WATCHMAN NEE & WITNESS
LEE
Miles J. Stanford
THE LITTLE
FLOCK MOVEMENT
The late Watchman Nee was the Chinese founder and leader
of the assembly-type movement named after the Brethren The Little Flock
hymnal--although it had no connection with the Plymouth
Brethren movement. Having emerged in the early 1920's, by 1950 there were some
200 assemblies established in China, with numbers of them spreading later into Taiwan and
other parts of Asia.
Nee sought to pattern the assemblies after the New
Testament, and they turned out to be a combination of his extreme views, Darby's closed
views, Muller's open views, and T. Austin-Sparks' moderate views. The stress was on
locality--each group an independent unit representing the Church in its particular
area. In the larger cities, each assembly was to be in a different postal
zone. Believers were required to attend the gathering in their particular home area
or zone, none other. Like the Brethren, a number of the assemblies would congregate
centrally from time to time for a weekend teaching conference.
China being largely unevangelized, Nee formulated an
extensive year-long program for training believers in evangelism and soulwinning.
His further emphasis was that of growth based on the identification truths. His
classic, The Normal Christian Life, depicts the latter.
In his tendency toward extremism, Nee went into the
"warfare" teaching of Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis and Evan Roberts via their
dangerous book, War on the Saints. Hence much of the good of Nee's
ministry and writings (some thirty volumes of his messages are in print at present) has
been overshadowed by errors such as the Arminian "baptism in the Holy Ghost" for
power in service and spiritual warfare, exercise of the sign gifts (tongues not stressed),
healing in the atonement, inner light and intuitive revelation, demon possession of
believers, and exorcism.
Nee also taught a split, or, partial Rapture, i.e., the
"overcomers" will be caught up prior to the Tribulation, the
"unprepared" believers will experience the holocaust. All of the,
teachings mentioned here are in his books, The Release of the Spirit, and
The
Spiritual Man (the latter in three volumes).
In 1952, as leader of the Little Flock movement, Nee was
imprisoned in Shanghai by the Communists. Twenty years later, in early 1972, he was
released. A few months thereafter, at three-score and ten years, the venerable
Watchman Nee went to be with his Lord.
In 1956 the Little Flock movement was crushed by the
people (government-backed) as "counter revolutionary." Several months
later the movement was completely reorganized and formally joined the Three Self
movement. "Three Self" stands for self-governing, self-supporting, and
self-propagating. What it really means to the Reds [Chinese Communists] is freedom
from imperialist control, imperialist finance, and imperialist "poison."
THE WITNESS LEE
MOVEMENT
A disciple of Watchman Nee, Witness Lee founded his
assembly movement in Los Angeles some forty-five years ago. Since that time he and
his followers have been setting up numerous gatherings throughout the country.
Formerly, he was active in China and Taiwan.
A typical feature of all assembly-type movements is their
subjection to the domination of their founders. An exception is the open Brethren;
their individual assemblies are usually held in line by one or more local leaders.
But within the history of assembly leadership, Witness Lee takes precedence in being the
autocrat of them all, including Darby. And as for extreme teachings, he has
outstripped his mentor.
The large and noisy ruling assembly from which Lee governs
all is titled "The Church in Los Angeles." He maintains that God is
present only in the local assemblies--theirs, that is. All others are outside the
will and blessing of God. He stresses that Christian "victory" is not
gained by teaching, doctrine, or prayer, but by just four words of praise. The
assemblies often repeat in unison, either spoken, sung, or shouted: "O Lord, Amen,
Hallelujah!"
Lee's method of teaching and control is a definite form of
brainwashing. All who join his assemblies are admonished to forget all the doctrine
they ever knew, and submit to the ways and teachings of the Leeites. Some
disgruntled open [Plymouth] Brethren have gone over to Lee, and because of a resemblance
to the Children of God movement, many Jesus People have also joined the ranks.
[Provided below are excerpts from the written
teachings of both Nee and Lee which will provide support for our evaluation and
conclusions.]
New To The Word
-- In no area of your Christian life is it more essential to be centered in the
truth of the Word than in your fellowship with the Father. This is especially so as
you behold from your position the glory of the Son "who is the image of the
invisible God" (Col. 1:15).
You can best study Him from your position in
the heavenlies, in His very presence; but you must behold Him in His
proclamation, in His Word of truth. It is within the realm of the written truth
alone that the Spirit of Truth will conform you to the image of the One who is the Truth.
"For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and
truth"
(Eph. 5:9).
