Walk: Christ Lived Through Us

The Therefore of Ephesians

After three chapters of announcing what God has done, Paul turns to the believer's conduct: “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called” (Ephesians 4:1, ASV).

Watchman Nee built the second movement of Sit, Walk, Stand around this word: walk. The Christian who has learned to rest in Christ does not remain motionless. Grace creates a manner of life.

The “therefore” is vital. Christian ethics are not free-floating rules imposed upon strangers. They are the family likeness expected of those who have been brought into God's household. Paul does not say, Walk worthily so that you may be called. He says, Walk worthily of the calling already received.

Nee saw this as the cure for both legalism and carelessness. Legalism disconnects obedience from grace and makes conduct a ladder toward acceptance. Carelessness disconnects grace from obedience and treats acceptance as permission to remain unchanged. Ephesians refuses both.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:10, ASV). Works do not create the new creation; the new creation produces works.

The Christian walk therefore becomes the visible expression of an invisible position.

Lowliness, Meekness, Longsuffering

Paul's first description of a worthy walk is not brilliance, courage, doctrinal sophistication, or supernatural power. It is “with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2, ASV).

Nee's spirituality is sometimes remembered for high concepts—resurrection life, spiritual authority, the overcomer, heavenly position. But the New Testament tests all elevated language by ordinary humility.

Lowliness refuses the need to be superior. Meekness is strength under God's government. Longsuffering gives people time. Forbearance makes room for the unfinished work of grace in others.

These qualities are essential because the church consists of redeemed sinners being transformed. Any ecclesiology that requires everyone to be easy to live with before unity is possible will never produce a church.

Paul says believers should give “diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3, ASV). They do not create the unity; the Spirit has created one Body. Their task is to keep it.

Nee's anti-denominational vision drew heavily from this fact. Yet Ephesians places the maintenance of unity in the context of humility, patience, and love. Correct ecclesiology without these virtues contradicts itself.

A person may argue passionately for one Body while treating fellow Christians contemptuously. In doing so he denies with conduct the doctrine he defends with words.

One Body, One Spirit, One Lord

“There is one body, and one Spirit ... one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:4-6, ASV).

Nee regarded this unity as objective. Christians do not become one by joining the same organization; they are one because they share the same Christ and Spirit.

This truth has radical implications. A believer from another denomination who truly belongs to Christ is spiritually nearer to us than an unbeliever who shares our nationality, politics, education, or culture. Christ creates a deeper kinship.

Nee wanted church practice to acknowledge that fact. He resisted names that divided believers according to founders or secondary doctrines. His vision resonates with Jesus' prayer “that they may all be one” (John 17:21, ASV).

But unity is not the same as doctrinal indifference. The New Testament also commands the church to guard the gospel, reject false teaching about Christ, and exercise discipline. “One faith” has content.

The challenge is to distinguish essentials that define Christian fellowship from secondary convictions around which believers may differ. Nee sometimes drew that line differently from other Christians, especially regarding baptism, local church ground, and communion. His own movement's history shows how difficult the task is.

The enduring principle is that fellowship should begin with what God has done in making believers one, not with our capacity to construct an institution large enough to contain them.

Gifts Are Given for the Body

Paul moves from unity to diversity: “But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ” (Ephesians 4:7, ASV).

One Body does not mean uniformity. Christ distributes gifts.

Nee strongly emphasized the functioning of every member. Leaders do not constitute the Body while ordinary Christians attend. Every member has a place in the life and service of the church.

Ephesians lists apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, given “for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12, ASV).

The punctuation and interpretation of this verse have been discussed, but the broad movement is clear: gifted leaders equip the saints, and the Body is built as members function.

Nee's assemblies attempted to embody this through participatory meetings and lay ministry. The principle remains relevant even in churches with more structured services. The question is whether believers are being equipped to minister outside the platform.

A church can have excellent sermons and still be immature if members never learn to pray with the suffering, explain the gospel, disciple younger believers, reconcile conflict, use spiritual gifts, and serve neighbors.

The goal is “a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13, ASV). Spiritual maturity is measured by Christ's likeness, not by institutional sophistication.

No Longer Children

Paul wants believers to be “no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14, ASV).

Nee lived in a Christian world crowded with movements, prophetic schemes, holiness teachings, missionary appeals, denominational claims, and new religious groups. He read broadly and was himself a strong theological innovator. He therefore knew both the value and danger of spiritual novelty.

Immaturity is easily impressed. It mistakes intensity for truth, novelty for revelation, confidence for authority, and unusual vocabulary for depth.

Paul's answer is not cynicism but maturity through truth and love: “speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15, ASV).

Truth without love can become a weapon. Love without truth becomes sentimentality. Growth requires both.

