Search
Scripture Reading: 1 Tim. 1:3-7, 19b-20; 4:1-3; 6:3-5, 20-21; 2 Tim. 1:15; 2:16-22; 3:5; 4:3-4, 14-15; Titus 1:10-11, 14; 3:10-11
In this chapter we want to continue our fellowship concerning the history of the Lord’s recovery among us in the past fifty years. In the previous chapter we shared how Brother Nee was saved and called in the same night. We have to remember that he was saved through a woman evangelist who was a native of China. The Lord raised up such a gift as Brother Nee through a native sister.
After Brother Nee’s conversion, he came in contact with an older sister by the name of M. E. Barber. Miss Barber was about sixty years old when Brother Nee met her. She was from England. When she was young, around thirty years old, she was sent by an Anglican mission to Brother Nee’s province in China. While she was there, her co-missionaries fabricated a case against her because of their jealousy of her. Because of these false reports, the mission board called her back.
She was a person who knew the Lord in a living way, and she was always exercising to learn the lessons of the cross. When she returned, she made a decision not to say a word in vindication of herself. She stayed in England for a number of years. At a certain point, the chairman of the mission board came to realize that she had been accused falsely. He asked her to tell him the truth. He said to Miss Barber, “I know you are learning the lessons of the cross and that you would not say anything for yourself. Since you have learned something of the Lord’s authority, I am asking you as one of your authorities to tell me the truth.’’ Thus, Miss Barber took this standing to tell the truth concerning her case. She was vindicated, and the board immediately made the decision to send her back.
Before that time, she began to know the way of the Lord concerning His church. She came in contact with D. M. Panton, who was a student of the great teacher Robert Govett. Brother Panton came to know the evils of denominationalism, and he met with a group of others outside of the denominations. In today’s light we can see that he was not so clear, on the positive side, concerning the proper practice of the proper church life, but he was very clear, on the negative side, concerning denominationalism. After Miss Barber contacted D. M. Panton’s group, she became clear about denominations. Then she resigned from her post as a missionary in the Anglican mission. After much prayer she became clear that the Lord would send her back to China according to His leading and not through any mission. She went back to China, in human terms, on her own. She went back on her own to work for the Lord, and she selected a very small town just outside of Brother Nee’s hometown, Foochow. The suburban town where she stayed was called Pagoda. Miss Barber stayed there without traveling much and without any advertisement. She just stayed there and prayed day and night.
Brother Nee came in contact with her soon after his conversion, and he received so much help from her. He spent at least several times with me personally to tell me the things concerning his relationship with Miss Barber. Initially, Brother Nee was among a group of young brothers and sisters who had just been saved and went to contact Miss Barber. Miss Barber was deep and also very strict. In her strictness she used to rebuke the ones under her perfecting. Eventually, the only one who still went to see Miss Barber after a period of time was Brother Nee. Brother Nee told me that whenever he went to her, he was always rebuked. He told me that the more she rebuked him, the more he sent himself to her for her rebuking. He said that he did this because he received the help from her.
In 1936 I was invited to the central part of China. After a few days Brother Nee was also invited there, and we stayed together. He said to me, “Brother Lee, if Miss Barber were still living, we would be much better than what we are today.’’ Then he said, “In 1933 I went to Europe to visit many spiritual persons. In my being, according to my weighing, no spiritual person whom I visited in the Western world at that time could compare spiritually with Miss Barber.’’ This shows us the kind of preparation the Lord made for Brother Nee as His gift, His servant.
Miss Barber went to the Lord in 1929. That was nearly the same year in which Brother Nee finished his writing of The Spiritual Man. Miss Barber, in her will, gave all her things to Brother Nee. Of course, she did not have many personal things, but she willed Brother Nee her Bible with all her notes in it. That was very precious. Later, Brother Nee told me that he was thinking of writing a biography of M. E. Barber, but he could not find the time to do it. It was a real loss to us that Brother Nee never found the time to write such a biography. If he had been able to do this, it would have been a great help to us even today.
