Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

Watchman Nee

Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc.

New York

Preface

“Grace and truth came [or subsists] through Jesus Christ”
(John 1:17b ASV, and Darby in brackets). The Greek word for “came” is
ginomai
which means “has come”—signifying
that that which before had never actually been in being in the world now begins
to be so. In other words, grace actually commenced to be, yet not in God’s mind,
of course, but in revelation and actual existence down here on the earth (see
Darby’s footnote discussion on “subsists” in John 1:17). Mankind could not
fully understand what divine grace is till it was revealed in Jesus Christ; nor
could believing mankind fully apprehend the depth of that grace till it
be
found in Christ Jesus. Even today this so great salvation
continually amazes those of us who have been touched by God’s grace.

In August 1937 brother Watchman Nee gave a series of ten
messages in Singapore on the Biblical theme of Amazing Grace. They were greatly
appreciated at that time by those who heard.
Now for the
first time they have been translated into English for the benefit of the
English-speaking world.
May God use these messages to strengthen our
faith.

Amazing Grace

Amazing grace—how sweet the sound—

That saved a wretch
like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I
see
.

’
Twas
grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace
appear

The hour I first believed!

The Lord hath promised
good
to me,

His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be

As long as life endures.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,

I have already come;

’T
is
grace hath brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no
less
days to sing God’s
praise

Than when we’d first begun.

—John Newton

1. Forgiveness and
Justification
..
9

2. The
Death and Resurrection of Christ (1)
.
25

3.
The Death and Resurrection
of Christ (2)
.
41

4. “Reckon”
.
57

5. Living
Faith
..
71

6. The
Revelation on the Mountain
..
87

7. How
God Accomplishes His Purpose (1)
.
105

8. How
God Accomplishes His Purpose (2)
.
123

9. The
Victorious Life
.
141

10. The
Victorious Way
..
157

Scripture quotations
are from the

American Standard
Version of the Bible

(1901), unless
otherwise indicated.

(Back to Contents)

“According to law, I may almost say, all things are cleansed
with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission” (Hebrews
9:22).

“Whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in
His blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins
done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of his
righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the
justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:25, 26).

“Who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for
our justification” (Romans 4:25).

What is God’s purpose towards man? His purpose is to gain
many sons (see Hebrews 2:10). You all know that for a child to be an actual son
of yours he must have been born to you and not have been acquired from the
outside; that is to say, your son must have your life. Only he who is born by
your
life is actually your son, whereas
he who is born through others’ life is not really your son. In order to gain many
sons, God must cause us human beings to have His life; for only after God has
given us His life can we truly be deemed His sons. This is what has been revealed
to us in the Bible, and this is the purpose of God in relation to us human
beings.

We humans, however, have sinned; and hence, God’s purpose
suffered a great setback. Man not only failed to receive God’s life, he also fell
into sin. And thus it complicated God’s work and purpose. When at the beginning
God created Adam, He wanted him to have a life like His. If this should become
factual, God’s purpose would be fulfilled. Yet Adam sinned and had now fallen,
so he could not possess God’s life. Accordingly, before God could ever in
future give His life to man, He would first have to solve man’s problem of sin.
He needed to remove this hindrance of sin first and then give His life to man.
God had therefore to work to resolve the fact of Adam’s fall before He could
obtain His purpose in man.

For this reason the Bible speaks of forgiveness and
justification, which is to be the means by which God is to redeem Adam’s failure.
Yet let us not conclude that once man’s sins are cleansed, God’s purpose will
have been achieved. Not so, for even should fallen man’s sins be cleansed, he will
merely have returned to what Adam’s position had initially been in the Garden
of Eden. For at that time Adam had not obtained God’s life and God’s purpose
for him had not yet been fulfilled. Therefore, we must understand that
forgiveness and justification are only the remedial process; they are actually passive
in nature. Only after such a process has been concluded will we come to know
what
is God’s purpose
.

God needs to eliminate man's hindrance of sin before Him
first before He could give man His life. Suppose you come to a house which you
wish to enter but you find that the door is locked. Obviously your motive and
aim is not to open the door but to gain entrance. Yet if the door is not opened
first, your aim of entering cannot be achieved. Likewise, God’s aim or purpose
is for us sinners to be His sons, but first we must experience the forgiveness
of our sin. Even so, that is not God’s purpose but is only the removal of the
hindrance to our obtaining God’s life.

Hence, in our considering together God’s purpose for man,
we must initially look into this passive remedial process whose elements are
the forgiveness of sin and justification. Most likely many of you present here
have already been saved and are familiar with this subject; nevertheless, it
will be helpful to review it before proceeding further.

