The Blood and the Cross

The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. 1 JOHN 1:7

If a man is to understand anything of Watchman Nee’s teaching, he must first grasp a distinction that Nee drew more sharply than almost any teacher before him: the difference between the blood of Christ and the cross of Christ. They are not two events. Calvary is one event. But it accomplishes two different things, addressed to two different problems, and applied in two different ways — and to confuse them is to remain permanently stuck.

The blood deals with what I have done

The blood, Nee taught, is Godward before it is manward. It is not primarily about how I feel; it is about how God is satisfied. Its first witness is not the sinner’s peace but the righteousness of God.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. EXODUS 12:13

Observe carefully what the Lord did not say to Israel in Egypt. He did not say, when you see the blood. He did not say, when you feel confident about the blood. He said, when I see the blood. The Israelite inside the house might be trembling; he might be doubting; he might have spent the night in an agony of uncertainty as to whether he had applied it properly. It made no difference whatever to his safety. The blood was on the door, and God was outside looking at it. This is the ground of the believer’s assurance, and Nee returned to it again and again in his gospel ministry and in The Normal Christian Life. Our forgiveness does not rest upon the quality of our repentance, the depth of our sorrow, or the steadiness of our faith. It rests upon a finished transaction which God has accepted. Three things, he said, the blood accomplishes. It satisfies God — it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul (Leviticus 17:11). It cleanses the conscience — how much more shall the blood of Christ …purge your conscience from dead works (Hebrews 9:14). And it silences the accuser — they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11).

That last point deserves attention. Satan is called the accuser of our brethren (Revelation 12:10), and his accusations are frequently true. That is what makes them effective. Nee’s counsel was not to argue with the accuser about the facts, nor to plead one’s improvement, nor to promise to do better. It was to answer every accusation with the blood — to agree that the charge is true and to point to the payment. A debt truly incurred and truly settled is no longer a debt.

The cross deals with what I am

But now suppose a man has received full forgiveness for every sin he has ever committed, and his conscience is entirely at peace. He still has a problem. He will sin again tomorrow. Something in him wants to. Blood cannot touch this. You cannot wash away a nature. The blood addresses the record; the cross addresses the man.

For he that is dead is freed from sin. ROMANS 6:7

God’s answer to what we are is not improvement, reformation or suppression. It is execution. Our old man is crucified with him. God did not send His Son to patch the old creation; He ended it, and began a new one. Nee illustrated the difference with characteristic bluntness. If a man’s clothes are dirty you wash them. If the man himself is incurably diseased, washing his clothes will not help; something must be done with the man. The blood washes; the cross crucifies. To ask the blood to do the cross’s work is like asking soap to cure cancer.

Why the order cannot be reversed

There is a pastoral reason why Nee insisted on keeping these in sequence. Believers who reach for identification with Christ’s death before they are settled in forgiveness will make the cross into a new form of works. They will try to crucify themselves in order to obtain acceptance — which is precisely the treadmill the gospel came to end. First be sure of the blood. Rest wholly there. Let the conscience be purged and the accuser silenced. Then, standing on unshakeable ground, go on to discover what the cross has done with the old man.

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ …knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. ROMANS 5:1; 6:6

Peace first. Then deliverance. That is Paul’s order, and Nee would not let his hearers reverse it.

One more observation, because it is easy to miss. Both the blood and the cross are things done to us and for us, not by us. The believer contributes nothing to either but faith. There is no such thing, in Nee’s teaching, as crucifying yourself. Men who attempt it are always found nailing one hand and leaving the other free.

A conscience that will not settle

There is a difficulty that arises for many earnest believers, and Nee dealt with it often, because it troubles the sincere far more than the careless. A man confesses a sin. He knows the promise; he can quote it. And yet the accusation continues. Weeks later the memory surfaces and the old weight descends again, and he confesses once more, and once more, and the matter is never closed. Nee’s diagnosis was blunt: a conscience that keeps condemning what God has cleansed is not being humble. It is being unbelieving.

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? HEBREWS 9:14

The argument of Hebrews turns on this very point. The old sacrifices were repeated endlessly precisely because they could not settle the conscience — for then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins (Hebrews 10:2). A finished work produces a settled conscience. If our consciences are never settled, it is because we are treating the work as unfinished. He pointed also to Peter on the housetop, told three times to eat what he regarded as unclean, and given a rebuke that applies well beyond its original subject: What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common (Acts 10:15). To keep calling unclean what God has declared clean is not modesty. It is contradiction. The practical counsel that followed was firm. Confess the sin once, thoroughly, naming it. Receive the cleansing. Make restitution where restitution is owed. And then refuse to reopen the file. When the memory returns, do not confess again; instead thank God that it has been dealt with, and turn your attention elsewhere.

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. HEBREWS 10:22

Full assurance is not presumption. It is the intended result of the blood.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. When accusation comes this week — and it will — practise answering it in one sentence: That is true, and the blood of Jesus Christ has already paid for it. Do not add promises of improvement. 2. Examine whether your assurance rests on the blood or on your own feelings. Note which one changed most recently. 3. Name one habit or attitude that no amount of forgiveness has ever cured. That is a matter for the cross, not the blood. Bring it to God as such. 4. Read Exodus 12 and Hebrews 9 together this week. Ask what God sees, not what you see. 5. If you have been trying to crucify yourself, stop. Confess it as unbelief, and rest in what was accomplished without you.

A PRAYER

Lord God, I thank You for the blood of Your Son. Not for my sorrow over sin, not for my resolutions, not for my religious performance — for the blood, and the blood alone.

When the accuser comes, teach me to plead nothing else. When my conscience condemns me, remind me that You are greater than my heart and that You have already been satisfied.

And Father, for the sin that lives in me still, show me the cross. I do not ask to be improved. I ask to be brought to an end, that Christ might live where I once did. Amen.