Presenting CWWN v16 – Study on Revelation

 kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

From the preface: "Prior to 1928 Brother Watchman Nee conducted a study with a few saints in the book of Revelation. The longhand notes of a brother who attended those meetings are published in this book. They have been briefly edited for the sake of clarity. The portion covering Revelation 2:19-3:22 is missing in the original manuscript."

Study on Revelation, which is volume 16 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee is a companion volume to v15, the Study on Matthew. It is a verse-by-verse exegesis. Although a portion is missing, chapters two and three of Revelation were kind of a hobby to brother Nee, so there is plenty to be found in his other writings.

He placed great emphasis on discerning which portions of Revelation are signs and which are to be taken literally. Because of this emphasis, he stated at least twice, "Revelation is not a book of signs." Of course, the second clause of the first verse states that God "made it known by signs, sending it by His angel to His slave John". 

This gave me a lot of trouble at first. According to my own study and the ministry I have received, Revelation is primarily a book of signs, that is, of symbols that have spiritual significance. Many things do need to be taken literally. For example, I believe that Satan, the beast, and the false prophet will be literally cast into the lake of fire. If Satan and his leading tools are not done away with—very, very literally!—how will we ever be freed from sin?

On the other hand, is New Jerusalem a sign, or a literal city? In his discussion of Rev. 21:9, brother Nee delivers 17 points to prove that the New Jerusalem is a literal city. Yes, there is something literal about it. However, the description of the city is primarily symbolic. Let us suppose that its size is truly 12,000 stadia in length, width, and height. That length is close to 1,500 miles or 2,400 km. Certainly, God can create the new earth with a structure that can support a city, primarily composed of a block of gold about half the size of the Moon. Then we find that it has a surrounding wall that has a height of 144 cubits, or about 216 feet or 66 meters. When you are close to it, the wall is indeed "great and high." But stand far enough away to see the whole breadth and height of the city, and it is a thread, a filigree, limning the edge of a structure 36,000 times as high. Is it possible for this to be literal? Yes, it is, in the sense that "all things are possible with God," but I think it much more likely that the numbers are symbolic, being multiples of twelve and ten, which represent different kinds of perfection or completion in God's scheme of things.

Many, many of brother Nee's interpretations are buttressed by lists of reasons and references. In this sense, the book is polemical. This is understandable. In the 1920's the study of Revelation and of eschatology in general was quite a mess! A great many Bible teachers avoided the matter entirely, while others, particularly among the Brethren, became "specialists" in eschatology. Brother Nee mentions the names of numerous ones who taught various things, citing whom he agreed with, and detailing his reasons for considering that others were wrong.

Commenting on Rev. 22:10, brother Nee stated that there are only "about 28" signs, of which fourteen are explained, and the rest are on minor points, "easily understood". Characteristically, among the various "schools of interpretation," he takes a middle path. The existence of such a "school" indicates that the interpretation method is either extreme or too didactic. Like the clean animals in Leviticus, which were required to have both a cloven hoof and to chew the cud, he showed how neither extreme is to be trusted, and that either the two "schools" must be synthesized, or that trustworthy portions of each must be extracted and combined into a balanced view. This I heartily concur with, while recognizing that it tends to offend partisans of every such "school" of doctrine.

After nearly fifty years of following the middle path forged by Nee and developed by Lee, it is clear to me that most members of all the "schools" remain offended. The principal tragedy of Christianity is the enormous tendency for extremist views to prevail, leading to partisan bickering, and sometimes, to bitter conflict. This indicates that both "sides" are wrong.

This volume is a great introduction to interpreting Revelation. Revelation is a book of signs that symbolize events of immense import, and it is a book not of signs, in that nearly all the mysteries are explained or presented so as to be obvious. Yet, like all revelation from God, it does not allow us to predict things in any specific way; rather, once we know the contents of the revelation we will be able to recognize events once they begin to transpire all around us. Thus Jesus could say in Matthew 24:15-16, "…when you see the abomination of desolation, … let those in Judea flee to the mountains…" The day before it occurs, nobody will know it is imminent. When it happens, it will be unmistakable.

Do I need to say to those who have read the Left Behind series, as I have, that it contains a little correct interpretation larded (leavened?) with a lot of nonsense? It takes much time to read all 12 volumes. The same time devoted to studying Revelation, Daniel and Zechariah will afford much more profit. A little extra time devoted to reading this commentary will facilitate your study.

Presenting CWWN v15 – Study on Matthew

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Watchman Nee had completed The Spiritual Man, contained in The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, volumes 12-14, in June, 1927. He was not quite 24 years old. Although he felt he might soon die of tuberculosis while he was writing that book, soon after it was finished he experienced divine healing and was not troubled by tuberculosis after that.

The editors of CWWN chose to follow with Study on Matthew, which is based on notes taken by participants in a Bible study with the church in Shanghai that he conducted beginning in 1931, and continued for a few years. The study is a verse-by-verse exposition of chapters one through 25; he did not complete the Gospel. However, the 361 pages of this exposition are full of light and practical instruction.

His exposition has two underlying themes: dispensational doctrine and eschatology. At this point in his life, he had been reading great numbers of books by leading Christian authors, with quite an emphasis on books by the Plymouth Brethren and others of the Brethren more generally. Sadly, "the Brethren" having begun a new turn in God's work with great anointing and much light in 1828, became divided within no more than a couple of decades. They disagreed over various interpretations of prophecies, particularly regarding "the Rapture" and the Great Tribulation.

I placed "the Rapture" in quotes because I don't like the term. It is derived from the Latin word raptus, meaning to carry off, snatch away, abduct, or seize, and even to rape. The naturalist's word for hawks and eagles and their kin is "raptor"; I have seen a red-shouldered hawk snatch a squirrel right off the ground. The word became popular to describe the "taking away" of living believers at the end of the age, first in the 1700's and even more in the 1800's, and then this use of the word mostly died away until about 1980, in the waning days of the Jesus movement, when eschatology (study of prophecy) became very popular. The term "rapture" has long also had an emotional meaning, synonymous with being "rapt", a feeling of being carried away by ecstasy.

Wranglings over this matter have divided Christians into numerous mutually hostile camps. Brother Nee read literature from writers in every sect, and drew his own conclusions. He uniformly used the term Rapture, and so, perforce, must I in the remainder of this presentation.

An example of a dispensational interpretation is seen in the latter part of Matthew 9. The events may be parsed thus:

• Called to raise a just-dead girl, Jesus heals a woman with an issue of blood (vv 18-22)
• Jesus raises up the girl (vv 23-26)
• Jesus gives sight to two blind men (vv 27-31)
• Jesus heals a mute man (vv 32-34)
• Traveling and seeing the great need, Jesus exhorts the disciples to pray for laborers (vv 35-38)

The first two items show a turn of the Gospel from the Jews, represented by the dead girl, to the Nations, represented by the bleeding woman. This was an acted-out prophecy of the turn that would take place in the book of Acts. The number 12 is significant. The dead girl was 12 (the age of accountability to the Jews), and the woman had been bleeding for 12 years. Jesus first heals the bleeding woman, then raises the dead girl. Thereafter he deals with blindness and muteness; those who cannot see the things of God cannot praise God. The gospel to the Nations results in many who do see and who do praise. 

The last item is transitional. We may infer that the disciples did pray as He asked. This is immediately followed by the beginning of Chapter 10: Jesus chose twelve disciples as His apostles and sent them out to preach.

When it comes to eschatology, there are points here and there in early chapters of Matthew, particularly chapter 13. The parables of Jesus, intended to conceal His teaching from the Jews who now adamantly opposed Him, while affording Him an opportunity to reveal their meaning to His disciples, have both prophetic and dispensational significance. Once we come to Chapters 24 and 25, it is all prophecy. Between expounding these two chapters, brother Nee had a special study of the Rapture and along with it, certain points regarding the Great Tribulation.

