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13 Jul 14
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From the Life Study of 1rst, 2nd, and 3rd John by Witness Lee -
There are four verses in his Epistles where the apostle John speaks of antichrist. In 2:18 he says that many antichrists have come; in 2:22, that the antichrist, the liar, is one who denies the Father and the Son; in 4:3, that the spirit of the antichrist does not confess Jesus; and 2 John 7, that the deceivers who have gone out into the world are antichrists. In these four verses we can see that there is a principle of antichrist.
What is an antichrist in principle? In order to answer this question, let us consider 2:18, “Young children, it is the last hour, and even as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come; whereby we know that it is the last hour.” This verse implies a principle. Anyone who practices this principle is in the category of antichrist.
During the time of the apostles, there was much talk about the coming antichrist. John refers to this when he tells those who received this Epistle that they “heard that antichrist is coming.” Then he immediately goes on to say that many antichrists have come. The fact that there have been many antichrists implies a principle, the principle of antichrist.
DENYING WHAT CHRIST IS
In 2:22 we can see more clearly what the principle of antichrist is: “Who is the liar if not he who is denying that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who is denying the Father and the Son.” I would call your attention to the word “denying” used twice in this verse. This verse speaks of denying that Jesus is the Christ and also of denying the Father and the Son. Here we have the principle of antichrist. The principle of antichrist is to deny what Christ is. What principle must one follow in order to be an antichrist? He must follow the principle of denying what Christ is. Jesus is the Christ, Christ is the Son of God, and the Son of God is the embodiment of the Father. To deny any aspect of this truth is to deny something of what Christ is and thereby to follow the principle of antichrist.
The principle of antichrist is to deny something of Christ’s Person. According to 2:22, the antichrist denies that Jesus is the Christ. As we have seen, this was the heresy of Cerinthus, who separated the earthly man Jesus from the heavenly Christ. (He considered Jesus the son of Joseph and Mary.) Cerinthus also taught that after Jesus was baptized, Christ as a dove descended upon Him, but left Jesus at the end of His ministry so that Jesus suffered on the cross and rose from the dead, while Christ remained separated as a spiritual being. Cerinthus, therefore, denied that Jesus is the Christ. As verse 22 indicates, this is also to deny the Father and the Son. When the two sentences in verse 22 are put together, we can see clearly that to deny Christ is to deny the Father and the Son. Because Cerinthus denied that Jesus is the Christ and thereby denied the Father and the Son, he was an antichrist. This is an illustration of the principle of antichrist. What makes a person an antichrist, at least in principle, is that he denies some aspect of what Christ is.
http://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=3EF8DEE2CE
We must be careful never to deny anything of what Christ is. We should never deny any part, any aspect, or any item of Christ’s Person. To deny any aspect of Christ’s Person is to practice the principle of antichrist. Some who hear this may say, “I certainly am not an antichrist, for I am not against Christ.” One may not be against Christ or deny Christ consciously. But unconsciously we may deny some aspect of Christ’s Person and then replace this aspect with something else.
13 Jul 14
Originally posted by RJHindsNo, what it requires is absence of truth.
You know you are not going to send me a million dollars, so why say such a thing? There is not one place that has all those idea together in one place. It requires many sciptures that are used together to actually see it. Why don't you look for them yourself and keep the million dollars with a clear conscience.
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17 Jul 14
To defeat the enemy of God we should have faith in ALL that God has said in His word. We should not try to oppose any truth that God has spoken about Himself.
The greatest way of blessing is to just say "Amen" to the Scripture's words on this mysterious God. And we should not deny any item of what the Bible says Jesus Christ IS.
Those who hold the concept of three distinct persons "in the nature of one God" may be Christian brothers, but they are divisive because of their opinion and terminology. Even if they hold that kind of concept, as long as they believe in the one, Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and in the Lord Jesus who is the Son of God incarnated to be our Savior, who died on the cross for our sins by shedding His blood for our redemption, who was resurrected on the third day, and who is now the Lord in the heavens as well as life within us, we would recognize them as brothers in Christ. We believe in the Trinity according to the pure Word of the Bible. We should not be opinionated by holding divisive theological concepts or terminology. We are here for the unity of the Body in the Lord's recovery. Dissenting brings in the curse, but unity brings in the blessing. "How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore" (Psa. 133:1, 3).
