The Release of the Spirit • Summary and Conclusion

We started this journey through Watchman Nee’s classic The Release of the Spirit, back in July. For a short book, this one packs a punch. Find the entire series here.

Nee’s premise is that the outer person (the soul) must be broken to allow the inner person (the spirit) to fully engage Christ. This breaking process is something God is doing in the lives of all Believers. We often fight the process, not realizing that God is accomplishing something absolutely necessary. The longer we fight what God is doing, the longer (and more painful) the process is.

Nee warns that the unbroken person will find himself/herself consumed with so many things—most of them probably good things—that our hands will not be free to do that to which God is calling us. Being entangled with frivolous things, as well as allowing our soul to remain unbroken, keeps us from fully connecting with Christ, or engaging in the eternal work of the kingdom.

Just as God was not limited by the flesh of the Incarnate Christ (because Christ was completely connected to the Father and the Spirit), God wants that same freedom in working through Christ’s body—the church. This explains why it is so important for each Believer to be broken, ensuring God free reign in our lives.

Chapter Six was my favorite. Link to that post here. He writes: God must employ whatever means he thinks effective in breaking down any stronghold over which our [inner person] has no control. Nee reminds us that the trials and tribulations we whined about over the last five to ten years were being used by God to break the outer person, and to help us become the person God wants us to be. Even though we may be unaware of certain needs, the Holy Spirit knows exactly where we fall short, and what is necessary to fix it.

This book helped me look differently at the hard times I’ve faced, am facing, or will face in the future.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)

God, I know you love me without limit and that you want what’s best for me. If you choose to use suffering and trials to break in me what needs to be broken (and I know you do), then I ask for the grace to let go and allow you free access. Help me not to fight what is for my own good and for the good of your kingdom.

The Release of the Spirit • 10 (Two Very Different Ways)

Watchman Nee begins Chapter Ten by contrasting two different methods intended for spiritual edification: 1) An outward training in doctrine and exposition, which would amount to gaining head knowledge. 2) God’s intended method for edification, which is spirit touching spirit. (89) While Nee obviously elevates spirit to spirit contact over the simple act of gaining head knowledge, his biography shows an appreciation for education. He graduated from college, and even though he had no formal theological education, he was self-taught, having studied over 3,000 books.

Nee speaks of a deeper communion between believers, a spiritual fellowship in which spirit touches spirit. This is only possible between those whose outer persons have been broken. According to Nee, this is the Bible’s deep calling to deep (Psalm 42:7).

The writer examines two final issues by way of question and answer:

Q: While we are still unbroken, but beginning to recognize fleshly activity, should we try in our own strength to put a stop to such activity?

A: It is always right to put a stop to fleshly activity such as pride or temper, but in doing so one should not profess to be broken. That would be counterfeit. We must allow God to finish the work within us BEFORE we can expect the evidence of this to be manifest without. (93)

Q: Is there a difference between natural gentleness and the gentleness that comes through discipline?

A: Natural gentleness is not under the spirit’s control. Nee gives us the example of a naturally gentle person, whom the Lord calls to speak out strongly against sinful activity. That person’s natural gentleness may not allow him to do as he has been prompted because it is not under the spirit’s control. Anything that is natural has its own will and is independent of the spirit. (93)

Along with the Introduction, we have now looked at ten chapters. Did any of them (or maybe just a single concept) stand out as being particularly meaningful to you? I’ll share my answer to that question next week in Release of the Spirit (Summary and Conclusions).

The Release of the Spirit • 9 (Meekness in Brokenness)

I don't normally post these articles until Tuesday, but if I don't do it now, I may not have a chance until later in the week. Tuesday, we'll be flying home from a physically tiring, but spiritually refreshing weekend.

If you're wondering what this is, it is a series of chapter-by-chapter reviews (maybe summaries would be a better word) of one of the most incredible books I've read in a long time. Go back to the beginning to read a little about Watchman Nee. Just to get you started: After spending twenty years in a Chinese Communist prison, Nee died in 1972. Before he was arrested, he had planted 700 churches with attendance of over 700,000. You can read the whole series here, or by clicking on the Release of the Spirit link at the bottom of this post.