According to what Brother Nee told me, Sister Barber was a person who always lived in the presence of the Lord. One day Brother Nee went to see her. She was in another room while he was waiting in the living room. He told me that while he was waiting there, he had a deep sense of the Lord’s presence there. She was a deep person in the Lord, and she composed a number of excellent hymns that are in our hymnal. All her hymns were very deep in the Lord.
Furthermore, day by day she was waiting for the Lord’s coming back. On the last day of 1926, she was taking a walk with Brother Nee. When they turned the corner to another street, she said to Brother Nee, “Maybe as we turn this corner, we will meet Him.’’ She was a person waiting for the Lord’s return. She lived and walked in the presence of our returning Lord. I never met her, but after I heard what Brother Nee told me, I received a great help.
It was through M. E. Barber that he received the foundation of his spiritual life. Brother Nee would tell people that it was through a sister that he got saved, and it was also through a sister that he was edified. As a British person from the Western world, Sister Barber came to know the famous spiritual giants in Christianity at her time. Through Sister Barber, Brother Nee came to know the top spiritual books by people such as Robert Govett, D. M. Panton, and Jessie Penn-Lewis. The best publications on the exposition of the Bible and church history were introduced to Brother Nee through her.
Brother Nee was a marvelous reader and an excellent discerner and selector of the things of Christ for the Christian life and the church life. He himself told me that in his early days of ministry he gave back one third of his income to the Lord, kept one third for his living, and spent the other third to buy books to read.
The first year that I went to Shanghai, I stayed with Brother Nee as his guest. One day he came upstairs to my living quarters with two bundles of books. He put them on my bed and said, “This is something for you,’’ and he went away. He had given me Henry Alford’s four-volume work entitled The New Testament for English Readers. Dean Alford was an authority on the Greek words of the New Testament. This four-volume set rendered me great help in knowing the Bible. The other books given to me by Brother Nee were John Nelson Darby’s five-volume Synopsis of the Books of the Bible. His synopsis of the Scriptures can be considered as the best among all the expositions. I received great help from his synopsis.
Brother Nee told me that he had notified the bookstores in London which carried secondhand books. Whenever they received something ordered by him, they would send it to him, and he would pay the bill. In this way he collected all the major classical Christian writings from the first century to the present day. He had one of the best libraries on the history of the church, including the biographies and autobiographies of the spiritual giants throughout the centuries with their master writings.
For more details of Brother Nee’s life, I would recommend Watchman Nee’s Testimony, compiled by Brother K. H. Weigh. This book includes three messages of Brother Nee’s own testimony, which he gave in 1936. They cover the first sixteen years of Brother Nee’s spiritual life. Brother Weigh was a classmate of Brother Nee’s, he was saved through Brother Nee, and he was also a co-worker with Brother Nee.
Now I will begin presenting the things of the past fifty years in a few categories. First, we want to see the revelations the Lord has given us in these past fifty years. Second, we want to see something concerning the practice of the church life. Third, we would like to see something concerning Brother Nee’s work, including his traveling and his publications. Then we want to fellowship concerning the sufferings of Brother Nee — the attacks and the persecution he suffered throughout his ministry. I want to cover these main categories of the past history among us. In this chapter I would like to relate the revelations we have received from the Lord in these past fifty years up to 1973. I will enumerate forty-six major items.
The first thing the Lord showed us through Brother Nee was the assurance of salvation. The Lord sent many men of God to China as missionaries. They preached the gospel, but they did not help people to know that they were saved. Before Brother Nee was raised up, no one had made the assurance of salvation clear among the Chinese. Although they knew they were Christians, they did not think that a person could know he was saved. They thought it was too proud for a person to say that he knew he was saved. Their concept was that they believed in the Lord Jesus, and they would do their best until the day they would see Him. In that day they would know whether or not they were saved. To them it was only at that time they would be assured of their salvation. They did not believe you could have the assurance of salvation today.
Many of the Chinese were really saved. In a sense, they realized that they were children of God, but if you checked with them, they would not say that they were saved. Then the Lord raised up Brother Nee. He was so clear about the assurance of salvation, and this was the first thing that he saw from the Lord and ministered to the believers. Even by the time I entered into the work with him in 1933, we were still speaking messages on the assurance of salvation. We always helped people to hold on to one verse for their assurance. This is because their assurance was in the written word of God with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We would ask people to read a verse like John 3:16 until they realized that they were assured of their salvation.
