Witness Lee and the Lord's Recovery Movement

@sonship said

This is really stupid of you, to accuse of elitism the hope that we would witness from the standpoint of rapture, the salvation come upon the earth and the clearing up of religious chaos which has brought much disrepute to the name of Jesus Christ.

Quick you are to hand out the 'stupid hat' but fail to see it has been sitting on your own head for years. I can forgive the fact that you have been duped to follow an obvious Charlatan but am less forgiving of the devious way you have brought his deformed message into this forum, often heavily redacted and frequently without acknowledging him as your source.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

You haven't shown me where anything from this Christian teacher was "deformed."

As soon as you cry "deformed" I show you it in the Bible.

Case in point - mingled is the biblical word used by the Holy Spirit in the typology of the fine flour mingled with oil (Lev. 2) - a symbol of God become a man.

Now I did say that the expression "four in one" is jolting. But I brought you immediately to John 17 to see some real basis for Christ saying the saved are one in the divine Us of the Triune God.

So you haven't yet really proved any deformation in what I said, or what I learned from Witness Lee.

Try again. But I may have to leave here shortly.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

You haven't shown me where anything from this Christian teacher was "deformed."

As soon as you cry "deformed" I show you it in the Bible.

Case in point - mingled is the biblical word used by the Holy Spirit in the typology of the fine flour mingled with oil (Lev. 2) - a symbol of God become a man.

Now I did say that the express ...[text shortened]... at I said, or what I learned from Witness Lee.

Try again. But I may have to leave here shortly.

Anybody can pick a word like 'mingled' from scripture and corrupt its meaning. We also find it in Isaiah 19:14:

'The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken [man] staggereth in his vomit.'

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Anybody can pick a word like 'mingled' from scripture and corrupt its meaning. We also find it in Isaiah 19:14:

'The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken [man] staggereth in his vomit.'

Anyone can grab the Bible Concordance and say "Hmmm, how ELSE is this word used?"

Deal huge!

Look - Joined to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17) is a uniting, a blending, a interweaving as one two. Mingle is a good word to describe it.

That is not saying "mingle" is not used ELSEWHERE to denote other things.

Excuse me if I was not blown away by the irony.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Anybody can pick a word like 'mingled' from scripture and corrupt its meaning. We also find it in Isaiah 19:14:

'The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken [man] staggereth in his vomit.'

Anyone can grab the Bible Concordance and say "Hmmm, how EL ...[text shortened]... e" is not used ELSEWHERE to denote other things.

Excuse me if I was not blown away by the irony.

'There is nothing in either the Old or New testament which by itself could even faintly suggest that man might practise being a god in this world and actually become one in the next.' - G.W Butterworth.

Deification is a left over from pagan Hellenism.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Deification is a left over from pagan Hellenism.

The deification in the New Testament is not the sense of deification of, for example, the Roman emperors declaring that they are to be worshiped as God. That kind of deification is foreign to the Bible. Other pagan forms of deification could also be excluded.


Greek Orthodoxy has taught "divinization" [or theosis ] as a part of God's full salvation for centuries. Ask poster Philikalia to check me on this.

Now, this is only a brief post in response to a brief comment:

The Apostle Peter wrote that the believers are "partakers of the divine nature"

"Seeing that His divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who has called us by his own glory and virtue.

Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust." (2 Peter 1:3,4)

Precious promises of God have enabled the saved to become "partakers of the divine nature."

This is not just spectators only of that nature.
Nor is it admirers only of that nature.
Nor does he say observers, witnesses, worshippers only of that divine nature.

It says "PARTAKERS of the divine nature". That is to participate in that divine nature. How can we not say then that divinization is not a part of full salvation in Jesus Christ?

So Butterworth may have meant well. But "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4) is deification. at least it is its beginning as a process.

And we Christians should not throw out the baby with the bathwater on deification because we do not want to appear Hellenistic.

And we Christians should not throw out the baby with the bathwater on deification because we do not want to appear Hellenistic.

Plus, there might be Neo-Kantian ripples throughout the multiverse. 😉

Is the Lord's Recovery Movement focused on recovery from addictions, or is it more along the lines of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) of Judaism?

@caesar-salad

Is the Lord's Recovery Movement focused on recovery from addictions, or is it more along the lines of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) of Judaism?

There is probably a twelve step program somewhere which speaks of "recovery" by the Lord.