God adjusts the means and speed of his disciplining process as needed according to the subject, until finally the will is broken. (83f.) The result is that all who have been enlightened and disciplined share a common trait: they become meek, which is a sign of brokenness. (84)

This is not to say that anyone who has been broken will speak with a soft uncertain voice, or that anyone who speaks in such a voice has been broken. True meekness, as is stubbornness is a matter of character, not a matter of the speaking voice. (84)

Nee outlines four qualities which characterize the person who is meek:

1. Approachable - This person is easy to talk to, open to the ideas of others, and teachable. (85)
2. Sensitive - The broken person is aware of those around him; he is responsive to their needs, sensitive to their feelings and would never intentionally hurt another. (86)
3. Ready for Community Life - It requires a measure of meekness to successfully live in community with other believers. Without such meekness, one will be more concerned with self than with relationships. If any wrong is done, the broken will sense his indiscretion and make it right. He desires to live in unity. He is not only in harmony with the Body, but he also has the mind of Christ, the Head of the Body. (86-87)
4. Easily Edified - The unbroken person often tends to look down on those less gifted, less talented, and less educated than he. This makes it almost impossible to receive edification from anyone - seeing only those more gifted, more talented and more educated as worthy to speak into his life. The broken man, however, is able to receive from others without arrogance or prejudice. (87)

Nee defines edification as being nourished and revived by God from spirit-to-spirit contact. This can only happen through the help of brothers and sisters in Christ. (88)

Share stories of when you have been edified through spirit-to-spirit contact with a brother or sister in Christ. Next week (09 16 2008), we'll cover the final chapter, and then a week later we close this series with a final wrap-up.

The Release of the Spirit • 8 (What Impression Do We Give?)

Read the whole series here, or by clicking on the Release of the Spirit link at the bottom of this post.


In a previous chapter Watchman Nee wrote about a person’s most prominent feature. (43) When our outer person remains unbroken, that prominent feature is what we display to others. God must use discipline to break that prominent feature, because it blocks others from genuinely connecting with God. (77) This is because, when others look at us, they see our prominent feature rather than God living in us.

Along with discipline, God also works in us by enlightenment or revelation. As shared in Chapter Seven, revelation is when God enables us to see what he sees. In this context it is seeing what God sees in us. (72)

Of these two tools, revelation and discipline, discipline is usually a slower process. As already stated, God’s hand of discipline is often not recognized for what it is. That discipline, recognized or not, will continue until the outer person is broken, and the spirit is released, allowing God to be revealed through us. (81)

Nee writes that God is not nearly as concerned with what comes out of our mouths, as he is with what comes out of our inner person. (82) Every time we connect with other people, we leave an impression—they either see us or they see the Lord. (81) Getting back to our first point (the need for our prominent feature to be broken), God must discipline, reveal and destroy anything in us that gets in the way of others seeing God in and through our lives.

We have each dealt with both kinds of people, those whose lives point to God, and those whose lives point only to themselves. On different occasions, we have probably been both of those people. Can you give any examples of when you (or others) got in the way of people who needed to see God, because your (or their) outer person was not broken?

Release of the Spirit • 7 (Dividing and Revelation)

Read the whole series here, or by clicking on the Release of the Spirit link at the bottom of this post.

In Chapter Seven, Watchman Nee returns to the topic of dividing the spirit and soul, the inner and outer person. We referred to this in Chapter Two. This entails God breaking the outer person (the soul) and dividing it from the spirit.

Nee explained in chapter six how God uses discipline to break the outer person. All those things we are so quick to blame on other people or on bad luck are really the hand of God working in our lives to break the outer person. In this chapter, he teaches about how revelation (God’s Word) divides the soul and the spirit.

For this dividing process, Nee goes back to Hebrews 4:12,13 – For the word of the Lord is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (NIV) The writer begins by telling us two things about God’s Word: 1) For the word of the Lord is living… It is living in that it is not meant to be just information stored away for later retrieval. It is not dead print, but alive by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. 2) and active. The Word is active in that it goes to work on a person in such a way as to produce results. (68) The sharpest double-edged sword, though it may penetrate to divide joints and marrow, is not sharp enough to divide soul and spirit. For that we need God’s Word or revelation.

