Sit, Walk, Stand: The Process of Christian Maturity by Watchman Nee Page B
Authors: Watchman Nee
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to sit down? When we walk or stand, we bear on our legs all the weight of our own body; but when we sit down, our entire weight rests upon the chair or couch on which we sit. We grow weary when we walk or stand, but we feel rested when we have sat down for awhile. In walking or standing we expend a great deal of energy, but when we are seated we relax at once, because the strain no longer falls upon our muscles and nerves, but upon something outside of ourselves. So also in the spiritual realm, to sit down is simply to rest our whole weight—our load, ourselves, our future, everything—upon the Lord. We let Him bear the responsibility and cease to carry it ourselves.
This was God’s principle from the beginning. In the creation God worked from the first to the sixth day and rested on the seventh. We may truthfully say that for those first six days, He was very busy. Then, the task He had set Himself completed, He ceased to work. The seventh day became the sabbath of God; it was God’s rest.
But what of Adam? Where did he stand in relationto that rest of God? Adam, we are told, was created on the sixth day. Clearly, then, he had no part in those first six days of work, for he came into being only at their end. God’s seventh day was, in fact, Adam’s first. Whereas God worked six days and then enjoyed His sabbath rest, Adam began his life with the sabbath; for God works before He rests, while man must first enter into God’s rest, and then alone can he work.
Moreover, it was because God’s work of creation was truly complete that Adam’s life could begin with rest. And here is the gospel: that God has gone one stage further and has completed also the work of redemption, and that we need do nothing whatever to merit it, but can enter by faith directly into the values of His finished work.
Of course, we know that between these two historic facts—between God’s rest in creation and God’s rest in redemption—there lies the whole tragic story of Adam’s sin and judgment, of man’s unceasing, unprofitable labor and of the coming of the Son of God to toil and to give Himself until the lost position was recovered. “My Father worketh even until now, and I work” (John 5:17), He explained as He pursued His way. Only with the atoning price paid could He cry, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
But because of that triumphant cry, the analogy we have drawn is a true one. Christianity indeed means that God has done everything in Christ, and that we simply step by faith into the enjoyment of that fact. Our keywordhere is not of course, in its context, a command to “sit down,” but to see ourselves as “seated” in Christ. Paul prays that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened (Eph. 1:18) to understand all that is contained for us in this double fact, that God has first by mighty power “made him to sit” and then by grace “made us to sit with him.”
And the first lesson we must learn is this: that the work is not initially ours at all, but His. It is not that we work for God, but that He works for us. God gives us our position of rest. He brings His Son’s finished work and presents it to us, and then He says to us, “Please sit” ( ch’eng tso ). His offer to us cannot, I think, be better expressed than in the words of the invitation to the great banquet: “Come; for all things are now ready” (Luke 14:17). Our Christian life begins with the discovery of what God has provided.
The Range of His Finished Work
From this point onward Christian experience proceeds as it began, not on the basis of our own work, but always on that of the finished work of Another. Every new spiritual experience begins with an acceptance by faith of what God has done—with a new “sitting down,” if you like. This is a principle of life, and one which God Himself has appointed; and from beginning to end, each successive stage of the Christian life follows on the same divinely determined principle.
How can I receive the
This was God’s principle from the beginning. In the creation God worked from the first to the sixth day and rested on the seventh. We may truthfully say that for those first six days, He was very busy. Then, the task He had set Himself completed, He ceased to work. The seventh day became the sabbath of God; it was God’s rest.
But what of Adam? Where did he stand in relationto that rest of God? Adam, we are told, was created on the sixth day. Clearly, then, he had no part in those first six days of work, for he came into being only at their end. God’s seventh day was, in fact, Adam’s first. Whereas God worked six days and then enjoyed His sabbath rest, Adam began his life with the sabbath; for God works before He rests, while man must first enter into God’s rest, and then alone can he work.
Moreover, it was because God’s work of creation was truly complete that Adam’s life could begin with rest. And here is the gospel: that God has gone one stage further and has completed also the work of redemption, and that we need do nothing whatever to merit it, but can enter by faith directly into the values of His finished work.
Of course, we know that between these two historic facts—between God’s rest in creation and God’s rest in redemption—there lies the whole tragic story of Adam’s sin and judgment, of man’s unceasing, unprofitable labor and of the coming of the Son of God to toil and to give Himself until the lost position was recovered. “My Father worketh even until now, and I work” (John 5:17), He explained as He pursued His way. Only with the atoning price paid could He cry, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
But because of that triumphant cry, the analogy we have drawn is a true one. Christianity indeed means that God has done everything in Christ, and that we simply step by faith into the enjoyment of that fact. Our keywordhere is not of course, in its context, a command to “sit down,” but to see ourselves as “seated” in Christ. Paul prays that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened (Eph. 1:18) to understand all that is contained for us in this double fact, that God has first by mighty power “made him to sit” and then by grace “made us to sit with him.”
And the first lesson we must learn is this: that the work is not initially ours at all, but His. It is not that we work for God, but that He works for us. God gives us our position of rest. He brings His Son’s finished work and presents it to us, and then He says to us, “Please sit” ( ch’eng tso ). His offer to us cannot, I think, be better expressed than in the words of the invitation to the great banquet: “Come; for all things are now ready” (Luke 14:17). Our Christian life begins with the discovery of what God has provided.
The Range of His Finished Work
From this point onward Christian experience proceeds as it began, not on the basis of our own work, but always on that of the finished work of Another. Every new spiritual experience begins with an acceptance by faith of what God has done—with a new “sitting down,” if you like. This is a principle of life, and one which God Himself has appointed; and from beginning to end, each successive stage of the Christian life follows on the same divinely determined principle.
How can I receive the
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