After Brother Nee was saved, he made the decision to read the entire Bible. Through his reading of the Bible, the Lord showed him the deviation of Christianity. Christianity had deviated from the Scriptures and from the Lord’s way. Much of the practice of today’s Christianity is a deviation from the holy Word.
Mainly through Brother Nee, the Lord showed us the church. This is the third main revelation the Lord gave us. We saw the church as the Body of Christ. Brother Nee told people that the church is not a building, an organization of Christianity, or a mission. He declared that the church is an organism, the Body of Christ, and that in another sense, the church is the ekklesia, a Greek word referring to the church as the called-out assembly.
The Lord also showed us the evils, the wrongdoings, of denominationalism. Christians have denominated themselves with many different names, such as Lutheran, Wesleyan, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Baptist. These denominations are divisions.
The Lord showed us how the clergy-laity system kills the functioning of the members of the Body of Christ. This system includes human organization with its hierarchy, rank, and position. In the Roman Catholic Church there are the priests, the bishops, the archbishops, the cardinals, and the pope. In the Protestant churches, there are the pastors, and in the state churches there are the bishops and the heads of state. According to the revelation of the Scriptures, this system is an evil abomination in the eyes of God. Denominationalism cuts the Body into pieces, and the clergy-laity system kills the functions of the members of the Body. By these two things, the entire Body of Christ is brought to nothing.
We spent much time to teach the believers that all of them were priests and that they could function in a priestly service to the Lord.
The church does not need any organization or any kind of human government or rule, but the church does need a proper presbytery. The presbytery is the eldership. Every local church needs a group of experienced brothers to be the leading ones, the overseers, taking the oversight of the church’s activity.
The Lord showed us the proper baptism, which is by being immersed into water. He also showed us the proper way to have His table.
The Lord showed Brother Nee the real meaning of head covering and the real practice of laying hands on the saints.
We learned to serve the Lord in the way of not being hired by anyone, that is, by any mission, organization, or so-called church. We learned to live by faith in God. Watchman Nee took the lead among us to live in this way. In Watchman Nee’s Testimony, Brother Nee shares his experience of living a life of faith (ch. 3).
Through Brother Nee’s experience, we were brought into a realization of the proper divine healing that builds up the inner life. The divine healing which Brother Nee saw and experienced was not just an outward gift but a healing that resulted in inward building up. Brother Nee himself experienced such a healing. He was close to death with tuberculosis in 1929. He was so ill that he could not even rise up from bed to walk. One day he received a particular word from God in the Scriptures. He stood on that word and rose up from bed. He walked to a saint’s home where some brothers and sisters had gathered together to pray for him. When he spoke to them of his healing, they all were full of thanksgiving and praise (see Watchman Nee’s Testimony, ch. 4).
The Lord showed Brother Nee so much concerning the all- inclusive death of Christ in both its objective and subjective aspects. He also showed Brother Nee much truth concerning the resurrection, the ascension, and the second coming of Christ. In 1925 I began to read some of his publications on these truths.
The crucified, resurrected, ascended, and coming Christ is now indwelling our spirit by His Spirit. Brother Nee spent much time on the truth concerning the indwelling Spirit.
Brother Nee himself had a rich experience of the outpoured Holy Spirit, but he never spoke in tongues. He referred to the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Sometime before 1925 Brother Nee saw man’s three parts. Later, he wrote The Spiritual Man. Among all the Chinese writings of Christians, I do not believe that there has ever been a book written with such a clear vision concerning the spirit, soul, and body of man. The main point of the truth concerning the tripartite man is the human spirit.
Also before 1925 Brother Nee saw the truth concerning sanctification by faith. He pointed out that John Wesley’s teaching of holiness was actually not holiness but the desire for sinless perfection, human perfection without any sin. He also pointed out what the Brethren had seen. They pointed out what the Lord said in Matthew 23 concerning the temple sanctifying the gold and the altar sanctifying the gift. The common gold was made holy positionally by changing its position from a common place to a holy one (v. 17). When the gold was in the temple, it was sanctified. The Lord also pointed out that the altar sanctifies the gift (v. 19). The common animals offered on the altar were sanctified. This is a positional sanctification by changing the gift’s location from a common place to a holy one. The Brethren also pointed out that the food we eat is sanctified through prayer. This is according to 1 Timothy 4:4-5. The Brethren saw the truth concerning positional sanctification.