Life Study of Genesis Message #34 by Witness Lee
http://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=2FFBFECEC7
17 Jul 14
Originally posted by sonshipHe says, "We should not be opinionated by holding divisive theological concepts or terminology." Yet, he is being devisive by holding his opinion against the unity of the Christian Church of the Doctrine of the Trinity that was agreed on over 1600 years ago. To say that the Son is His very own Father and is also the Holy Spirit is a devisive theological concept that is also a heretical teaching.
To defeat the enemy of God we should have faith in ALL that God has said in His word. We should not try to oppose any truth that God has spoken about Himself.
The greatest way of blessing is to just say "Amen" to the Scripture's words on this mysterious God. And we should not deny any item of what the Bible says Jesus Christ IS.
[quote] Those who h ...[text shortened]... Message #34 by Witness Lee
http://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=2FFBFECEC7
18 Jul 14
Originally posted by divegeesterHow many times do I have to repeat myself. I was not saying Jesus was possessed. The demons I was speaking of were those (people) who wanted to kill Him.
Yes, you are prideful but you're not honest in my opinion.
You generally talk nonsense on Christian matters and then frequently refuse to engage. For example your comment a few weeks ago [b]"even Jesus had his demons" which I challenged you on a few times and you avoided. Of course you were "exhausted at the end of a long day".
You're full of it.[/b]
I also stated that we have our own demons too, those who wish to do us harm. (Fraud, I.D. theft, hate you for your religion, etc.)
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18 Jul 14
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Originally posted by RJHindsIt was Isaiah 9:6 that said the child born shall be called Mighty God and the son given shall be called Eternal Father.
He says, "We should not be opinionated by holding divisive theological concepts or terminology." Yet, he is being devisive by holding his opinion against the unity of the Christian Church of the Doctrine of the Trinity that was agreed on over 1600 years ago. To say that the Son is His very own Father and is also the Holy Spirit is a devisive theological concept that is also a heretical teaching.
And we will not deny that or twist the meaning away for you.
You believe that "the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) . So why do you not believe that the Son was with the Father and is the Father?
You have no excuse as far as I can see. You just wish to limit who Christ is.
18 Jul 14
Originally posted by sonshipScripture never says the Father is the Son nor that the Son is the Father because that would be stupid.
It was [b]Isaiah 9:6 that said the child born shall be called Mighty God and the son given shall be called Eternal Father.
And we will not deny that or twist the meaning away for you.
You believe that "the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) . So why do you not believe that the Son was with the Father and is the Father?
You have no excuse as far as I can see. You just wish to limit who Christ is.[/b]
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18 Jul 14
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Originally posted by RJHinds
Scripture never says the Father is the Son nor that the Son is the Father because that would be stupid.
Scripture never says the Father is the Son nor that the Son is the Father because that would be stupid.
So this was "stupid" for Jesus to say ?
"Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.
Jesus said to him, Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip?"
See John 14:9. Was that "stupid" ? For Jesus to say " Have I been so long a time with you, and YOU HAVE NOT KNOWN ... ME ...?" , was that too "stupid" for the Son of God to say?
Is that passage too "stupid" for your Bible? Then change it to say whatever it is you want it to say.
I'll let mine just remain as God inspired the apostle to write it.
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18 Jul 14
We must be careful never to deny anything of what Christ is. We should never deny any part, any aspect, or any item of Christ’s Person. To deny any aspect of Christ’s Person is to practice the principle of antichrist. Some who hear this may say, “I certainly am not an antichrist, for I am not against Christ.” One may not be against Christ or deny Christ consciously. But unconsciously we may deny some aspect of Christ’s Person and then replace this aspect with something else.
18 Jul 14
Originally posted by sonshipJesus was not saying that He was His own Father, but that He was the representative of the invisible Father in bodily form, so to see the Son was like seeing the Father. However, He did not mean that He was in Fact the invisible Father as you and Witness Lee believe.Scripture never says the Father is the Son nor that the Son is the Father because that would be stupid.
So this was "stupid" for Jesus to say ?
[quote] "Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.
Jesus said to him, [b]Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip?" [/ ...[text shortened]... it is you want it to say.