This piercing by God’s light reveals to us that the work we convinced ourselves was for God’s glory was really for our own glory. Instead of preaching the Gospel for the love of the lost, we preached out of our love for the acclaim of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Instead of being motivated by love for God, we have actually been motivated by love for self. (70f.) It does this by revealing the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

But what is revelation? Nee asks. Revelation enables us to see what God sees. (72) What is disguised to us is not hidden from God. What is hazy to us, is crystal clear to God.

So by the Holy Spirit’s discipline the outer person is broken, but it is divided from the inner person by the light of God’s revelation. In this way we are 1) broken to release the spirit, and 2) purified for God’s use.

Now that Nee has explained more fully the workings behind which the soul and spirit are divided, can you relate what God’s light has revealed to you in this purification process?

Release of the Spirit • 6 (Brokenness and Discipline)

I think Six is by far the best chapter so far. You can follow the series backward by accessing Chapter Five here. As always you can click on the Release of the Spirit link at the bottom of this post to see the entire series in one place.

In this chapter, Watchman Nee defines consecration as our willingness to be in the hands of God, and though consecration may be accomplished in just a few minutes, that does not mean God has completed the work of breaking the outer person. (57) God must employ whatever means He thinks effective in breaking down any stronghold over which our [inner person] has no control. (58)

Nee reminds us that the events of the last five to ten years have been used by God for our education. We may have whined about the trials because we did not recognize the hand of God. We may have been ignorant of the Spirit’s discipline and just thought we were having a long run of bad luck. The truth is that God has been using the circumstances of our lives to soften and break our outer person. (59) Consecration is submitting to God and saying, Do whatever you need to in order to make me into what and whom you want me to be. (60)

God will do whatever he has to in order to deal with every area of our lives. We may be completely unaware of certain needs, but the Holy Spirit knows exactly where we fall short and what is necessary to fix us. (61) It is easy for us to speak the words, Not my will but Thine be done, but more difficult to fully surrender to the discipline of the Holy Spirit. (62)

One must come to the place where self is no longer trusted. Lord, I am prone to mistakes. Unless [you are] merciful to me, unless [you] support me, unless [you] restrain me with your hand, I will be wrong again. Nee writes: This is the beginning of the destruction of the outer [person]. (63) The Holy Spirit is working to deliver us from everything in life that cannot be brought over into eternity. (64)

In hindsight, are there things you now know (that you didn’t know then) God was using for the breaking of your outer person?

The Release of the Spirit • 5 (The Church and God’s Work)

Sorry I had to miss last week's Release of the Spirit post. If you're just joining us, this is a review of Watchman Nee's book by the same title. Some newer editions have the title as Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit. You can follow the series backwards by going to week five here. Or, you can click on the Release of the Spirit link at the bottom of this post, which will assemble all my previous Watchman Nee posts in one place. I highy recommend getting a copy of Nee's book at Amazon. I've read it twice in the last six months or so, and it will go on my foundational books shelf. Those are the books I read and re-read every year or two.

Watchman Nee begins chapter five by explaining that prior to the Incarnation God’s work was not limited in any way by the flesh. Yes, by taking on the form of a servant, Nee says God’s work and power were [resticted] to this flesh, however, Christ’s humanity was not after all a limitation, because his outer person was fully subordinated to the Spirit of God working in his inner person. (49)

In this day and age God works through his church. God’s desire is to have the same freedom in working through the church that he enjoyed in working through the Incarnate Christ. This explains why it is so important for the outer person to be broken, allowing the release of the spirit. (51)

Nee examines these areas of Christian service in which the breaking of the outer person is vital: 1) Reading the Bible – In an unbroken state we will come to the Word to find support for our preconceived notions. It is in the release of the spirit that we connect with the heart of God, allowing the Word to read us as we read it. (52) 2) The Ministry of the Word – Nee defines the ministry of the Word as serving people with the Word of God. In complete brokenness there is nothing stopping the inner person from communicating the Word of God to those listening. They hear not just a voice, but are communicated to spirit to spirit. (54) 3) Preaching the Gospel – People do not get saved because of being intellectually convinced or emotionally titillated. Yes, reason and emotion are both important, but they are insufficient to change lives. The Spirit must be communicated by the spirit of the preacher to the spirit of the hearer. (54) This can only take place when the outer person is broken and does not impede spirit to spirit communication. (55)

How have you experienced spirit to spirit communication facilitated by the breaking of the outer person and the release of the spirit?

The Release of the Spirit • 4 (How to Know Man)

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?

The Release of the Spirit • 3 (Recognizing the Thing in Hand)

Follow the hyperlink to Chapter Two.

Nee begins Chapter Three by defining a concept he calls the thing in hand as anything which hinders us in our walk with God. (30) He writes that with the outward person unbroken, we will find ourselves consumed with so many things—most of them probably good things—that our hands will not be free to do that to which God is calling us. (30) It seems clear to me that now, more than at any other time in history, our enemy craftily fills our hands with the urgent responsibilities of busyness, to keep us from engaging the eternal work of the kingdom.

Further hindrance is caused when our spiritual hands are full because our inner person can only engage others by means of our outer person. When the outer person is entangled with extraneous things, the inner person is not free to connect. (33)

Nee contrasts the unsaved individual in whom the inner person is totally dominated by the outer person, with the Christian in whom God is working to reverse that situation. (34) It is only in breaking the outer person that an individual becomes fit for kingdom work. As long as we remain unbroken, God will continue utilizing life’s trials and heartaches to break us. (35) As long as we fail to recognize the hand of God working to break our outer person for our good and the good of the church, we will blame other for those very things God would use to make us fully functional in the kingdom. (36)

Nee writes, All that comes to us is ordered by God. (36) It may just be a matter of semantics, but I would word this a little differently. I do not believe that everything foisted upon us in life is God’s will, however, I would agree that once a bad thing happens to us, God’s desire is to use it for our good (Romans 8:28).

There is an immutable law of God’s working in us: His specific purpose is breaking us and releasing our spirit for free exercise. Nee says that no amount of pleading in prayer will change this fact. It’s the way it is, and the sooner we come to grips with it and cooperate with the process, the happier we will be. (36)

What do you see in your own hands or in the hands of others that is infringing upon kingdom priorities?

The Release of the Spirit • 2 (Before and After Brokenness)

In Chapter One, Watchman Nee introduced the idea that the outer person (soul) must be broken to allow the inner person (spirit) to fully engage Christ. In Chapter Two he informs us, The breaking of the outward [person] is the basic experience of all who serve God. This must be accomplished before He can use us in an effectual way. (19) While temporary successes may be achieved through the flesh (synonymous with the soul—as opposed to the spirit—in Nee’s context), sooner or later one must confess that only the Spirit can evoke real life change in us or those around us. (20)

We may reach out to God through our thoughts or emotions, but when we stop concentrating, or when emotion subsides, God’s presence is lost. God is spirit, and only spirit communes with spirit. The remedy is the breaking of the outward person. Nee cites the life of Brother Lawrence, a 17th century Carmelite Monastery kitchen worker who, because his outer person was broken, communed with God as well in the clatter of the kitchen as in his prayer closet. (25)

With the soul unbroken, we may feel it necessary to get away from other people and the distractions of daily living to commune with God. The problem is not the people or the distractions, but unbrokenness. (25f.) Rather than having to reconnect with God after every digression, we too can experience God’s presence both in running an errand and in private devotion, (26) changing a flat tire or singing a song of praise.

Nee utilizes the designators single or dual person. If the outer person is unbroken, the spirit and soul are entangled (single) so that both must be aimed either at daily tasks or communion with God. Once the two are separated (dual) by the breaking of the outer person, the soul can be engaged in work while the spirit is fully engaged in Christ. (28)

Only in the last paragraph of the chapter does Nee make it clear he is speaking about a two-fold work of God: the breaking of the outward [person] and the dividing of spirit and soul. (29) For the second he sites Hebrews 4:12 – For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit… This thought on dividing the outer person from the inner person is developed further in Chapter Seven.