Brother Nee went on to show us that sanctification is not only positional but also dispositional. The dispositional change that takes place from sanctification is transformation. In His dispositional sanctification the Lord saturates us with Himself, adding Himself as the new element into our being to transform us into His image.
Through Brother Nee’s ministry, we were brought into the vision and experience of the inner life in a rich way. The mystics in the seventeenth century saw something concerning the inner life, but they did not see as much as the Lord has shown us today.
Because of the church’s degradation, many Christians have been defeated. Thus, the Lord calls some to be the overcomers. This truth is seen in the seven epistles to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3. In the degradation of the church, the Lord sounds out His call for some of His lovers to be overcomers.
Along with the revelation concerning the overcomers, Brother Nee saw the truth concerning the kingdom. He was mainly helped by the teachings of Govett and Panton. The truth concerning the kingdom is scriptural and deep. Much of fundamental, traditional theology condemns the revelation of the kingdom truths. According to the proper teaching of the New Testament, not all the believers will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, the thousand-year kingdom, when the Lord returns. Only the overcomers will be kings with Him in the millennium. The kingship with the Lord Jesus in the coming age will be a reward to the overcoming saints.
The revelation of the rapture goes along with the revelation of the kingdom. In the general teaching of today’s fundamental theology, people are told that the entire church will be raptured before the tribulation. However, according to the truth of the Scripture, this is altogether wrong. As we pointed out in the previous chapter, Brother Nee saw that there was a difference among the saints concerning their belief about the rapture. According to the truth, the overcomers will be raptured before the tribulation.
The kingdom is a matter of reward, and rapture is a matter of maturity. To be raptured can be compared to a crop being harvested from the field. The crop cannot be harvested when it is not ripe. When the crop is ripe with the maturity in life, the farmer takes it from the field and puts it into the barn. Thus, all of us need to become ripe in life. We need the maturity. Then the Lord will harvest us. Brother Nee saw the revelation concerning the overcomers and the kingdom as a reward to the overcomers. He also saw the truth concerning the rapture, which needs the maturity of the saints.
Somewhere around 1925, Brother Nee began to see the truth concerning spiritual warfare. He saw God’s divine purpose and that there is the need of spiritual warfare for the accomplishment of God’s divine purpose in this universe. Especially on this earth, there is a conflict, a war, between God and His enemy, Satan. This warfare involves all God’s children. If we take sides with Satan, we are fighting against God. If we take sides with God, we are fighting against Satan. All the overcoming saints have to realize that they are on the battlefield fighting for God’s divine purpose. Brother Nee called a conference in 1928 in Shanghai and gave a number of messages concerning spiritual warfare.
Brother Nee called a conference in Shanghai in January of 1934 to speak concerning the centrality and universality of Christ. I was responsible for publishing these messages in Chinese. These were marvelous messages showing us that Christ is the center and the circumference of the entire universe for God’s eternal purpose.
Brother Nee saw the truth concerning the boundary of a local church in 1933 and 1934. In 1933 he was invited by the Brethren to visit them in England. They also took him to Canada and the United States. At that time he saw the confusion and the division among the Brethren assemblies. In one city there could be several Brethren assemblies. This troubled Brother Nee, so he spent one year to read and study the New Testament again to find out what the boundary of a local assembly, a local church, was. Eventually, he saw that the New Testament reveals clearly that the boundary of a local church is the boundary of the locality (city) in which the local church stands. In January of 1934, he gave four main messages on this truth, and these were published in the same year in a book entitled The Assembly Life. Brother Nee asked me to write the foreword for this book.