This verse also provides a safeguard for reading Nee. His teachings should be tested, not merely admired. The right response to a gifted teacher is not uncritical loyalty but grateful discernment under Scripture.

Nee himself urged believers to know the Word. No later disciple honors him by treating his books as a second canon.

The Supply of Every Joint

Ephesians pictures the Body “fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part” (Ephesians 4:16, ASV).

Nee loved the word supply. Christian relationships are not merely administrative connections. Members receive Christ and minister Christ to one another.

The metaphor implies dependence. A hand detached from the body cannot remain healthy by insisting on its individual rights. Neither can the body ignore the hand.

Nee sometimes spoke of “Body consciousness”—an awareness that one's life and ministry belong within a larger organism. This challenged the independent Christian worker who builds a private kingdom.

Paul's own ministry reflects interdependence. He needed Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Luke, Priscilla and Aquila, churches that prayed and gave, and even unnamed believers who refreshed him. Apostolic authority did not eliminate need.

For leaders, this is humbling. The more visible a ministry becomes, the easier it is to imagine that others are extensions of the leader's calling. Ephesians reverses the image: the leader is one member supplying what Christ gives, while receiving the supply of others.

The Body grows “unto the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16, ASV). Love is not decorative. It is the atmosphere of organic growth.

Put Off and Put On

Paul now becomes intensely practical. Believers should no longer walk “as the Gentiles also walk, in the vanity of their mind” (Ephesians 4:17, ASV). They have “learned Christ” differently.

The phrase is striking. Christianity is not merely learning Christian rules; it is learning Christ.

Paul describes putting away the old man and putting on the new, “which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:24, ASV).

Nee's Romans 6 teaching appears again. The old man has been crucified with Christ; therefore the believer puts off conduct belonging to the old life and puts on conduct consistent with the new.

This includes truthfulness: “Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor” (Ephesians 4:25, ASV).

It includes anger disciplined before it becomes a foothold: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26, ASV).

It includes honest labor and generosity: “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor ... that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need” (Ephesians 4:28, ASV).

The transformation is remarkable. The thief does not merely stop stealing; his hands become instruments of generosity. Grace redirects capacity.

The Tongue as an Instrument of Grace

“Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may be, that it may give grace to them that hear” (Ephesians 4:29, ASV).

Nee's teaching on spiritual ministry makes this verse especially searching. If Christian service is the release of Christ's life, words should carry grace.

This does not mean speech must always be gentle in tone. Jesus could rebuke hypocrisy sharply; Paul could confront error. But even correction should aim at edification rather than self-display.

The tongue reveals source. Gossip may feel like fellowship but tears down. Sarcasm can disguise contempt as humor. Flattery manipulates. Exaggeration serves image. Harsh truth can satisfy anger rather than restore a brother.

James says, “If any stumbleth not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also” (James 3:2, ASV).

The spiritual person is tested in speech.

Nee's own forceful style influenced generations of readers. The danger for disciples is to imitate certainty without sharing his years of formation. Spiritual authority is not created by speaking categorically.

The mature tongue is governed by truth, love, timing, and the needs of the hearer.

Grieving the Holy Spirit

“And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30, ASV).

This verse joins assurance and responsibility. The Spirit seals the believer unto redemption; yet the believer can grieve Him.

Nee's devotional teaching placed great importance on sensitivity to the Spirit. He believed persistent disobedience could dull spiritual perception.

The context is relational sin: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, railing, malice. We sometimes imagine grieving the Spirit primarily through neglect of mystical exercises. Paul places the warning among ordinary human relationships.

“Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, ASV).

The Spirit's life looks like forgiveness.

The standard is the gospel: “even as God ... forgave you.” Christian forgiveness is not pretending an offense did not occur, nor does it always eliminate consequences or restore trust instantly. It means releasing vengeance and moving toward the mercy we ourselves have received.

For Nee, church life was one of God's principal classrooms for such transformation. Abstract spirituality is easy until another person wounds us.

Walk in Love

“Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:1-2, ASV).

The phrase “beloved children” again grounds the command in identity. We imitate because we are loved.

The definition of love is Christ's self-giving. Love is not mere affection; it takes the shape of the cross.

Nee's teaching on brokenness belongs here. The outer man is broken not to make a person gloomy or passive but to free him from self-centeredness so that the life of Christ can reach others. Genuine brokenness increases love.

Paul immediately contrasts love with sexual immorality, uncleanness, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talking, and coarse jesting (Ephesians 5:3-4). Love has moral boundaries. It does not baptize appetite.

This is important in an age that often defines love as affirmation of desire. New Testament love seeks the good of the other under God's truth.

Christ “gave himself up for us.” The cross remains the pattern.

Walk as Children of Light

“For ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8, ASV).

