The Experience of Christ

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

For this reason, we, from the day when we had word of it, keep on in prayer for you, that you may be full of the knowledge of his purpose, with all wisdom and the experience of Christ. Colossians 1:9 NIV

Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience of Christ. 2 Peter 1:2 MSG

As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience Christ: by the Spirit he gave us. 1 John 3:24 MSG

But I have sure faith that I will experience Christ in the land of the living! Psalm 27:13 CEB

We saw it, we heard it, and now we're telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of Christ. 1 John 1:3 MSG

Let me experience Christ in the morning, for I trust in You. Reveal to me the way I should go, because I long for You. Psalm 143:8 CSB

And {you will experience Christ}, and many will rejoice at his birth. Luke 1:14 LEB

And all who believe in God's Son have eternal life. Those who don't obey the Son will never experience Christ, but the wrath of God remains upon them." John 3:36 NLT

Then you will experience Christ, and this experience will free you." John 8:32 MSG

Now I'm returning to you. I'm saying these things in the world's hearing So my people can experience Christ in them. John 17:13 MSG

He became hungry and wanted to eat. While others were preparing the meal, he had an experience of Christ. Acts 10:10 CEB

"I was in the city of Joppa praying when I had an experience of Christ, in which I saw something like a large linen sheet being lowered from heaven by its four corners. It came all the way down to me. Acts 11:5 CEB

He has brought us by faith into this experience of Christ, in which we now live. And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God's glory! Romans 5:2 GNT

And let not your behavior be like that of this world, but be changed and made new in mind, so that by experience of Christ you may have knowledge of the good and pleasing and complete purpose of God. Romans 12:2 BBE

I'm simply trying to point out that under your new Master you're going to experience Christ you would never have dreamed of. On the other hand, if you were free when Christ called you, you'll experience Christ in a way you'd never have dreamed of. 1 Corinthians 7:22 MSG

But when you proclaim his truth in everyday speech, you're letting others in on the truth so that they can grow and be strong and experience Christ. 1 Corinthians 14:3 MSG

Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a second experience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:15 ESV

Did you experience Christ so much for nothing? I wonder if it really was for nothing. Galatians 3:4 CEB

Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the Christ that you have and experience.
Galatians 6:6 MSG

You'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience Christ in all the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Ephesians 3:18 MSG

May you experience Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Ephesians 3:19 NLT

And my prayer is that you may be increased more and more in knowledge and experience of Christ. Philippians 1:9 NIV

All I want is to know Christ and to experience Him, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, Philippians 3:10 GNT

So that, somehow, I can experience Christ! Philippians 3:11 NLT

If you do this, you will experience Christ, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 NLT

Receive and experience Christ, deep, deep within yourselves. Philippians 4:23 MSG

How can we thank God for you in return for all the Christ we experience because of you before our God, 1 Thessalonians 3:9 CSB

This is why I endure everything for the sake of those who are chosen by God so that they too may experience Christ with eternal glory. 2 Timothy 2:10 CEB

If we believe, though, we'll experience Christ. But not if we don't have faith. Remember that God said, Exasperated, I vowed, "They'll never get where they're going, never be able to sit down and rest." Hebrews 4:3 MSG

Nice set of verses. However, I had to modify them all, somewhat (see bolded sections above), to make them line up with the conversation we've been having on this thread. They're much improved, now, and I really ''gained Christ'' by the ''experience'' of modifying and re-typing these translations.

Of course, that was sarcasm. In reality I now see one of WL's generic processed smoothies, writ large. An interpretational overlay of the so-called experience of Christ didn't bring us deeper, but smoothed it all out to bland and homogeneous nothingness.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

Nice set of verses. However, I had to modify them all, somewhat (see bolded sections above), to make them line up with the conversation we've been having on this thread. They're much improved, now, and I really ''gained Christ'' by the ''experience'' of modifying and re-typing these translations.

Of course, that was sarcasm. In reality I now see one of WL's generic processed smoothies, writ large. An interpretational overlay of the so-called experience of Christ didn't bring us deeper, but smoothed it all out to bland and homogeneous nothingness.

The lengths some people will go to try to make a point.

Why can't we just take the logical conclusion, that we do experience Christ but even that idea can be abused? Why take one extreme or the other? Lee's "everything is Christ" is an extreme and OBW's reaction to Lee is an extreme the other way.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Igzy

The lengths some people will go to try to make a point.

