had meaning, as evidenced by its widespread citation in the NT. There was a narrative unfolding on the ground, which narrative was widely if not universally recognized and understood, and thus the frequent citation by NT speakers and writers. They used shared meaning to construct new meaning: "Jesus is both Lord and Christ".

But today the narrative is gone. Awareness is minimal, at best. In extremist groups like the LC, scripture's even dismissed as passe. The "NT revelation" has supposedly superseded the Old. Yet this supposed new revelation is based on teachings like those put forth by Lee, who had little respect for the body of text, and minimal knowledge, and with no external restraint his imagination was free to fabricate interpretive matrices that could even be used to dismiss the text itself.

And if you refer people back to the actual text, and to supporting documents, they stare at you as if you suddenly spoke Martian. The supporting commentary by the Fathers is gone, the pseudepigrapha and apocrypha are gone, cultural awareness is gone, and the actual text is even dismissed by and large. In their minds it truly doesn't exist.

You've moved from an unfolding revelation to sola scriptora to sola theologica. And if this theology is the homespun creation of an accountant from Yantai, Shandong, China, how far have you traveled away from the "gospel of God... concerning His Son, Jesus Christ who is our Lord"? If that which was written by the prophets is dismissed as "fallen concepts of men", what's your theology based on? What kind of gospel have you constructed with it? One that's qualitatively different from the one presented in the New Testament.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

Today, if you walk up to a LSM'er and quote Psalm 14 or 114, they'll stare at you blankly. It has no meaning... if you refer people back to the actual text, and to supporting documents, they stare at you as if you suddenly spoke Martian..

If you share from the "fallen texts" this puts LSM'ers in a dilemma. Lee had panned these writings, so if you dredge out life and light and hold it forth, then this threatens the validity of Lee's dismissal. You're forcing them to choose between the ministry of the age, and the Word of God, and this choice makes them uncomfortable.

Originally Posted by aron

But today the narrative is gone. Awareness is minimal, at best...

Instead of supporting a narrative, the text becomes a set of disjointed aphorisms, to be mined for today's theology. Otherwise it has no value and can be profitably ignored; it's not the 'up-to-date speaking for today'.

My counter-argument is that nowhere was this attitude displayed in the New Testament. Paul never treated the source texts thus, nor did Jesus. Quite the contrary. "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that is breathed out of the mouth of God." What ministry can obviate that?

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

Instead of supporting a narrative, the text becomes a set of disjointed aphorisms, to be mined for today's theology.

What are today's texts were once oral narratives(1). They were stories, songs, poems. So each narrative had a theme. It wasn't a set of disjointed aphorisms. (Perhaps Proverbs or Ecclesiasticus were, but typically texts were initially narratives.) "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water": it's how we remember things. The characters, the going, the landscape (a hill), the fetching, the pail and the water are all remembered for their place in the narrative.

So I suggest that "not one of His bones were broken" and "Zeal of Thy house has eaten Me up" were originally formed as part of a narrative; actually a set of narratives which made up a larger narrative (Psalms), a meta-narrative if you will. And this was set with and looked to "the Law" and "the Prophets" as a still larger story - that of, "the scripture says".

"His disciples remembered that it was written...", and "These things were written concerning Me..." in the NT narratives were in a context which (I suspect) gradually lost meaning, and narrative thrust. A new context arose, meet for today's need of Reformation or Recovery or True Remnant Church or whatever, and a new meta-narrative came forth, and then the text was only useful to support "God's New Testament Economy" or whatever they're pitching today.

So if you review their product, and the salesman (sorry, Bible expositor) says, "natural, natural, natural - eureka! A revelation of Christ! - natural, natural, natural", as they cover the text, and you wonder how far we've gone off-course, perhaps this is an initial clue, or signpost.

But the good news is that the text is still there, preserved largely in toto, waiting to speak. The story is still there. But ignoring the text as "natural" won't bring you the story.

1. Remember that Peter and the rest were called "unlettered" in Acts 4:13. Even then, the texts were known primarily orally, by the uneducated masses. Thus the narrative structure was crucial.

I propose that the Psalms are given less attention because there are powerful chapters in that book that can be used against demons and witchcraft.

[HERn]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I propose that the Psalms are given less attention because there are powerful chapters in that book that can be used against demons and witchcraft.

Which ones are those and how does one use them. The reason I ask is that I might have a relative who is believing demonic lies.

[aron]

Originally Posted by unreg

I propose that the Psalms are given less attention because there are powerful chapters in that book that can be used against demons and witchcraft.

Originally Posted by HERn

Which ones are those and how does one use them. The reason I ask is that I might have a relative who is believing demonic lies.

The Jews long believed that David was communing intimately with God, and the words of Psalmic poetry allowed them special access. So they use David's words to pray to God. And certain specific Psalms, over time, became known as poems for, say, protection, or healing, or freedom from demonic oppression

The Lubavicher Jews seem to display this tendency most prominently. Just google "psalms protection prayer" and you'll pull up a host of websites giving particulars.

The Psalms were oral texts, recited, sung and prayed, often in communal setting. As such they became the basis of social understanding of who God was, what His will was, and what were relations between Godly persons. These inspired poems were also a window into the "mystical" unseen world. The psalmist was inspired, in oracular spirit, and by this same spirit the initiate could also enter the experience. (Not too different from Lee's ideas, except Lee panned these texts as "low", "fallen" and "natural".)

