I introduced volume 1 of The Spiritual Man, volume 12 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, September 26, 2017. Soon thereafter I began to read the next volume, but I was stalled about midway into it. I set it aside for a year, while I dealt with the Lord regarding certain matters raised therein. I read a little more, and had to set it aside again. Early this year (2020) I resumed, and slowly, and carefully, finished reading the volume.
Volume 13 of CWWN, which contains The Spiritual Man, volume 2, has these sections:
- Section Four: The Spirit (meaning the human spirit)
- Section Five: The Analysis of the Spirit—The Intuition, the Fellowship, and the Conscience
- Section Six: Walking According to the Spirit
- Section Seven: The Analysis of the Soul (1): The Emotion
Where I thought brother Nee dug hard and deep into a reader in volume 1, these chapters were much harder and deeper. Watchmen Nee pulls no punches! If a reader is of a neo-Calvinist frame of mind, these things will drive home Total Depravity as no other writing can do. One who is neo-Arminian will need to re-think some of the excesses of his position. Note: I add the prefix "neo-" because neither John Calvin nor Jacobus Arminius would recognize the teachings of those today who presume to follow them. Let us be clear: Watchman Nee was neither Calvinist nor Arminian, nor am I, but I will not enter onto such matters further here.
My dealings with Christ regarding these matters must remain between myself and Him. However, there is a reprieve of sorts, a practical resolution to a soulish life, in the last two chapters of Section Seven. Titled "A Life of Feeling" and "A Life of Faith", they present a common experience of serious Christians, what it means, and how to live by faith and not by feeling.
It is best to read these chapters for yourself. You will of course be tempted to go right to them, but without having read sections Four through Six, Section Seven and in particular these two chapters will have little benefit. However, I will introduce the "bones" of the contrast they explain.
A believer who begins to live a life of consecration will experience significant blessings. Joy is frequent, prayer is pleasant, reading Scripture feels nourishing. This can go on for some weeks, but then it ends. Sorrows abound, one feels dry and dusty, and the earth and sky seem to be bronze barriers to prayer or reading. What has happened? God knows how to encourage us to go on by allowing some ecstatic feelings, but He knows we cannot be matured in that way. Therefore, he withdraws the feelings. If we are serious in our faith and our consecration, we will pray and read and seek to fellowship with our God anyway. We may wonder if we have sinned, but there is nothing concrete. After a time, feelings return. This becomes a cycle, because God is training us to know Him by faith, not by feelings. This is similar to the Lord's appearing and disappearing to His disciples for the forty days from His resurrection until His ascension; He was training them to know His presence whether or not they could see Him. Our training takes much more than forty days! His goal is for us to sense the presence of the Spirit in our spirit regardless of circumstances, and to enjoy Him whether we suffer or are untroubled, to have consistent fellowship with Him.
One chapter explains the feelings, the other how to live by faith until we are not disturbed by changes in our environment or our mood. Of course, even as we learn a life of faith, we do not become sinless, nor can we overcome with perfect consistency. That must await our glorification in resurrection, or after rapture. But this is an important matter for a believer to understand. God wills that we live by faith; not sight, not feeling, not even knowledge. Regardless of circumstances, our will must be lined up with the will of God. Thus, however we may feel, we need to pray to know God's will, and to submit all our will to His will.
We must understand that most of the writing in The Spiritual Man is analytical. Brother Nee laid out the knowledge of the human spirit and how it works with our soul and body for our experience as a fully rounded child of God. As he wrote in the middle of Section Four,
"Our purpose is to be a spiritual man, not a spirit. This distinction will prevent our spiritual life from becoming one-sided. We are men, and will be men forever, but the highest attainment of being a man is to be a spiritual man. Angels are spirits, and not men. They have no body and no soul. Man has a soul and a body." (p. 247 in this edition)Just as God is triune, so are we. Just as Father, Son and Spirit work together as one supreme God, so our spirit, soul and body must be coordinated together under the direction and discipline of God, primarily the Holy Spirit, to be a spiritual man, one who can co-labor with God according to His purpose. Many of brother Nee's later messages and writings take the knowledge embodied in this book into our experience so we can live a properly balanced spiritual life.
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