Chapter 2 Watchman Nee’s Theology and Interpretation of Scripture
5. Two Examples of Nee’s Bible Study Plans
than the first three. Nee reasons that since number three (3) signifies God, number four (which is 3 + 1) means anything that came out of God, i.e., God’s creation. Therefore, number four must be the number of creatures. Nee finds the justification on this reasoning in scriptural data itself:
Everything that relates to the creature is four in number. For example, there are four corners of the earth, four seasons, four winds, and four rivers that flow from the garden of Eden. The image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream has four sections. Four beasts come out of the sea. The living creatures that represent all creation are four in number. The Lord Jesus’ life on earth is recorded in four Gospels. Everything that is produced from God is four in number.152
Nee’s take on the significance of numbers six, seven, and twelve are no less intriguing.
Number six is a human number, for human was created on the sixth day. It also denotes that
“what man does can never match what God does,”153 for six is less than seven, which is the number of perfection. Although it is customary to regard number seven in Scripture as a symbol of perfection, Nee thinks that it symbolizes a temporary perfection, and not an eternal one. He writes,
Three is the number of God. Four is the number of the creature. The sum of the Creator with the creature is perfection. God plus man equals perfection. But this is only…
temporary perfection. Everything temporal in the Bible is signified by seven. For example, there are seven days to a week… seven churches in Revelation, seven
lampstands, seven messengers, seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. All these refer to temporal perfection rather than perfection in eternity.154
Eternal perfection belongs to number twelve. While there are a lot of sevens in the book of Revelation, Nee observes that in the new heaven and new earth there is no record of seven things. What we read instead, “[t]he New Jerusalem has twelve gates, twelve foundations, the names of the twelve apostles, twelve kinds of precious stones, and twelve pearls. The wall of
152 Ibid., 114.
153 Ibid.
154 Ibid.
the city was a hundred and forty-four cubits, which is twelve times twelve. All these will remain forever. Thus, twelve signifies eternal perfection.”155 What is more, Nee goes beyond this scriptural observation to theologically speculate on the difference between number seven and number twelve:
Three plus four is simply God plus man, the Creator plus the creature. But three times four is the Creator multiplied by the creature. This means that the two are mingled together. There is a difference between addition and multiplication. In multiplication, God and man are no longer separate. It is a oneness between the creating God and the created beings. Such a oneness is eternal. Hence, the perfection signified by twelve is an eternal perfection.156
While admittedly bizarre to modern ears, Nee’s interpretive numerology is not without its internal logic. He wishes to make an account of theological differences between temporal perfection and eternal perfection, between the initial act of creation and the final act of
union/consummation, and between the first step of being Christian and the higher life of being the spiritual man. If this is a proper theological distinction—which Nee thinks it is—then it should be reflected in all Scripture, including its numbers. Combining this theological conviction with some scriptural data along with basic mathematics, Nee creatively offers the numerical significance of number one to twelve in the Bible.
The second example that I will highlight is his study plan of following “the progression of doctrines in the Bible.” In this study plan Nee asks the readers to trace the development of a doctrine throughout Scripture. Underlying this method is Nee’s theological assumption about the progressive nature of God’s revelation in Scripture, which was touched upon earlier. Nee believes that “every time [God] grants us a new revelation, it is more advanced than the old ones.”157 The progressive nature of Scripture, however, does not mean that the previous
155 Ibid., 115.
156 Ibid.
157 Ibid., 140.
revelation in Scripture is obsolete, although he admits that “when compared to the total revelation, each revelation is incomplete.”158 So, for instance, “God’s revelation to Abraham was perfect at his time. But when we view it in the light of the total revelation today, we realize that the revelation to Abraham was not adequate. We have to learn to trace God’s revelation through Adam, Noah, Abraham, the children of Israel, Moses, etc., in a full and complete way.”159 This is no mere typical canonical reading of Scripture, because Nee is not primarily concerned with the historical process of the canonization of certain books in Scripture within a community of faith, along with its hermeneutical import. Rather, Nee thinks almost purely in a theological-spiritual manner: he believes that the order of the books within the canon of Scripture literally reflects God’s progressive revelation of himself to humanity. The newer, in other words, is better and fuller than the older. Yet the older is indispensable because it is still God’s.