We can't we just take the logical conclusion, that we do experience Christ but even that idea can be abused? Why take one extreme or the other? Lee's "everything is Christ" is an extreme and OBW's reaction to Lee is an extreme the other way.

Perhaps we have all been stricken by Lee with the disease of extremism. So many of the ones I know, who have left the LC, have just gone to another brand of it.

Wise old Solomon said something about moderation. Perhaps his is a point well taken. Apostle Paul had something interesting to say also, "Let your moderation be known to all men, the Lord in near."

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Perhaps we have all been stricken by Lee with the disease of extremism. So many of the ones I know, who have left the LC, have just gone to another brand of it.

Wise old Solomon said something about moderation. Perhaps his is a point well taken. Apostle Paul had something interesting to say also, "Let your moderation be known to all men, the Lord is near."

Yeah, I know what you mean. When I see some of the people who have posted here in the past (no offense meant to anyone) who had been in the LCM and I see some pretty strange, extreme views taken on by them. I want to say "Dude, haven't you learned your lesson?"

Maybe the LCM originally just attracted some people who could not be satisfied with something typical. Maybe it had to be unusual to them in some way to be attractive.

Give me the middle of the road now. I don't mean lukewarm. I just mean something that isn't going off on tangents. To me, getting all bent out of shape because someone thinks in terms of "experiencing Christ" is an extreme tangent.

If a person talks about "experiencing Christ" and produces no fruit, then you know you have a phony. If a person talks about "experiencing Christ" and produces fruit, then you need to tip your hat to him. But don't make a big deal about the "experiencing Christ" part. Just look at the fruit.

I like trying to help people here. But I don't want to base my life on a reaction to the LCM. I don't think in those terms anymore. Sometimes I have a hard time with the discussions because I'm beginning to forget what they taught there. It's fading into the mist, and the future seems bright. Part of me longs for the day when this board isn't needed anymore.

I want to help people move on. I don't want to instill in them a whole new set of dogma. I want them to find their own way.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Why can't we just take the logical conclusion, that we do experience Christ .

I've seen some take the logical conclusion that Mary is the Mother of God. Because Jesus is God incarnate and Mary is the mother of Jesus. Logical.

The "ground of the church" is a logical construct. Watchman Nee took that one very far. Etc. Not interested. Number one, what does your logical construct add? Anything? (Other than selling someone some books). My answer: No, I don't see anything of value coming along. Number two, if you do pay too much attention, and place undue value on your logical construct, as something to hold in your attention, what do you lose? My answer: a lot. Instead of loving one another, you try to "experience Christ" or "take the ground". And so on. Not interested.

I'm not "bent out of shape" about it, as you've said some here are. I was just reading the online discussion here on this thread, essentially between you & OBW, and it seemed to me that you were dismissing his position as one of intransigence. As if he didn't have a valid argument, or a point. I came on here simply to say, No, I think he does have a point.

We could take 856 different subjects and do the same thing, argue different sides without going anywhere. It really doesn't matter. Your proverbial "middle of the road" is to acknowledge that different people have points of view, which are to them valid. That includes OBW. I was just trying to say that his argument wasn't simple intransigence, that there was substance to it. That's all. Not trying to convince you or Ohio that he, or I, or anyone, is "right". (And if I have gone to extremes, well, that was to make my point Mea culpa).

Have any of us "experienced Christ" while writing these posts? I don't know. I don't know how I would know. OBW can be a prickly sort, but he has points to make, and sometimes they make sense, like this one did, to me. If my coming along, here, and saying "amen" was experiencing Christ, okay. Whatever.

(Now to another point: what is the switch? I believe WL would say, Your mouth is the switch. Right? I didn't read his books, but I sat in a lot of meetings. He would say, "Your mouth is connected to your spirit. Open your mouth and activate your spirit. Gain Christ". That was his incessant theme. Unfortunately, our mouths occasionally spew forth salty water, as well as sweet. So simply opening our mouths is no guarantee that we either experience, or gain, the Christ of God. And WL's mouth occasionally spewed forth garbage, as well; Exhibit A is "The Fermentation of the Present Rebellion." I read that book when I was a die-hard Leeite, and I was quite unsettled by it... it had language that would make a sailor blush. So "exercising our spirits" over "every word that proceeds out of the mouth of Lee" isn't an adequate benchmark for "activating Christ", either.)