He shows definitely that the Rapture is not a single event. Rather, a minority of Christians who follow Him closely and diligently are blessed by being taken up first, before the Great Tribulation. The majority of Christians then living will endure the trials that follow, which are "shortened" to three-and-a-half years. His Return, a translation of parousia, meaning "presence", is simultaneous with the Rapture of the majority of the Christians at the end of the Great Tribulation, and also with the First Resurrection, which actually occurs just beforehand. The principle is of taking the first-ripe "firstfruits", followed by the general harvest.

Concerning the status of the slaves given the talents and the ten virgins, also those of whom it is said, "one is taken and one is left", brother Nee goes into detail, discussing dozens of Scripture passages which prove that all the slaves, all the virgins, and all those in the "taken/left" duos, are Christians. The early Rapture of a few is based not on regeneration, but on faithfulness, showed in three ways by these three matters. Many, perhaps most, Christian teachers consider that the slothful slave, the foolish virgins, and the workers left behind, are either (by Calvinists) not saved in the first place, or (by Arminians) have lost their salvation by their unfaithfulness. Neither is correct. Their discipline is not to perish in Hell (which is never described as "outer darkness"), but to be corrected during the millennial Kingdom. This is the most-opposed teaching of brother Nee and those of us who follow him and his co-workers including Witness Lee.

I will not go further into this matter here. Other publications by both brother Nee and Lee discuss it in detail. Simply take away this: Be warned, having your "fire insurance" does not mean you have no more problems with God. A newborn Christian needs to grow, to be spiritually educated, and to mature in spirit. If these things are neglected, God has a way to deal with His children after they are raptured or resurrected!

The book ends with encouragement. Whether we overcome to be taken up earlier, or must endure the Great Tribulation (I call it "becoming overcomers the hard way"), God cares for all His children, and has many provisions to ease their sufferings, at least in part; but He knows that some of the sufferings are like the bright sunlight that ripens the crops so they will be ready for harvest. The age of grace does not end until the end of the Great Tribulation. Learn to enjoy God as grace now, or learn it later, but be sure every child of God will learn this lesson well.

Presenting CWWN v14 – The Spiritual Man (3)

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Having finished reading volume 2 of The Spiritual Man in April 2020, I soon began reading volume 14 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, which has these sections:

• Section Eight: The Analysis of the Soul (2): The Mind
• Section Nine: The Analysis of the Soul (3): The Will
• Section Ten: The Body

As I reported for the prior volumes, reading the first was stressful and the second was arduous. This volume was excruciating! However, I had some guidance from Witness Lee regarding the matters included here. He shared with a number of us that the sections of The Spiritual Man regarding spiritual warfare were primarily drawn from the writings of Jessie Penn-Lewis (1861-1927) and others who themselves were relating matters learned from Evan Roberts (1878-1951) about his experiences during the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905. Many of Evan Robert's experiences are recounted in his book War on the Saints. Roberts emphasized the necessity of prayer companions, but this was not fully appreciated by those who wrote about him. Furthermore, there was not a clear view of the Body of Christ as God's agent of warfare, as seen for example in Ephesians 6, prior to the mid-to-late Twentieth Century. We know now that to fight spiritual warfare without strong spiritual companions is a recipe for being deceived.

Mrs. Penn-Lewis in her later years became spiritually peculiar: she would claim demons caused the slightest things—someone who coughed during her speaking, or anyone who seemed sleepy—which created distractions greater than the incidents themselves. This was a deception on its own and her later ministry suffered as a result.

Watchman Nee describes writing while "in the jaws of Satan," but he did not experience spiritual warfare of the intensity described by Penn-Lewis or Roberts. Nee's spiritual battles were undertaken alone, although a number of close co-workers of his were praying for him during the writing of The Spiritual Man, because he was badly ill with tuberculosis at the time. Brother Nee was divinely healed of his tuberculosis after the book was published.

A more clear unveiling of the Body of Christ awaited a later generation. So even though at one time brother Nee said of this book that it was "too perfect", in these three sections in particular, its perfection was limited to what God had revealed to His people prior to 1925.

To summarize the crucial point of Sections 8 and 9, the human mind is the battleground between the human spirit and Satan's forces; and the human will is the instrument by which we fight. We do so by choosing to line up our will with the will of God, by the power of the Spirit in our spirit. We know today that we need reliable spiritual companions for this, even as Daniel had three companions.

Brother Nee emphasizes frequently the dangers of having a passive mind or a passive will. The kind of teaching that says, "You cannot do anything for God. Only God can do the things of God," is one-sided. It ignores the principle of incarnation, that in human affairs God always acts through certain persons whom He has chosen for their mission. Make that "almost always", with the "almost" being something like 99.99999%. We see in Acts 9 that God acted directly to gain Saul of Tarsus. Thereafter, the Holy Spirit acted exclusively through Saul, who became known as Paul, and through Paul's co-workers, in the mission field allotted to them. God sent an angel to Cornelius to direct him to send for Peter (the angel could not preach the gospel). 

There is a sad strain in fundamentalist theology that leads the children of God to feel they have no value and are useless. Yet if we properly interpret the parables of the Pearl of Great Price and the Treasure Hidden in a Field, we find that God values us greatly. However, this value is brought out by our experiences and transactions with God through the discipline of the Holy Spirit. The Pearl symbolizes preciousness through sufferings, and the Treasure (mainly precious stones) symbolizes persons who have been transformed (e.g. Romans 12:2). Such a one was Daniel, called by the angel a "man of preciousness" (Daniel 10:11). If we remain passive, our value is only in potential, and is not realized until we actively labor with God to obey His will.

Therefore, we must realize our need to work with God—not to work instead of God, nor to passively wait for God to work instead of us—; we realize our need to coordinate and collaborate with God, for the work of God to be carried out. Further, to be rather strong about it: If we had no value to God, there would be no Universe!

Having read this volume, I understand better what brother Lee was warning us about. Jessie Penn-Lewis, in particular, believed it possible and even likely for a believer in Jesus to be demon-possessed. Most of Section 9 is based on this, stating that to be passive is to give ground for demon possession.

I would agree that a passive Christian is easily deceived. I do not believe that a person in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, whose body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) could also host a possessing evil spirit. Neither does any brother among those who follow the ministry of brothers Nee and Lee, with whom I have spoken regarding this matter.

Finally, I was quite concerned about the one-sided presentation in Section 10: The Body. Its basic premise is that disease ought to be foreign to Christian experience. Of course, we cannot remain sinless, so sometimes God will allow disease to remind us we are sinful and to discipline us. While this is so in general, to make it a fixed doctrine for every case is actually just blaming the victim: it says we are sick because we don't have enough faith. It says it is a failure to consult a doctor (though that is what brother Nee did on numerous occasions, both before and after publication of this work).

The first antibiotic, Penicillin, was discovered in 1928, the year after this book was published. The family of Sulfa drugs appeared in 1935. I am among many that consider these and numerous ensuing medical advances as gifts of a good God. I deal with God when illness or injury occurs, but if I don't have clear leading that the matter is related to discipline for a definite sin or failure, I thankfully accept what medical science can offer. I know I live in a world of suffering and misfortune, and that I am subject to the vicissitudes of life like anyone else. Without a skilled surgeon and a very wise medical oncologist, I would have died in 2000 or 2001 of a very serious cancer. I thank God for those doctors. If time were shifted even twenty years earlier, I would have died at age 53. Therefore I consider Section 10 to be close to a century out of date. 

Perhaps brother Nee would agree. He was 24 when The Spiritual Man was first published. He lived until 1972, though he was imprisoned by the Chinese Communists in 1952 and died in prison. His ministry grew and matured during the quarter century that elapsed after publication. I look forward to reading the volumes of CWWN from 15 onwards, to observe that maturation and, I hope, to experience further spiritual maturity as a result.

For Christians in general, I can recommend only the first two volumes of The Spiritual Man. Should you wish to read volume 3, do so along with your spiritual companions, or discuss each subject with your companions so you will be protected by fellowship in the Body of Christ and not fall into spiritual peculiarity.

