The Experience of Christ

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

So who did well? The second guy. But all during the race, if we wanted to assess the "experience of Christ" of the runners, we'd bet on the first. This indicates to me that ultimately, our assessment means nothing or nearly nothing. We can't truly assess our "experience of Christ", except to press on. It's only truly assessed by God, at the finish...

I probably should have put in my scriptural reference, given that OBW asked for them, and I usually assume (wrongly) that people get what I am alluding to. I am specifically thinking here of the parable of the two sons. One promised to obey the command, then didn't. The second refused, then repented and did it. Jesus asked them, Which one did the will of the Father? They answered, the second.

So my analogy was, we can be in the front row of the meeting, making noise, testifying of all our "experiences of Christ" during the week, which may be real and legitimate. But they may not. So drop it. Drop it and go on. Ultimately it is what you "hold to", that is real. And that cannot be assessed until it is found what you are holding to, at the end.

Ultimately, WL developed a catch-phrase, sold a few thousand books, and a few thousand folks bought them and read them. Or put them on the shelf, unread. Life goes on.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

I probably should have put in my scriptural reference, given that OBW asked for them, and I usually assume (wrongly) that people get what I am alluding to. I am specifically thinking here of the parable of the two sons. One promised to obey the command, then didn't. The second refused, then repented and did it. Jesus asked them, Which one did the will of the Father? They answered, the second.

So my analogy was, we can be in the front row of the meeting, making noise, testifying of all our "experiences of Christ" during the week, which may be real and legitimate. But they may not. So drop it. Drop it and go on. Ultimately it is what you "hold to", that is real. And that cannot be assessed until it is found what you are holding to, at the end.

Ultimately, WL developed a catch-phrase, sold a few thousand books, and a few thousand folks bought them and read them. Or put them on the shelf, unread. Life goes on.

Again, I don't see that talking about experiences of Christ generally was the cause of the problem. To me the cause of the problem, ironically, was thinking we needed specific "experiences of Christ" that you could shout about in the meeting, i.e. get a bunch of Amens to. So the problem was not generality. Quite the opposite. It was a misguided specificity, i.e. of LCM-approved "experiences." The LCM-approved experience list was actually quite narrow.

To me saying we need to experience Christ is like saying we need to pray. Paul said "pray unceasingly." He didn't say at that moment what to pray about specifically. Being general about experiencing Christ doesn't encourage invalid experiences any more that generally encouraging prayer encourages invalid prayers.

A generalization for a real encounter with God, whether as grace, or love or joy or service or prophecy, is an experience of Christ. It makes a very valid point that genuine Christianity has the element of real experience, not just theory. God is involved and when he is you, at least eventually, realize that. That's an experience. I think it's silly to be told that I have to find in the Bible where it talks about experience. As far as I'm concerned it's implied all over the Bible.

I think you guys are making a huge mountain out of a molehill. I see correlation masquerading as causation.

[Cal]

All genuine Christian behavior and living is by definition an experience of Christ, because the Christian life is "not I, but Christ." So whenever the Bible commands any action from us it is by definition commanding an experience of Christ.

So not to put too fine a point on it, but seeing that the Bible encourages all kinds of participations which are all by definition experiences of Christ, yet to turn around and say that the Bible doesn't encourage experiencing Christ is possibly the most illogical thing I've heard in a long, long time. It's right up there with the argument that increasing the amount of money the nation owes will help us reduce the national debt.

It's like you saying that people should fly, drive or take a boat to another destination, and then turn around and say you didn't encourage anyone to travel. I mean, duh.

[aron]

It's like you saying that people should fly, drive or take a boat to another destination, and then turn around and say you didn't encourage anyone to travel. I mean, duh.

But at the end of the day you don't know if you've traveled or not, so what are you talking about? You're just talking to make noise. Only God knows whether you've traveled or not, and how far, and by what means. And God won't tell you until the end of the journey. That's what the Judgment Seat is for.