It's very clear to me that Jesus Christ won the victory. Where I am relative to that victory remains at least somewhat unclear. Obviously I try to co-operate, and have done so. But where I am in the scheme of things is unknown. The safe thing to do, it seems to me, is not to assume anything. Because of the fact that occasionally my mouth has betrayed me (and my eyes, and my hands, and my feet), therefore I don't assume that the times it has cooperated have left me with a net benefit. The very act of trying to ascertain my position on the ledger sends me backward. I simply cannot ascertain, on a day to day or moment to moment basis, if and how much I am "gaining Christ". That will be left to the Bema. So I let it go. I have other things to pay attention to.

If I look at that score-card in the sky as valuable in its own right, I get distracted, I get discouraged, I get confused, I get frustrated, or if I think that I'm "gaining Christ" I get proud, lazy, and arrogant. It just doesn't work. Jesus told us our evaluative skills are warped. We can see the splinter in someone else's eye and miss the beam in our own. We can kill people and think we are serving God. Think about that for a minute: you can kill someone while loudly proclaiming that you are "experiencing Christ"! Why bother. Don't get distracted.

I think that was OBW's message. Maybe he didn't phrase it nicely enough for some. But there was a point being made, there.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

I've seen some take the logical conclusion that Mary is the Mother of God. Because Jesus is God incarnate and Mary is the mother of Jesus. Logical...

I don't understand how you can post day in, day out, with such confidence about a diversity of topics, and then when considering the most basic item of the faith, i.e. do we experience God according to the scripture, you lose all assurance of faith.

If the Bible repeatedly speaks to the contrary, as in the case of killing people in the service of God, or is silent completely, as is the case with Mother Mary, then we should hesitate in our false assurances, but this is not the case. OBW says we should not say "experience" because his Bible does not say it. Then what do we do with all the quotes Igzy provided from the various translations of the Bible?

Oh well, sometimes we are commanded to love the brothers without understanding them.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I don't understand how you can post day in, day out, with such confidence about a diversity of topics, and then when considering the most basic item of the faith, i.e. do we experience God according to the scripture, you lose all assurance of faith.

The more I consider it, the more assurance I get that the talk about experiencing Christ is just spinning cobwebs. There were a lot of folk, back in the day, who said they experienced God according to scripture. They were a confident bunch: they said, "We have Moses." But they had nothing. They had feasts, they had new moons. They had sacrifices & prayers. And they had faith, all right, but it wasn't in God, but in their experiences.

The problem with the sentence "I experience Christ " is not in the "Christ" part, nor the "experience" part, but in the "I" part. We should know better by now. And if you say that you didn't claim the experience for yourself, just that the experience exists, I reply that if so it exists not for the talkers but the doers. Talk means naught. Those who experience aren't giving speeches about it. They know better. They don't trust themselves, and they have learned to look away from their experiences, both good and ill.. As soon as you talk of experiencing Christ you exclude yourself from it. You have spun a cobweb and crawled in, and built your house on shifting sands.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

The more I consider it, the more assurance I get that the talk about experiencing Christ is just spinning cobwebs. There were a lot of folk, back in the day, who said they experienced God according to scripture. They were a confident bunch: they said, "We have Moses." But they had nothing. They had feasts, they had new moons. They had sacrifices & prayers. And they had faith, all right, but it wasn't in God, but in their experiences.

The problem with the sentence "I experience Christ " is not in the "Christ" part, nor the "experience" part, but in the "I" part. We should know better by now. And if you say that you didn't claim the experience for yourself, just that the experience exists, I reply that if so it exists not for the talkers but the doers. Talk means naught. Those who experience aren't giving speeches about it. They know better. They don't trust themselves, and they have learned to look away from their experiences, both good and ill.. As soon as you talk of experiencing Christ you exclude yourself from it. You have spun a cobweb and crawled in, and built your house on shifting sands.

I'll let you inform all the apostles about this. Perhaps you can set them all straight. As for me, I'm too confused, caught up in this forum spider cobweb since I thought the apostles talked about nothing but the experience of Christ in all their epistles.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I'll let you inform all the apostles about this. Perhaps you can set them all straight. As for me, I'm too confused, caught up in this forum spider cobweb since I thought the apostles talked about nothing but the experience of Christ in all their epistles.