Paul does not merely say believers were in darkness; he says they were darkness. Nor does he merely say they possess light; they are light “in the Lord.” Identity again produces conduct.

“The fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:9, ASV).

Nee's insistence on inward spiritual life can be tested here. Whatever “inner life” means, its fruit should be observable as goodness, righteousness, and truth. A person who claims unusual communion with God while living deceitfully has failed a biblical test.

“Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11, ASV). Christian love does not require moral silence.

Yet exposure must begin with ourselves. It is easy for churches to denounce the darkness outside while hiding sin within. Walking in light includes confession and accountability.

John says, “If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie” (1 John 1:6, ASV).

Spirituality and honesty are inseparable.

Walk Carefully

“Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16, ASV).

Nee lived through extraordinary instability: warlord politics, nationalist revolution, Japanese invasion, civil war, Communist victory, ideological campaigns, imprisonment. “The days are evil” was not theoretical.

Wisdom meant understanding the Lord's will in changing circumstances. It required alertness rather than fear.

Paul continues, “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18, ASV). The filling of the Spirit produces worship, thanksgiving, and mutual submission.

Nee emphasized spiritual fullness, but Paul's signs are strikingly communal and ordinary: speaking in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs; giving thanks; subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ (Ephesians 5:19-21).

Spirit-filled life is not proved merely by unusual experiences. It is seen in worship, gratitude, and relationships ordered under Christ.

Marriage and the Mystery of Christ

Ephesians applies the Christian walk to marriage. The passage has generated intense debate, especially around submission and headship. Nee, shaped by his own cultural and theological setting, generally read the text in traditional terms. A responsible contemporary reading must keep the whole passage centered on Christ's self-giving.

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it” (Ephesians 5:25, ASV).

Whatever authority one believes the husband possesses, its model is a crucified Bridegroom. Christ does not exploit the church for His comfort. He gives Himself for her holiness and good.

The passage begins with “subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ” (Ephesians 5:21, ASV). Christian marriage cannot be reduced to privilege on one side and duty on the other. Both belong to Christ.

Nee's later emphasis on delegated authority must always be subordinated to this model. Authority that protects itself at another's expense has ceased to look like Jesus.

Marriage is ultimately a sign: “This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church” (Ephesians 5:32, ASV).

The earthly relationship points beyond itself.

Children, Parents, Workers, Masters

Paul continues into household relationships. Children obey parents “in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1, ASV), while fathers are warned, “provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4, ASV).

Authority is again bounded by responsibility.

Paul also addresses bondservants and masters within the first-century social order. These texts have tragically been misused to justify slavery. The New Testament does not offer a modern abolitionist treatise, but it plants principles that undermine human ownership: masters and servants share one Master in heaven, and “there is no respect of persons with him” (Ephesians 6:9, ASV).

The application to modern work should not erase the historical difference between employment and slavery. Yet Paul's insistence that work be done “as unto Christ” gives dignity to hidden labor.

Nee valued ordinary faithfulness. Spiritual life is not confined to meetings. The worker at a desk, parent in a kitchen, merchant negotiating honestly, student studying, and servant performing unnoticed tasks all have an arena for walking with Christ.

The test of spiritual teaching is Monday morning.

Christ Lived Through Us

What does “walk” finally mean for Nee? It does not mean copying Jesus externally as though He were merely an example standing outside us. It means allowing the indwelling Christ to express His life through yielded members.

Paul says, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20, ASV).

Nee's language can sound as though the human personality disappears. Biblically, Paul remains an active “I”: “the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith.” Union does not annihilate personhood; it reorders it around Christ.

The mature Christian does not become less human but more truly human in conformity to the image of the Son. Christ's life does not erase temperament, culture, memory, creativity, or calling. It sanctifies them.

To “let Christ live” is therefore not passivity. It is faith-filled obedience in continual dependence.

Failure on the Road

No Christian walks perfectly. The danger of a “victorious life” message is that failure can become difficult to admit. Believers may fear that confession proves they have not understood the secret.

The New Testament provides a better realism. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8, ASV). Yet immediately: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, ASV).

Grace not only begins the walk; grace restores us when we stumble.

Nee's best theology supports this. The blood of Christ remains the ground of fellowship. The cross remains God's answer to self. The Spirit remains our source. We never move beyond the gospel into a superior class of Christian existence where repentance is unnecessary.

A worthy walk includes quick confession.

Love as the Final Measure

Paul's picture of maturity culminates again and again in love. This is consistent with the whole New Testament.

“If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2, ASV).

A Christian may understand Nee's distinctions between spirit and soul, hold strong convictions about the local church, know Romans 6, speak of resurrection life, practice faith principles, and still miss the central moral evidence of Christ's life.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love” (Galatians 5:22, ASV). Love stands first.