Can you share examples of your breakthrough from limited success through the flesh to effecting real life change through the Spirit? Have you experienced the untangling of spirit and soul allowing for unbroken communion with God? Share with us.

The Release of the Spirit • 1 (The Importance of Brokenness)

(Apparently the title has been changed in this update. The new title is more descriptive of the book's themes, so I applaud the change.)

Last week we introduced the person of Watchman Nee (born Nee Shu-Tsu), who planted over 700 churches in rural China before being imprisoned for his faith, by the new Chinese Communist government in 1952. For twenty years, Nee remained in prison until his death at age 69.

Chapter one introduces the idea that the outer person (soul) must be broken to allow the inner person (spirit) to fully engage Christ. Nee reminds us of the ongoing struggle between the inner person and the outer person, between the spirit and the flesh. This conflict can only be answered by one thing: the soul’s brokenness. (9f.)

Nee is writing to believers. His question is not whether there is life within, but how to release that life. He uses the illustration of the kernel of wheat that falls to the ground. Through natural processes of temperature and humidity, the shell cracks allowing new life to emerge. That life could never escape with the shell unbroken. (11)

In writing about the alabaster jar of perfume, Nee notes that we are mistaken to treasure the jar above the contents. We are not antique collectors; we are not vase admirers; we are those who desire to smell only the fragrance of the ointment. (12) The container must be broken for the fragrance to emerge. In valuing the jar above the perfume, we too easily miss God’s purpose in the hurts and traumas of life. He is aiming at a single objective: the destroying or breaking of the outward [person]. (13)

This breaking process takes time, usually years. We cannot hurry the process, but we can drag it out unnecessarily by fighting against, rather than cooperating with, what God is doing. (14) Two reasons we might resist being broken: 1) we may not recognize the breaking process as a necessary work of God in our lives; (15) and/or 2) self-love – our natural inclination toward self preservation. (16)

Like Jacob, who struggled with God his entire life, and only as an old man revealed the character of God, we are encouraged to allow God to break us completely, that God himself may shine forth from our inner person. (17f.)

How does Watchman Nee’s writing set with you so far? Have you experienced this breaking process? And, if you have, can you give examples of how, in ignorance, we often fight against what God is doing?

The Release of the Spirit • Introduction

Watchman Nee (born Nee Shu-Tsu) was a Chinese Christian who ministered in the first half of the 20th century. Although his grandfather was a Christian minister, Nee became a Christian through the influence of a female evangelist (Dora Yu) in 1920, at the age of 17. Although he had no formal pastoral or theological training (he was self-taught through studying the Bible and reading over 3,000 books), Watchman began ministering in 1922. For 30 years he planted churches in rural China and pastored in Shanghai. A few years after the Chinese Communist takeover (Communists came to power in 1950 after 23 years of civil war), he was imprisoned for his faith, but not before he had planted 700 churches with a total attendance of over 700,000. He remained behind bars twenty years until his death in 1972.

The Release of the Spirit is a short book – ten chapters in only 94 pages. We will be looking at one chapter per week, and these posts will generally come on Tuesdays. I have an old edition printed in 1965 by Sure Foundation. If you have a newer copy, our page numbers might not always agree. Just keep in mind that as long as we’re in the same chapter, it shouldn’t be too hard to synchronize our reading.

Watchman sees humans in three parts, what he calls the Inner Person, the Outer Person and the Outermost Person. We would call these the spirit, the soul, and the body. [1] It is his conviction that God wants to live in a person’s spirit but that, until the soul (outer person) is broken and submits to the spirit (inner person) it hinders us from fully engaging Christ. It is the natural state of the soul to force its will on the spirit, but only in serving and submitting will the soul find its greatest joy.

Read chapter one for next week.

Have you experienced your outer person (soul) in conflict with your inner person (spirit)? Is the battle resolved? What happened?

[1] While Watchman Nee uses the terms inner man, outward man, and outermost man, I believe for today’s audience, replacing the term man with person clarifies and is congruent with his intended thought.