These are a few relevant selections from Watchman Nee's The Normal Christian Lifeon the matters of "knowing" and "reckoning" on what God has created and made the Christian to be in ChristPage numbers are from the edition published by Christian Literature Crusade, Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, USASeveral good transcriptions are available online, an excellent one at ccel.orgTwo essential points should be noted:1. "Knowing" what has happened to us in Christ must preceed "reckoning" on it.2. What does reckoning mean? `Reckoning' in Greek means doing accounts book-keeping. Accounting is the only thing in the world we human beings can do correctly. "Reckoning" is like doing arithmetic; like counting up the change in your pocket. If you have thirteen pence, you don't "reckon" that you have ten, or seventeen pence.From Chapter 3, THE PATH OF PROGRESS: KNOWINGAs we study chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Romans we shall discover that the conditions of living the normal Christian life are fourfold. They are: (a) Knowing, (b) Reckoning, (c) Presenting ourselves to God, and (d) Walking in the Spirit, and they are set forth in that order. If we would live that life we shall have to take all four of these steps ; not one nor two nor three, but all four. As we study each of them we shall trust the Lord by His Holy Spirit to illumine our understanding; and we shall seek His help now to take the first big step forward. 49You were crucified on the selfsame cross as He, for you were in Him when He died. How can you know? You can know for the one sufficient reason that God has said so. It does not depend on your feelings. 52 THE FIRST STEP: “KNOWING THIS …” The normal Christian life must begin with a very definite “knowing,” which is not just knowing something about the truth nor understanding some important doctrine. It is not an intellectual knowledge at all, but an opening of the eyes of the heart to see what we have in Christ. How do you know your sins are forgiven? Is it because your pastor told you so? No, you just know it. If I ask you how you know, you simply answer, 'I know it!' Such knowledge comes by Divine revelation. It comes from the Lord Himself. Of course the fact of forgiveness of sins is in the Bible, but for the written Word of God to become a living Word from God to you He had to give you " a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him " (Eph. 1. 17). What you needed was to know Christ in that way, and it is always so. So there comes a time, in regard to any new apprehension of Christ, when you know it in your own heart, you 'see' it in your spirit. A light has shined into your inner being and you are wholly persuaded of the fact. What is true of the forgiveness of your sins is no less true of your deliverance from sin. When once the light of God dawns upon your heart you see yourself in Christ. It is not now because someone has told you, and not merely because Romans 6 says so. It is something more even than that. You know it because God has revealed it to you by His Spirit. You may not feel it; you may not understand it; but you know it, for you have seen it. Once you have seen yourself in Christ, nothing can shake your assurance of that blessed fact. Any true experience of value in the sight of God must have been, reached by way of a new discovery of the meaning of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. That is a crucial test and a safe one. And here in our passage Paul makes everything depend upon such a discovery. " Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin" (Romans 6. 6). DIVINE REVELATION ESSENTIAL TO KNOWLEDGE So our first step is to seek from God a knowledge that comes by revelation-a revelation, that is to say, not of ourselves but of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. 54-56(After relating the story of a man whose eyes had been opened so that he knew, Nee continues), “We need not work to die, we need not wait to die, we are dead. We only need to recognize what the Lord has already done and to praise Him for it. Light dawned for that man. With tears in his eyes he said, 'Lord, I praise Thee that Thou hast already included me in Christ. All that is His is mine!' Revelation had come and faith had something to lay hold of ; and if you could have met that brother later on, what a change you would have found! 59The finished work of Christ really has gone to the root of our problem and dealt with it. There are no half measures with God. He has made full provision for sin’s rule to be utterly broken. " Knowing this," says Paul, " that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin " (Rom. 6. 6). " Knowing this "! Yes, but do you know it? " Or are ye ignorant?" (Rom. 6. 3). May the Lord graciously open our eyes! 61From Chapter 4 THE PATH OF PROGRESS: RECKONING We now come to a matter on which there has been some confusion of thought among the Lord's children. It concerns what follows this knowledge. Note again first of all the wording of Romans 6. 6: ---Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him ". The tense of the verb is most precious for it puts the event right back there in the past. It is final, once-for-all. The thing has been done and cannot be undone. Our old man has been crucified once and for ever, and he can never be un-crucified. This is what we need to know. Then, when we know this, what follows? Look again at our passage. The next command is in verse 11 : "Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin ". This, clearly, is the natural sequel to verse 6. Read them together: 'Knowing that our old man was crucified.... reckon ye yourselves to be dead'. That is the order. When we know that our old man has been crucified with Christ, then the next step is to reckon it so. Unfortunately; in presenting the truth of our union with Christ the emphasis has too often been placed upon this second matter of reckoning ourselves to be dead, as though that were the starting point, whereas it should rather be upon knowing ourselves to be dead. God's Word makes it clear that 'knowing' is to precede 'reckoning'. " Knowing this ... reckon." The sequence is most important. Our reckoning must be based on knowledge of divinely revealed fact, for otherwise faith has no foundation on which to rest. When we know, then we reckon spontaneously. So in teaching this matter we should not overemphasize reckoning. People are always trying to reckon without knowing. They have not first had a Spirit-given revelation of the fact; yet they try to reckon and soon they get into all sorts of difficulties. When temptation comes they begin to reckon furiously: 'I am dead; I am dead; I am dead!' but in the very act of reckoning they lose their temper. Then they say, 'It doesn't work. Romans 6. 