What follows an idea of why the Psalms were "given less attention" under Lee, as the unregistered poster above has noted.

Originally Posted by aron

Witness Lee clearly had control issues. When the saints actually began to take the apostle Paul at his word and sing the Psalms, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks/so panteth my soul after Thee, O God", then Lee got worried because they were enjoying the Word outside his ministry and this to him was most dangerous. Lee wanted to be the sole mediator of man's revelatory experience in the Word of God. So Lee told the fellowships in the Lord's Recovery to stop singing the Psalms, because they were too low. I have heard this verbally from several people who were there.

He didn't, of course, say "Stop singing the Psalms"; he said, "It would be better if you sang verses from Ephesians than from Psalms". Then he imitated in a mocking way the saints as they praised God using the words of the psalmist. His "shaming" actions were enough to discourage the saints.

I respect the Lubavitcher, and others, and hope to learn from them, as they've had great familiarity with these words and how they've been received over millennia. (The Lubavitcher are a prominent sect in Judaism today, similar to our Baptist or Anglican). But for we the Christians, these mystical texts allow us access to the heart of Christ. The reciprocal delight between Christ and His Father becomes our new reality. When Jesus said, "These things were written concerning Me" this was his explicit assent, even encouragement, to this notion. And the epistles' repeated psalmic usage confirms the gospel record.

"Mysticism is a technical term for a cluster of religious phenomena that relates to religious practice within a specific religious system (Judaism, Christianity), that takes as its goal the experience of union or communion with a transcendent reality that is ultimately beyond intellectual comprehension and that has concrete social function within the life of a particular community"

So these often vague pronouncements - "Behold He comes, with ten thousands of saints" - aren't merely to be analyzed objectively (Coming where? From behind Mount Seir? (Deut 33). Why did Jude cite Enoch and not Moses? And before or after the secret rapture; and with 'holy ones' or 'holy angels' [MT v. LXX] or both?) but are to be entered as experiential doors. At some point our mind also finds meaning, but primarily we "enjoy" it as the LC folk say. And we enjoy because Christ enjoyed.

"He rescued Me because He delighted in Me" (cf Psa 18); God doesn't delight in me the sinner. He delights in His Beloved Son. But by faith I see the His Beloved Son, the Christ who is our Lord, and by faith and confession am transferred "into Christ", and by faith I pursue Christ in the sacred texts. This is my salvation.

And the LC saints were entering into this: for example, a Jewish believer from dreaded "Christianity" had put Psalm 51 to music, and the saints were entering into mystical union - "take not Thy Holy Spirit from me" - and this bothered Lee. Control was slipping away, and forbidden doors were being opened. Songs were spontaneously pouring forth. Salvation was not a dry term but a deepening stream of experience, an emergent, communal performance - so he shut it down.

(Please note that I don't consider Psalms as superior writings to those of, say, Isaiah or Moses; rather I'm protesting the outright rejection of inspired scripture, both explicitly in footnote, and implicitly by non-coverage [the RecV psalms have page after blank page without footnote, and few cross-references].)

The LC have what, a dozen or fifteen psalms among their 1100 hymns, often merely a line or two? What about the other hundred and thirty five? Too low to bother with? What kind of gospel are we preaching, here? And why is our hermeneutic, our "enjoyment", taking us away from the text?

[aron]

Rom 3:22 (KJV) Even the righteousness of God with is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Gal 3:22 But the scripture hat concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

Notice that it doesn't say faith 'in' Christ but faith 'of' Christ. "He trusts in God; let Him (the Father) save Him (the Son) now" (Matt 27:43; Psa 22:8) -- Jesus Christ believed and trusted in the Father. So when He came to the scripture, "I'll obey Your word" (Psalm 119) wasn't the vain imaginations of the sinner but rather the framework and vehicle for His faith, the faith of Jesus Christ, to come and redeem sinful humanity. This is explicitly confirmed by the Hebrews 10:9 citation of Psalm 40 - "I come to do Your will, Oh God" etc. The faithful obedience of the Son becomes the gateway to salvation to all who would believe.

And it is the faithful Spirit of this Son who comes into our hearts, crying "Abba, Father!" It is the faith of Christ that inflames our hearts, not our own. Remember that it's no longer we who live but the Spirit of the Son who lives in us, who's guiding us home through repentance and obedience.

Safe to say that Witness Lee looked at the Psalms and missed all this, even though NT usage gave a clear invitation to do so. He had his "God's economy" metric to protect. I argue that by distracting people from God's Christ, and discouraging them from finding the faith of Christ in its pages, Witness Lee's RecV Bible isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Of course that's merely my view at present, and it may change over time, as my views often do. And the real truth here may be that I'm a vain, quarrelsome person, looking to pick a fight somewhere. If so, and to what extent this is true, I apologize for a wrong spirit.

You know, if Moses was a true and faithful peacemaker, when he saw the Egyptian beating the Hebrew slave, he'd have run up and embraced them both, and healed them, and they'd all sing "Kumbaya" together. Unfortunately it wasn't to be so, at that time. But the faith of Christ is coming, folks. Be embraced and love your neighbor as yourself, even the one who's currently suffering under bad ideas, and causing others to suffer. Because we all fail. "Who has sinned, and I don't burn?"

It seems fitting to leave you with a song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvhWTWpNWL0