Witness Lee's Local Church Cult

Originally posted by sonship
[quote] The problem with the above statement is this: Jesus' prayer could not have been for the Christian church, since the church the Body of Christ, of which I'm certain you are referring to, did not even exist at that time, and was in fact unprophesied of in the scriptures prior to the revelation of the church and the body of doctrine associated with it a ...[text shortened]... (vs.1-3)

Who would you say the Son is praying for if He is not praying for His church ?[/b]

Reveal Hidden Content

Originally posted by josephw
What new covenant church? There is a new covenant, but it is made with Israel and doesn't take effect until after the the second coming of Jesus. [hidden]Where is the church at Christ's second coming? Already caught up to meet The Lord in the air where we will always be with Him. The new covenant takes effect with those who enter the millennium on earth. The ...[text shortened]... arth. The other is the church the Body of Christ who's destination is heaven.

2 Timothy 2:15

Originally posted by josephw
What new covenant church? There is a new covenant, but it is made with Israel and doesn't take effect until after the the second coming of Jesus. [hidden]Where is the church at Christ's second coming? Already caught up to meet The Lord in the air where we will always be with Him. The new covenant takes effect with those who enter the millennium on earth. The ...[text shortened]... arth. The other is the church the Body of Christ who's destination is heaven.

2 Timothy 2:15

The prayer is for those whom He has given Himself as eternal life -

"These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.

Even as You have given Him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him.

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Him whom You have sent, Jesus Christ." (vs.1-3)

Who would you say the Son is praying for if He is not praying for His church ?

THE END

Originally posted by josephw

What new covenant church? There is a new covenant, but it is made with Israel and doesn't take effect until after the the second coming of Jesus.

You are mixing the prophetic scriptures, which deal with God's people and the nation of Israel, with this present dispensation of grace and the Body of Christ. (v.19)

Originally posted by RJHinds
THE END

" ... those who have spent the time to thoroughly examine our teachings and to dialogue with us have come to the conclusion that we are, as a faculty panel from Fuller Theological Seminary stated, “genuine believers and fellow-members of the Body of Christ.” In 2002, the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) conducted a careful inquiry into the teaching in LSM’s publications. Having been fully satisfied with the orthodoxy they found there, ECPA’s Board granted LSM full voting membership.

Fuller Theological Seminary‘s faculty panel conducted a multi-year review of the teachings of Witness Lee and the local churches and concluded “that the teachings and practices of the local churches and its members represent the genuine, historical, biblical Christian faith in every essential aspect.” They further reported, “We have found a great disparity between the perceptions that have been generated in some circles concerning the teachings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee and the actual teachings found in their writings.”

Two leading apologetics ministries, Christian Research Institute (CRI) and Answers in Action (AIA), jointly conducted a six-year project to research the teaching and practice of the local churches. Hank Hanegraaff, the President of CRI concluded, “Finally, the local churches are an authentic expression of New Testament Christianity. Moreover, as a group forged in the cauldron of persecution, it has much to offer Western Christianity.” Similarly, Gretchen Passantino, Director of AIA and a co-author of some of the earliest criticisms of the local churches in the United States, wrote, “The teachings of Watchman Nee, Witness Lee, and the local churches affirm the essential doctrinal positions of the historic Christian Church.”

Aside from Witness Lee we have also name James A. Fowler, director of Christ in you Ministries, in his book The Triune God in Christian Thought and Experience

http://www.christinyou.net/pdfs/TriuneGodEbook.pdf

Endnotes:

Concepts expressed in the categories of oikonomia and koinonia were enhanced by reading articles by Kerry S. Robichaux, Ron Kangas, Ed Marks, Paul Onica, John Pester, and Witness Lee in Affirmation & Critique: A Journal of Christian Thought, a publication of Living Stream Ministry, http://www.affcrit.com.

Chapter 3 Oikonomia

What we have attempted to explain is that to develop a distinctively Christian theologia, a proper Christian consideration of the Triune God, the Trinity, the three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit constituting the relational Being of the One monotheistic God – such must be informed by, and founded upon, the oikonomia, i.e. the awareness of and interpretation of the historical working of God in the only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and by the work of the Holy Spirit. God can only properly be known by human beings to the extent and in the manner in which He has revealed Himself via the Son and the Spirit. On the basis of the historical revelation of God from the incarnation of the Son Jesus Christ to the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we have the means by which to form and articulate a Christian theologia of God that explains the personally relational Trinity – a concept of God unlike any other in the history of human considerations of God – because it is based on Divine revelation and not merely on human speculation.