11 is no good.' And we have to admit that verse 11 is no good without verse 6. So it comes to this, that unless we know for a fact that we are dead with Christ, the more we reckon the more intense will the struggle become, and the issue will be sure defeat. 62-64(After describing the day he himself came into this awareness of knowing the truth, Nee writes:) I do not mean to say that we need not work that out. Yes, there is an outworking of the death which we are going to see presently, but this, first of all, is the basis of it. I have been crucified: it has been done. What, then, is the secret of reckoning? To put it in one word, it is revelation. We need revelation from God himself (Matthew 16:17; Ephesians 1:17,18). We need to have our eyes opened to the fact of our union with Christ, and thst ids something more than knowing it as a doctrine. Such revelation is no vague, indefinite thing. Most of us can remember the day when we saw clearly that Christ died for us, and we ought to equally clear as to the time when we saw that we died with Christ. It should be nothing hazy, but very definite, for it is with this as basis that we shall go on. It is not that I reckon myself to be dead, and therefore will be dead. It is that, because I am dead—because I see now what God has done for me in Christ—therefore I reckon myself to be dead. That is the right kind of reckoning. It is not reckoning toward death but from death. 65, 66THE SECOND STEP: “EVEN SO RECKON…” What does reckoning mean? `Reckoning' in Greek means doing accounts book-keeping. Accounting is the only thing in the world we human beings can do correctly. An artist paints a landscape. Can he do it with perfect accuracy? Can the historian vouch for the absolute accuracy of any record, or the map-maker for the perfect correctness of any map? They can make, at best, fair approximations. Even in everyday speech, when we try to tell some incident with the best intention to be honest and truthful, we cannot speak with complete accuracy. It is mostly a case of exaggeration or understatement, of one word too much or too little. What then can a man do that is utterly reliable? Arithmetic! There is no scope for error there. One chair plus one chair equals two chairs. That is true in London and it is true in Cape Town. If you travel west to New York or east to Singapore it is still the same. All the world over and for all time, one plus one equals two. One plus one is two in heaven and earth and hell. Why does God say we are to reckon ourselves dead? Because we are dead. Let us keep to the analogy of accounting. Suppose I have fifteen shillings in my pocket, what do I enter in my account-book? Can I enter fourteen shillings and sixpence or fifteen shillings and sixpence? No, I must enter in my account-book that which is in fact in my pocket. Accounting is the reckoning of facts, not fancies. Even so, it is because I am really dead that God tells me to account it so. God could not ask me to put down in my account-book what was not true. He could not ask me to reckon that I am dead if I am still alive. For such mental gymnastics the word `reckoning' would be inappropriate; we might rather speak of `mis-reckoning'! Reckoning is not a form of make-believe. It does not mean that, having found that I have only twelve shillings in my pocket, I hope that by entering fifteen shillings incorrectly in my account-book such `reckoning' will somehow remedy the deficiency. It won't. If I have only twelve shillings, yet try to reckon to myself: `I have fifteen shillings; I have fifteen shillings; I have fifteen shillings', do you think that the mental effort involved will in any way affect the sum that is in my pocket? Not a bit of it! Reckoning will not make twelve shillings into fifteen shillings, nor will it make what is untrue true. But if, on the other hand, it is a fact that I have fifteen shillings in my pocket, then with great ease and assurance I can enter fifteen shillings in my account-book. God tells us to reckon ourselves dead, not that by the process of reckoning we may become dead, but because we are dead. He never told us to reckon what was not a fact. Having said, then, that revelation leads spontaneously to reckoning, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are presented with a command: "Reckon ye ...." There is a definite attitude to be taken. God asks us to do the account; to put down `I have died' and then to abide by it. Why? Because it is a fact. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, I was there in Him. Therefore I reckon it to be true. I reckon and declare that I have died in Him. Paul said, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God." How is this possible? "In Christ Jesus." Never forget that it is always and only true in Christ. If you look at yourself you will think death is not there, but it is a question of faith not in yourself but in Him. You look to the Lord, and know what He has done. `Lord, I believe in Thee. I reckon upon the fact in Thee.' Stand there all the day. 66-66