We do not use the word in that sense, say as would be typical in an AA meeting or other substance abuse program.

Such programs can be very helpful. But we use "recovery" in another sense - recovery of neglected revelation right there in the bible.

@sonship said

So Butterworth may have meant well. But "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4) is deification. at least it is its beginning as a process.

And we Christians should not throw out the baby with the bathwater on deification because we do not want to appear Hellenistic.

Forget Hellenism, what you proffer is blasphemy.

To be a partaker of the divine nature doesn't mean becoming God yourself, it means merely that the characteristics of God’s nature become yours, through His creating work in you. Why have you forgotten this?

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Forget Hellenism, what you proffer is blasphemy.

To be a partaker of the divine nature doesn't mean becoming God yourself, it means merely that the characteristics of God’s nature become yours, through His creating work in you. Why have you forgotten this?

New Testament deification is not the pagan concept that Butterworth warned against. And instead of "forgetting" that Christians do not become God in His non-communicable attributes I have listed what deification is not.

The saved will never become creators of universes.
They will never be objects of worship.
Neither will they ever be omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent.
They will never have the unique Fatherhood of God.

But being sons of God they are, shall we say, of the "species" of God in a similar
way in which life begets life like itself.

The son of a whale is what? - a whale.
The son of a giraffe is what? - a giraffe.
The son of a cat is what? - a cat.
The son of a man is what? - a man.

What is a son of God? We have every ground to say she or he is of the "species" (for lack of a better word) of God.

First John 3:9,10 teach that God's seed contains the non-sinning life of God Himself. And this seed is planted in the Christian. He cannot sin because this seed of God is growing and spreading its influence into his being.

"Everyone who has been begotten of God does not practice sin, because His seed abides in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been begotten of God.

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested." (1 John 3:9,10)

Being begotten of God they possess the divine seed of God's life. Sons of God are of the "species" ( for lack of a better word ) of God. This is not to teach blasphemy.

@sonship said
New Testament deification is not the pagan concept that Butterworth warned against. And instead of "forgetting" that Christians do not become God in His non-communicable attributes I have listed what deification is not.

The saved will never become creators of universes.
They will never be objects of worship.
Neither will they ever be omniscient, omnipotent, or omniprese ...[text shortened]... ns of God are of the "species" ( for lack of a better word ) of God. This is not to teach blasphemy.

You really do need to find a better word.

@sonship said

The son of a whale is what? - a whale.
The son of a giraffe is what? - a giraffe.
The son of a cat is what? - a cat.
The son of a man is what? - a man.

What is a son of God? We have every ground to say she or he is of the "species" (for lack of a better word) of God.

The term "Son of God" should not be confused with the term "God the Son" (Greek: Θεός ὁ υἱός ), the second Person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus as God the Son, identical in essence but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (the first and third Persons of the Trinity).

(Wiki)

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

The term "Son of God" should not be confused with the term "God the Son" (Greek: Θεός ὁ υἱός ), the second Person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus as God the Son, identical in essence but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (the first and third Persons of the Trinity).

The New Testament says of the Son - "O God".

But of the Son, " Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, ..." (Hebrews 1:8a)

But that the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit are distinct I would also affirm. But as you can see above in Hebrews 1:8 - quoting Psalm 45:6,7 the Son is God.

As for deification of the believers, we do not believe any individual can fully express God. Rather the corporate entity of the "city " expresses God.

Individually - the believers are "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). But as a great collective the church universal becomes the fullness of the one who fills all in all.

" ... 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." (Eph. 3:17b-19)

In this filling the corporate living vessel with God He is able to do superabundantly unto eternity above all that we ask or even think -

" .. that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. But to Him who is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that operates in us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations forever and ever. Amen." (vs.19b-21)

"Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." (4:13)

These passages show the consummation of God expressed is a matter not of any individual son but of all the sons corporately expressing a "full grown man" - that is a God-man collective.

@sonship said
As for deification of the believers, we do not believe any individual can fully express God. Rather the corporate entity of the "city " expresses God.

Individually - the believers are "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). But as a great collective the church universal becomes the fullness of the one who fills all in all.

" ... being rooted an ...[text shortened]... ut of all the sons corporately expressing a [b]"full grown man" - that is a God-man collective.

Again, scripture makes clear that to be a 'partaker of the divine nature' doesn't mean becoming God yourself, it means merely that the characteristics of God’s nature become yours, through His creating work in you.