Isn't this a different - experience of Christ - than the one practiced in the LRM? and maybe the one Igzy is speaking of? I'm finding it hard to put my finger on it ... this experiencing of Christ. It's a moving target. Like when a big spider shakes its web (-aron - thanks for that). No one, it seems, is speaking of the same thing.

I think in the end it's quite probable that we all have different pictures in our heads of what experiences of Christ is, and we can't help but to be talking about something different.

After all, any and all experiences of Christ are completely and utterly subjective. Plus, for me it's been a long time since I've had the local church style of experiencing Christ. These days one of my high peek experiences of Christ is sitting out back, in the dark, and "joining" the cosmos while looking into the milky way (weather permitting). I couldn't see that "glory of God" in the city. Surely that's a different experiencing of Christ than anything y'all are talking about.

And didn't Jesus more or less say that the "switch" is in the closet? It's dark in there. Jesus is found in the darkness. It could be said that, he's the light in that darkness. And that, I suppose, well defines a certain type of experiencing Christ.

Is that what we're all trying to talk about?

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I'll let you inform all the apostles about this. Perhaps you can set them all straight.

Did Judas experience Christ? He walked with Him, talked with Him, even at one point kissed Him on the cheek.

In Luke 13:26 Jesus has them saying, "We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets"... but they got nothing. Don't trust your experiences. They are shifting sands.

[OBW]

Early on I suggested that my timing was bad to start a topic. And it was. I have had little time to keep up with much of anything.

Originally Posted by Ohio

OBW says we should not say "experience" because his Bible does not say it.

I did not say that we should not say "experience." What I said is that we are prone to using the word "experience" about heavily fuzzy events, feelings, etc., that are "spiritual" in a world divided between spiritual and secular. In fact, other than Igzy's list, which I have not had time to more than read through, too many of the arguments for the generic have been about private time sensations of the presence of God or something like that.

I do not say those are false or that they are not experiences (although there is always the question as to how certain we are as to what they are since so many speak of these kinds of experiences and the result is something we could hardly call spiritually or scripturally sound — of course it is never what we do).

I suggest that rather than saying something generic that forces the interpretation that it was clearly of Christ —without argument or consideration — we talk about what was actually experienced. It is a little like declaring something to be biblical or not biblical. I can find the words in the Bible so it is biblical. But what do they mean? I can't find the words in the Bible, so it can't exist. (And before you rush to say that is exactly what I am doing, consider that my goal was not to crush things that are real, but to demystify something that is a catch-all. To stop and think what is actually being said when the term is used. To consider whether we actually engaged in something that was real, and when not sure, assumed it must be and gave it a label that squashed further consideration.

Not saying that this is all of the cases. But even when it is not, what more could be gained from the realization that Christ was working in me through the Spirit to actually be different during the day than just saying I had a real "experience of Christ." But as "real" and as much as that is "experiencing Christ," we don't use that term for those things. And we expect that such an experience will be followed by a desire to jump and shout. If that is the case, then the most mature Christians should be constantly unable to contain themselves because they would constantly be reminded that so many events of the day would have been different in their old life. The fact that they don't even have to think about being different in so many ways is the ongoing "experience of Christ" that does not come with a need for exuberance. Instead it comes with the realization that we are still short of the glory of God.

Yes, there are times for joyous shouting, or some kind of equivalent. But the presumption that there is a need for it to be so ongoing and yet so indescribable that you can only say that you had "an experience of Christ" makes me wonder. Was if real or was it uncertain and the label is required to force the understanding to be what we want it to be? Is it somewhat like saying "the Bible says" when we are not talking about what the actual words say, but rather what we take them to mean?

And a list of the occurrence of a word does not answer that question. And despite the number of instances noted, does not, in itself, make it a major construct of Christian life, nor force its meaning in the way that we so often insist. It is worthy of review, not push-back and incredulity on the part of some. Maybe even the list does not mean what we want it to mean.

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

I suggest that rather than saying something generic that forces the interpretation that it was clearly of Christ —without argument or consideration — we talk about what was actually experienced.

Instead of experiencing God's love, or peace, or redemption, we may try to "experience Christ", but without the specifics I don't see how the generic term adds anything helpful to the experience itself. If there's some meta-principle that fully casts all of our specific experiences into a new and bold relief, fine. But otherwise we risk being Jack Horners, sitting in the corner with our Christmas pies. We're happy with our newfound "plum" but really it's not connected to anything.

