Note: These are the notes I wrote down as I read through this book. Sometimes the notes are a word-for-word transcription from the book. Other times it’s my paraphrase of what was written. These notes are not intended to fully explain what Watchman Nee wrote. If something is confusing or requires more clarity, you can reference this book for more information.
The Deliverance of the Cross
God’s aim is to crucify the believer’s old man with Christ so that they who belong to Christ “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
It is the flesh, with its passions and desires, that has been crucified.
As the sinner was regenerated and redeemed from his sins through the cross, so now the carnal babe in Christ must be delivered from the rule of the flesh by the same cross so that he can walk according to the Spirit and no longer according to the flesh.
First, Christ died on the cross for the sinner to remit his sin. A holy God could now righteously forgive him.
Secondly, the sinner as well died on the cross with Christ so that he might not be controlled any longer by his flesh. Only this can enable man’s spirit to regain its proper rule, make the body its outward servant, and the soul its intermediary (inner servant). In this way, the spirit, soul, and body are restored to their original position.
If we are ignorant or don’t believe that we died with Christ when He died, we shall not be delivered.
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus” refers to every believer in the Lord (Galatians 5:24).
No matter our current state—whether living in victory or in defeat—he “has crucified the flesh.”
This is not a moral issue, nor an issue of spiritual life, knowledge, or work. It simply is whether he is the Lord’s. If so, he has already crucified the flesh on the cross.
The crucifixion of the flesh is contingent on the finished work of the cross.
You say you still sin, but God says you have been crucified on the cross. Reckon yourself dead to sin but alive to God (Romans 6:11).
If you do not listen to His Word and instead look daily upon your situation, you will never enter into the reality of your flesh having been crucified.
Disregard your feelings and experience. God pronounces your flesh crucified; it therefore has been crucified. Simply respond to God’s Word and you shall experience your flesh crucified by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We have been crucified together with Christ (Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:6).
The crucifixion is not inflicted on us personally since it was the Lord Jesus who took us to the cross at His crucifixion. Therefore, God considers our flesh as crucified already. To Him it is an accomplished fact.
In order to possess such death, we must not give too large a place to discovering how or to noticing an experience; we should instead believe God’s Word.
God says my flesh has been crucified so I believe it is crucified. I acknowledge that what God says is true.
By responding with faith, we shall soon experience the reality of it. If we look at God’s fact first, our experience will follow next.
The first step toward deliverance is to treat the flesh according to God’s viewpoint. That is, we are not to try and crucify the flesh. Instead, we are to acknowledge that it has been crucified. Not walking by sight but by faith in God’s Word.
Once we approach the flesh by agreeing with God, then we can deal with the flesh experientially.
The Holy Spirit and Experience
Our faith in what Christ has already accomplished—faith that we have been crucified with Christ—allows the Holy Spirit to make this real in our experience. Based on our faith, the Holy Spirit aligns our living condition with our legal position.
We have believed and acknowledge that our flesh has been crucified. Now—not before—we can focus on our experience.
What God has done for us (our legal position) and what we experience of God’s completed work (our living condition), though distinguishable, are inseparable.
Colossians 3:3 states, “You have died.” This is our legal position. Colossians 3:5, on the other hand, says, “Therefore put to death.” This is our living condition.
The failure of believers today can be traced to a failure to see the relationship between their two deaths. The death of our legal position and the death of our living condition.
Faith in what Christ has already accomplished plus agreement with what He has done leads to Holy Spirit-led experiences, spiritual reality, and life-based victory.
What God has done for us plus what we experience of God’s completed work are inseparable though distinguishable.
God has already done what He could do. The next question is: What attitude do we assume toward His finished work?
If we believe, choose, accept, and agree with what God has accomplished for us, it will become our life experience.
If we desire to put our flesh to death, we first must have a ground for such action. This ground is us knowing what happened to us on the cross when Jesus was crucified and reckoning that it is indeed true (believing it). Otherwise, we rely on our strength.
Moreover, if we only know our flesh has been crucified, but are not exercised to have His accomplished work carried out in us—by reckoning it true by meditation and believing it which allows the Holy Spirit to work in us—and our knowledge will be to no avail.
Victory comes first by an identification in His death. Then, knowing our identification with His death, we rely on the Holy Spirit’s power to actually put our flesh to death. Knowing, believing, and depending upon the Spirit’s power all work together to make this death real in our experience.
The “put to death” (Colossians 3:5) is contingent upon the “you have died” (Colossians 3:3).
This putting to death means bringing the death of the Lord Jesus to bear upon all the deeds of the flesh.
The finished work of the cross is an accomplished fact in our spirits.
Our union with Christ in His death signifies that it is an accomplished fact in our spirits. What a believer must do now is to bring this sure death out of his spirit and apply it to his bodily members each time his wicked lusts may be aroused.
Such a spiritual death is not a once for all proposition. Whenever the believer is not watchful or loses his faith, the flesh will certainly go on a rampage. This is what Paul called the law of sin and death versus the law of the Spirit.