Nee believes that any truth or topic in the Bible has its own scriptural history that is marked by the canonical order of Scripture. For example, Nee argues that the revelation in the New Testament is more advanced than the revelation in the Old Testament; the Acts of the Apostles is further advanced than the Gospels; Pauline epistles further advanced than the Acts;
and Johannine epistles and Revelation further along than Paul. Concerning studying a particular topic in Scripture, Nee instructs that one needs to find where it is first introduced, where it is developed and expanded, and where it is fully treated and settled. For
[e]very truth has its peak. The revelation is unveiled in one book, and then further revelations are unveiled in other books. When the progression reaches a certain book, the revelation peaks. For example, in studying the subject of righteousness, we have to start from Matthew and consider how this topic is first unveiled…. By the time we reach Romans and Galatians, the subject reaches its peak.160
158 Ibid., 141.
159 Ibid.
160 Ibid., 144–145.
Obviously, this narrowly constructed topical method raises a lot of questions both theologically and hermeneutically, which I will not address here. But for the purpose of this dissertation, it is sufficient to note that throughout his work, both in his theoretical-theological and practical-exegetical discussions, Nee is quite consistent with his overall approach to Scripture. Among other things, this reveals Nee’s fundamental conviction that God is the ultimate author of the whole canon of Scripture, one who providentially arranged his self-revelation in a decisively progressive manner.
Nee’s Theological Reading of Eve in Genesis 2: An Extended Example
Although we have seen bits and pieces of Nee’s exegesis above, it is necessary at this juncture to provide a more substantial example of his actual exegesis to tie together many of the previously mentioned elements of his hermeneutic. For this purpose, I have chosen Nee’s treatment of Genesis 2 in The Glorious Church: God’s View Concerning the Church. As the subtitle suggests, this work explores the nature of the church from a heavenly perspective: the church as triumphant and glorious counterpart of Christ. It does so through a figural reading of four women in Scripture: Eve in Genesis 2, the wife in Ephesians 5, the woman in Revelation 12, and the Bride in Revelation 21-22. Due to limited space, I will only discuss Nee’s treatment on Eve below.161
In his search for the church in Scripture, Nee begins with neither the Gospels nor the Acts of the Apostles, but from the very beginning: the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2.
161 Nee’s ecclesiology is a crucial subject of his theology that is worth a study of its own. Though his ecclesiology cannot be separated from his exegesis, as we will see shortly, the focus of the present study is the latter and not the former. For a scholarly treatment of Nee’s ecclesiology, see: May, “Watchman Nee and the Breaking of Bread”; Pamudji, “Little Flock Trilogy”; Lu, “Watchman Nee’s Doctrine of the Church with Special Reference to Its Contribution to the Local Church Movement.”
Drawing from 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5, Nee takes it for granted that Adam is a type of Christ, which means “all that God purposed in Adam was to be achieved in Christ.”162 If Adam is a type of Christ, Nee reasons, then Eve must be a type of the church, for Ephesians 5:22-32 reveals that the church is Christ’s wife. To Nee, this means that God’s purpose in creation is not only accomplished by Christ but is also by the church, as evidenced in Genesis 2:18: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet [sic] for him.”163 According to Nee, from the very beginning God has Christ and the church in his mind, and the church is intended to complement Christ in fulfilling God’s will.
“God’s purpose in creating the church is that she may be the help meet of Christ. Christ alone is only half; there must be another half, which is the church…. [H]aving Adam alone, or we may say, having Christ alone, is not enough to satisfy God’s heart….