Originally Posted by OBW

what more could be gained from the realization that Christ was working in me through the Spirit to actually be different during the day than just saying I had a real "experience of Christ." But as "real" and as much as that is "experiencing Christ," we don't use that term for those things. And we expect that such an experience will be followed by a desire to jump and shout. If that is the case, then the most mature Christians should be constantly unable to contain themselves because they would constantly be reminded that so many events of the day would have been different in their old life. The fact that they don't even have to think about being different in so many ways is the ongoing "experience of Christ" that does not come with a need for exuberance. Instead it comes with the realization that we are still short of the glory of God.

Yes, there are times for joyous shouting, or some kind of equivalent. But the presumption that there is a need for it to be so ongoing and yet so indescribable that you can only say that you had "an experience of Christ" makes me wonder.

Going to the meetings and shouting "We are all experiencing Christ" was a kind of charismatic dodge... we got excited about something tenuously (at best) connected to the scriptural record. And our momentary excitement was taken as if it were the claimed experience itself. We thought that we were excited shouting "We are all experiencing Christ" because it was the experience (of Christ) itself, where in fact we were excited because we were jumping up and down, waving our arms, and shouting. We felt surely this was the generic and all-encompassing "Spirit" which was the generic, all-inclusive "Christ" which was therefore the "experience of Christ".

And we decried the "Denominations" for being in some holding pattern, waiting to go to heaven, while we were all experiencing and gaining Christ. But we were in our own holding pattern, with our rituals and habits and behaviors and concepts, which we thought were reality itself. Pray-reading, declaring, shouting, arm-waving, jumping, "prophesying" strings of buzz-words was taken as if it were the experience of Christ itself.

Now maybe I've already beaten this horse to death. So the LCM "experience of Christ" isn't ready to saddle up and ride. So what one is?

[aron]

Similarly, I remember going to an LC meeting and we all declared, "Let's gain Christ!" as if the declaration were somehow the experience itself. It was stirring, even exciting; it seemed right from the Bible. I was exercising my spirit on the local ground, what could be finer? And what could be wrong with that?

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by aron

Going to the meetings and shouting "We are all experiencing Christ" was a kind of charismatic dodge... we got excited about something tenuously (at best) connected to the scriptural record. And our momentary excitement was taken as if it were the claimed experience itself. We thought that we were excited shouting "We are all experiencing Christ" because it was the experience (of Christ) itself, where in fact we were excited because we were jumping up and down, waving our arms, and shouting. We felt surely this was the generic and all-encompassing "Spirit" which was the generic, all-inclusive "Christ" which was therefore the "experience of Christ".

And we decried the "Denominations" for being in some holding pattern, waiting to go to heaven, while we were all experiencing and gaining Christ. But we were in our own holding pattern, with our rituals and habits and behaviors and concepts, which we thought were reality itself. Pray-reading, declaring, shouting, arm-waving, jumping, "prophesying" strings of buzz-words was taken as if it were the experience of Christ itself.

Now maybe I've already beaten this horse to death. So the LCM "experience of Christ" isn't ready to saddle up and ride. So what one is?

If the Spirit's work in us is experiencing Christ, it could happen anywhere. Whether in the so-called local churches, denominations, or non-denominations.
Some might have the concept "being inwardly disturbed" as negative. Really? When I read scripture or listen to a message that causes me to be "inwardly disturbed", that's an experience of Christ. That's the sensitivity of my inner man. When outward or inward circumstances aren't proper, the Word of God should make us "inwardly disturbed".

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

I've seen some take the logical conclusion that Mary is the Mother of God. Because Jesus is God incarnate and Mary is the mother of Jesus. Logical.

Don't trust your experiences.

Reason (logic) and experience are the only tools we have to discern reality. We have experiences, we analyze them and we draw conclusions. Then we repeat. This is true at all levels, from the mundane to the sublime.

You can re-run the experiment, but Descartes already did it. He tried to reduce knowledge down to the basics of what he could confirm, and he came up with I think (an experience) therefore I am (a logical conclusion). You might disagree with him, but my point is that the basis of his conception of reality was built on two things: experience and logic. So if you are going to mistrust both, you don't have anything left to go on.

I know you don't mean to throw them out totally. I'm just saying you can't get along without them, so you'd better try to make friends with them as best you can.

I'm not "bent out of shape" about it, as you've said some here are.