Presenting CWWN v13 – The Spiritual Man (2)

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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.

Presenting CWWN v12 – The Spiritual Man (1)

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Watchman Nee's landmark book, The Spiritual Man, was written while he was dangerously ill with tuberculosis. He considered that he might die of the disease, as had many of his countrymen, and he wanted to produce a sort of detailed handbook of the spiritual life. As he wrote in Issue #3 of The Present Testimony, "This book puts particular emphasis on spiritual reality." Years later he shared that a few times during the period of writing he visited a doctor for an X-ray of his chest. One day the doctor told him not to come back, showing him another X-ray, saying, "You are in worse shape than this man. He died last week." But after the book was finished Watchman Nee was miraculously healed, and outlived that doctor by many years.

The whole book takes up volumes 12-14 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, and this first volume contains three of the ten sections. The first section and its four chapters is so foundational to spiritual experience and progress that it ought to be required reading for every child of God. I cannot let God down by failing to provide a very brief summary of this section, titled "An Introduction Concerning the Spirit, the Soul, and the Body."

Before I first heard ministry based on this book, I had no idea that there is a human spirit. I knew only of evil spirits and the Holy Spirit, though we usually called Him the Holy Ghost. Practical spiritual life for me began when I learned these important facts:

• Based on 1 Thessalonians 5:23, we have "…spirit and soul and body…".
• The body is all our physical parts and deals with the external world, as directed by the soul.
• The soul includes primarily mind, emotion, and will, and deals with psychological matters, using the body as its instrument or tool kit in the external world.
• The spirit includes primarily intuition, fellowship, and conscience, and deals with divine and spiritual matters. If we permit (and how to do so is a major subject of this book), our spirit leads and directs our soul, so that we can live "in spirit".

I purposely listed the parts of the soul and spirit in parallel to emphasize that, for example, the intuition of the spirit interacts with the mind of the soul, so our mind can be renewed. Thus we read in 1 Timothy 1:7, "God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness": "power" because the conscience empowers our will to choose righteousness, "love" because the fellowship part of our spirit enables our emotion to love God and His people, and "sobermindedness" because the intuition supports our mind in every way so as to be fully sane, sober and sound, able to properly interpret the things of God.

For me this is key: we can only know God by using our human spirit. If we do not know the spirit, we only know soulish matters and techniques. A soulish Christian is described in 1 Corinthians 2:14, "But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually." Numerous modern sects are founded on experiences of the soul, whether mental, emotionally ecstatic, or duty-bound (willful or "fundamentalist"). None can please God! We must learn to use our human spirit!

This book details the condition of a Christian under many circumstances, and tells how to learn spiritual reality to cope with every circumstance. Thus the rest of this first section illuminates the relationship between the spirit and the soul; explains what happened when Adam sinned, leading to partial numbness of the spirit; and shows the way of salvation from a spiritless life and living.

The second and third sections deal with "The Flesh" and "The Soul", in uncomfortable detail, perhaps, because brother Nee certainly knew how to drive a point home. These sections' goal is for us to hate our flesh, not only for its sins, but even for things that seem good but are fleshly; and that we would cross out our soul-life (see, for example, Matthew 10:39). Whether we are crude or cultured, if our soul is not subject to our spirit we cannot properly serve our dear Lord Jesus.

I had read only portions of The Spiritual Man in the past. Now, embarking upon reading it in its entirety, I find it challenging but also emancipating. Two volumes and seven sections to go.

Presenting CWWN v11 - The Present Testimony (4)

kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

This volume of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee contains the last part of the letters and articles by Watchman Nee published in The Present Testimony from October 1933 to August 1934. The articles include parts five through seven of "The New Covenant"; classic teaching by Nee such as "The Meekest Man", about the life and labors of Moses, "Living by Faith", about how God prepares us for a life that is steady in spite of circumstance, and "A Shallow Life", where he expounds the Parable of the Soils (which begins, "The sower went forth to sow") in a most searching and personal way.

A great portion of Watchman Nee's teaching is devoted to training young Christian workers, both those who might become elders and those who might engage in apostolic (missionary) work. After reading "Ministering to the House or to God?", a young and eager Christian might be forgiven for thinking he or she can never come up to the standard. And, of course, that is the point. Only Christ can minister to His church; our most pressing responsibility is to learn to "live Christ", based on Galatians 2:20, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."

The closing portion of the book is "Questions Related to the Workers", not from The Present Testimony, but the contents of a talk delivered in January 1934. This was not a Q&A session, but is instead full answers to the ten most frequent and most crucial questions he had heard over and over from young workers. I consider this message an excellent "warm up" for reading his book, The Character of the Lord's Worker, published in 1948 and the subject of a (much) later portion of this series of posts.

The volume concludes with a Table of Contents for all 36 issues of The Present Testimony.

Presenting CWWN v10 - The Present Testimony (3)

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With the "Overcomer Conferences" of 1929-32, which formed the subject of many earlier issues of The Present Testimony, Watchman Nee laid a solid foundation for Christian life and practice in our understanding of God's covenant and the reality of the indwelling Christ, who alone can carry out God's will in our lives and in the church.

Fifteen verses in the New Testament speak of "him who overcomes" or similar language; seven of these are in the conclusions of the seven letters in Revelation 2 and 3. It is primarily due to Watchman Nee's written ministry that many Christians have come to know a phrase that arose about the time of his death in 1972, "An overcomer is a normal Christian."

The current volume, Volume 10 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, contains Issues 24 to 31 of The Present Testimony. Several subjects based on the earlier foundation are presented, and three issues (26 to 28) are devoted to the messages that became the book The Latent Power of the Soul. I'll hold comment on that book until I read its updated version in a later volume of CWWN.

Two messages were particularly helpful to me, to remind me of the balance in God's ways: "The Two Sides of the Truth—Objective and Subjective" from Issue 29 and "Faith and Obedience" from Issue 30. These two are really two treatments of the same subject. For example, the redemption of Christ, accomplished on the cross, is an objective fact, a historical fact with a tremendous spiritual meaning because it forms the foundation of our relationship with God. To such a fact, we can respond in one of two ways, to believe or to disbelieve. There is no "obedience" involved in gaining the benefits of redemption, because they are like a bank deposit and faith is the only key to open it.

The promise of the Holy Spirit, both internal for our life and external for our work—this is the difference between the Spirit received as "breath" by the disciples on the day Jesus was resurrected, and the Spirit poured out on the disciples praying in the upper room at Pentecost—, this promise is another fact, which we obtain by faith. But the working out of our living in spirit day by day is through obedience, and our carrying out the work to which God has called us is also through obedience.

Jesus spoke of some who would stand before the Lord to say, "Lord, Lord, we did many great things in Your name," but that He would refuse to recognize their work, calling it "lawless". Why? No obedience. Such workers do things they want to do "for God" without being at all clear what God actually wants them to do. But this has a more day-to-day aspect. When we pray, do we treat God like a "sugar daddy" or "magician" who exists to fulfill our desires? Or do we love and enjoy Him and seek His desire, trusting that we will be the most fully fulfilled in the daily tasks and life work that He has chosen?

Nee was concerned that many Christians get things backward. They ask God to do something for them that He has already done. In the extreme, some might ask Jesus to die again on their behalf! This cannot be, and forms a large subject in Hebrews. Seeing that we have been redeemed, we simply believe it, and this is the foundation of our obedience. But others try to obey "what the Bible says" without first having faith on the One who redeemed them. In effect, they want to walk about God's kingdom without first entering its gate. Had Israel never crossed the Jordan River, they could walk about all they wished, and never gain a single inch of Canaan. This is the sad condition of many "good" people, many "well behaved" people, who have sidestepped the cross of Christ but try to live a "Christian" life anyway.