True To The Truth
--
Your knowledge of the Lord Jesus, your beholding His glory, can never be based upon
imagination, nor upon the imagination of others in their writings and artistry. No,
not even Sallman's "Head of Christ!" If you are going to know the reality
of personal fellowship with the Lord Jesus, if His blessed life is going to be manifested
in your mortal body, you will have to remain a doctrinally sound and biblically centered
believer.
What John said of his converts, he says to
you: "For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth
that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. I have no greater joy than to
hear that my children walk in truth." "Whosoever transgresseth, and
abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son" (III John 3,4; II John 9).
Doctrinal Discernment
--
Every aspect of your Christian life is totally dependent upon the written Word of God and
the doctrine that is true to it. Sound doctrine is that teaching which is based upon
scriptural principles. It is in the realm of doctrine that you can most readily
discern whether or not a speaker or writer is safe and sound. "Now I
beseech you, brethren, mark them who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine
which ye have learned; and avoid them" (Rom. 16:17).
WATCHMAN NEE BOOKS
-- Since the principal mode of ministering the growth truths today is literature, it may
be helpful for us to examine some of the contents of several books produced by one of the
better known "deeper life" leaders. We refer to Watchman Nee, concerning
whom we have shared above.
THE SPIRITUAL
MAN
This three-volume work of Nee's is the only
thing he ever wrote for publication. This was written but eight years after he
became a Christian, and in it we find the inception of his "inner
light," "inner
voice," and "revelation"
teachings.
Volume I, page 32 -- "INTUITION"
-- Nee says:
Intuition is the sensing organ of the human
spirit. That knowledge which comes to us without any help from the mind, emotion or
volition come intuitively. The revelations of God and all the movements of the Holy
Spirit are known to the believer through his intuition."
Volume I, page 149 -- Again he states:
Spiritual life is maintained simply by heeding the
direction of the spirit's intuition. The believer will wait quietly for the
voice
of the Holy Spirit to be heard in his spirit, intuitively. Upon hearing the
inner
voice he rises up to work, obeying the direction of intuition."
Volume II, page 31 & 74 -- Here Nee says:
Well do we begin if we follow intuition instead of
thought. To perform God's will a Christian need simply heed the direction of his
intuition. There is no necessity to ask others, or even to ask yourself.
When Nee gives this
"intuition" first place,
the mind and thought are thereby relegated to a secondary position. In doing so he
gives his "inner light, " "inner voice" and "revelation" first place and consequently consigns the Word of God to an
inferior role.
Volume III, page 23 & 24 -- Here he
leaves no question:
The believer must follow the revelation of his
intuition, not the though in his head. He who heeds the mind is
walking after the flesh and is accordingly led astray. Nevertheless, we have not
said that the mind is entirely useless. True, we make a great mistake if we elevate
the mind as the organ for direct fellowship with God for receiving revelation from Him;
yet it does have a role assigned to it. That role is to assist
intuition.
This is a far cry from Paul's Bereans!
"These
were more noble that those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all
readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily" (Acts 17:11). Paul
also said, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove
what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." "Let every
man be fully persuaded in his own mind" (Rom. 12:2; 14:5).
Someone has well said, "Believing is a
mode of thinking. It is that particular manner of thinking that is guided
to its object by the testimony of another, or by some kind of intermediation, such as the
Bible. It is not intuitive." "Give attendance to
reading, to exhortation, to doctrine" (1 Tim. 5:17).
Volume II, page 195 -- "PERFECTIONISM"
-- One basic error leads to another.
Whoever genuinely desires to be perfect must let
the Cross cut deep into his emotion.
On page 256 Nee goes on to say that
when a believer has experienced the practical
treatment of the Cross he finally arrives at a pure life. His soulish life has been
terminated and the Lord has granted him a pure, restful, true and believing spiritual
life. That which is soulish has been destroyed but that which is spiritual has been
established.
Volume III, page 149 -- Finally Nee writes:
They forget that unless all nerve responses,
sensations, actions, conduct, words, food and speech which belong to the body are utterly
for the Lord, they can never arrive at perfection.
"THE BAPTISM,"
"WARFARE," & "DEMONISM" -- Watchman Nee's faulty
foundation due to lack of sound doctrine led him into "the baptism in the Spirit for
power and spiritual warfare," and inevitably on into "demonism" as taught
by Jessie Penn-Lewis and Evan Roberts. He followed to the letter and quoted without
question their dangerous textbook, War on the Saints.
Volume II, page 39 -- "THE
BAPTISM" -- In The Spiritual Man we can see the beginnings of the
familiar Pentecostal-type pattern.
In seeking the might of the Holy Spirit we must
keep our mind clear and our will alive, thereby guarding ourselves from the enemy's
counterfeit. We must also let God purge from our life anything sinful, unrighteous
or doubtful. We then should 'receive that promise of the Spirit' by faith.