I know you are not. You are not as opinionated as OBW, which makes you easier to converse with. You understand that discussion is a two-way street. You are proof that a little graciousness goes a long way, something some of us would do well to learn.

So simply opening our mouths is no guarantee that we either experience, or gain, the Christ of God.

In my experience any time we try to come up with foolproof technique for being a Christian it always ends up making us look like fools. There is no guarantee of anything, other than God is good. It isn't that God isn't solid, it's that he's always nudging us toward genuine reliance on him by taking away our substitutes.

The very act of trying to ascertain my position on the ledger sends me backward. I simply cannot ascertain, on a day to day or moment to moment basis, if and how much I am "gaining Christ". That will be left to the Bema. So I let it go. I have other things to pay attention to.

Don't get distracted.

I think that was OBW's message. Maybe he didn't phrase it nicely enough for some. But there was a point being made, there.

I told him I understood some of his point. I just disagreed with all his conclusions. I get it that anything can become a distraction. But that includes trying to formulate airtight cases in reaction to Witness Lee. OBW gets so caught up in building his arguments against Lee that he becomes unreasonable, and when you call him on it then he says you are attacking him. Anything but admit he could be mistaken. There's never an "Oops, my bad!" with him. It's always somebody else's fault when there is a misunderstanding.

OBW's reaction to Lee is to distrust spirituality. He thinks in terms of fruit. What he forgets is real fruit is of the Spirit. It's not just of our trying to be fruitful. You cannot produce the fruit being a good Christian without a relationship with God, which is by definition experiential and spiritual. So again, you'd better make friends with those things as best you can. Because if you dismiss them enough you'll eventually miss their benefits.

An analogy might be a liberal who distrusts capitalism, or a conservative who distrusts government intervention. Each will spend a lot of time bad-mouthing those things they don't like, as OBW repeatedly bad mouths "inner life" and "spirituality" and "experience of Christ." The more extreme the person the more he will bad-mouth the other side and give his side a break. But if both persons were truly honest they would admit and make peace with the fact that both capitalism and government intervention are necessary. It's a mistake to try to destroy the other side of an argument to try to prove your side. Emerson wrote that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Every rule has an exception, including this one.

[Cal]

I would say that if you don't like the idea of "experiencing Christ" then by all means try to avoid all experiences of Christ.

If you detect anything you are experiencing in your life that could in any way, shape or form be characterized as "Christ" then run away from it as fast as you can.

Because if you are experiencing something and realize that something is Christ then that would mean you are experiencing Christ and you can't have that.

Follow these simple rules and you can be sure you never experience Christ.


See how magnanimous I can be? No one can ever say that Igzy isn't looking out for them.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

I would say that if you don't like the idea of "experiencing Christ" then by all means try to avoid all experiences of Christ.

If you detect anything you are experiencing in your life that could in any way, shape or form be characterized as "Christ" then run away from it as fast as you can.

Because if you are experiencing something and realize that something is Christ then that would mean you are experiencing Christ and you can't have that.

Follow these simple rules and you can be sure you never experience Christ.

Let me rephrase my argument. There was once a guy who killed a lion, after fighting with it in a snowy pit. Now, the lion was real, the snow was real, the pit was real, and the fight was real. But if the guy stopped at some point and said, "Gee, I am having the experience of fighting a lion in a snowy pit" he would have lost. No time for that. Just time to fight. The time for claiming is after the battle is over (or the proverbial race has finished).

If you claim the experience you lose. If you fight, you may win (and have the experience of winning). Either way you'll have an experience. But if you try to lay claim it, while you're having it, you lose.

But if your goal is writing and publishing books I'm sure there's a book in there somewhere. But God may not count books being published as experiences of Christ, at the Bema. So don't count your books published as experiences of Christ.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

Let me rephrase my argument. There was once a guy who killed a lion, after fighting with it in a snowy pit. Now, the lion was real, the snow was real, the pit was real, and the fight was real. But if the guy stopped at some point and said, "Gee, I am having the experience of fighting a lion in a snowy pit" he would have lost. No time for that. Just time to fight. The time for claiming is after the battle is over (or the proverbial race has finished).

If you claim the experience you lose. If you fight, you may win (and have the experience of winning). Either way you'll have an experience. But if you try to lay claim it, while you're having it, you lose.