It takes a certain exercise to partake of powerful ministry such as this book contains. If I read in a lazy way or let myself get in a querulous mood, I gain nothing. Watchman Nee had the gift to repeat a truth in several ways and from several angles, to get around our fleshly defenses, to induce us to wake up and actively take in spiritual truths with a spiritual mind. And to this end, a pair of messages on "The Renewing of the Mind", also from issues 29 and 30, are particularly helpful.

Presenting CWWN v09 - The Present Testimony (2)

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The present volume of the Collected Works of Watchman Nee contains Issues No. 19 – 36 of The Present Testimony, from the years 1931 and 1932. Issues 19 – 22 and a portion of Issue 23 concern a number of spiritual matters, and I find two of special note: "The Principle of the Second" (Issue 21) and "The Pattern on the Mountain" (Issue 22). The first shows how frequently God confers a better blessing on the second-born (Jacob over Esau) or the second-anointed (David over Saul). The second drives home the point that God does not permit human innovation regarding our carrying out of His service. Indeed, He must frequently hinder, stop, or even curse innovators. The great example of one whose service is pleasing to God is Moses, who "was faithful in all [God's] house" (Num 12:7; Heb 3:5). He oversaw production and construction of the tabernacle exactly according to the pattern he was shown on Mount Sinai. Those who have all kinds of "good ideas" for working for God are most likely to hear His rebuke at the Judgment Seat of Christ, "I didn't know [i.e. authorize] you; depart, you workers of iniquity".

From the tenth page of Issue 23 through the end of this volume we find the content of seven messages given at the Second Conference, which had been held in October, 1931, on the subject "The New Covenant". These 101 pages (as here printed) constitute the most thorough treatment to be found anywhere, of the meaning, purposes, contents, and consequences of God's new covenant.

Prior to becoming joined to a church that follows this ministry, I heard some preaching on the new covenant, and on the principles of God's covenants. I have heard preachers who claim to preach nothing but Covenant Theology. Some of what I heard was pretty good and quite encouraging. This volume could be a text for a doctoral-level course on the subject. The Covenant Theology preachers of my past are at best at grade school level by comparison.

From these messages I gleaned one item worth recalling (and I'll need to re-read to gain others equally precious): A covenant is not for God, it is for His people. He keeps the promises He makes, but we are weak and find it hard to consistently believe that He will do so. As He promised in foretelling the new covenant to Jeremiah (Jer 31:31-34), God writes His laws on the hearts and minds of His people, He becomes their God, and they become His people. Based on those three things are three more, that they will all know God and need no instruction to do so, that He will make propitiation for their unrighteousnesses, and that He will erase the record of their sins. By themselves these are promises. By making them a covenant, and even more, a testament (secured by the death of the testator, our savior Jesus), God has done all He can to ensure us that we need only claim the provisions of this covenant. We don't beg for forgiveness according to God's mercy; we claim forgiveness because, by believing Him, we fulfill the only requirement this covenant makes on us; all other provisions have been made by God and God guarantees them to us. We are saved by grace not according to mercy, but according to God's righteousness. When we see this, we will pray in a different way.

One may ask, why if I am presently partaking of ministry according to Watchman Nee and his co-workers, did I not already gain the point I make just above? These things are difficult to minister. Do not think the paragraph above is in any way a substitute for the several pages of Issues 35 and 36 where they are explained. Little by little over the years, much has been imparted to me. Reading this volume of CWWN is like taking a large and meaty meal. This is partly why it was so long since I wrote of the prior volume.

Those who wish to truly know the New Covenant must obtain this volume!

Presenting CWWN v08 - The Present Testimony (1)

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Watchman Nee had published a few issues of a magazine entitled The Present Testimony from 1922 to 1925. It dealt with the deep things of God in the experience of His believers. Nee was then burdened to publish The Christian, which forms the content of volumes five through seven of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee. That magazine contained exposition on specific topics related to Revelation and related topics. By 1928 his burden in this regard was discharged, and he realized that God did not intend for him to devote his time to Bible exposition, but to encouragement of the children of God in their lives and living in and with Christ. Thus he resumed publishing The Present Testimony. Volumes eight through eleven contain the messages and letters he wrote for that magazine, and a few letters written on his behalf by Ruth Lee. This volume contains material from issues one through eighteen, and takes us up through November, 1931.

During the period 1928-1930, Watchman Nee suffered much with tuberculosis (private communication from co-workers of his that I knew), though the nature of his disease is not mentioned in the letters to his readers. Somehow, during such a time of intense suffering and weakness, he wrote at least one article for nearly every issue of The Present Testimony, and completed writing The Spiritual Man, to be found in the three volumes that follow these. In 1930 he experienced a sudden, divine healing of his disease, which he recounts in his own testimony of 1936. He had been given a terminal diagnosis by his doctor, but the doctor actually died first, in the 1930's. Nee lived until June of 1972.

The focus of The Present Testimony is to explain the things of the Life of Christ as experienced by the believer, particularly those that, Nee wrote, "ordinary believers cannot fully understand." He went on, "…the testimony of the Lord is so incomparably great that we cannot receive and teach it completely." His intention was to help believers in their spiritual life and warfare. Thus we find a great diversity of topics presented. A few of the articles' titles illustrate this:

What is Prayer
Knowing the Self
The Presenting of the Body
The War Between the New and the Old
The Overcoming Life (the longest in this volume, and a title for a later book)
God's Masterpiece

I am frequently amazed at his ability to wring every shred of meaning from a short passage or a few verses. For example, in "The War Between the New and the Old" he discusses, not the two testaments or covenants, but our experience of the conflict between our flesh and our spirit, spoken of in scripture as our "old man" and our "new man". One might think this matter could be dealt with very briefly. Paul wrote of putting off the old man and putting on the new man in four short passages, chiefly in Romans 6, and Jesus referred to the matter once, using a different metaphor, that of new wine in old wineskins. Although Jesus' words are typically considered to refer to the Christian faith bursting the "wineskin" of the Jewish religion, it refers equally to the struggle within a believer to overcome the habits of which the old religion is composed. Nee wrote six pages on the subject, pages of rather dense writing that must be read carefully, and calls it the briefest of treatments!

In "The Overcoming Life" he states that an "overcomer" is a "normal Christian". For this reason an early edition of a later book on the subject was published under the title, The Normal Christian Life. More recent editions are titled The Overcoming Life. The article runs sixteen pages. Nearly each page was expanded into a chapter of the later book.

Some might complain that Watchman Nee's view of the Christian life takes Olympic-level effort to pursue. For this reason, it is necessary to read again and again what he writes, that it is not in us—that is, in our natural life—to live this life. We have the life of Christ within. He lives His life in us, just as the thornbush that Moses saw, being full of flame, was not burned, because God did not use that bush for fuel for His testimony and work: God Himself supplied the "fuel". He intended for Moses to be the unburnt bush full of flame, and the Christian life is on the same principle. It is best to remember this matter as a proverb:

In our natural man, the things of the Christian life are impossible.
In our spirit, they are effortless.

Always read the writing of Watchman Nee with this in mind. We may be the "bush", but we are not the fuel for the consuming fire of God. We are just the visible "wick" holding the flame, and He supplies the fuel.

Presenting CWWN v48 - Messages for Building Up New Believers (1)

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Several months ago the small group meeting in our home began using Watchman Nee's "Messages for Building Up New Believers", which comprise volumes 48, 49 and 50 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee. Now that we have used the first seventeen lessons, I thought it good to present volume 48 now, out of the sequence I have been following, because these things are fresh in my mind.

The first of these three volumes contains the first seventeen lessons, with the following titles:

• Baptism
• Terminating the Past
• Consecration
• Confession With the Mouth
• Separation From the World
• Joining the Church
• The Laying on of Hands
• Abolishing All Distinctions
• Reading the Bible
• Prayer
• Early Rising
• Meeting
• Various Kinds of Meetings
• The Lord's Day
• Hymn Singing
• Praising
• Bread-Breaking

These are preceded by the transcript of Nee's sharing to his co-workers in July, 1950, regarding the meetings for new believers. He strongly believed the churches need to provide thorough instruction to new believers, based on what Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, "Unless you turn and become like little children, you shall by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens." It is best for a new Christian to assume that everything he or she has done for the past twenty, thirty, forty years or more is totally contrary to God's ways. Thus, all old ways must be dropped and new ways learned. We cannot simply add Jesus to our bag of tricks, as though all we need is a little reformation. When Jesus comes in, the whole bag must be discarded.