Please understand that what the Bible calls sin refers to
that which is deemed to be sin against or before God, not to that which we
consider to be sin before ourselves or others. In other words, the Bible’s
reference to sin is not a speaking of what you or I feel about what is sinful
nor of what our conscience
deems
to be sin. On the
contrary, the Bible speaks of sin as that which is done before God. In brief,
what sin is, according to the Bible, is the sin before or against God. This is
made clear in what David in Psalm 51 acknowledged to God: “Against thee,
thee
only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy
sight” (v. 4a). Here the words of David do not speak of sinning against man at
all—neither against Uriah whom David had had murdered nor against Bathsheba,
Uriah’s wife—but his words only speak here of sinning against God.

It is indeed a most amazing fact that all the “sin”
mentioned in the Bible is considered to have been sins committed against God;
whereas we humans usually characterize those acts as sinful which from our
perspective we perpetrate against other human beings—those such as arson,
stealing, adultery, lying, and other such “bad” conduct. But in the Scriptures
God makes clear that every sinful act is deemed to be an act of sin committed
before or against Him without regard to whether such acts are good or bad in
character. According to God’s word, His judgment of what is sinful is not based
on whether we view a given sinful act as clean or defiled or whether we deem a
given sinful act as having been committed out of humility or pride; rather, the
Bible declares that before God all such actions are sinful.

A month ago Shanghai had a new law requiring that all
cars must park on the left side of the street. Should a car be parked on the
right side, there will be a fine of five dollars. I have a friend whose store
is situated on the right side of the street. For him to have to park his car on
the street’s left side opposite his store would be very inconvenient, given the
particular street situation in the area. So, he continued to park his car at
the very door of his store. Within a short time thereafter he got a ticket
requesting him to appear in court three days hence.

The judge was going to demand that he pay the five-dollar
fine. But my friend told the judge: “My store is situated on the street’s right
side; and thus, for me to park my car on the right side is most logical, I’m
parking my car right before my own door. Is it therefore wrong to place my car at
my very own door?” The judge replied, “Yes, you are being very reasonable, you yourself
seeing nothing wrong. However, my judgment in this case before the court does not
depend on you seeing nothing wrong but depends on my seeing and concluding that
you are in fact wrong. And if you continue to consider that you have done no
wrong and park your car at the same place, I shall fine you again.” Similarly,
the Bible states that wrongdoing is something God determines: it is God who
decides whether you or I have sinned and not what we may say or conclude about
it.

Many are confused on this subject. They insist upon maintaining
that if their conscience does not bother them, that proves they have not
sinned. But the issue is not determined by your conscience but by God’s
judgment. Even if a hundred consciences consider your or my conclusion as
right, we are still being sinful. Therefore, sin is basically a matter before
God, it is not a matter decided by man’s conscience. An action’s relation to
conscience comes only after God has judged it sinful. When we realize that we
have sinned before God, then our conscience becomes uneasy. Let us consider
once more the case of my friend who found it convenient to park his car before
his door but was fined five dollars for doing so because the judge found him to
be guilty of violating the law. Do any of us think my friend would have felt safe
were he to have parked his car again before his door? I can confidently answer
that were he to have still parked his car outside the door of his store, the
moment he would have entered his store, he would immediately have looked about
to see if there were any police around; for he had by now become aware of the
law, and his conscience would hence feel uneasy.

Before we see God we do not know what sin is or feel
sinful. Not until one day God opens our eyes to see what He has seen does our
conscience begin to feel uneasy. In order to save us, God must do two things.
The first is to rid us of our sins before Him. The second is to place His life
in us. Before we can receive God’s life, we must first be rid of the sins that
stand against the life of God.

How does God get rid of man’s sin before Him? It is
through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus. God sent to the world His Son,
clothed with a human body, who then died on a cross, shedding His blood to
redeem us of our sins before God. It is through the blood of Jesus that our sins
before God are forgiven and our conscience is pacified (see Hebrews 9:14).

I once traveled with a friend to Jiujiang. On the way we
met a Muslim missionary. My friend asked him what
was the
hope of his faith
. He answered that if a person repented of his sins,
Allah would forgive him and
cause
him to go to heaven.
My friend further asked that if that person sinned again after repentance, then
what would be the outcome: where had his sins gone after being repented of? He
replied that Allah was not so particular, that Allah would be flexible if he
saw true repentance. So my friend said to the Muslim missionary that his god
was too careless, that only the Christian God was righteous.