Love is patient in meetings, honest in business, faithful in marriage, generous toward need, truthful in conflict, hospitable across differences, courageous toward sin, and forgiving after injury.

This is walking.

The seated believer walks through the ordinary world carrying the character of the One in whom he is seated.

But Ephesians has one more verb. The Christian does not only receive and walk. He inhabits a contested world. Evil resists the purposes of God. The church therefore must learn not merely to advance but, at decisive moments, to refuse retreat.

The final word is stand.

The Walk Is Relational Before It Is Spectacular

Christians are often attracted to extraordinary spirituality: miracles, visions, prophetic insight, heroic mission, intense prayer. Ephesians 4-6 spends much of its moral energy on relationships.

Tell the truth. Work honestly. Speak words that build. Forgive. Love your spouse. Raise children without provoking them. Do ordinary work as unto Christ.

This is important for reading Nee. His language can sound elevated, but the test of “Christ as life” is mundane.

“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20, ASV).

The highest spirituality must survive the dining table.

Walking by the Spirit

Galatians provides a parallel to Ephesians: “Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16, ASV).

The fruit that follows is moral and relational: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.

Nee's language of spirit becomes safest when anchored here. The evidence of walking by the Spirit is not unusual inward sensation but Christlike fruit.

A person who claims spiritual intuition while lacking self-control has reason to question the claim.

Walking Worthily in Public Life

Nee often tried to keep the church separate from partisan politics, but Ephesians' call to a worthy walk still applies to public life. Christians pay taxes, conduct business, hold citizenship, encounter injustice, and influence communities.

“Walk in wisdom toward them that are without” (Colossians 4:5, ASV).

The church's public witness depends not only on what it says about Christ but how believers behave when no explicitly religious activity is occurring.

Business honesty, treatment of employees, speech about opponents, sexual integrity, and care for the poor all belong to the walk.

The Worthy Walk and the Ordinary Shape of Holiness

Nee's emphasis on Christ as life could sound mystical if separated from the second half of Ephesians. Paul will not permit that separation. The heavenly position of chapters 1-3 produces an intensely practical walk in chapters 4-6.

“I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called” (Ephesians 4:1, ASV). The word “therefore” joins doctrine and conduct. Grace does not eliminate ethics; it creates the only stable ground for them.

The first qualities Paul names are not spectacular gifts: lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, and bearing with one another in love. This is a searching test of spirituality. A believer may speak persuasively about heavenly realities while remaining impatient at home, defensive in meetings, unreliable with commitments, or harsh toward weakness. Paul measures the walk where other people can feel it.

Nee repeatedly returned to the principle that Christ must become practical. If Christ is our life, then His life should increasingly appear in speech, money, marriage, work, forgiveness, sexuality, and the treatment of inconvenient people.

Ephesians 4 makes truthfulness corporate: “putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor: for we are members one of another” (Ephesians 4:25, ASV). Lying is not merely breaking a private rule; it injures one's own body. The doctrine of the Body becomes an ethic of honesty.

Anger receives similar treatment. “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26, ASV). Paul does not pretend anger never arises. He commands that it not become settled territory for sin. A spiritual person is not one who has learned to label anger “soulish” and deny it. Maturity names emotion truthfully, submits it to God, and seeks reconciliation.

Work also becomes transformed. The thief is not merely told to stop stealing but to labor “that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need” (Ephesians 4:28, ASV). Grace turns acquisition into generosity. The goal is more than negative morality; it is a new purpose.

Speech must impart grace: “Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may be” (Ephesians 4:29, ASV). The criterion is not simply whether a statement is technically true. Does it build according to the need? Truth can be weaponized. Christian speech joins truth and love.

Ephesians 5 adds sexual holiness, wise use of time, worship, gratitude, and mutual submission. The command to be filled with the Spirit is followed by singing, thanksgiving, and relational conduct. Spirit-filled life is not confined to extraordinary meetings. It reaches the dinner table.

Nee's own teaching on family relationships reflected the assumptions of his era and should be read with care. Any application of household texts must be governed by Christ's self-giving love, the dignity of every believer, and the prohibition of coercive domination. Paul's standard for husbands is not entitlement but the cross: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it” (Ephesians 5:25, ASV).

The worthy walk therefore protects Nee's doctrine of resting in Christ from becoming quietism. Grace produces effort, but effort has changed roots. The believer does not obey in order to become accepted; he obeys because he is accepted in the Beloved. He does not manufacture spiritual life; he offers his members to the God whose life is already at work within.

This is where Nee's famous progression has pastoral wisdom. Sit first. Then walk. Reversing the order creates legalism. Omitting the walk creates unreality.