In previous writings I have stated, “God does what He does, because He is who He is.” That remains true! God’s work, His doing, is predicated on His Being. Oikonomia stems from, and is a result of theologia. But there is also the sense that we can only know who He is (theologia) on the basis of what He has chosen to do in His Self-revelation of Himself within the action of the Son and the Spirit in human history (oikonomia). We know by what He has done that He is a loving relational Being, and not just a logical abstraction. These categories are mutually beneficial to the understanding of the other.
In the introductory explanation of the meaning of the Greek word oikonomia, we noted that the word is derived from two Greek words: oikos = household; and nomos = law. It pertains to the laws or rules of the household, by which the household is managed and administrated. Since it was the steward of the house who was responsible for such management, the word oikonomia is also sometimes translated as “stewardship,” or even as the “dispensation” of how the household is managed. Some theological camps have taken the word “dispensation” and developed elaborate schemes of how God is alleged to manage His affairs in various “dispensations” of time (ex. Dispensationalism), but that is not the focus of this study.

Our objective is to explain that the relational Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, functioned purposefully and administratively in every phase and feature of His conjoined operation throughout human history. We want to observe the triadic action of God throughout the whole of God’s economy, and the grace-action by which the Triune God has accomplished His eternal administrative purpose and plan for humanity.

The diagram (cf. Addendum J) we will be using is a simple time-line drawing that I have used in previous teaching. This diagram focuses on the earthly life of Jesus Christ, for such is certainly the spotlight of God’s Self-revelation of Himself. God specifically revealed Himself via the incarnational advent and subordinated actions of the Son, Jesus Christ.

But we want to note that God’s administrative oikonomia – His complete functional work energized by His own grace – has always, eternally, preexistently, prior to the existence of the earth and humanity, been the expression and work of the three Persons of the triune Godhead simultaneously, and never in separated detachment or independence from one another.

Continued below........

In creation we note, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), and then in the very next verse, Gen. 1:2, “the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Then in John 1:1,14 we read, “In the beginning was the Word, …and the Word was God. The Word was made flesh.” The Word, the Son of God, Jesus, was “in the beginning with God, and all things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). Hebrews 11:3 states that “the worlds were prepared by the Word (Logos) of God.” What do we see here? That the relational Triune God was operative even in the creative commencement of our physical world.

Now, more specifically, we shall note that the incarnation of the Son into human history was accomplished by the action of the three Persons of the Godhead. John 3:16 reads, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” In Gal. 4:4 Paul explains, “When the fullness of time came, God (the Father) sent forth His Son, born of a woman,” (and he goes on in 4:6 to refer to “the Spirit of the Son” ). The Son of God was obviously involved, for He “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7). “The Word was made flesh” (John 1:14); He was “revealed in the flesh” (I Tim. 3:16). The Spirit of God was also involved in the incarnation of Jesus for we are told that Mary “was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:18,20; cf. Lk. 1:35). The entire Trinity was operative in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Just a brief sidenote here: the Son of God became the eternal God-man. The Son, one of the Persons of the Triune Godhead, became both divine and human simultaneously, without either category of “being” (divine being or human being) being diminished, tarnished, or neglected. At the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 the Christian thinkers of the time attempted to articulate this union of deity and humanity in the single person of Jesus Christ by referring to the “hypostatic union” of the God-man mediator between God and man (cf. I Tim. 2:5). That explanation has persisted in the


Western Church to this very day. Jesus is forever the Son of God; Jesus is forever the God-man. Jesus was born as a man (Phil. 2:7); He died as a man (Matt.

20:18,19); He rose as a man (Matt. 17:9); he ascended as a man (Jn. 6:62); He was enthroned as a man (Matt. 26:64); He returned to the glory of His Father as a man (Matt. 25:31); and He reigns forever as the God-man (Lk. 1:31-33). He never ceases to be the God-man mediator between God and mankind.

