Watchman Nee

Watchman Nee (1903-1972) was a unique gift given by the Lord to His Body in the twentieth century. Many in the West are familiar with fragments of his ministry published in such classics as The Normal Christian Life and Sit, Walk, Stand.

Born into a Christian family and consecrated by his mother to the Lord's service from his birth, Watchman Nee became a Christian in mainland China in 1920 at the age of seventeen. An extremely intelligent and ambitious young man, Watchman Nee had a deep realization that if he received Jesus Christ as his Savior, he must also serve Him. At the moment of his salvation, he abandoned his plans for his future and gave himself to be a servant of the Lord. He later testified, "From the evening I was saved, I began to have a new life, for the life of the eternal God had entered into me."

Watchman Nee became a diligent student both of the Bible and of the classical Christian writings of all ages. In the early days of his ministry he spent one-third of his income on his personal needs, one-third on helping others, and the remaining third on spiritual books. He acquired a collection of more than 3,000 of the best Christian books. From these he applied both his spiritual discernment and his mental gifts to glean the profitable scriptural points and spiritual principles from throughout church history and synthesize them into his vision and practice of the Christian life and of the church life.

At the center of the revelation Watchman Nee received were three items:

1. The living of a crucified life,
2. The living of a resurrected life, and
3. the issue of such a living, the church.

He realized Christ's crucifixion was not just an objective historical fact, but that it was also to be applied to the believers subjectively. As Paul said in Galatians 2:20 he realized that he had been crucified with Christ, that it was no longer he that lived, but Christ Who lived in him. Furthermore, Watchman Nee saw that he had not only died with Christ, but that he had also risen with Him. The resurrected Christ as the Spirit had become his life. Therefore, the proper Christian living was one of dying to self through the cross of Christ and living in Christ in resurrection by the Spirit of Christ. Watchman Nee went on to see that the church as the Body of Christ was simply the enlargement, expansion, and expression of the resurrected Christ. The more his ministry progressed, the more he ministered the resurrected Christ to the believers and to the local churches. The resurrected Christ became not only his life and living, but also his message and ministry.

As young believers in China seeking to live to God according to what is revealed in His word. What they discovered was that the pattern of the practice of the church in the New Testament was that the one unique Body of Christ was to be manifested in local churches. Watchman Nee testified:

When the Lord called me to serve Him, the primary objective was not to hold revival meetings, help people hear more scriptural doctrines, or for me to become a great evangelist. The Lord revealed to me that He desired to build up local churches in various places to manifest Himself and to bear the testimony of unity on the ground of the local churches. In this way, each saint [believer] is able to function in the church and live the church life. What God wants is not individuals trying to be victorious or spiritual; He wants a corporate glorious church presented to Himself.

Watchman Nee remained faithful through his life to what the Lord had shown him. Throughout the course of his ministry he suffered from poverty, ill health, criticism from denominational groups, dissenting brothers and sisters in the local churches, and finally imprisonment. In 1952 he was imprisoned for his faith by the Communist government in China. He remained in prison until his death in 1972. According to an account by his grandniece, who accompanied his wife's eldest sister to the labor farm to pick up his ashes, before his death Watchman Nee placed the following note under his pillow:

Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ. Watchman Nee.

Although under God's sovereignty Watchman Nee was imprisoned and eventually martyred, the fruits of his faithfulness to the Lord in his life and ministry continue. By the time of his arrest, approximately four hundred local churches had been raised up in China, as well as over thirty local churches had been raised up in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Today the Lord has multiplied the local churches to over 2,300 worldwide and has continued to feed the Lord's seekers through the words of Watchman Nee.

For more information on the life and ministry of Watchman Nee, visit www.watchmannee.org.