[T]here must also be Eve, that is, there must also be the church. Then His heart will be satisfied.”164
Having identified Adam and Eve as Christ and the church, Nee then explores the meaning of the fact that Eve was created out of Adam. Nee contrasts this with the creation of other living creatures that were made of the earth:
All the beasts of the field, the cattle, and the birds… were made of earth. They were not taken out of Adam; therefore, they could not be the help meet to Adam…. Eve was formed out of a rib taken from Adam; therefore, Eve was the constituent of Adam. This means that the church comes out of Christ. Only that which is out of Christ can be the church. Anything that is not of Christ is not the church.165
That Eve was made from Adam (and not from the earth) significantly informs Nee’s
understanding of the nature of the church. Against the common evangelical notion of the church as a voluntary society, Nee remarkably presents a very high ecclesiology: the church is God’s
162 Watchman Nee, The Glorious Church (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1993), 25.
163 This is the Bible translation that Nee himself used. See Ibid., 26.
164 Ibid.
165 Ibid., 27.
(not man’s) creation; she was made out of Christ himself. Indeed, Nee goes so far to say, the church is Christ in another form!
The fact that Eve was made from Adam signifies that the church is made from Christ.
Eve was made from Adam’s rib. Since Eve came out from Adam, she was still Adam.
Then what is the church? The church is another form of Christ, just as Eve was another form of Adam. The church is just Christ. Oh, there are many people who think that the church is the coming together of the “people” who believe in the Lord and are saved.
No, this is not true! Then who constitutes the church? The church is only that portion which has been taken out of Christ. In other words, it is the man which God has made by using Christ as the material. It is not a man made of clay. The material of the church is Christ. Without Christ, the church has no position, no life, no living, and no
existence.166
Nee also adds his argument from Genesis 1:26-27. Carefully noting that there are mixed singular and plural pronouns in these verses, Nee sees them as another hint that God views Adam and Eve as one entity and yet two persons. As he puts it,
Verse 26 says, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them….” In the Hebrew language the word “man” is singular, but immediately
following, the plural pronoun “them” is used. The same pattern is used in verse 27 which says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” The noun “man” is singular, but the following pronoun “them” is plural. God created one man; but we can also say that He created two! One is two, and yet the two are one because Eve was in Adam.167
This demonstrates that for Nee every detail in Scripture is important because it is God’s detail.
The change of pronouns (from singular to plural, or vice versa) is no mistake, but is divinely intentional. Thus, while Nee may aware that Genesis 1 and 2 offer different accounts of the creation of man and woman, he does not theorize that they must come from two different sources in the manner of modern biblical scholarship. Instead, he offers a theological interpretation that posits that when God created Adam in chapter 1, Eve also was already included in Adam.
166 Ibid., 28–29.
167 Ibid., 27–28. His emphasis.
So, the church is in Christ, just as Eve was in Adam. But the opposite is also true: Christ is in the church. Nee argues this in two ways. First, he brings 1 Corinthians 10:17 into the discussion and suggests that the sacramental bread that Christians partake is that which makes the church church. His focus here is on the oneness of the church as it is signified by the one loaf of bread, which represents the one body of Christ. But Nee also stresses that Christ truly lives/resides in the church by means of this regular partaking of the Lord’s Supper.168 Against the mere sociological understanding of the church, Nee maintains that “[t]he church is not a matter of several Christians being put together with several other Christians. It is not so many
‘men’; it is a life. The church is the church only because there are many people who all share the same life, the same Christ. You have a portion of Christ, and he has a portion of Christ; each one of us has a portion of Christ.”169 This life of Christ that the church is, is given and received in the Eucharist; this bread is the portion (read: body) of Christ. Nee concludes, “When all of these portions of Christ are put together, there is the church.”170
Second, he returns to the Genesis principle: “Only that which was made of Adam’s rib was Eve.” Without the rib of Adam, Nee reasons, there would have been no Eve. “She could exist only because a part of Adam was in her. It is the same with the church.”171 Nee then interprets the rib/bone of Adam as the resurrection life, for when Christ was on the cross, none of his bones were broken. “Only that which is formed from the resurrection life of Christ is the
168 As Nee puts it rather remarkably, “For many centuries throughout the world, all Christians have taken a little portion of this loaf and eaten it! If you could take all the pieces they have eaten and put them together, they would become the whole church. The church is not an individual ‘I’ plus an individual ‘you.’ It is not Mr. Smith plus Mr. Jones or even all the Christians in the whole world put together. The church is the Christ in you, the Christ in him, and the Christ in all the Christians around the world throughout all the centuries put together. Our natural man has nothing to do with the church. The only part of us which is related to the church is the portion of the loaf which we have eaten. This is especially shown in the Gospel of John, where it is revealed that all those who believe in the Lord have Christ dwelling in them and are therefore one in the Spirit.” Ibid., 29.