If you need scriptures, how about, "Lord, when did we do this or do that?" Answer: "When you did it to the least of these my brothers". Then the one who said, "I did this, and I did that", is told, "Get away from Me. I don't know you." So they simply don't know until God tells them. Until then they don't know.

So if Paul said, "I have not yet laid hold", i.e. "I have not yet assessed whether and to what extent I have traveled (by boat or plane)", then who are we to presume? And if so, what then are we talking about? Terminology and concepts. Both of which WL made many books out of.

You wrote:

How has holding this belief improved your relationship with God and your living out of the fruits of the Spirit? That's the bottom line. Since you are in the minority on this you need to tell us how it's made you a better Christian, because frankly I don't see how it has. We can all argue for things. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

To me, OBW is saying he doesn't want to eat the "experience of Christ" pudding being offered by WL, or whomever. He's not judging your pudding nor your eating. He just says there's no compelling reason for him to partake of it. It's just terminology and concepts.

Again, I apologize for speaking for someone else. That's what I get from his argument and it seems reasonable to me. But I may be off on a number of accounts here.

[Cal]

aron,

I don't understand your whole reaction to my travel analogy. My point was that every specific thing we legitimately do as Christians is generally an experience of Christ. Therefore the Bible does tell us to experience Christ.

Saying we should experience Christ is like saying we should eat food. Obviously when you do eat you eat some specific items of food: meat, bread, fruit etc. But that doesn't imply that saying "we should eat food" is wrong or dangerous.

I mean, strictly speaking there is no food. There are just apples and dates and beef and tomatoes, etc. Therefore it's wrong to say we should eat food. That's what OBW's argument sounds like to me. It just sounds silly in the light of common sense.

Originally Posted by aron

To me, OBW is saying he doesn't want to eat the "experience of Christ" pudding being offered by WL, or whomever. He's not judging your pudding nor your eating. He just says there's no compelling reason for him to partake of it. It's just terminology and concepts.

Again, I apologize for speaking for someone else. That's what I get from his argument and it seems reasonable to me. But I may be off on a number of accounts here.

Well, I understand a reaction to Lee and urging caution about misinterpreting the concept of experiencing Christ. I get that. I don't get trying to stretch it into some kind of case that the Bible doesn't support the general idea of experiencing Christ. That's just being too cute by half. Actually more than half.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Saying we should experience Christ is like saying we should eat food... when you do eat you eat some specific items of food: meat, bread, fruit etc. But that doesn't imply that saying "we should eat food" is wrong or dangerous. I mean, strictly speaking there's no food. There are just apples and dates and beef and tomatoes, etc. Therefore it's wrong to say we should eat food. That's what OBW's argument sounds like to me. It just sounds silly in the light of common sense.

The problem here is that here we trust our common sense, just like once we trusted WL. Both are suspect: we remain in the flesh of sin, with a fallen soul, and its ideational outputs. Our mental constructions are ephemeral at best, and delusional at worst. There may indeed be food, and the experience of eating food. Likewise, there is Christ (Jesus, the Nazarene, who died and rose again), and there is the experience of Christ (for the obedient believer who endures in the faith).

Ontologically speaking, therefore, we may posit the existence of a thing called "the experience of Christ". But I caution that if we pay any undue attention to this thing, we get nothing, because it's merely a mental construction. We must pay attention to Christ. The so-called "experience of Christ" was constructed by WL to sell books and cassette tapes and so forth. It was mere merchandise, just as we the buyers became. Our only "experience" was to get fleeced (pun intended). And, Christ Himself paid no attention to the experience of Christ. Rather, Christ paid full attention to the Father. If He didn't pay attention to the experience of Christ, why should we?

Originally Posted by Igzy

I understand a reaction to Lee and urging caution about misinterpreting the concept of experiencing Christ. I get that. I don't get trying to stretch it into some kind of case that the Bible doesn't support the general idea of experiencing Christ. That's just being too cute by half. Actually more than half.

I may be too cute by half, and perhaps got up yesterday with a strange urge to be combative, which was activated by reading the back-and-forth on this thread. But it seemed to me that OBW was being sensible.

