Know

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. ROMANS 6:6

The first of the four words is know, and Nee would not allow anyone to move past it in a hurry. Everything that follows in Romans 6 depends upon it, and nothing that follows can be produced without it. But we must be careful about what kind of knowing is meant, because there are two kinds, and only one of them saves anybody from anything.

Mental grasp and divine revelation

A man may know the doctrine of co-crucifixion perfectly well. He may be able to draw a diagram of it, distinguish it from other views of sanctification, expound the tense of the verb in verse six, and preach a serviceable sermon on it. And he may go home and lose his temper with his wife within the hour. Nee spoke about this constantly, and it forms the substance of his little book Spiritual Knowledge and much of Aids to Revelation. There is knowledge that comes by study, and there is knowledge that comes by revelation, and they are not different amounts of the same thing. They are different in kind.

Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. MATTHEW 16:17

Peter had said the right words. Others had said them too, or nearly. What the Lord commended was not the accuracy of the sentence but its source. It had not come up from below; it had come down from above. This is why Nee taught believers to pray over their reading — not merely to pray before reading, as a pious formality, but to make the reading itself a matter of asking. The Bible is not a quarry from which the diligent extract truth by labour. It is a place where God speaks to those who wait.

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. PSALM 119:18

Why we cannot manufacture it

It follows that revelation cannot be worked up, and Nee was severe about attempts to counterfeit it. You cannot achieve sight by straining.

A blind man who squeezes his eyelids shut and concentrates furiously does not thereby see. He must have light given to him. What then can a believer do? Nee’s answer was: he can ask, and he can be honest, and he can wait. He can ask, because the Lord commands it — ask, and it shall be given you (Matthew 7:7). He can be honest, because revelation is almost always withheld from a man who is unwilling to obey what he already sees. And he can wait, because God’s timing is not ours, and the discovery that comes after long waiting is the one that lasts. He was fond of noting that the great turning points in the lives of believers are rarely the result of a decision to understand. They come suddenly, often during something quite ordinary, and afterwards the person cannot say why he never saw it before, because now he cannot imagine how anyone could miss it. That is the signature of revelation. It does not feel like an achievement. It feels like the removal of something that was in the way.

What we are to know

And what are we to see? Precisely this: that we were included in the death of Jesus Christ. Not that we ought to die. Not that we may die if we are sufficiently consecrated. That we died — finished, accomplished, done.

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. COLOSSIANS 3:3

Nee illustrated it with the difference between a fact and a feeling. Suppose a man is told that a distant relative has died and left him an inheritance. He feels nothing at all; he never knew the relative. But the money is his, whether he feels rich or not. His feelings have no bearing on the estate. What he needs is not emotion but information — and then he must act on it. So with our death in Christ. We do not feel dead. We feel painfully, obviously alive to sin. But the question God puts to us is not how do you feel? It is do you know?

There is a warning to add. Because Nee spoke so much of revelation, some who came after him made a mystique of it, waiting passively for experiences and neglecting the plain labour of reading, memorising and studying the Word. That was never his intention, and his own practice contradicts it. He was a disciplined and omnivorous reader who worked through the Scriptures relentlessly and read widely besides. Revelation does not replace study. It illuminates it. God generally turns on the light in rooms where somebody has been working.

Secondhand light

There is a particular hazard for anyone who reads widely or sits under good teaching, and Nee named it plainly. It is possible to live on other people’s revelation. A believer hears a message that clearly came out of someone’s real dealings with God. He is moved by it. He adopts the language, repeats the illustrations, and begins to teach it himself — having never once seen the thing for himself. What he passes on is a photograph of a meal. It is accurate. It will not nourish anybody. Nee found the principle in the wilderness. The manna had to be gathered every morning by each household, and what was hoarded from the previous day did not keep.

Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank. EXODUS 16:20

Yesterday’s supply is not today’s. And another man’s supply is not mine. This accounts, he suggested, for a good deal of preaching that is orthodox, well-arranged, and entirely without weight. The hearers can tell. There is a difference, immediately perceptible and impossible to counterfeit, between a man describing a country he has visited and a man reciting a guidebook. The remedy is not to stop reading. Nee read constantly and urged others to. The remedy is to refuse to pass on as your own what God has not shown you, and to take what you have read back to God until He either confirms it to you or does not. He suggested a discipline that is worth adopting. When a truth strikes you in someone else’s book or sermon, do not immediately use it. Hold it. Bring it to God and ask Him to make it yours, and wait — for days or months if necessary. The truth that has passed through your own experience will come out of you with an authority that borrowed material never has.

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. 1 JOHN 1:3

Seen, and heard, and then declared. That is the apostolic order, and there is no shortcut through it.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Before your next Bible reading, ask God plainly for light rather than information. Note the difference in how you read.

2. Identify one truth you can explain but have never experienced. Bring that specific gap before God and ask Him to close it. 3. Check whether disobedience is blocking sight. Is there something you already know to be right and have not done? Do it first. 4. Set aside a longer period — an hour, an afternoon — with Romans 6 and nothing else. No commentary. Ask, and wait. 5. Record the date when God shows you something. Nee’s generation kept such records; the memory of a real dealing with God is a strengthening thing in later drought.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have gathered much information about You, and I am not sure how much of it I have seen. I can explain doctrines that have never changed me. Have mercy on me.

You revealed Yourself to a fisherman who had no learning at all. Flesh and blood did not teach him. Father, teach me in the same way. Open my eyes.

I will not pretend to see what I do not see. But I will wait before You until You show me, and I will obey what You have already shown. Amen.