The Lord's Recovery
The Lord's Recovery is a term coined by the Christian preacher Watchman Nee and promoted by Witness Lee that refers to a cumulative recovery of truths lost during what they refer to as the degradation of the church beginning from the second century. Although Nee and Lee recognized that there were recoveries before the time of the Reformation, their opinion was that the Lord's recovery began with Martin Luther in the Reformation because it was from then that significant recoveries were made. [1]
The Principle of Recovery
Witness Lee taught that God was always moving to first establish something, and when it was damaged by Satan, God would move a second time to recover what was lost. According to Lee, this recovery happened first in creation. According to Lee, the record of God creating the universe is in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The next verse continues with, "And the earth became waste and empty," indicating something was lost in the original creation.[citation needed] Then the heavens and the earth were "recovered" in six days beginning with "God moved upon the face of the waters."[citation needed] Similarly the Jewish temple was built by Solomon and then destroyed and subsequently recovered when the Jewish remnant returned from Babylon to Jerusalem as recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah. Witness Lee wrote that "the goal of the Lord's recovery is to recover the reality, life, livingness, strength, power, and impact of the matters revealed in the Scriptures."[2]
A brief history
Although recoveries occurred before the Reformation,
Other people considered to be part of the Lord's recovery include
See also
- The Local Churches
- Recovery Version of the Bible
References
- ^ Nee, Watchman. ‘’What Are We?’’ Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1991: 5. Print.
- ^ Life-Study of Exodus (message 109, section "The revelation of the New Testament")
- ^ Christian Websites Inc., The Lord's Recovery - Pre-Reformation History
- ^ Christian Websites Inc., The Lord's Recovery - Reformation History
- ^ Christian Websites Inc., The Lord's Recovery - Post-Reformation History and Recovery
- ^ Nee, Watchman. "What Are We?" Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1991:5-19. Print.
- ^ Reetzke, James. "Biographical Sketches: A Brief History of the Lord's Recovery." Chicago: Chicago Bibles and Books, 2003. Print.
- ^ Reetzke, James. "Biographical Sketches: A Brief History of the Lord's Recovery." Chicago: Chicago Bibles and Books, 2003: 3-4. Print.