We should realize that to repent is one thing and the
effect of sin is another. For instance, suppose I beat Mr. Tang tonight so severely
that his body is full of bruises but tomorrow I repent and feel regretful. Is the
matter solved? No, Mr. Tang’s body will still be in a severely bruised state.
The effect will still be there, and nothing is resolved. Or, if you borrow a
thousand dollars from a friend, will the matter be cleared up later just by your
repentance for not having paid the loan back? No, for repentance is one thing,
but the unpaid debt is still there. Such is the way God forgives our sins: He cannot
forgive our sins carelessly: He first needs to punish sin before the matter can
be resolved.

Again, suppose a person who has robbed is arrested by the
governor. Due to the fact that this arrested person has at home an
eighty
-year-old mother and a three-year-old child, the
governor shows pity on him and releases him. Should this governor continue to
show such mercy, he will eventually be dismissed from his office for the district
shall otherwise be full of robbers. If there is lawlessness in the land, the
governor must treat such according to law. Else if he releases the lawless one,
he will himself be deemed to be acting unlawfully.

For God to be able to forgive our sins, He must maintain
righteousness. I know a friend whose father was a city mayor. He had been so
for several years. There were many bandits in that place. And it turned out
that he had used certain public funds—funds which had been designated to be
used for other purposes—with which to capture these bandits. Although he spent
tens of thousands of the public’s predesignated money, he had not embezzled any
of it. He had wisely used the money for the purpose of apprehending the
bandits. Not long ago the district government arrested the mayor and was going
to punish him by sentence of death, for the law held that any public servant
who misuses designated public funds must be shot. This mayor happened to be my
fellow worker’s father and my fellow worker was understandably highly agitated.
Since I knew some high officials in the government, I wrote letters to them and
later visited them personally in an attempt to convince them that the public
funds had not been taken by him to his home for his own use. But they told me:
“Mr. Nee, we know the whole story. We also want to help, but we can find no way
through. True, we have the authority to release him; but if we do, how can we be
complying with the law? Unless we can find a way that will satisfy the law, we
will be lawless if we release him.”

God wants to forgive our sins, but He will not compromise
himself. He orders us to keep the law, for He himself always does so. He told
Adam: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis
2:17). If, when Adam and Eve had disobeyed and eaten the fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, God had not put them to death, He himself would
have been considered to be a liar. We do not know what righteousness is, or
what
is the law
. But for God to forgive our sins and
save us, He must adhere to His character, His righteousness, and His law. He
cannot free us and himself behave unrighteously. He cannot save us and create a
problem for himself.

A year ago in Shanghai there was a sister in the Lord who
was superintendent of nurses in a hospital. She was also responsible for the
management of all the medicines there. One day another Christian sister came to
me to speak to me about her. I said that this nurse was a very good sister, but
this other sister strongly responded that it was not so. I also said that the
nurse loved the Lord and had also witnessed for Him in the hospital, so she was
very good. Yet this other sister responded by saying that the nurse could not be
considered to be a good sister if she did not even know what righteousness was.
“The other day,” she reported, “my child was sick. I did not have the money to
see a doctor. So I brought my child to her. She was most willing to help by applying
medicine on the wound and binding the wound with cotton. When I asked for the
cost, she refused to tell me, she saying that the hospital had lots of
medicine. I could do nothing more, so I returned home. Though she had helped
me, I felt uneasy about the incident since the medicine and cotton had belonged
to the hospital. She should not have stolen the medical supplies belonging to
the hospital in order to help me.”

Similarly, God could not have saved us without making rightful
compensation. Otherwise, we would say,
How
can a
righteous God save us unlawfully? A policeman cannot apprehend a lawless person
and then turn around and set him free. We who have sinned need to be judged and
punished. Should God fail to punish us He will be unrighteous.

So what should be done? Suppose Mr. Tang is a rich
person. I borrow ten thousand dollars from him and promise to pay it back in
twenty years. But after twenty years I go to Mr. Tang and state: “I am now very
poor and unable to repay you. Will you please have pity on me, forgive my debt,
and give back to me the I.O.U. note?” He will reply that it had been agreed
that I would pay him back in twenty years. “Indeed,” says Mr. Tang, “your
agreement is right here. You have signed, and so have I. And now twenty years
have passed. If you don’t pay me back, we will have to solve the matter according
to the law.” But I would say, “Please have mercy on me for I have no way to pay
you back. Will you please give me back the I.O.U. note?” What do we think about
this? Please bear in mind that if I do not pay the loan back, I shall be breaking
the agreement; and if Mr. Tang does not demand that I repay, he too will be breaking
the contract. A debt that is not resolved properly by both parties will cause
both the borrower and the lender to be lawless persons. The only difference between
these two individuals is that one violates the law badly while the other one does
so honorably.