The Spirit of Life

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. ROMANS 8:2

Romans 7 is the most uncomfortable chapter in the Bible for anyone who has ever tried to be good. Here is a man who wants what is right, who delights in the law of God after the inward man, who hates what he does — and who cannot do the thing he wants. He is not a rebel. He is a sincere, earnest, thoroughly defeated believer. And Nee made much of the fact that the chapter is dense with the first person singular. Count the times I, me and my occur in those verses; it is a great many. That, he said, is the whole problem in a single grammatical observation. Romans 7 is the biography of a Christian trying to serve God by himself.

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. ROMANS 7:18

Nee observed something that is easy to miss. The great discovery of Romans 7 is not that I am a sinner — the man knew that already. It is that I am helpless. And God allows the experience of chapter seven precisely in order to bring us to the end of our own resources, because until a man knows he cannot, he will not stop trying.

Two laws, and how one defeats the other

The way out is not more effort. It is another law. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Nee used the illustration of gravity. A stone falls because of a law; you cannot argue with it, and you cannot suspend it by resolution. But a bird rises, because a higher law — the law of life — is at work in it. The law of gravity has not been repealed. It has been overcome by something stronger. So deliverance is not the removal of the flesh, nor the improvement of the will. It is the operation of a life that is not ours.

Two aspects of one Spirit

Here Nee introduced a distinction he considered vital, and which he treated at length in The Normal Christian Life and in The Communion of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to the believer in two aspects.

There is the Spirit within — the indwelling Spirit, given to every believer at the new birth, whose work is life, transformation and the production of Christ’s character.

Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. ROMANS 8:9

And there is the Spirit upon — the outpoured Spirit, whose work is power and equipment for service and testimony.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me. ACTS 1:8

The two are not the same, Nee argued, and confusing them causes real damage in both directions. Some believers seek power when what they need is life, and become noisy and fruitless. Others, having tasted the inward work, despise the outward and remain ineffective in service. He was careful, though, about how the second is obtained. It is not a reward for spiritual attainment, and it is not extracted from God by fasting or pleading. It is, like everything else in his teaching, already given, and to be received. The Spirit was poured out at Pentecost upon the whole Body; the individual believer does not ask God to do it again but takes his share in what has been done.

Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. ACTS 2:33

The condition

If the Spirit’s fullness is not earned, is there any condition at all? Nee answered that there is one, and it is not spiritual excellence. It is obedience.

And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. ACTS 5:32

The Spirit is not given to the worthy but to the willing. And because the Spirit is a Person and not a force, the practical question of the Christian life is not how to use Him but how not to grieve Him.

And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. EPHESIANS 4:30

Nee taught believers to attend to the inward sense — that quiet checking, that absence of peace, which is the Spirit’s ordinary way of guiding a consecrated heart. Not a voice, not a sign, not a hunch dignified with religious language, but a settled inward witness that either presses forward or holds back. Learning to obey that check in small matters is, he said, the whole training of the spiritual life.

A word of balance. Because Nee spoke of an inward sense, some readers have made subjective impressions into an authority that overrides Scripture. That is a serious error, and it is not his. The Spirit who speaks within is the same Spirit who wrote the Word, and He does not contradict Himself. Where the inward sense and the plain teaching of Scripture appear to disagree, Scripture governs — every time, without exception.

Flesh and Spirit, day by day

Romans 8 describes the position. Galatians 5 describes the daily experience of it, and Nee treated the two together.

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other. GALATIANS 5:16–17

Two things in that passage governed his teaching. First, the conflict is normal. A believer who finds two contrary pulls within him is not thereby unspiritual; he is thereby alive. The unregenerate man has no such civil war, because there is only one party in the field. The presence of the struggle is evidence of the Spirit’s arrival, not of His absence. Second — and this is the practical point — the command is not fight the flesh. It is walk in the Spirit, with the promise attached that the other thing will not then be fulfilled. The negative is achieved by the positive. Nee compared it to a room full of stale air. You may attempt to remove the darkness with a shovel, or you may open the shutters. Light does not have to fight darkness; it only has to be admitted. This reframes the whole business of temptation. The question in the moment is not how do I suppress this? but what does walking in the Spirit look like in the next five minutes? Sometimes the answer is prayer. Often it is something quite unspiritual-looking: doing the next duty, leaving the room, telephoning a brother, going to bed. He drew the same conclusion about Christian character. The virtues of Galatians 5:22–23 are called fruit, not achievements, and fruit is grown rather than manufactured. Nobody produces patience by resolving to be patient; the tree produces it, given root, light and time.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. GALATIANS 5:22–23

Note that it is fruit, singular, with nine descriptions — one life expressing itself in nine directions. You do not select among them. Where the life is present, the whole cluster eventually appears.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Count the personal pronouns in Romans 7:14–25 for yourself. Ask whether your own prayers sound more like Romans 7 or Romans 8. 2. Have you come to the end of trying? If not, ask God to bring you there; it is a mercy, not a punishment. 3. Distinguish in your own experience between needing life and needing power. Which have you been seeking, and which do you actually lack? 4. Practise obeying the inward check this week in one small matter — a word not spoken, a purchase not made. Small obediences train the ear. 5. Test every inward impression against Scripture. Where the two conflict, submit to the Word without negotiation.

A PRAYER

Holy Spirit, I have tried to live the Christian life with my own strength and I have failed exactly as Scripture said I would. I am not merely guilty; I am helpless. I confess it.

Be in me the law of life that overcomes the law of sin. Do in me what I cannot do for myself.

And clothe me with what I need for service, not because I deserve it, but because Christ has been exalted and has poured it out. Make me quick to obey Your least restraint, and keep me from grieving You today. Amen.