Chapter 2 Watchman Nee’s Theology and Interpretation of Scripture
2. Person over Method: Spiritual Prerequisites for Scriptural Reading
interpretation of Scripture. On the contrary, Nee devotes a large portion of his treatment of Scripture to discussing human prerequisites for being a minister of the word.
he cannot know the Bible either.”108 This spirit, Nee explains, is no natural human spirit;
instead, it is the “regenerated spirit”—the spirit of every regenerated believer.109 One
implication of this argument is that only believers can truly read Scripture in a proper manner.
Nee puts it candidly: “No matter how clever and well educated a man is, as long as he is not regenerated, this book is a mystery to him. A regenerated person may not be that cultivated, but he is more qualified to read the Bible than an unregenerated college professor.”110
Being regenerated by the Holy Spirit is a necessary precondition to read Scripture. But that is just a first step. The ideal reader of Scripture is, according to Nee, what he calls the
“spiritual person.”111 The remainder of the first part of his How to Study the Bible is basically a detailed exposition of what it means to be the spiritual person who reads Scripture well. Nee does this by utilizing several metaphors he draws from Scripture itself, and in so doing, he unveils certain theological-hermeneutical assumptions along the way. In what follows, I will look at only one metaphor—that of light/vision—Nee uses to describe the character of the spiritual reader of Scripture.
Drawing from 2 Corinthians 3:18, Nee points out that the basic qualification for being enlightened by the glory of the Lord is to behold Him with “unveiled face,” which he interprets
108 Nee, How to Study the Bible: Practical Advice for Receiving Light from God’s Word, 9–10.
109 Nee draws this conclusion from his treatment of three texts from the Gospel of John. As he summarizes it, “We should put John 4:24, 6:63, and 3:6 together: ‘God is Spirit,’ ‘The words which I have
spoken…are spirit,’ and ‘That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’ The words in the Bible are spirit. The life which a man receives at the time of regeneration is spirit, and it takes a man with spirit to read the words of spirit.” Ibid., 10.
110 Nee, How to Study the Bible: Practical Advice for Receiving Light from God’s Word, 10.
111 Grounding his discussion from 1 Corinthians 2 and 3, Nee discerns three kinds of persons in relation to Scripture. First, the natural or soulish person. The natural person is a non-believer, without a regenerated spirit, and does not have the proper faculties to understand Scripture. Second, the fleshy person or the carnal Christian.
Although they have a regenerated spirit in them, carnal Christians do not walk according to this spirit but
according to the flesh. Consequently, they can only be fed with “milk” and not “solid food,” which means that they receive revelation only indirectly from the spiritual person—just as, Nee reasons, milk is something that is first digested by the mother. The third is the spiritual person, who walks according to the principle of the Spirit and to whom the revelation is given abundantly, as “spiritual things can only be communicated to spiritual man.” See Ibid., 16–17.
as a heart’s disposition to be completely open to God. Nee then applies this to Scripture reading, positing that only those who are open to God can be enlightened enough to see God’s glory in Scripture. To Nee, this explains why some people struggle to understand Scripture. He compares this with someone who never sees the radiance of the sun because they always sit inside a room with a closed door and windows. Nee writes, “The problem is not with the light but with the person. Light will only shine on those who are open to it. This is true of physical light, and this is also true of spiritual light. Whenever we lock ourselves in, light cannot shine through…. We must not pay attention just to reading and studying; rather, we should ask if we are open before the Lord.”112 He further argues that the amount of shining depends also on the amount of openness to God. This accounts for the various degrees of light readers experience when they read Scripture: full openness to God results in full understanding of Scripture, partial openness results in partial understanding, and no openness results in complete darkness. In short, our spiritual state before the Lord determines our (in)ability to understand Scripture. But the reverse is also true: our engagement with Scripture reveals our true spiritual condition. As Nee puts it, “Any lack of sight that we experience, whether great or small, complete or partial, means that we are in darkness. We should never consider it a small thing to find ourselves having difficulty understanding the Bible. If we have difficulty understanding the Bible, it can only mean one thing: We are living in darkness!”113
Nee further develops this notion of openness to God in terms of our obedience to the word.114 Taking his cue from John 7:17 (“If anyone resolves to do His will, he will know
112 Nee, 17–18. Emphasis mine.
113 Nee, 18. He writes further, “The Bible exposes our condition…. If we want to know what a person is like in character and habit, all we have to do is to show him a chapter of the Scriptures and see what he gets out of it. The kind of person he is will determine the kind of reading he will have. A curious man will find the Bible full of curious things. An intellectual person will find the Bible full of reasonings. A simple-minded person will find the Bible merely a collection of verses” (25-26).
114 In addition to the practice of obedience, Nee also offers three practical traits of the spiritual person.
They are: not being subjective, not being careless, and not being curious. Although at times described as reading
concerning the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself”), Nee argues that obedience is a condition for knowing God’s word.
First there is a right attitude, and then there is revelation. If we respond to the revelation with obedience, we will have more of the right attitude and will receive more
revelation…. One experience of obedience will lead to another experience and then to even more obedience. One experience of light will lead to another experience and then to even more light. God’s will is behind every arrangement He has made.115
The interpretive process works like a hermeneutical spiral that brings the reader deeper and deeper into the light of scriptural revelation—provided that the reader continues in active obedience. This arrangement, Nee argues, is orchestrated by divine will. Thus, while Nee emphasizes our spiritual responsibility to receive and perceive God’s revelatory light, he still maintains the divine prerogative in the process. As he puts it, “God is never short of light, but whenever He sees any unwillingness on our part, He will hold back His speaking…. If there is any unwillingness on our part, the Holy Spirit will shy away; He will retreat and not release Himself in a cheap way.”116 In this way, Nee strives to struck a balance between divine and human agency in the spiritual process of scriptural interpretation.