By 1934 many believers had given up the denominations to turn to the way of the Lord’s recovery in China, but most of them paid too much attention to external things, such as the leaving of the denominations, head covering, and baptism. Because of this, Brother Nee was very burdened. He had seen the truth concerning the overcoming life, but in 1935 he saw it in a more prevailing way. In August of 1935 he held a conference with us on the overcoming life of Christ. He stayed with me as my guest in my hometown for this conference. This conference brought in a prevailing revival among us, starting from my hometown in northern China. He also shared these messages when he returned to Shanghai in 1935.
At the beginning of 1937, Brother Nee began to see not only the boundary of a local church but also the ground of a local church. Because of the confusion in Christianity, Brother Nee went back to the New Testament to research the truth concerning the practical expression of the church. According to his study and research of the New Testament, he found out that one city should have only one church. A local church is a church in a city. The ground of a local church is the ground of oneness, which also may be called the ground of locality. If we are in Los Angeles, we should meet as the church in Los Angeles. If we are in San Diego, we should meet as the church in San Diego. This is not only scriptural but also logical.
Brother Nee gave the messages concerning the ground of locality in 1937. I and other workers were working in Tientsin, the biggest port in northern China, when we received a cable from Brother Nee in Shanghai asking us to come on New Year’s Day for an urgent conference with him. At that time he gave the messages that are now contained in the book The Normal Christian Church Life. The Chinese edition was entitled Rethinking Our Missions, and the English edition was entitled Concerning Our Missions. During this conference in January of 1937, Brother Nee became sick. Therefore, he repeated the messages in September and October of that year after the Japanese army had invaded China. Many of us retreated to the interior of China, and we assembled at Hankow where Brother Nee gave all the messages again to a greater number. At this point we became so clear about the church within and without. We became clear about the contents of the church and the practice of the church.
After seeing the ground of the church, Brother Nee became clear concerning the practicality of the church life. I still remember the day in 1940 when I was in Shanghai attending his training. On this day he and I were walking down a staircase. He showed me his hand and said, “Brother, we have the blueprint in our hand concerning the church life.’’ After he said this, I wondered what the blueprint was. I wanted to see this blueprint. Praise the Lord! Eventually, Brother Nee showed us the blueprint of the practicality of the church life.
We should not think that our present practice of the church life is a light thing. In Shanghai in 1940 I saw the blueprint of the practicality of the church life, and I brought it to northern China to put it into practice. I have to testify that it really works. Through the outworking of this blueprint, a big revival was brought to northern China. We enjoyed such a revival through the practice of the church life according to the blueprint Brother Nee had received from the Lord.
From 1940 Brother Nee always stressed the Body of Christ. He was very burdened that we would see the Body. He gave message after message and conference after conference, always stressing this one thing — seeing the Body. Brother Nee was very nice, gentle, and kind, but with us trainees, he was very frank at times. He would ask if we had seen the Body, and then he would ask some to give a testimony of what they had supposedly seen. After their testimony he would say, “You haven’t seen the Body.’’ Then he would point out what they said to prove that they had not seen the Body and that the Body was merely a theory or a doctrine to them. We may know the Body doctrinally, but it may not be real to us. He stressed again and again that we need the vision of the Body.
Brother Nee also stressed the authority of the church. He imparted this vision to the church from 1940 through 1942.
Along with the vision of the Body of Christ, and the truth concerning the authority of the church, Brother Nee shared concerning coordination for the practicality of the church life. Our practical life in the church should be in coordination with the members of the Body.
Beginning in 1940 we began to see the preaching of the gospel by the church. This preaching is not merely by some individual evangelist but by the entire church. The result of such evangelism by the church was very fruitful.
In 1942 and 1943 the church in the Lord’s recovery began to see the need for migration. The first migration among us was from northern China to Inner Mongolia. Seventy adults with all their children migrated from my hometown to a city in Inner Mongolia. They all made this trip in one boat. At another time thirty adults from my hometown migrated to a town in the southern part of Manchuria. The migrating of the saints spread the church life to other parts of the country.
After the war in 1948, Brother Nee began to see that the church is local, but the work is regional. The church is a matter of locality, but the work is a matter of a region, a district. This truth is covered in the last chapter of Further Talks on the Church Life.