Should there be delay, use the opportunity for
closer scrutiny of your life beneath His light. Gladly accept any feeling which does
come with power; for if God deems it suitable not to accompany power with feeling, simply
believe He has indeed fulfilled His Word. How does one judge whether he has received
the promise or not? By looking into his experience. He who has received power
has his spiritual senses sharpened and also possesses an utterance--not of this world--to
witness for the Lord.
Volume II, page 55-57 -- "WARFARE"
-- Penn-Lewis and Roberts found to their sorrow that what they considered to be the best,
turned out to be the worst. The "baptism" inexorably leads to
"warfare." In this Nee was no exception.
Upon experiencing the baptism that believer's
intuition becomes acutely sensitive and he discovers in his spirit a spiritual world
opening before him.
Now it is just here that spiritual warfare begins.
This is the period when the power of darkness disguises himself as an angel of
light and even attempts to counterfeit the person and work of the Holy Spirit. It is
also the moment when the intuition is made aware of the existence of a spiritual domain
and of a reality of Satan and his evil spirits. Spirit-baptism marks the starting
point of spiritual warfare.
Volume II, page 60-64 -- TO THE "BATTLE"
Even now a battle is raging in the world of the
spirit. Though unobserved by the eyes of the flesh, it is sensed and proven by those
who are seeking heavenly progress. Many who are deceived and bound by the enemy need
to be released. When the evil spirits succeed in their deceptions they gain a
foothold in the believer.
Now obviously he who himself is bound cannot
possibly set other free. Only when wholly freed experientially from the powers of
darkness can the believer himself overcome the foe and rescue others. The incidence
of the danger of deception increases in proportion to the numbers of those who experience
the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
If the believer forgets that the enemy may
influence his spirit as much as the Holy Spirit can, he unwittingly may accept every
moving in his spirit to be from the Holy Spirit and thereby cede ground to Satan for
pursuing his aim of destroying the moral, mental, and physical well-being of the saint.
This is exactly what has happened to many who have experienced 'the baptism in the
Holy Spirit.'"
Volume III, page 120, 126, 131 -- "DEMON
POSSESSION" -- Shades of the instigators of this error, Mrs. Penn-Lewis and
Mr. Roberts. And the end is not yet. Now it has come to demon possession of
believers!
Deception unlatches the gate for evil spirits to
rush in; passivity provides a place for them to stay; and the result of these two is
entrenchment.
The powers of darkness pay no attention to one's
resolve, but should he choose with his will to oppose them through the power of God then
they will most certainly flee. Just as in the beginning the believer permitted the
evil spirits to enter, so now he chooses the very opposite, the undercutting of any
footing of the enemy. Everything hinges on the volition. The evil spirits will
withdraw if the believer's volition withstands them and forbids them to occupy his organs
any further.
Volume III, page 224, 225 -- "VICTORY
OVER DEATH" -- Having gone this far in his doctrinal deviation, it was but a
step for Nee to follow Evan Roberts in his teaching on "overcoming death."
Nee finally writes,
The Lord will enable you to overcome death.
So lay hold of the promise of God has given you, ask for life, and trust that nothing can
harm you. Do not concede to the power of death, or else it will touch you.
For instance, you may be staying in a
disease-infected area; yet you can withstand all diseases and not permit anything to come
upon you. Do not let death attach you through sickness.
No longer can we wait passively for the Lord's
return, comforting ourselves with the thought that we will be raptured anyway. We
must be prepared. Death must be singularly resisted and rapture must be claimed
wholeheartedly.
THE RELEASE OF THE SPIRIT
Publication Data -- Watchman Nee
was saved in 1920, at the age of seventeen. In 1928 he wrote The Spiritual Man
in three volumes. The edition we have referred to in the previous section was
published in 1968 by Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc. This organization is
composed of devotees of Watchman Nee and his disciple, Witness Lee. It is now [1974]
located in Washington, D.C.
At the beginning of Vol. I, in the publisher's
"Explanatory Notes, " is this startling statement:
Long after this book's initial publication in Chinese our
brother Nee was once heard to express the thought that it should not be reprinted because,
it being such a 'perfect' treatment of its subject, he was fearful lest the book become to
its readers merely a manual for principles and not a guide to experience as well.
There was no need for brother Nee to fear that which he
considered to be perfect, but rather should he have realized and feared the book's
imperfections--errors of a very serious nature, as we have seen.
The Normal Christian Life -- In
the late 1930's Nee visited England and came in contact with some of the Exclusive
Plymouth Brethren leaders, as well as Mr. T. Austin-Sparks of the Honor Oak movement.
