Watchman Nee & Witness Lee — Doctrine of God
b5 — Basic Elements of Christian Life, Volume 3
God’s Eternal Plan — The Economy
In Chapter 2 (“The Way to Build Up the Church”), Nee/Lee describe God’s eternal plan as a threefold economy:
“There are three main aspects in God’s eternal plan for the church. First, it is the church that must have the sonship to express God; second, it is the church through which Satan will be defeated and put to shame; and finally, it is the church through which Christ will head up all things. God’s plan is for the church to gain His life in full!”
(Ch. 2, p. 23)
“It is for this purpose that God created the universe with the heavens and the earth. In the center of His creation, God created man as the vessel to contain Himself. God’s intention was to put Himself as life and everything into this man in order to have many sons.”
(Ch. 2, p. 23)
Sources: Eph. 3:14-19; Col. 1:15-20.
Interpretation: Nee/Lee place God’s eternal economy at the center as the reason for both creation and redemption. God does not act arbitrarily in history but from a consistent threefold purpose: expression (of God through the church), defeat of Satan, and recapitulation of all things in Christ. This economic theology of God is consistent with the dispensing theology developed in b3.
God as Spirit — Essence and Nature
In Chapter 3 (“Pray-Reading the Word”), Lee formulates God’s nature on the basis of John 4:24 and 2 Tim. 3:16:
“We know that God is Spirit (John 4:24); the Spirit is God’s essence and nature. God is Spirit (just as a table is wood). Since the Word is the breath of God, and God is Spirit, whatever is breathed out of God must be Spirit! So the essence and nature of the Word of God is Spirit. It is not just a thought, revelation, teaching, or doctrine, but Spirit.”
(Ch. 3, p. 35)
Sources: John 4:24; 2 Tim. 3:16; John 6:63.
Interpretation: Nee/Lee here connect the doctrine of God (God is Spirit) directly to bibliology (the Word is God’s breath). God as Spirit is not an abstract doctrine but an ontological statement that determines the nature of Scripture: because God is Spirit, the Scripture itself is Spirit and life. This is consistent with b3’s use of John 4:24 as the foundation for the human spirit as the receptor of God.
God’s Multifarious Wisdom
Lee links the building up of the church to the revelation of God’s manifold wisdom to the heavenly powers:
“Then God has the ground to make His multifarious wisdom known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies.”
(Ch. 2, p. 23; cf. Eph. 3:10)
Source: Eph. 3:10.
Interpretation: God’s “multifarious” wisdom — a term drawn from Eph. 3:10 (πολυποίκιλος) — is for Nee/Lee not merely an abstract divine attribute but an ecclesiological goal: the church is the instrument through which God’s wisdom is displayed to the heavenly powers. The doctrine of God is here functionally connected to ecclesiology.
God as Father — Sonship and Impartation
Nee/Lee describe God’s fatherhood in relation to His plan to receive many sons:
“We all know that the son is one who inherits everything from the father. Whatever the Father is and has will be imparted into His sons. First, God created us, and then He begot us through regeneration. By creation He brought us into existence, and by begetting us He imparted Himself into us as our life.”
(Ch. 2, p. 23)
Sources: John 1:12-13; Eph. 1:4-5.
Interpretation: For Nee/Lee, God’s fatherhood is not primarily a relational-emotional category but an ontological transfer structure: the Father imparts what He is and what He has into His sons. Creation gives existence; regeneration gives God’s own life — two distinct acts of the same God.
God as the Indwelling One — Spreading Outward from the Spirit
Lee describes how God in Christ as the Holy Spirit works from the innermost center of man outward:
“God in Christ as the Holy Spirit spreads Himself outward from our spirit to all the parts of our being. God does not work from the outside, in an inward direction into man, but from man’s spirit He spreads Himself outward in order to permeate and saturate all of man’s inward parts.”
(Ch. 2, p. 24)
Sources: Eph. 3:16-19; 1 Cor. 15:45b.
Interpretation: For Nee/Lee, God’s immanence is radically inward: God works not from outside inward, but from the deepest point of the human person (the spirit) outward. This is a distinctive directional movement compared to classical pietism — and connects the doctrine of God directly to anthropology (the spirit as the receptor-vessel for God).
Knowledge of God through Christ — Creed Point 4
In the appendix (“About Two Servants of the Lord”), Nee/Lee repeat the creed from BXL1 and BXL2:
“Jesus, a genuine Man, lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years to make God the Father known to men.”
(Appendix, point 4)
Sources: John 1:14; John 14:9.
Interpretation: [TENSION with earlier source] Identical to the formulation in b3 and b4. Knowledge of God is for Nee/Lee strictly Christologically mediated — the Father is not directly knowable apart from Christ. The incarnation carries an epistemological function.
Trinitarian Confession — Creed Point 2
“God is the only one Triune God—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—equally co-existing and mutually coinhering from eternity to eternity.”
(Appendix, point 2)
Interpretation: [TENSION with earlier source] Identical to b3 and b4. No new theological content in b5 on this point, but confirmation of the fixed confessional formula Nee/Lee consistently employ across all BXL volumes.