In all the suffering through which Brother Nee passed, he learned one basic lesson — the breaking of the outer man and the release of the spirit. A book called The Release of the Spirit, which contains a translation of Brother Nee’s sharing on this truth, has been published by another company. Actually, the title of this book is not so appropriate. What Brother Nee shared is more on the breaking of the outer man, whereas the release of the spirit is an issue, an outcome, of the breaking of the outer man.
In 1946 I was in Shanghai, and I stayed there close to three years. Whenever I was with Brother Nee, he always stressed that there was the need of the breaking of our natural man. Our outer man, our self, our natural makeup, has to be broken. All the things that happen to us are governed by the Holy Spirit to discipline us, and this is for the breaking of our natural man so that our spirit, in which the Holy Spirit dwells, may be released. When our spirit is released, the Holy Spirit is spontaneously released with our spirit.
Brother Nee told us that whenever we give a message, we need to give it with the release of our spirit. However, he went on to say that it is not so easy to have our spirit released as long as we are still living in the natural life. The natural man is like a shell containing our spirit. Therefore, we need the breaking of the outer shell so that the inner spirit can be released. Then the Spirit of God with Christ will be richly ministered to others. This is the truth concerning the breaking of the outer man and the release of the spirit.
I am not so happy about some of the translations of Brother Nee’s books, because they do not convey the exact meaning that Brother Nee wanted to convey. He explained to me his burden concerning the breaking of the outer man and the release of the spirit even before he gave messages on this subject. I am concerned that many readers of the book entitled The Release of the Spirit would think that the release of the spirit is the release of the Holy Spirit. This is not according to the truth. The release of the spirit is not the release of the Holy Spirit, but the release of our spirit. When our spirit is released, the Holy Spirit is also released with our spirit. In order to have this accomplished, our natural man, the outer man, has to be broken.
Even before 1924 Brother Nee saw the tripartite man. Later, we had to be helped to know the human spirit and to exercise, to use, the human spirit. We were taught to turn to our spirit and to stay in our spirit. Our human spirit can be likened to an electrical switch. In order to apply the electricity in a building, we have to turn on the switch. Our spirit is the switch to apply all the things of Christ as the Spirit.
Brother Nee stressed that we all need an actual building up in the Body of Christ. We should not just have a doctrinal talk about the building. Brother Nee said that we had to consider who we have actually been built up with. He said, “You may be a good speaker who can give many messages on building up, but with whom have you ever been built up?” We need the actual building up. After the war, every time Brother Nee spoke, it was always either on the breaking of the outer man or on the building up. When Brother Nee asked us who we were built up with, this put us all on the spot. Not many could give an adequate answer because we were all exposed. Although Brother Nee was very nice and gentle, he was also very frank and strict with his trainees. Sometimes he adjusted me in a bold way, and I received much help from his training.
Christ today is the life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b tells us that the last Adam, Christ, became a life-giving Spirit. I cannot tell you how much life this one point has brought to the church!
After 1948 we began to see how to eat and drink the Lord. In other words, we began to see that we need to enjoy the Lord. This also includes the revelation of Christ as the tree of life, good for food.
In 1966 we were brought into the practice of pray-reading the Word of God.
In 1967 we saw the truth concerning calling on the name of the Lord.
We also saw that we need to breathe in the Lord as the holy pneuma, the holy breath, the Holy Spirit.
In 1968 we saw that everyone has to prophesy. We can all prophesy one by one (1 Cor. 14:31).
The Lord showed us the sevenfold intensified Spirit in 1969 in Erie, Pennsylvania.
In 1970 we saw the revelation of Christ versus religion in an international conference in Los Angeles, California.
The Lord showed us clearly in 1970 that the church is not only the Body of Christ but also the new man.
In 1971 we saw the truth concerning Christ as our person.
Later, we saw the truth concerning Christ’s abolishing all the ordinances on the cross.
The totality of the items listed above is Christ and the church, the great mystery. Christ is the content, and the church is the expression. In other words, Christ is our life within, and the church is our living without. The church is our daily living.
[Editor’s note: A list of ten major items recovered from 1958 to 1989 can be found in The Present Advance of the Lord’s Recovery, ch. 1.]