The brief but effective influence of these associations, especially that
of Sparks, is reflected in a series of messages Nee gave to a group of his co-workers upon
returning to China in 1938. We have this material today in the form of Nee's
classic, The Normal Christian Life. The overall message of this book is
practically without peer. It has good doctrinal content, and the identification
truths are presented clearly with the Cross central and the Christ-life predominant.
The Release of the Spirit --
ANTI-DOCTRINAL -- However, nearly ten years later--in 1947--Nee gave a series of messages
at a co-workers conference, and these were subsequently published under the title of
The
Release of the Spirit. Here we have the errors of The Spiritual Man
confirmed and compounded.
Our reference is to the 1965 edition published by the
Fromke holiness group, Sure Foundation Publishers. Here we will deal with Nee's
anti-doctrinal attitude, without going into the book's strange and dangerous teaching of
projecting one's spirit to touch the spirit of the Bible, the spirit of others, etc.
PAGES 17, 88, 90 -- On page 17 Nee says:
Doctrine does not have much use, nor does theology. What
is the use of mere mental knowledge of the Bible if the outward man [the soul] remains
unbroken?
But God says, "All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness" (II Tim. 3:16). On page 88 Nee states:
We must clearly understand what is meant by being edified.
It cannot mean expanded thoughts, nor improved understanding, nor greater doctrinal
accumulation.
While on page 90 we see:
Do you not realize that edification is not a question of
doctrine, but of spirit? If your brother speaks through his spirit, you will be
washed and cleansed each time his spirit comes out and touches you. Any teaching of
doctrine which does not result in reviving the spirit can only be considered as dead
letter.
In direct contrast to such erroneous teaching the
Scripture makes it plain that growth and edification are dependent upon sound
doctrine--the truth of the Word. (This is not to be equated with the doctrinal
emphasis of Colonel Thieme). Thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ,
nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, unto which thou hast attained.
Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. In all things showing
theyself a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing uncorruptness. (I Tim. 4:6; Titus
2:1,7).
There is only one result of depised doctrine and that is
despicable error. Again on page 88 Nee says:
When there is the flowing of the spirit we will forget the
theology we have learned. All we know is that the Spirit has come. Instead of
mere knowledge we have an 'inner light.'
But Paul says to "preach the word; be diligent in
season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine
(II
Tim. 4:2).
MAN OVERBOARD! -- In this book
Nee substitutes his "inner light of revelation" for the Scriptural work of the Cross. He makes the following
radical statement on page 78:
Whatever is revealed 'in the light' is slain by it. Right
then and there your pride, your self, your flesh wither away and die with no hope of
survival.
There is more of the same on page 74:
As soon as the light strikes, the flesh is dead.
Dear friend, beware of any teaching, no matter what the
source might be, that denigrates doctrine and practically deletes the Cross.
Take
heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine; continue in them (I Tim. 4:16).
There are thirty or more books composed of Nee's spoken
messsages, and it is true that they contain much that is good. However, his material
includes too much abject error for him to be considered "safe and sound."
The following are excerpts from Witness Lee's magazine,
The
Stream. Lee, chief disciple of Watchman Nee, reveals herein what it means to
follow Nee. Like leader, like disciple. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine (II tim. 4:3).
Then the fourth thing that we must see in order to participate
is life! We all must know life. Revelation is a book of life. Do not pay
attention to the forms, the regulations, the teachings, the doctrines, Christianity and
religion. No, we must pay our full attention to life.
Today, if you were to ask me how to be victorious, I would tell
you that there is no need for you to try to be victorious. Just say from deep
within, "O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah! O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah! O Lord,
Amen, Hallelujah!" and you will be so victorious.
If you would go to the Lord and praise Him in this way (above)
for five or ten minutes, you will be over all, and strengthened in your spirit. Why?
It is because you contact the living Lord! It is not a religion, a
Christianity, a lot of doctrines, or a set of teachings, forms or regulations. No!
We do not need the Bible study classes; we need the weeping
classes to weep for the spiritual poverty and deadness. We must listen to the
Spirit--not just read what is written. We must listen to the present, instant
speaking of the living Spirit.
Why have Christians been divided? It is simply because of
the different teachings and doctrines. The more teachings there are, the more
divisions there will be. All the various teachings and opinions have done much
damage to the recovery of the church. I fear that some of us are still under the
influence of the Babylonian doctrines. May the Lord have mercy upon us that we may
forsake all of those teachings, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. Let
us go back to Jerusalem with the Spirit. We all must have our "heads cut
off."
Also see,