In my experience, the lack of specific instruction for new believers will, in a generation, lead to a church composed almost entirely of soulish and fleshly persons, who believe the occasional flash of actual spiritual joy or insight to be a special blessing from God. This was my condition before I came this way. I was soon disabused of that notion, when I realized that, as I said to myself, "Living in spirit is what these people do all day!" My former "golden moments" were spiritual pocket change, analogous to the silver that was despised in the days of Solomon because all the vessels were gold.

I can testify that these lessons are quite challenging. Firstly, they average fourteen pages in length. There is too much material to cover thoroughly in a one-hour meeting. Beginning with Lesson 18 in the second volume (v49 of CWWN), we plan to spend two meetings on each lesson. As one brother remarked in a footnote to an earlier, somewhat abridged translation published by CFP in 1972, "There are quite a number of 'first things' that Brother Nee wished new believers to learn!". In churches that faithfully follow the pattern he laid out, new believers who miss one of the lessons can expect a visit from an elder or two who are prepared to present the lesson personally.

Watchman Nee's particular approach is evident throughout: Our techniques and abilities hardly matter at all; what matters is the source of the work, that is the Holy Spirit of God. Brother Nee sometimes also comes at you from the side, as in "Joining the Church", in which he soon tells us that the true church is one you cannot join. A believer is BORN into the house of God, and we can no more "join" God's house than we "joined" the household of our parents! I remember my joy upon reading, with newly-opened eyes, in 1 Peter 1:3, that God has "begotten us again". My understanding that Jesus is the "only begotten of the Father" was outdated! It referred only to the human life of Jesus, from his birth until he was resurrected. In that same resurrection, we also have become begotten sons and daughters of God. The lesson continues by showing that our life in God is a corporate life. We need fellow believers and even companions in the pursuit of Christ to make adequate headway against the opposition of Satan and the world. We are warned in the letter to the Hebrews, "…not abandoning our own assembling together…" (10:25).

Watchman Nee stresses that it is this life of God in us that must grow and become the source of all that we do. Thus these lessons are guidelines for what to expect from the divine life within us, rather than lists of rules to follow.

Presenting CWWN v07 - The Christian (5)

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Volume 7 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee is subtitled The Christian (5). This final volume of the 1925-1927 issues of The Christian contains all the smaller items needed to round out the contents of a magazine.

The first section, of one chapter, is titled "Stories"; the anecdotes are either instructive items or short gospel stories suitable to be reprinted as tracts. The third of these, titled "The Body of Christ", is a brief recounting of the story of miss M.E. Barber (shown here with her younger coworker ML Ballord), a spiritual mentor to Watchman Nee in his younger years. Its message powerfully illustrates the need for, and value of, fully trusting the Lord Jesus to properly care for His own body (the believers).

The second section, titled "The Signs of the Times", contains in ten chapters the column he wrote titled "Current Events in the Light of the Scriptures". Looking back, some items may seem over-enthusiastic, but they are rather subdued compared to the excited and even extreme predictions made by those today who seem prone to twist every major event into a sign of the end and many a world figure into a the Beast of Revelation (typically, and wrongly, titled "The Antichrist"). Nee was indeed enthusiastic for the return of Christ, but measured and thoughtful in his analysis. Of course, now that some ninety years have passed, we wonder if any of the "signs" bore fruit. He frequently reported on developments among the Jews of Europe and America, and their work toward attaining a homeland in Palestine: It is now nearly seventy years since the nation of Israel was restored, and almost fifty years since they regained control of Jerusalem. Times that seem long to us are short to God.

Ten of the issues contained "The Question and Answer Box", which forms the third section. Here he answered, sometimes very briefly and sometimes more at length, questions sent in by subscribers. The last names of most questioners, and their location, are included, and thus I recognized three or four questions sent in by his future co-worker (and my mentor) Witness Lee. I found it interesting that one of the longest answers concerns the "Two Swords" mentioned in Luke 22:36-38. Nee's answer takes up four pages, whereas most items take up half a page or less. To make his brief exposition even more brief: Nee points out that literal swords were meant, by comparison with other items the apostles ought to purchase; these were not for fighting, but along with the purse and bag, were ordinary needs for travel along robber-infested highways; in their earlier travels Jesus had told them to take nothing extra and this is because they were protected by His authority, but this authority would vanish upon his arrest (He starts the passage with the words, "But now"); Jesus elsewhere said that "those who take up the sword will perish by the sword," so he was not condoning the idea of "Christ-soldiers"; He said, "It is enough" to indicate he was done talking because they weren't understanding Him…as usual.

I have long had four little volumes titled "Twelve Baskets Full", published in the early 1970's in English. The fourth section of this book has about one-third of those items (the rest were gathered from later works of his), that made up a column he wrote for five issues of The Christian.

Four issues contained a column, "Notes from My Bible", brief insights he received from specific passages. These are the fifth section.

The sixth section, of one chapter titled "Fillers", contains small items, usually a sentence or two, that were inserted between other material in seven of the issues.

Fourteen of the twenty-four issues contained "Editorials" and "Announcements", and they make up the seventh section.

Six issues contained one or more "Book Reviews". Whenever he could, Nee would bring out the value of a book, but he didn't hesitate to pan, in a specific way, significant errors or to rebuke heretical works. These comprise section eight.

The last part of the volume is "A List of the Table of Contents for The Christian". This is useful for determining how each item in the five volumes fits in among the rest.

The Christian was revived in later years, and those portions written by brother Nee are included in later volumes of CWWN.

Presenting CWWN v06 - The Christian (4)

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Volume Six of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (CWWN) is a fourth volume of articles drawn from The Christian, the journal he published from 1925 to 1927. The two sections contain nine Gospel Messages and fourteen Spiritual Teachings. These were articles he wrote for Issues 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 19, 22 and 24. In most of the other issues he used translations from Christian literature he had gathered from extensive reading. It is said that during the 1920's and through most of the 1930's he spent about one third of the money that passed through his hands on books ordered from overseas Christian booksellers. His dwelling was filled with books. Fortunately, he could read, in either Chinese or English, very, very fast.

The Gospel Messages are impressive for their breadth of scope. Some are edited transcripts from spoken messages. Here and later his written and spoken evangelism was intended to reach every kind of human personality. Thus the message, "Can Morality Save Us" is intended for those well-behaved ones who are not apparently sinful. Dwelling on what Jesus said upon observing how a Pharisee prayed, and how a publican prayed, Nee shows that the super-moral Pharisee was left unredeemed after his self-righteous prayer, while the sinful, possibly extortionous, tax-collecter "went home justified" because he admitted his sinfulness to God and asked for mercy. Three of the messages describe fifteen of "The Paths to Hell". They show how easy it is to go to hell, and in each case, describe and the remedy for such hell-bound practices as self-confident pride or making excuses to delay accepting Christ; more serious practices such as habitual adultery are also addressed. The ironic approach was intended to get the attention of those who had a ho-hum attitude toward the ordinary gospel preaching of the day.

