Archived Post: Thousand-Year Discipline (Version 1)

This is an archive of the version 1 of this blog post, which was originally published 01/02/2020. You can find the revised version of this post here.

This version of this post doesn’t address the fact that Witness Lee did recognize the “sons of the kingdom” were Jews, but to Witness Lee, not just Jews — particularly, saved Jews.

An Overview of the Thousand-Year Discipline Recovery Doctrine

In the millennium the overcoming believers will be with Christ in the bright glory of the kingdom, whereas the defeated believers will suffer discipline in outer darkness (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). This is so that they can be perfected for their maturity.
For any crop to become matured, that crop needs to go through a certain process. The process through which the immature believers will have to pass will not be pleasant but will be a period of discipline and punishment for one thousand years.
WITNESS LEE, THE OVERCOMERS, CHAPTER 1, SECTION 2

Witness Lee, the primary teacher of the Lord’s Recovery movement, taught the thousand-year discipline (TYD) doctrine. And since the Lord’s Recovery’s belief system is literally everything that Witness Lee taught, the Lord’s Recovery teaches and believes in TYD doctrine.

TYD essentially explains that Christians who are not good enough (Christians who are not “overcomers”) in this lifetime will be cast into the Outer Darkness, a special believer-specific discipline, for 1000 years:

To be cast out into the outer darkness is not to perish; it is to be dealt with dispensationally for not having lived an overcoming life by Christ to qualify for participation in the enjoyment of the kingdom during the millennium.
WITNESS LEE, LIFE-STUDY OF MATTHEW, CHAPTER 58, SECTION 3 (EMBOLDENED EMPHASIS MY OWN)

According to the teaching of TYD, these non-overcoming Christians (“defeated believers”) will be cut off from the sphere of the presence of God:

…the defeated believers will not be cast into the lake of fire, but into the outer darkness outside the glorious sphere of the Lord’s presence.
WITNESS LEE, LIFE-STUDY OF MATTHEW, CHAPTER 66, SECTION 2 (EMBOLDENED EMPHASIS MY OWN)

According to the Bible, the Outer Darkness will have weeping and gnashing of teeth. God’s Word repetitively uses that phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth” to describe pain, agony, and regret (Matt. 8:12, 13:42, 13:50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, Luke 13:28). The Recovery truly believes that a certain group of believers will be disciplined for 1000 years and that the agonizing weeping and gnashing of teeth of the Outer Darkness is that discipline, different from the eternal punishment of Hell/the Lake of Fire for the unbelievers.

And it’s this following quote on weeping and gnashing of teeth and the “sons of the kingdom” that is the focus of this post’s deconstruction of the TYD doctrine:

Matthew 8:12 says, “But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” Because the sons of the kingdom certainly are saved ones, they will not be cast into the furnace of fire. Rather, they will be put into outer darkness. I do not believe that there is darkness in the furnace of fire. Although there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth both for the ones who perish and for the defeated believers, the defeated believers will not be cast into the lake of fire, but into the outer darkness outside the glorious sphere of the Lord’s presence.
WITNESS LEE, LIFE-STUDY OF MATTHEW, CHAPTER 66, SECTION 2

Who Are the “Sons of the Kingdom” in Matthew 8:12?

The “sons of the kingdom” in Matthew 8:12 are not “certainly saved ones,” as Witness Lee taught. The sons of the kingdom are actually Israelites in the kingdom of Israel.

Witness Lee used the “certainly saved” in Matthew 8:12 as grounds to state that the Outer Darkness was for believers, for Christians. However, a careful look at the context of this verse immediately exposes Witness Lee’s “certainly saved” assertion as false. The better phrase is “certainly Jews.”

For some quick background of Matthew 8:12, Matthew 8:5-13 is the true story of Jesus encountering a centurion who was full of great faith. This centurion believed that Jesus had the authority to speak a word and heal his paralyzed, suffering servant. The centurion’s rationalization and explanation of Jesus’ authority in Matthew 8:9 was indicative of the centurion’s faith. And so begins Matthew 8:10-12:

10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.
11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,
12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
MATTHEW 8:10-12 (ESV)

Matthew 8:10 is an important key. Jesus said, “With no one in Israel have I found such faith.”

Matthew 8:11 is also an important key. Jesus said, “Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” If there’s “certainly saved ones” in this passage, it’s those from east and west, likely the Gentiles, the non-Jewish Christians.

With this context, Jesus words as translated into English already point to the sons of the kingdom being a reference to Israelites. However, the original language of the Bible makes it even more clear — the phrase “sons/children of the kingdom” is a Hebraism (a Hebrew idiom or expression):

The children of the kingdom.—The form of the phrase is a Hebraism, indicating, as in “the children of the bride-chamber,” those who belonged to the kingdom, i.e., in this case, the Israelites, to whom the kingdom of heaven had, in the first instance, been promised, the natural heirs who had forfeited their inheritance.
CHARLES ELLICOTT, ELLICOTT’S COMMENTARY FOR ENGLISH READERS, MATTHEW 8:12

A plethora of Bible commentaries also affirm that the phrase “children/sons of the kingdom” refers to the Jews:

Conclusion: Matthew 8:12’s “Sons of the Kingdom” Are Not “Certainly Saved Ones”

Witness Lee made the assertion that the phrase “sons of the kingdom” in Matthew 8:12 referred to saved people. This ignores both the context and the language of the phrase. With the truth of the meaning of the phrase “sons of the kingdom,” the Recovery’s explanation of thousand-year discipline doctrine based on Matthew 8:12 is already a logical fallacy. Since Matthew 8:12 does not reference “certainly saved people” but references the Jews, the meaning of the verse carries an entirely different meaning than Witness Lee taught.

To Be Continued…

As with all of these Deconstructing False Doctrine blog series, there’s a lot of ground to cover. This post’s entire purpose was to deconstruct only one argument related to TYD doctrine, specifically in knowing that the “sons of the kingdom” phrase was actually referencing the Jews. Hopefully you were convinced that the sons of the kingdom were not “certainly saved ones.”

There’s still more to deconstruct in Witness Lee’s teaching on Matthew 8:12. The next post will discuss the Outer Darkness, what the Recovery says it means, and what the Bible says it means.