Anyone who goes to the church meeting and says they're 'experiencing Christ' is not. Some, conversely, may indeed experience Christ, but they are not paying attention to that. Rather, they're paying full attention to Christ. Similarly, we may say there's such a thing as the church, right? But when we gathered, WL got us distracted away from Christ by a mental construct: he gave us "the church"; we got The Normal Church, the Church Life, the Ground of the Church, and the Body of Christ, the Fourth Member of the Trinity (I kid you not). We cried, "Hallelujah for the church!" But we forgot about Christ; Nee and Lee got us to look away, and Brothers Wee told us that we were in an ontological entity they called "The Church". In fact it was no more the ontological entity "the church" than the RCC or any other human organization.

[aron]

You know, once I was on a sheep farm. I noticed that the sheep just loved each other. They hated to be alone. They always wanted to be together; I always saw them in these clots, clusters, groupings, and flocks. But I never saw them getting all worked up about 'togetherness' or 'loving the flock'. They just stuck together. And the problem is, we're too smart, by half. We can spend all day arguing about 'togetherness' and 'loving the flock'. I just want to be a dumb sheep. I want to hear the Master's voice.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

The problem here is that here we trust our common sense, just like once we trusted WL. Both are suspect: we remain in the flesh of sin, with a fallen soul, and its ideational outputs. Our mental constructions are ephemeral at best, and delusional at worst. There may indeed be food, and the experience of eating food. Likewise, there is Christ (Jesus, the Nazarene, who died and rose again), and there is the experience of Christ (for the obedient believer who endures in the faith).

The above shows a lack of common sense. No, really. This is what I'm talking about. If all your mental constructs are ephemeral and delusional then the above statement is as well, and I should ignore it.

In other words, if you don't have at least some confidence in your ability to sense reality, then you can never do it. It certainly is a contradiction for you to be pontificating if you think your mental constructs are delusional.

Originally Posted by aron

Ontologically speaking, therefore, we may posit the existence of a thing called "the experience of Christ". But I caution that if we pay any undue attention to this thing, we get nothing, because it's merely a mental construction. We must pay attention to Christ. The so-called "experience of Christ" was constructed by WL to sell books and cassette tapes and so forth.

Meh. As I said, thinking in terms of experiencing Christ is useful in that it reminds us that we are to have real encounters with the living God, not just theoretical ponderings about him.

And Lee didn't invent the idea, nor does he own it. Others have taught the idea.

See here: http://lfwy.co/1D1tt2S

I don't think of ordering my life based on what Lee did or didn't do. I've learned from his mistakes, but I don't go around with a "is this like Lee" detector all the time like I'm afraid of my shadow or something.

Originally Posted by aron

Anyone who goes to the church meeting and says they're 'experiencing Christ' is not. Some, conversely, may indeed experience Christ, but they are not paying attention to that.

Yeah, you are kind of cranky this morning. But that's okay, it humanizes you when you admit such things. As for your comment. It's pretty funny. There's no such thing as food either and I've never eaten any, nor have you. "Food" is just a mental construct.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

Ontologically speaking, therefore, we may posit the existence of a thing called "the experience of Christ". But I caution that if we pay any undue attention to this thing, we get nothing, because it's merely a mental construction. We must pay attention to Christ. The so-called "experience of Christ" was constructed by WL to sell books and cassette tapes and so forth. It was mere merchandise, just as we the buyers became. Our only "experience" was to get fleeced (pun intended). And, Christ Himself paid no attention to the experience of Christ. Rather, Christ paid full attention to the Father. If He didn't pay attention to the experience of Christ, why should we?

Since Witness Lee was quite prolific over an extended period of time, touching on nearly every topic in scripture, if we limit ourselves to those items not specifically mentioned and marketed in his meetings, outlines, and books, so that we run the risk of never being fleeced again, we may then unfortunately be reduced to a few Psalms (as highlighted by aron in his informative posts) and the book of James (much loved by OBW over the years in his posts) in our beloved Bibles.



Crazed ex-LC-er tearing out Lee-isms from his Bible.