The Spiritual Teachings were intended to instruct believers with any level of experience in truths that were being neglected by the standard Protestant theology of the time. The first article, "Assurance of Salvation," was revolutionary. Throughout the "Christian world" of the early Twentieth Century—and even into the 1960's in America, in my experience!—hardly anyone dared to proclaim, "Jesus has saved me," or "Jesus is my Lord. I am a child of God." Instead, at the most they might weakly proclaim that they had "hope in God's mercy", or, if they actually knew some scriptures, "the hope of eternal salvation." Nee uses the clear proclamations of the scriptures to show that we can indeed know that we have been redeemed and that we are secure forever; and even the more, he shows that we must know these things in order to grow in our spiritual life. In another wonderful message, "The Source of Faith," he expounds upon Eph. 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." We are not born with faith. God gives us faith, and it is then ours to use. How tragic to neglect so precious a gift! I am reminded of a story I read, in which a preacher is urging his friend to receive Christ. The friend is part owner of a soap manufacturing company. As they walk they pass a very dirty child playing in the dirt. The preacher asks, "Why is this child dirty? Your company makes many tons of soap." The friend replies, "He has to use some to clean himself." "Yes indeed," the preacher says, "And you have had faith made available for you to use. Use it to believe and claim the redemption that Jesus Christ already produced for you!"

By the time Watchman Nee wrote articles for Issue #24 of The Christian, he had just turned twenty-four years of age. He had been a Christian about seven years. Few indeed are those men or women of God who have seen as deeply, and expounded so clearly, even during lives of sixty or eighty years, what this young man was enabled by God to do by an age that a typical "minister" graduates from Seminary.

Presenting CWWN v05 - The Christian (3)

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Volume 5 of the Collected Works of Watchman Nee concludes his "Meditations on the Book of Revelation" from Volumes 3 and 4. The meditations on the letters to Thyatira and to Sardis each take up about fifty pages, while he treats of the letters to Philadelphia and Laodicea in something over sixty pages each.

Throughout these Meditations he stresses repeatedly the dual interpretation of each letter. Firstly, each was a letter to the "messenger" of a particular local church. Thus, there is no gospel message in any of them because each church consisted entirely of believers. The late First Century was not like today, in which it is rather easy to be called a Christian while having no reality. The Western countries abound with church-goers for whom this activity is primarily a social function. In about the year 95, when John was exiled to Patmos, to become a Christian and to present oneself as a believer in Jesus was to take a deadly risk.

On the other hand, Nee dwells upon the historical interpretation, for each letter has something to teach us today. The eras represented by the first three letters, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, have come and gone. The era represented by Ephesus was ending as John wrote. In the later letters by Paul thirty years earlier we can see that many were forsaking the way of Christ, and the love of many was already growing cold. The era represented by Smyrna (=Myrrh, representing suffering) occupied the Second and Third Centuries, and the first part of the Fourth Century, the era of official persecution of Christians. The era represented by Pergamos (meaning "fully married"), in which the Christian church became wedded to the world, particularly to the Roman Government, lasted about another two centuries.

Although these eras have ended, these three letters have something to say to us, no matter what kind of "church" we may attend or adhere to. Do we love the Lord with the first love? We may have many works, yet be motivated either by a desire for other's good opinion or by a self-righteous sense of duty. The first letter is for us. Maybe our love of Christ has not waned, or has been rekindled, and we are suffering persecution. In America and other Western countries it is less likely that you could be killed for your faith, but not entirely out of the question. But more subtle works of Satan induce others to exclude us or humiliate us, or some might lose jobs "for being too religious". The second letter, with its lack of rebuke by the Lord, and its many words of comfort, can sustain those suffering for their faith. But are we instead someone who loves to attend the richest congregation, the one filled with political and business leaders? Do we love hobnobbing with the great of the world, "even at church"? The third letter has significant warnings of the spiritual peril we are courting, and remedies to induce in us a pure love for the Lord and a straight walk in His presence.

The latter four churches represent expressions of the church that coexist now. They began at different times, but the later ones did not replace the former ones. Thus, the local church in Thyatira had characteristics that made it the prototype of worldwide Catholicism. This is primarily the Roman Catholic Church, but in principle it includes the eleven other Orthodox, or "old Catholic" churches. Sardis represents the churches that arose out of the Protestant Reformation, particularly the State Churches: Lutheran, Dutch Reformed, Anglican, and so forth. Other "mainline denominations" would also be included, such as Methodist or Presbyterian, but not Congregational, which we'll get to in a moment. The weak but faithful church in Philadelphia represents those expressions of the church that are characterized by love among the believers ("Brotherly Love"), holding fast the Lord's name and keeping his word. For this the Lord appreciated that they had "a little strength", and a little is all that is needed. The fourth church, Laodicea, had become quite "democratic", replacing revelation with elections. The name means "rule of the laity", and in a certain way, it harks back to the proverb of the times of the Judges, "Each man does what is right in his own eyes." The Congregational denomination is the epitome of this kind of expression. But the "Christian world" abounds with denominations of all kinds, rampant division of the body of Christ, such that division is the "new normal", and those who separate from divisions and attempt to attain Biblical unity are considered heretics. Modern Philadelphians experience a taste of Smyrna! But this "new normal" kind of church expression is most hateful to the judging Jesus Christ, who promises—it was no warning this time—to vomit them out of his mouth. Though shut out of the church, He remains near the door, knocking, and blessing any who answer and let Him into their own heart, though the church door remains shut to Him. Thus we can discern a third mode of interpretation, the personal. It is possible to be sitting among faithful believers in a church that primarily expresses the love and faithfulness of Philadelphia, while inside being a lukewarm Laodicean or a chilly Sardisite (as some even boast, they are "God's frozen chosen"!).

In these Meditations we see a measure of incipient maturity in one who was about the age at which I received Christ. Is it not true that nearly all of us spend most of our lives as a mature adult? So why is spiritual maturity so rare? These seven letters, each with their call to the overcomer, and each with a remedy given by Christ for the local situation, contain the "supplies" we need to overcome and to mature in Christ, loving Him first, relying on Him, and living a life of faithful testimony to Him. May the Lord at His return find us doing so!

Presenting CWWN v04 - The Christian (2)

kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

Volume 4 of the Collected Works of Watchman Nee continues his "Meditations on the Book of Revelation" from Volume 3. I am not entirely sure which volume(s) of The Christian these articles appeared in.

The first 80 pages of this volume comprise the meditations of Chapter 1 of Revelation. The rest of the volume, more than 150 pages, cover Chapter 2, the letters to Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamos. In later works Watchman Nee wrote about the whole book of Revelation. In The Christian he wrote only about Chapters 1 through 3. He also wrote, quite a bit later, a study of just Chapters 2 and 3 that was published under the title The Orthodoxy of the Church, which presents a much more mature view of the seven letters to the seven churches.

Thus I will do no more than to mention an item or two that indicate his room to grow, from this point in his life as someone not yet 25 years of age. He rightly presents Christ in the heavens as a judge of the churches in Asia and by typological extension, as judge of the churches throughout this age of grace. However, he misses the implication of the girding about the Lord's breast. He calls it the girding of a priest at rest. At rest, there is no girding at all. Girding about the loins in the usual manner is for labor or for fighting. The breast indicates love, and for the Lord to be girded about the breast is to show his loving concern in the midst of judgment.

Nee also, extending a certain word to the messenger of Ephesus (the threat to remove the lampstand) and another to Laodicea (spewing out from his mouth), concluded that God had entirely rejected the church, and that all these messages are meant for individuals, and most particularly, "he who overcomes". Beginning just four or five years later, he more rightly determined that not only the church remains on the earth, but that God's workers for the establishing and edification of churches, the apostles, continue to be raised up. Our word "missionary" is the Latin translation of the Greek word for "apostle". True missionaries are apostles.

It is true that God has rejected those human establishments called "churches", that have so thoroughly deviated from the Biblical pattern that few indeed are those who understand the word "εκκλησία", from which we get such words as "ecclesiastical". It means "those called out". The simple pattern in the New Testament has been encrusted with twenty centuries of tradition and it is all the traditions that God rejects. Gatherings of believers that are more political than spiritual (the majority) have indeed lost the lampstand, and are testimonies not to God and His works but to human glory in religiosity.

Had brother Nee been so unfortunate as to die before 1928 or 1930, his writings would be taken as evidence of someone who threw out the baby with the bathwater. Thankfully, he ministered another two decades and more, and his ministry matured into a balance scarcely achieved by any of the most ardent servants of Christ. Thus I view this volume as a touchstone, a springboard into later ministry as God showed him, more and more clearly, how He works with His people today.