Throughout the life of Jesus Christ on earth we continue to see the oikonomia action of the three Persons of the Trinity. When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River (Mk. 1:9 -11; Matt. 3:16,17; Lk. 3:22) the narrative reads, “a voice came out of the heavens: ‘Thou are My (the Father) beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased,” and the Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon Him and compelled Him to go into the wilderness to be tempted and then to commence His public ministry.

Though distinctively the Son of God, Jesus lived, moved and worked inseparably from the functioning of the Father and the Spirit. He was “full of the Holy Spirit” (Lk. 4:1), was led by the Spirit (Lk. 4:1), and operated “in the power of the Spirit” (Lk. 1:14). He “cast out demons by the Spirit of God” (Matt. 12:28). Jesus repeatedly explained that He did nothing singularly or independently by Himself, but only what He saw the Father doing and what the Father taught Him (cf. John 5:19,30; 8:28); what was “pleasing to the Father” (Jn. 8:29). “The Father abiding in Me does His works” (Jn. 14:10). That is why Jesus could say, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9-11). The Triune God was working in everything Jesus did, even though conceptually it was the Son who was visually apparent to those who observed His life as the prima facie personage of the triune God.

When Jesus was crucified on the cross of Calvary it was the distinct action of the Son being crucified, for God cannot die. An early church writer, Tertullian (A.D. 160-225), cautioned against patripassionism, the idea that God the Father suffered and died on the cross, and the need to note that the Son of God, the God -man, died on the cross. Nonetheless, it is necessary to note that the totality of the Trinity was involved in the crucifixion event. The Son was never separated or detached from the action of the Father and the Spirit. Writing to the Colossian Christians, Paul explained that God the Father “cancelled out the certificate of debt” against humanity, “having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). And in the letter to the Hebrews we are informed, “Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without blemish to God” (Heb. 9:14). These verses attest to the action of the entire triune God in Jesus’ death on the cross.

Then, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we continue to see the full operation of the Triune God. Peter explained “this Jesus, God (the Father) raised up” (Acts 2:32; 3:15); “God raised Him up on the third day” (Acts 10:40). But the Son was active in His own resurrection also: He told the Jewish leaders, “Destroy this temple (of His own body), and in three days I will raise it up again” (John 2:19,21). “I lay down My life, that I may take it up again” (Jn. 10:17,18) in the resurrection. The divine Spirit was also at work in the resurrection, for in Peter’s first epistle, he writes that “Christ … was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (I Pet. 3:18), and Paul mentions “the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead” (Rom. 8:11). All three Persons of the Triune God were operative in the resurrection of Jesus.

Then in the exaltation of Jesus by the subsequent ascension of Jesus to the heavenly presence of God (Acts 1:9-11), the Son was instrumentally involved, for Jesus told Mary, “Do not cling to Me; I have not yet ascended to the Father” (Jn. 20:17). The apostle Peter later explained that “Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven after angels and authorities and power had been subjected to Him” (I Peter 3:22), and He was “made Lord of all” (Acts 10:36). In Acts 5:31 in Peter’s preaching, he refers to “the One (Jesus Christ) whom God (the Father) exalted to His right hand.” To the Philippians, Paul wrote, “God (the Father) highly exalted Him (Jesus)…that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:11). And then in that fantastic passage in Ephesians 1 we read of the “surpassing greatness of God’s power …which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come” (Eph. 1:19-21). The Trinity was involved in the ascension of Jesus.

Continued below.......

To complete this survey of the oikonomia activity of the three Persons of the Trinity in the historic life and work of Jesus on earth, we must note that 50 days after the Passover when Jesus, the Lamb of God, was slain, came the Jewish Pentecost festival, as recorded in Acts chapter two. Are we still speaking of the life and work of Jesus Christ after His ascension to the Father in heaven? Yes, without a doubt! So much of the church has often missed the fact that the Pentecostal outpouring was the blessing of the outpouring of the Spirit of the resurrected and ascended Jesus Christ. The living Lord Jesus Christ returns to His disciples in Spirit-form on Pentecost. Those who miss this point miss the dynamic of the Christian life! What a tragic slight in so much Christian teaching!