But if your goal is writing and publishing books I'm sure there's a book in there somewhere. But God may not count books being published as experiences of Christ, at the Bema. So don't count your books published as experiences of Christ.

Then why would anyone say to "slow down and smell the roses?" Obviously when your life is at stake, fighting off bears and lions, that is not the best time to reminisce the good times, but when it is all over, get out your selfie stick and get a pic with your latest "kill."

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

I've seen some take the logical conclusion that Mary is the Mother of God. Because Jesus is God incarnate and Mary is the mother of Jesus. Logical.

Don't trust your experiences.

Just to review. Here you are making a logical conclusion based on your experience with your experiences. You have determined from your experiences that they are not trustworthy. But you had to experience their untrustworthyness to come to this conclusion. So there is at least one experience you trust, that of experiences being untrustworthy. Therefore your statements are contradictory, because you have both trusted an experience and used logic to formulate a conclusion about it.

So please clarify your directive to not trust logic or experience. You might want to rephrase your statements to make them less black and white. Obviously we must trust logic and experience to some degree.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

You have determined from your experiences that [experiences] are not trustworthy. But you had to experience their untrustworthyness to come to this conclusion. So there is at least one experience you trust, that of experiences being untrustworthy. Therefore your statements are contradictory, because you have both trusted an experience and used logic to formulate a conclusion about it.

So please clarify your directive to not trust logic or experience. You might want to rephrase your statements to make them less black and white. Obviously we must trust logic and experience to some degree.

I do trust logic. But only to some degree. And I very much enjoy coming to the meetings and being disabused of my logical constructions. And also on this forum, as well.

Our senses are tricky: we shouldn't rely on them as purveyors of reality. Secondly, our interpretation of what our senses deliver us is also flawed. We are logical, yes, but only partly so. That is why the "flock" is such a safeguard. WL and WN both over-rode all safeguards and the result was ruinous.

So I saw OBW providing a "not so fast" safeguard to the all-encompassing notion of "experiencing Christ" and I simply wanted to say "amen". I don't think it's something that can be proven or disproven. It just doesn't appear to add value, and by the time you've hung all the cautionary flags on it, what is the point? It's just a distraction from the plain words that are in front of us.

Concepts are great. I love them, actually. I can churn them out daily. But at heart I'm still a sinner struggling home to the Father. My concepts won't deliver me. They have limited, temporary use.

Let me give an example. A few months back I got interested in the "grey area" between angels and the Holy Spirit. It became evident to me that there was possibly some overlap, that when John wrote of "spirit" in the apocalypse he may have meant the ministering spirit (angel) and not the Holy Spirit. So I put my verses out there, and my thinking, and was pretty soundly disabused of the notion. So I dropped it. I could either start my "church of Aron" where everybody agreed with me, or I could put my concepts on the shelf, possibly never to return, and simply go on. No big deal. I do it every day. I think, but try not to become captive to or emotionally invested in my thoughts. I don't trust them implicitly.

And I have a habit of phrasing my statements out in black-and-white simply to see if they can stand. I like the challenge. Many of them don't stand, very long. The objections to them arrive, and qualifiers to preserve them pile up hard and fast, and eventually I don't take them too seriously as representations of objective truth. The whole "experience of Christ" as a concept seems to fall in that category for me. Doesn't matter whose idea it was, initially. It really doesn't stand up well, on its own.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

So I saw OBW providing a "not so fast" safeguard to the all-encompassing notion of "experiencing Christ" and I simply wanted to say "amen". I don't think it's something that can be proven or disproven. It just doesn't appear to add value, and by the time you've hung all the cautionary flags on it, what is the point? It's just a distraction from the plain words that are in front of us.

If he had just said that I would have said amen, too. But he went on talking about "stew" and that speaking generally about the experience of Christ wasn't supported in the Bible (a claim which some of the verses I shared contradicted). He just took it too far. It may not appear to add value to you, but it does to me. So why make a big deal about it? And it's not "just a distraction" and is the plain word. There are verses that clearly talk about a general experience of Christ. Read the list again. As I said, any verse that talks about "knowing God" is talking about experiencing God. It's talking about knowledge that comes from experience.

I don't think saying "experiencing Christ" carries any more risk than saying, for example, we should "cut off our hand" or "sacrifice our bodies" or "hate our own selves." Each of these carries risk of misinterpretation and with that possible serious consequences. I don't see how saying "experiencing Christ" is more risky, and there can be no argument that those other things are in the Bible.

