You can follow this series backwards by going to Chapter Three here.Watchman Nee devotes Chapter Four to the subject of spiritual discernment (seeing a person’s real need). (38) He warns against the tendency to prescribe treatment without first adequately diagnosing the problem. (39)
Nee explains that, lacking diagnostic instruments, we are used by God as a sort of spiritual thermometer. Whereas a physician may be able to cure a patient from a disease he also shares, such is not the case for the spiritual healer. We must experience the cure before treating the disease. (41)
He underscores the importance for us to be broken in order to allow God’s Spirit inside us to connect with the person to whom we are ministering. If we remain unbroken, there is no way for us to effectively engage another individual or diagnose his spiritual problem. (42) Utilizing God’s Spirit, we then can discern the person’s prominent feature. Does he exhibit a hardened spirit, a prideful spirit, a sorrowful spirit or an unforgiving spirit? When an individual’s outer person is unbroken, it dominates the inner person. In such a person, the outer person (soul) must be dealt with in order to impact the inner person (spirit). (43)
Nee warns that one should not mistake this instruction about touching the spirit of another as implying that any person can discern another’s spiritual condition in totality. (44) He then goes on to say something which I find a little confusing at this stage of my understanding of Nee’s thesis. He writes: Our spirit is released according to the degree of our brokenness. (44) He speaks of degrees of brokenness in that some are more broken than others. When I think of a glass vase, it is either broken or it is not. I have been trying to discern if Nee’s brokenness language describes the crisis experience of entire sanctification. Using that language (while completely understanding that the process of growing in practical holiness is ongoing both prior to and following that crisis experience) one is either entirely sanctified or one is not; one has either offered oneself as a living sacrifice or one has not; and one is either broken or one is not. This may involve limitations imposed by carrying an analogy too far, or perhaps this will become clearer in future chapters.
One possible explanation is that brokenness comes in stages, or should we say affects the whole by progressing from one area to another. For instance, the area of pride: Is it possible that a person could be broken with regard to pride, but not broken with regard to some other character trait?
So, after four chapters, how do you understand Nee’s brokenness language? Is this another way of speaking of sanctification? Or is this, in the words of Monty Python, something completely different?
Nee explains that, lacking diagnostic instruments, we are used by God as a sort of spiritual thermometer. Whereas a physician may be able to cure a patient from a disease he also shares, such is not the case for the spiritual healer. We must experience the cure before treating the disease. (41)
He underscores the importance for us to be broken in order to allow God’s Spirit inside us to connect with the person to whom we are ministering. If we remain unbroken, there is no way for us to effectively engage another individual or diagnose his spiritual problem. (42) Utilizing God’s Spirit, we then can discern the person’s prominent feature. Does he exhibit a hardened spirit, a prideful spirit, a sorrowful spirit or an unforgiving spirit? When an individual’s outer person is unbroken, it dominates the inner person. In such a person, the outer person (soul) must be dealt with in order to impact the inner person (spirit). (43)
Nee warns that one should not mistake this instruction about touching the spirit of another as implying that any person can discern another’s spiritual condition in totality. (44) He then goes on to say something which I find a little confusing at this stage of my understanding of Nee’s thesis. He writes: Our spirit is released according to the degree of our brokenness. (44) He speaks of degrees of brokenness in that some are more broken than others. When I think of a glass vase, it is either broken or it is not. I have been trying to discern if Nee’s brokenness language describes the crisis experience of entire sanctification. Using that language (while completely understanding that the process of growing in practical holiness is ongoing both prior to and following that crisis experience) one is either entirely sanctified or one is not; one has either offered oneself as a living sacrifice or one has not; and one is either broken or one is not. This may involve limitations imposed by carrying an analogy too far, or perhaps this will become clearer in future chapters.
One possible explanation is that brokenness comes in stages, or should we say affects the whole by progressing from one area to another. For instance, the area of pride: Is it possible that a person could be broken with regard to pride, but not broken with regard to some other character trait?
So, after four chapters, how do you understand Nee’s brokenness language? Is this another way of speaking of sanctification? Or is this, in the words of Monty Python, something completely different?
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