This is what Jesus was attempting to convey to His disciples in the Upper Room discourse of John 14:16-17: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (or Comforter, or Encourager, or Advocate – another who will “come to your aid” ); tha tHe (not “it” – masculine personal pronoun – not just a spirit-force) may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides (resides) with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:16-18). Take notice of these pertinent points:

•…The Son of God promises to ask God the Father to give to the disciples (and that extends to all the disciples of Christ in every age) the Spirit …
•… another Helper/Comforter/Encourager/ Advocate. The Greek word is parakletos. You may have heard some preachers refer to the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete. Paraclete refers to someone who comes alongside to assist, and that is why it is sometimes translated “Counselor.” In the legal venue it is translated as an “Advocate.” The living Lord Jesus is identified with this very word (parakletos) in I John 2:1 where John writes, “If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” It is also used of Barnabas when he was called the “Son of Encouragement or Consolation” (Acts 4:36). The point being made here is that this word, parakletos, is used of Jesus Christ.

•…Jesus then promises to send “another” One to assist, comfort and aid when He has departed physically. There are two Greek words for “another.” There is the word heteros, which means “another of a different kind.” We use the word in reference to a heterosexual – one who enters into a sexual relationship with another person of a different kind, a different gender, a male and a female. That is heteros. But that is NOT the word that Jesus uses when He promises His disciples to send “another” Comforter. Instead, Jesus uses the Greek word allos (instead of heteros), meaning “another of the same kind.” This “another” one who is to come to the aid and assistance of the disciples is not just “another of the same kind” because He, too, is divine; but because we are dealing with the divine Trinity, this “another of the same kind” is “another of the same kind” because He is One with Me; He is the same One; it will be ME in Spirit-form, Who is going to come to you, and “abide” (take up residence and make His home with you), and be IN you. …. Forever! By the way, a scriptural contrast between the Greek words heteros and allos can be viewed in Paul’s epistle to the Galatians: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for another (or a different – Greek word heteros) gospel; which is not really another (allos – of the same kind of gospel); there are those who want to distort the gospel of Christ…” (1:6,7). They are telling you things that are not gospel at all!

•…. Jesus caps off his comments to the disciples saying, “In My going away, accepting imminent death at the hands of the Jewish leaders and the Roman officials, accepting an underserved death for the sins of mankind, I will not leave you as abandoned orphans running to and fro looking for someone to attach themselves to, ….I will come to you.” Notice the first person pronoun: “I” will come to you. I, Jesus, will come in Spirit-form. Jesus was promising that He would come to aid and assist His disciples in the form of the Spirit, and this was historically enacted at Pentecost. Jesus reiterates this to the disciples in John 16:13-15 in slightly different words, “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.” These words only make sense when we have a perspective of the interactive involvement of the Triune God.

Continued below......

Hey RJHinds, listen up...... read this important point....

We move on to clarify the importance of what occurred at Pentecost in the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ, allowing the living Lord Jesus to live within His disciples by the Spirit.

There is a very important statement in Paul’s chapter on resurrection in I Cor. 15. Quoting Gen. 2:7, Paul writes “it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” But then Paul goes on to say, “The last Adam (obviously referring to Jesus Christ, especially if we remember the contrast that Paul drew in Romans chapter 5) became life-giving Spirit.” I think this is a pivotal statement for understanding the ongoing spiritual life of Jesus in Christian peoples. I think that Paul means that the resurrected and living Jesus Christ became, and was manifested as, the life-giving Spirit, in order to dwell within us and be our life. This serves as the necessary amplification of what Jesus told His disciples in the Upper Room prior to His crucifixion.

We turn now to II Corinthians 3:17,18, keeping in mind that we are observing how the risen and ascended Lord Jesus is one with, and manifested by, the Spirit from Pentecost onwards: “Now the Lord (who is the Lord? Look at 4:5 – “we preach Christ Jesus as Lord.” ) … “Now the Lord (Jesus Christ) is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord (Jesus Christ) is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed in the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord (Jesus Christ), the Spirit.” Is it not evident that Paul is equating the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit? I do not see how we can come to any other conclusion if we understand the Triune God, the distinctive three-in-oneness of the Christian understanding of God.

Throughout the history of Christian teaching there have been so many teachers and groups who have failed to grasp and understand what we might call “the Pneumatic Christ,” and how the resurrected and living Lord Jesus came in Spirit-form to draw persons to Himself from Pentecost onwards and to be the dynamic of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The relational dynamic of the three Persons of the Godhead have often been obscured and misrepresented. The relational oneness of the God and Father and God the Son has been misunderstood, and the relational oneness of God the Son and God the Spirit has been obscured.