I'll let mine just remain as God inspired the apostle to write it.[/b]
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18 Jul 14
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Originally posted by RJHinds
Jesus was not saying that He was His own Father, but that He was the representative of the invisible Father in bodily form, so to see the Son was like seeing the Father. However, He did not mean that He was in Fact the invisible Father as you and Witness Lee believe.
Jesus was not saying that He was His own Father, but that He was the representative of the invisible Father in bodily form, so to see the Son was like seeing the Father. However, He did not mean that He was in Fact the invisible Father as you and Witness Lee believe.
Not quite that easy RJHinds. It is not quite that easy to take the utter mystery out of the nature of God.
Now when I quoted to you that "the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45) or that "Now the Lord is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:17) your response was basically - "Well if Paul meant the Holy Spirit then he should have SAID the Holy Spirit." [paraphrased]
Now you do not use similar reasoning when Jesus did not say that He was a "representative" of the Father that they were seeing, but that to see Him was to see the Father.
Why then using your own logic, did He not say, to see Him was to see a "representative" of the Father ?
What He said was what He said. Some of us say "Amen!" to what He said and exactly how He uttered it. We've found the greatest blessing in taking the word of the Bible as it is even when we cannot reconcile all paradoxical statements.
So it is not that easy to dismiss Witness Lee pointing out that Isaiah 9:6 and John 14:9 utter one side of the mystery of the three-oneness of the Divine Being.
I do not dispute that Christ made the invisible God visible. But the use of the word "representative" is man's. Don't push it too far.
John wrote - "No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." (John 1:18)
John already, in chapter one, has given us a heads up that to see Jesus Christ was to see God. It is to see God manifested, God "declared" .
I think you should agree. In the experience of this mysterious Triune God, we can detect no difference between the Father and the Son.
The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead - INDWELLING us.
The Spirit of God is Christ Who is INDWELLING us.
And this union of us and God, of us and the Three of the Triune God is that we may "walk in newness of life" and not be "debtors to the flesh" . The Trinity is for our "WALK". The Trinity is for our LIVING in the realm of God.
So we need to stand upon the facts as stated and appropriate such great promises by faith. All the New Testament blessings are appropriated by faith. And by faith Christ makes His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:17).
RJHinds .... HOW do you know that you are washed of all your past sins? How are you so sure? You do have peace that God will not judge you eternally for your past sins. But how did you come into this peace?
You appropriated the facts by means of your faith.
The order was FACT, FAITH, EXPERIENCE.
How do we go on then? It is the same way. It is by faith.
"As therefore you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him." (Col. 2:5)
The same kind of appropriating the reality of what Christ is to you in forgiveness, you must likewise appropriate by faith, that God lives in you today. I mean TODAY.
How do we know that God lives in us? The Apostle John says because of the Spirit that God has given TO us.
"In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given us of His Spirit." (1 John 4:13)
How do we know that the First of the Triune God and the Second of the Triune God indwell us? We know by means of the Holy Spirit that the Father lives in us and the Son lives in us.
"And in this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He gave to us." ( 1 John 3:24)
Today there are millions of Christians who are exerting self effort to self-improve themselves. They are not unlike the Moslem who believes that God exists and add to that self effort to be a good theist.
Then you have men like Witness Lee crying out that God is in the Christians based upon passages like this -
"Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him. But if Christ is in you, ... the spirit is life because of righteousness." (See Rom. 8:9,10)
If it helps us to enjoy victory by believing according to the Scripture that the Spirit of Christ is Christ, we will affirm that in faith.
If it helps us in the enjoyment of God by saying the Father sent the Son, we will stand upon that.
If it helps us to enjoy God more by saying the Son is the Father, we will stand upon that utterance of the Scriptures as well.
Scripture affirms BOTH. Keep your creeds close. But keep the word of God closer.
I don't mind in the least affirming that the Son and the Father are the Divine "WE" [as in two] who have come to make an abode with me.
" ... If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him." (See John 14:23)
Praise the Lord that I have the Divine "We" living in me. Wonderful! I need all the help and comfort I can obtain.
And I have the Son as the Father in me (Isaiah 9:6; John 14:9).
And I have the Holy Spirit as the Son AND the Father in me.
Jesus said in one Gospel - He would give us a mouth and wisdom to speak in sore persecution (Luke 21:15).
King James Bible
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
Yet in another Gospel He said it is the Spirit of our Father speaking in us (Matt. 10:20).