Presenting CWWN v03 - The Christian (1)

kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

Watchman Nee established the Gospel Book Room and began publishing The Christian newspaper in 1925, and produced 24 issues over the next two years. Volume 3 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee is the first of six volumes containing the entire run of articles that Nee wrote for The Christian. Material written by others is not included, but a full index of all articles is at the end of the sixth volume (v8 of CWWN).

This volume is in two sections. The first 104 pages contain six articles titled "Meditations on Genesis", on the first two chapters of Genesis. Nee opens with an explanation of "The Gap", condensing the discussion by G. H. Pember in his 1876 book Earth's Earliest Ages*. He briefly yet comprehensively adduces the proofs and other indications in Scripture that, as my mother told me sixty years ago, "A lot happened between the first two verses of Genesis." Nee shares, in much more detail than my mother did, how the six days are not the original creation, but a re-creation after an earlier creation had fallen into disaster and judgment. Most importantly, he shows that an understanding of The Gap, which some commentators have called "an interval of unknown duration", began in the Third or Fourth Century, including in the writings of Augustine (this translation of CWWN has "Augustus"). Thus The Gap is no reaction to modern geological studies, nor to any idea that the Earth is millions or billions of years old. When Augustine wrote early in the Fourth Century, his notion of a Gap was no doubt a duration of "myriads", or tens of thousands, not millions of years. But the principle remains.

The first article also, but briefly, decries the notion of biological evolution and Darwin's theory. Watchman Nee was firmly anti-evolution, as are most of his followers today. This occasionally rankles me, and I occasionally discuss the proper understanding of both the theory of natural selection and of the relevant scriptures, to show that evolution is no threat to revelation, and the Biblical story of creation cannot in any way be used to pronounce judgment on biological science. This review is not the venue to discuss this further.

The other four articles primarily concern the dispensational and spiritual meaning of the six days of (re-)creation. I received much help as a young Christian, learning how the steps in the six-day process are mirrored in the process of spiritual growth that we all undergo. Nee focuses more on the dispensational progress of God's purpose through the generations from Adam onward unto eternity, while not neglecting the personal aspects.

An aside: the theological term "dispensation" is translated from the Greek word οικονομία, or "economy", and economy is understood as its decomposition into "home" and "law". Your economy is how you run your house. So with God's economy. Thus, whereas God has a purpose or plan, this plan is carried out in different ways in different eras. Each is called a different dispensation in older theological literature, but it is better understood as the economy of God for each era. Thus the era of Moses' Law, called the dispensation of law or the Jewish economy, describes how Jehovah God dealt with His people Israel from the time the law was given through Moses until the time of John the Baptist, who announced in the Messiah a new economy, which is being carried on today in this, "the church age" or the economy of the churches.

Watchman Nee had more to say about the church economy in his "Meditations on Revelation", the long section that comprised Issue #2 of The Christian, and takes up 74 pages in this translation, including a four-page outline of the subjects of Revelation. Focusing on the statement of Jesus to John in 1:19, "…the things which you have seen and the things which are and the things which are about to take place after these things," he shows that chapter 1 deals with the first item, "the things which you have seen," chapters 2 and 3 deal with the second, "the things which are," and the rest of the book is prophetic, dealing with "the things which are about to take place after these things." In particular, "the things which are" refers to the condition of seven selected local churches in about the year 95 AD, as exemplars of the prophetic progress of the economy of God for the churches throughout this era. Nee wrote about this in more detail in later issues of The Christian and in other publications.

The strongest portions of this long article are two. Firstly, Nee strongly exhorts all Christians everywhere to actually read Revelation. In the early Twentieth Century the book was severely neglected by most, as being too hard to understand or too contentious, on one hand, and was subject to the most flamboyant flights of interpretation by a few enthusiasts on the other. Here both pernicious trends are combated very distinctly. Secondly, Nee shows how this book is related to numerous prophecies in both Old and New Testaments, most particularly Daniel, but also several strong prophecies in Paul's writings and in Jesus's statements in the Gospels. He shows how, just as many former prophecies were fulfilled literally, so will the prophecies of the apostle John; to spiritualize away their meaning is damaging to faith.

Watchman Nee was almost alone in his understanding that "the Rapture", or the "taking away" of the believers, is to happen in stages. Numerous verses that seem to point to different times of being caught up to Christ show us that certain believers are taken up "pre-trib" as some like to call it, and some are taken up "post-trib". I can do no better than to quote:

"All those who have the cross working profoundly in their life will be raptured. Those who are saved generally but who are mingled with the world and who go along with sins will remain on the earth and will pass through the great tribulation. Only the overcoming saints will be raptured. The remaining saved believers will pass through the great tribulation until the trumpeting of the seventh trumpet. Then they will be caught up." (p 174)

The section closes with the briefest sketch of "the things to come," before the outline at its very end.
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* Full title Earth's Earliest Ages, and Their Connection With Modern Spiritualism and Theosophy. In Pember's day, those were fighting words.

Presenting CWWN v02 - The Word of the Cross

kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

Volume 2 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee is titled The Word of the Cross. It primarily contains miscellaneous writings from the early and mid 1920's that were either self-published or printed in various Christian journals. One short item is a preface to the Chinese translation of the book Modern Science and the Long Day in Joshua by Harry Rimmer.

The first four chapters, which most closely match the title of the volume, deal with the cross of Christ as applied to Christian walk, and to knowing God's will. The preface to Harry Rimmer's book and three other articles are apologetical works, combating fallacies that arose around the early 1900's due to "Higher Criticism" and its emphasis on de-spiritualizing the Bible.

As is common for many young men who are extremely brilliant, Watchman Nee was an absolutist. A certain measure of absolutism is necessary in a Christian, for there are certain matters to which we will brook no controversy, including the existence of God, the primacy of Jesus Christ and His work for our eternal salvation, and the total authority of the Bible. Upon this last point, however, we must in particular maintain a very humble attitude that no one of us will ever encompass the whole of Biblical truth. Excessive absolutism, particularly regarding "what the Bible says" about this or that, is the direct cause of thousands of denominational differences among Christians, which is a great shame to the Name of our beloved Jesus.

But absolutism is required in the face of atheistic attacks upon the veracity and authority of scripture. Watchman Nee made a few brief forays into apologetics, later to forego such matters in favor of the much greater work of exposition and elucidation of deeper and more precious truths regarding the Christian life and the church life.

Roughly sixty pages are taken up with 26 outlines of "Bible Studies for Beginners." The first few lessons are suitable both for helping believers lead others to Christ and for showing to seeking unbelievers to help them come to Christ. Later lessons take us deeper and deeper into what Nee considered "basic" lessons, though I believe many Christians today would find them rather deep swimming!

The last section is called "Once a Year Through the Bible", with daily readings from both Old and New Testaments, in the format you see here. Key Words for each book and extremely brief topics for the sections are intended as a guide to the reader.

The items in this volume illustrate that, from the beginning of Watchman Nee's service to Christ, he felt responsible to teach others. He saw very early that our Christian life is largely taken up with practical sanctification in life, and that between our beginning by repentance as redeemed and regenerated children of God, and the completion of our salvation in conformation to Christ and glorification, we are being transformed, a process in which our cooperation with God is essential. We need to feed upon God's Word; this is a great deal more than just "Bible Study". We need fellowship with believers in spirit. We need to learn of God by spending time in His presence. We need to develop an attitude of service to God, according to His purpose and in His way, not according to our fleshly or soulish imagination. In all these things he sought to prepare himself to help believers grow and attain to spiritual maturity.

Presenting CWWN v01 - The Christian Life and Warfare

kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

Watchman Nee was born November 4, 1903 and given the names Henry and Shu-Tsu. He received Christ in February 1920, under the preaching of Dora Yu. The biography by Angus Kinnear, Against the Tide, states that he came to Christ "in his eighteenth year" (p. 36), meaning before the age of 18, but this is by Chinese reckoning, which adds a year for the time spent in the womb; he was actually 16 years and 9 months old.