I share with you a true story about a man whom I knew personally. He has since graduated to glory – in 2007. He was a Scottish pastor who volunteered to be a chaplain to the British troops in WWII. Toward the end of the Second World War during a battle in northern Italy, a young British soldier was mortally wounded, and as he lay there dying, he asked the chaplain what might have seemed like a strange question from a dying man. He asked, “Chaplain, Is God the same as Jesus?”

Why do you think a dying young man might have asked that question? This young dying soldier was a Christian. He knew that Christians believe in the Trinity, and He did. He knew Christians believe that Jesus is God, and He did. But there is one area where there has been a breakdown in Christian teaching in our Western churches. We have given the mistaken impression that God the Father is a strict Judge who demands that the penalty of death be paid for sin. And conversely we have portrayed Jesus, the Son of God, as the One who is full of compassionate LOVE, who was willing to volunteer as the substitute who would take the wrath and judgment of the Father on our behalf, by being put to death on the execution instrument of the cross. What is the problem with that differentiation? It creates a polarized dichotomy, a bifurcation, between the thought and attitude of God the Father and God the Son, which in effect violates and destroys the Christian concept of the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are always ONE in their LOVE for mankind. They are always for us, and not against us! Their greatest desire is to draw us into participation in their perfect interrelations of LOVE.

How sad that some Christians today think that God the Father and God the Son are of a “divided mind.” The Father is against us; the Son is for us. One young boy in Sunday School explained: “I don’t like that Big God, the Father God – He’s mean! But Jesus, He loves me, and I like Him!” This kind of thinking comes from our failure to explain that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have a perfect relationship of loving oneness – oneness of Being, oneness of mind and attitude – totally together in their LOVE, and in their desire to draw us into participation with them in the divine fellowship of the Trinity.

So, when the dying soldier asked, “Is God the same as Jesus?” the chaplain replied, “Yes son, the entirety of the Godhead is of the same mind and character as Jesus – loving … forgiving … willing to sacrifice everything for us, and desiring an eternal relationship with us. Jesus the Savior, was (as is) the Self-revelation of the Triune God, and when you see the loving heart of Jesus, you have seen GOD.” Remember the words of Jesus to Philip just before He was crucified? He said, “He who has seen Me (Jesus), has seen the Father” (John 14:9). “He who knows Me (Jesus), knows the Father.” God, in all three persons, is the same as Jesus. They have the same divine character and intent!

The name of that chaplain was Thomas Forsyth Torrance, who was the chair of the dogmatic theology department at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland when I studied there in the late 1960s, and he went on to become known as the foremost Scottish theologian of all time.

The misunderstanding of the relational oneness of God the Son and God the Spirit can be illustrated by my sharing another anecdotal story.

I share with you a conversation I had with a friend with whom I had numerous theological conversations. In fact I spent hundreds of hours visiting with him on the telephone. His name was James Seward, and he too has now graduated to glory. He had read and meticulously combed through almost everything that I had written.

On more than one occasion he said to me, “Jim


Fowler, you seem to be referring to the indwelling Christ, the living Lord Jesus within you, and the Holy Spirit in you, as if they were the same thing, the same reality. You seem to be using “Christ in you” as if it were equivalent to the Holy Spirit in our spirit.”

I replied, “Yes… and your point is …”


Jim Seward continued, “I am concerned that you are not preserving the distinction between the Son and the Spirit; that you are not maintaining the “threeness” of the Godhead.”

I replied, “Huummm…


“I, on the other hand, am concerned that you (Jim Seward) are not preserving the unity of the Son and the Holy Spirit; that you are not maintaining the functional “Oneness” of the Godhead.” “You seem to want to emphasize that the Son and the Spirit are separate individuals, or separate gods almost.”

“As I understand it, the Son and the Spirit areNOT different individuals, even though they are distinct Persons. The Son and the Spirit are NOT separate, but they do have distinct function. The Son and the Spirit are united in their essential Being as God. It is quite legitimate to refer to one Person of the Godhead in the same manner as the other two, for they are never present or functioning without the other divine Persons.