169 Ibid., 32. Emphasis in original.
170 Ibid.
171 Ibid., 31.
church,” Nee asserts.172 Thus, the church is not only in Christ, but Christ—his life—is in the church as well.173
Furthermore, Nee is interested in the scriptural detail that Eve was created out of Adam’s rib when Adam was asleep. He interprets this as symbolizing that “God brought forth the church out of the death of Christ.”174 This death, however, is a special kind of death that Nee calls “Christ’s non-redemptive death.” Concerning this death, Nee writes:
Regarding the death of Christ, the words in Genesis 2 are very special. It says, “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam” (v. 21). This verse does not say that God caused Adam to die, but that He caused him to fall into a deep sleep. If death has been mentioned, then sin would be involved, because verse 17 in the preceding passage says that death and sin are related. Adam’s sleep typifies the aspect of Christ’s death which was not related to redemption. In the death of Christ there was an aspect which was not related to redemption but to the release of Himself. We are not saying that the death of Christ is not for redemption—we truly believe that it is—but His death involved an aspect which is not related to redemption. This aspect is the releasing of Himself for the creation of the church. It has nothing to do with sin. God is taking something out of Christ and using it to create the church. Therefore, “sleep” is used to typify His death through which man receives life.175
172 Ibid.
173 Nee offers some practical implications of this view for Christians: “The basis of our being a part of the church is our new birth, since it is then that Christ imparts Himself to us. Therefore, there is a need for us to live, behave, and act according to this life, the life of Christ. God cannot do anything more for us than to impart His Son into us that we may share the life of Christ. Even though we are just earthen vessels, there is a great treasure within us…. However, if we act according to ourselves, we are outside the church. Anything other than the portion of Christ in us is not the church; it is simply our own selves” (Nee, 31; Emphasis mine).
Thus, the twofold spiritual-practical outcome that Nee expects from seeing the church “from God’s point of view” are: (1) Christians are to live according to, or out of, the life of Christ and (2) they are not to live according to, or out of, themselves. To use Nee’s own terms, “if the church is to become a real church, two steps are necessary: the spreading or increase of Christ and the consuming of our self” (Ibid., 33. Emphasis mine). Or, as Nee puts it elsewhere, they are: the release of the spirit and the breaking of the outer man. The two steps are really two sides of the same coin and reflect the Holiness-Keswick influence in his theology. However, this illustrates not only that of the consistency of Nee’s theology and his exegesis, but also his ethico-practical interest in his
exegesis. In other words, Nee’s figural reading of Eve as the church is not purely an exegetical exercise in and for itself; rather, it always geared toward the overall spiritual-practical purpose of making the corporate spiritual man, which is the church as God sees it.
As a side note on this notion of the church as a corporate man in God’s eyes, Nee has a very intriguing, albeit cryptic, comment: “We must be clear that God does not want individuals. God created man, male and female. The male is singular, and the female is also singular. Christ is singular, and the church is also singular. In the sight of God there is only one Christ and only one church. In the future we will see that there is only one man in Hades and only one man in the heavens; there is no third man. In God’s eyes, He only sees two men in the whole world. First Corinthians 15 reveals that Adam is the first man and Christ is the last man. There are no others.
The Body of Christ, just as Eve, is one—not many!” Ibid., 32.
174 Nee, The Glorious Church, 36. Emphasis mine.
175 Ibid.