[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

John 17:22. "I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one."

Does this reveal something about the oneness of God that is not quite like saying they are jointly one person?

Where is the oneness in these verses? Looking at the surrounding verses, it would appear to be something common inside of each of the persons mentioned, not that they are simply the person next to them. Still doesn't answer all the questions. But I wonder if this puts a hole in any kind of Jesus is now the Holy Spirit talk.

And a couple of years ago or so when we got into a discussion of the oneness of God in terms of Jesus dying on the cross. There was some discussion that God the Father could not actually turn away from the Son. I wonder if that was a correct analysis. The Father did not die on the cross. Neither did the Spirit. It was the Son.

WL took logic and ran it across the Bible, and in so doing found that he could discard millennia of Christian understanding of scripture. Here's the logic train we got presented with, as I remember it. "Hear, O Israel, The LORD your God is one God, and you shall have no other gods besides." So there is one God.

Next: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and was with God... and became flesh". So the one God became incarnated in the Son.

Next: "The Last Adam became the (a?) Life-Giving Spirit." So the one God, Jesus, is now the Holy Spirit.

Next: "There is one body and one Spirit, in which you were called in one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism..." So there can only be one Spirit. There cannot be more than one spirit.

So when John, on Patmos, sent greetings to the seven Asian churches, from Him who is and who was and who was to come, that was of course Jesus Himself on the throne, and from the seven flames burning before the throne, that was also Jesus, who is the Holy Spirit, sevenfold intensified, and from the One walking in the midst of the seven lampstands before the throne who's also, naturally, Jesus. So Jesus is simultaneously on the throne, burning in front of the throne (in seven places no less), and walking around in the midst of the seven lamps burning in front of the throne?

To me this contradicts everything we know about language, and how language conveys understanding. There's no indication whatsoever that John meant this writing to indicate something like that. Only WL's logic dictated that, so the apostle John had to be put in his proper place. But in so doing, I argue that the imagery of Revelation chapter 1 becomes nonsensical in WL's hands. My only question is: how could so many otherwise intelligent people sit through that kind of treatment? The only conclusion that I can come to is that we had to surmise that the apostle John hadn't carefully read through Paul's epistles (as WL had) and wrote in ignorant error, and this error persisted for centuries until WL came along and set everything right.

But I really doubt that. Instead, I see WL using logic like using a bulldozer to drive through a flower garden. And what a mangled mass he left behind; behold, all things are made new, indeed! The Bible got "processed" for us.

Originally Posted by Amcasci

The foundation of Lee's doctrine is his understanding of the Trinity!. Lee teaches "modalism," the idea that there is one God who reveals Himself in three different modes or stages. ...Lee's teaching destroys the distinction of persons in the Godhead.

In Revelation chapter 1 you can see the full effect of WL's teaching. All the details are dissolved. It's all just Jesus. It's all the Son. The Father is the Son. The Spirit is the Son. The seven churches, which are the Body of Christ, are the Son. The seven lamps are the Son. Maybe the seven angels, who are spirits, are really the Son (we know there can be only one Spirit, and that is Jesus. Ignore the number seven). Should I stop now, or should we keep going?