“So, you are correct, Mr. Seward, in your observations that when I make reference to the living “Christ,” for example, in the phrase “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27), I am thinking of the entirety of the Triune God, Father, Son, and HS, the indwelling of the tri -personal God within one’s spirit. I have no intention or desire to separate the Son from the Father or the Spirit. When I refer to Jesus Christ, it is always in the context of Trinity. The Father, the Son and the Spirit are three Persons in ONE relational Being. Reference to the Persons of the Godhead can be made inter-changeably because they are coinherent and consubstantial within the singular, relational divine Being. They are capable of distinction, but not separation. They do not act independently, but always conjunctively and simultaneously.

That is why we take the time to note that in every event of the oikonomia of God’s work in the historic life of Jesus Christ, the three Persons of the Trinity were functioning simultaneously and interrelationally in every event of Jesus’ historic life. Yes, the physical Jesus was the prima facie personage who appeared empirically to those around Him, but the Father and the Spirit were present and functioning with Him in every event of the triune God’s Self-revelation. Where one of the Persons of the Godhead is, they all are! Where one is acting, they all are present in the action. In the perichoretic interrelations of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mutually interpenetrate, coinhere, and move around in the space of the other (peri=around; chora=space). The triune Persons are enousia – their “being” is in relation with one another.

The revelation of the Triune God in the entirety of the life and work of Jesus Christ serves to inform our theologia, our human considerations of how the Christian perspective of God is uniquely that of a relationally Triune God, and our relational Triune theology in a mutually reciprocal interaction informs our study and interpretation of the gospel record in the new covenant literature of the New Testament. Theologia and oikonomia are mutually dependent and reciprocally interactive categories.

Continued below.......

We have noted that the triune God made Himself known historically in the oikonomia as a relational God, but must proceed to explain that God continues in every age to act upon relational human beings by His grace in order to effect a personal and relational koinonia with every individual. Apart from accepting and entering experientially into the onto-relationalism of the triune God, we do not know God! Christ-ones, Christians, are made sharers in the very life of the triune God, “partakers of the divine nature” (II Pet. 1:4).


End Chapter

I encourage everyone to read the whole book of The Triune God in Christian Thought and Experience.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Theologia 7

Oikonomia 41

Koinonia 65

Correlation of Categories 87

Conclusion 117

Endnotes 124

Addenda 125



Endnotes:

Concepts expressed in the categories of oikonomia and koinonia were enhanced by reading articles by Kerry S. Robichaux, Ron Kangas, Ed Marks, Paul Onica, John Pester, and Witness Lee in Affirmation & Critique: A Journal of Christian Thought, a publication of Living Stream Ministry, http://www.affcrit.com.

I send an email to Jim A. Fowler, director of Christ in you Ministries, about Witness Lee on the subject of the Triune God because his book called 'The Triune God in Christian Thought and Experience' on chapters 2 and 3, oikonomia and Koinonia are a standing shoulder-to-shoulder to local churches on the Triune God. What I send was a very long message. So, at the end, I ask "Is their teaching on the Trinity biblical and within the realm of Orthodoxy?"

Hello Kevin,

Upon my return from an extended trip to Europe, I
found your email and inquiry.

Yes, I have found those in the Living Stream Ministry
to have stated very clearly the reality of the "pneumatic
Christ" based on I Corinthians 15:45. What they have
written coincides with scripture and resonates in my own
heart. It is theologically orthodox and a much needed
emphasis on the experiential in the contemporary teaching
of the church at large.

Your brother in Christ,

Jim Fowler
Director, Christ in You Ministries

Originally posted by Kevin Lee Poracan
We have noted that the triune God made Himself known historically in the oikonomia as a relational God, but must proceed to explain that God continues in every age to act upon relational human beings by His grace in order to effect a personal and relational koinonia with every individual. Apart from accepting and entering experientially into the on ...[text shortened]... A Journal of Christian Thought, a publication of Living Stream Ministry, http://www.affcrit.com.

Originally posted by Rajk999
Do you people realise that his forum is for discussion and not designed for posting page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after p ...[text shortened]... fter page after page after page after page after page after page after ...

OF UTTER GARBAGE ?

Originally posted by Rajk999
Do you people realise that his forum is for discussion and not designed for posting page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after p ...[text shortened]... fter page after page after page after page after page after page after ...

OF UTTER GARBAGE ?