He understood that the Lord wanted to gain him in two ways, both to life and to service. He struggled with this for several weeks until late April, when he fully dedicated his life to service to Jesus Christ. He sought a more fitting name for a consecrated Christian. His mother suggested a name that seemed to strike the right balance: To-Sheng, meaning Watchman.

After finishing college he began to write. He began publishing a small Christian magazine, The Christian, in November 1925, about the time of his twenty-second birthday. This was no eight-page rag. The first issue contained fourteen articles taking up more than 60 pages. Two years later he selected nine of the articles he had written and ten items by other English writers that he had translated and published in The Christian, and published his first book, The Christian Life and Warfare. The contents of this book, plus certain apparatuses, form Volume 1 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee. His own writing has been translated to English, and writings that began in English are printed as found in their English versions as appendices. This frontispiece is from the June 1927 first printing.

It is said that, whatever income or support he received over the years, Nee spent a third of it on books, typically writing to booksellers in England with a "want list". The Christian Life and Warfare bears a strong influence from Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis of the Overcomer Literature Trust; she wrote seven of the articles he translated from English. The other three are by Charles Usher, Evan Roberts and S. D. Gordon.

The subject of the book is living a victorious Christian life, which requires spiritual warfare. It is a long exposition on Romans 6, primarily verses 11-13:

11 So also you, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Do not let sin therefore reign in your mortal body so that you obey the body's lusts;
13 Neither present your members as weapons of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as weapons of righteousness to God.

(The Bible translation I use is The Recovery Version, published by Living Stream Ministry*.) The first verb is central to Watchman Nee's understanding of Christian victory: Reckon. This word means more than just counting or calculating. It means fixing the will on the facts as presented by God in His Word, and acting accordingly.

To do so, we have to know where things are. Thus the book begins with a chapter explaining that we are tripartite, spirit, soul and body, as Paul wrote in I Thessalonians 5:23. The human spirit is our organ for contacting God and the things of God. Seeking God with body or with mind (part of the soul), is as foolish as trying to see with your ears. Fellowship between fellow believers must also be spiritual, not done in the soul, or it is vain. Thus, after exposing the folly of using fleshly and soulish means to carry out service to God, he turns to this word Reckon, in a chapter titled "Fact, Faith, and Experience".

Many have heard this kind of preaching: "First Facts, then Faith, and only then Feeling". The term "Experience" is more far-reaching than "Feeling". We may or may not have "feelings" while in our spirit. If we seek to have such feelings, we can be misled. The senses in our spirit are deeper and more delicate than our emotions, and in fact may contradict them. An experienced Christian knows what it is to be "in tears while obeying". The crucified flesh and "unemployed" soul might indeed evoke bitter tears, while the spirit, and shortly the whole person, rejoices in the Lord's burden and His strength to carry it out.

The Word of God contains certain facts, and for this passage, key facts include that we are "dead to sin", and "living to God". Later, in Romans 7, the example of a dead husband is used to show how death frees us from the bondage to the law. In Romans 6, death first frees us from bondage to sin, for the dead do not sin. Are we dead? Christ having died for us, we are reckoned dead to sin by God. Victory is that we also reckon ourselves as dead to sin, in Christ. How do the dead react to temptation? With indifference, with no reaction. For us, being dead to sin but alive to God, to react to sin with indifference requires that we lean on Him that His beauty draws us away from any temptation to sin. We really can be so enrapt with God that we don't notice temptations. Thus, we find that Satan desires to distract us from God's beauty, and we need to oppose such distraction.

Watchman Nee describes the kind of prayer that opposes Satan. It is refreshingly different from the kind of preaching I've heard from some, who seem to spend much time speaking to the evil one directly. According to the teaching here, we might indeed say, with the angel Michael, "The Lord rebuke thee, Satan", but that is the end of that, and we continue in fellowship with the Lord, persisting in our petition that He would do just that and rebuke the Devil. This is in accord with the poor widow of the parable, who spoke again and again to the unjust judge, but not to the opponent against whom her suit was brought.

I was also struck by a certain fact. When speaking of the hill of the crucifixion, Watchman Nee consistently uses the term Golgotha. In the ten articles by others that the editors of CWWN printed in their original form in English, those authors use the term Calvary. "Calvary" is from Latin, and occurs only once in the Authorized Version (KJV), in Luke 23:33. "Golgotha" is from Aramaic, the dialect of Hebrew used in Judea during the life of Jesus, and this term is used everywhere else in the four Gospels. Luke wrote in Greek and used the Greek word for skull, "kranios". Who knows why the translators of the KJV didn't just write "skull"?

Verse 13 of the passage above is equally important, to all the authors of these articles. We are weapons. That is a fact of our being. To whom then should we present ourselves? To Sin in the service of sins, or to God in the service of righteousness? This can only be accomplished by applying the crucifixion of Christ to our subjective experience, to serve Him by His life and His power. All things of "the old man" must remain on the cross.

These are high and powerful truths to be found in a book published by a young prodigy, not quite 25 years old!
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*Some have criticized the term "recovery version", joking that the Bible's text doesn't need to be recovered. The Bible itself has been with us a long time, but it is poorly understood, even by many prominent Christian "authorities". In particular, most are influenced by this or that denominational viewpoint or doctrinal system. Within a few years after Watchman Nee received Christ, he saw that Denominationalism is sinful because it divides Christians (My own proverb is, "Doctrines are a filter used to figure out whom to exclude from fellowship"). This understanding is a foundational teaching of the local churches worldwide that follow his teachings, and of the leaders of the Living Stream Ministry in its publishing and evangelistic work. LSM was set up by Watchman Nee's most prominent co-worker, Witness Lee, who used the term "recovery" to refer to the process begun with the Protestant Reformation, and continuing today, of "unlocking" the truths that have been ignored and neglected for two millennia. The text of The Recovery Version is a readable translation from Hebrew and Greek; it is the notes and cross-references—which seek to help believers understand the text, particularly the neglected portions—that constitute the "recovery" of lost truth.

A new series for the new year

kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

Many years ago I obtained a set of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, edited by and, for the most part, translated from Chinese by brothers who prefer to remain unnamed, and published by the Living Stream Ministry. Prior to this publication I had been reading books by Watchman Nee for nearly twenty years. A few of the earlier volumes are seen at lower right in this image, and next to them, single volumes from a paperback version, obtained prior to purchasing the whole set in hardback.

Most of the books published under Watchman Nee's name, including famous titles such as Sit, Walk, Stand and The Overcoming Life (formerly The Normal Christian Life), are translations of expanded conference notes originally taken in Chinese by a few of his early co-workers, most notably Stephen Kaung. His most controversial title, The Normal Christian Church Life (Chinese title Concerning Our Mission) was published first in Chinese and then translated by Nee into English for publication in England and the United States. In the years prior to 1939 and the outbreak of World War II he published a number of books in Chinese, but the greatest volume of his own writings was in the form of Christian newspapers that he published, most notably The Christian and The Present Testimony.

The Collected Works (CWWN) includes translations of the contents of his newspapers and the books that he published in Chinese; re-translations of other titles formerly published in English, but including source material from a wider array of conference notes; and the books and articles he translated into English himself. I once spoke to one of the translators, who told me they were guided in their work by his own translations into English. The set includes 62 volumes in three sub-sets of 20, 16 and 26 volumes, each covering a distinct phase of his ministry.

I have read parts of many of the volumes, a little here and a little there, but decided at the beginning of this year to read through them all. I plan to continue the wide variety of reading I have engaged in previously, but to alternate "other" titles with volumes from CWWN. I tag this series of posts "book summaries" because I am hardly qualified to "review" spiritual books at this level, and I hope the tidbits I am able to glean might encourage others who are less familiar with Watchman Nee's work to re-acquaint themselves with his ministry.