Release of the Spirit - Introduction

This week I'm beginning to go through Watchman Nee's book, The Release of the Spirit, and plan to take the next couple of months to complete it. We'll begin with the introduction to the book.

The teaching in this book goes along with the recent postings I've done on the issue of judging and the two trees in the Garden of Eden that are named in Scripture. Nee contends that in order to be fruitful, life-giving followers of Jesus, we must live by His resurrected life within our spirit rather than by our personal soul life. This is simply other language for living by the tree of life rather than according to the tree of human knowledge/opinion.

It will be important for us to understand Nee's language about our human makeup. The following are terms that he uses throughout the book and how he is using them:
1. "inward man" = the human spirit
2. "outward man" = the human soul
3. "outermost man" = the human body

Another truth that's important to establish from the start is that when Nee speaks of "destroying the soul", he is in no way referring to the annihilation of the human soul but rather to the subjection of the soul to the Spirit of God who indwells the human spirit. (Take note - when the Spirit of God is dealing with our soul life, His work can very much feel like it is annihilating us, because we are born into and deceived by a deeply fallen and sinful world that agrees wholeheartedly with the devil and the flesh in saying that we are happiest when we are in control. So when His loving Spirit begins to dismantle the natural soulish powers at work in us, it can feel like He is suppressing and even destroying our personality; the truth is that the more we live by His life and Spirit, the more enhanced our unique soul life is because the soul is designed to flourish and blossom in the place of subjection, not in the place of rulership.)

Related to the point above, T. Austin-Sparks says the following: "We must be careful that, in recognizing the fact that the soul has been seduced, led captive, darkened and poisoned with a self-interest, we do not regard it as something to be annihilated and destroyed in this life. This would be asceticism, a form of Buddhism."

The result of the fall of Adam and Eve is that we are all born with a debilitating bent towards soulish strength and government. In other words, we come into this world with a massive drive toward self-preservation (protecting the soul life), and we live and act depending on our personal/subjective opinions (which are based on our independent and subjective emotions, thoughts and desires). In our formative years, these drives are constantly and relentlessly endorsed and applauded by our own flesh, by the poisoned environment and world systems and by devilish powers. By the time we encounter Jesus and submit to Him and His kingdom by faith (even when at a young age), we are so deeply enslaved to soulishness that there is no way we can deliver ourselves.

This book is addressed to followers of Jesus, because the serious dealings with the soul is the process of sanctification that all who truly desire to mature will walk through upon coming into Jesus by faith. Stepping into God's house by faith can happen in a moment, but being made like the Owner of the house is a lifelong journey.

"The soul has to be smitten a fatal blow by the death of Christ as to its self-strength and government. As with Jacob's thigh, after God had touched it, he went to the end of his life with a limp...forever there must be registered in the soul the fact that it cannot and must not act out from itself as the source...T.Austin-Sparks has said: '...the fact is that if we are going on with God fully, all the soul's energies and abilities for knowing, understanding, sensing and doing will come to an end, and we shall - on that side - stand bewildered, dazed, numbed and impotent. Then a new, other, and divine understanding, constraint, and energy will send us forward or keep us going..."

Next week we'll look at chapter one on the importance of brokenness. Grace and peace to you!