[awareness]

Good post Igzy ....

Originally Posted by Igzy

Reason (logic) and experience are the only tools we have to discern reality. We have experiences, we analyze them and we draw conclusions. Then we repeat. This is true at all levels, from the mundane to the sublime.

So true ... and we have the awareness reading these words as a "tool" to discern reality. Reason and logic are extremities of that/this.

You can re-run the experiment, but Descartes already did it. He tried to reduce knowledge down to the basics of what he could confirm, and he came up with I think (an experience) therefore I am (a logical conclusion). You might disagree with him,. . .

Yes. So a rock doesn't think and therefore it isn't?

but my point is that the basis of his conception of reality was built on two things: experience and logic. So if you are going to mistrust both, you don't have anything left to go on.

Isn't that when faith kicks in?

In my experience any time we try to come up with foolproof technique for being a Christian it always ends up making us look like fools.

True that ... this post an exception.

It isn't that God isn't solid, it's that he's always nudging us toward genuine reliance on him by taking away our substitutes.

That's what got me where I'm at today. God has pulled all the rugs of substitution out from under me. That's been a type of experiencing Christ to me.

You cannot produce the fruit being a good Christian without a relationship with God, which is by definition experiential and spiritual.

Where does Gal 5:22 say that? It doesn't say there's no other way to have or gain any of those fruits.

Emerson wrote that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Yet Waldo consistently, according to his "English Traits," believed in "whiteness," or the superiority of the white English Saxon.

Yet he might have something to add to our discussion of experiencing Christ:

Emerson had come to accept the idea that the highest, most trustworthy knowledge consists of intuitive graspings, moments of direct perception, free mental acts of cognition and recognition, a series of mental activities that, as he now realized, could be summed up in the word reason. Customarily he used visual imagery for these acts of knowing, calling them insights, perceptions or visions.
- "Emerson: The Mind on Fire" by Robert D. Richardson Jr.

And I think we need to cut OBW some slack. Sure he's a thick thinker but all in all he's a pretty great guy ... as far as I've seen.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by awareness

Good post Igzy ....

Yes. So a rock doesn't think and therefore it isn't?

Questions of being are the privilege and curse only of self-conscious beings. Rocks are spared this.

Isn't that when faith kicks in?

Faith to me is an extension of reason and experience. Eventually we all believe what those two have led us to. Since God is a logical conclusion gathered from the experience of existence, failing to have faith in him is a fatal denial of reality (according to our Christian faith anyway).

Where does Gal 5:22 say that? It doesn't say there's no other way to have or gain any of those fruits.

It just says they are of the Spirit. Presumably you can't get them without getting the Spirit, however He's gotten. What are you going to do, get bootlegged copies?

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Igzy

It just says they are of the Spirit. Presumably you can't get them without getting the Spirit, however He's gotten. What are you going to do, get bootlegged copies?

Glad you said presumably. I've know non-believers with those fruits. Not that they had all of them. Then again believers don't seem to have all of them either.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

Nice set of verses. However, I had to modify them all, somewhat (see bolded sections above), to make them line up with the conversation we've been having on this thread. They're much improved, now, and I really ''gained Christ'' by the ''experience'' of modifying and re-typing these translations.

Of course, that was sarcasm. In reality I now see one of WL's generic processed smoothies, writ large. An interpretational overlay of the so-called experience of Christ didn't bring us deeper, but smoothed it all out to bland and homogeneous nothingness.

But those verses are just adorable. They fully support Igzy's position. I get it. The Bible supports experiencing Christ. If you put it on a torture rack, to make it say the "right" thing. I wish we had a talking Bible, that could tell us what it means.

Many, many, traditional Christians, wouldn't and don't have a clue of what is meant by experiencing Christ. It's not even in their vocabulary.

When I was attending the Church of Christ they had a visiting preacher come and speak. And he really pitched Henry Blackaby's "Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God."

Our preacher was enthused. And bought a hard bound copy of Blackaby's book and give everyone in the adult Sunday School class our own personal copy. We covered the book for a few weeks. I read mine but no one else did. I tried to generate excitement about it. They weren't really interested. As a result experiencing God fell flat, even with the preacher, in the end.

Seems to me this notion of experiencing Christ is germane to the local church. Are you not a Christian if you don't experience Christ?