King James Bible
For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
And yet again Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will teach us what to say (Luke 12:12)
Holman Christian Standard Bible
For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what must be said.
What each One of the Triune God does the Other Two are involved.
And if you read carefully you will see that John says that "the true God and eternal life" is the Father and the Son Whom He has sent.
"And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." (1 John 5:20)
Ron Kangus writes:
In his first Epistle John strengthens the biblical testimony to the Godhood of Christ: "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." (5:20). This refers to the God who has come through incarnation and who, in His Son Jesus Christ, has made it possible for us to be in Him. To be in the true God is to be in the Son of God. Because Christ is God, to be in Him is to be in the true God."
To be in what you called the representative of the invisible Father is to be in the true God. To be in Him and abide in Him, experiencing Him, enjoying Him, and using Him to build us up into His church, we will stand on every utterance given us in the Holy Bible.
18 Jul 14
Originally posted by sonshipYou believe Christ is dwelling inside your body. I say Christ wouldn't be caught dead in there. Just a figure of speech. Now, do you get it?Jesus was not saying that He was His own Father, but that He was the representative of the invisible Father in bodily form, so to see the Son was like seeing the Father. However, He did not mean that He was in Fact the invisible Father as you and Witness Lee believe.
Not quite that easy RJHinds. It is not quite that easy to take the u ...[text shortened]... uild us up into His church, we will stand on [b]every utterance given us in the Holy Bible.[/b]
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18 Jul 14
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Originally posted by RJHindsI do not believe that if you operate on my stomach you will locate a man with a robe and sandals who will identify Himself as Jesus.
You believe Christ is dwelling inside your body. I say Christ wouldn't be caught dead in there. Just a figure of speech. Now, do you get it?
I thought that went without saying. But you never know. So let's come faithfully back to the Word of God and see where Jesus Christ is within me.
1.) He is with my immaterial innermost being, called my spirit.
"The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you." (2 Timothy 4:22)
2.) He is the divine life in my spirit. And He is spreading out into my soul, firstly He is coming into my mind -
"For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace." (Romans 8:6)
In the normal church life as the Spirit of Christ exercises more and more influence over the human mind, as it is set on the regenerated spirit where the Lord is, we actually gain the mind of Christ.
"For who has known the mind of the Lord and will instruct Him? But you have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. 2:12)
Christ must saturate our souls.
Christ must migrate out from our spirit and fill our minds.
Then we gain corporately "the mind of Christ" .
As He moves out from our spirit into our soul, He is making His home in our hearts by faith.
3.) "That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith".
Now in case anyone dismmisses this as just idiomatic expression making, not really to be taken so seriously [of course Satan would love that], the passage goes on to say that we are to be filled with Christ. Here is the whole thought of Paul -
"That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19)
Witness Lee founded local churches around the planet through his ministry and teaches us about "being filled unto all the fullness of God".
You speak much about the signs of the last days. How about God preparing a people for Christ's return by impressing His people that Christ lives in them, to saturate them, to cause them "with all the saints" to apprehend that Christ is as large and rich as the universe itself.
Huh? Did it not say that? Did the NT say precisely that? Read again -
"May be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the BREADTH and LENGTH and HEIGHT and DEPTH are ..." (v.18)
In other words Jesus Christ is like the dimensions of the universe. He is as expansive and as large as the very infinite dimensions of the universe.
And this that God may gain some "filled into all the fullness of God".
This is the Lord's recovery. This is our coming back to the good land after a long Babylonian Captivity.
But we were talking about Christ, where is He? Christ is the divine life that was planted seed form in our spirit, is seeking to move out into our soul transforming us, and seeks to "swallow" us up in His life.
Here is where we get "swallowed up by Jesus Christ the divine and eternal life" -
"For also, we who are in this tabernacle groan, being burdened, in that we do not desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." (2 Cor. 5:5)
Swallowed up in Christ must mean that from within and without Christ who says "I am the way the truth and the LIFE" dispenses Himself into us for a full salvation.
Isn't this more extensive then just being forgiven so we can go off to heaven ? So Witness Lee brought us back to the New Testament as the New Testament. And some people saw what God was doing through him and I suppose they got envious.
I'd rather cooperate with what God has shown him for the church in these last days.