Definition
The inner man (cf. Eph. 3:16; 2Cor. 4:16; Rom. 7:22) is for Nee/Lee the human spirit as the innermost receptive organ for the Holy Spirit — distinguished from the soul (emotions, mind, will) and the body. The inner man is the locus of the tripartite anthropology of Nee/Lee: body = outermost layer (outer court), soul = middle layer (holy place), spirit = innermost core (Holy of Holies). Only through the inner man — the human spirit — can the believer contact the Holy Spirit and receive the life of Christ.
Usage in the Corpus
Watchman Nee & Witness Lee
Witness Lee describes the inner man as the thirsty center of the believer that is refreshed by the indwelling Spirit: “When you are thirsty, it means that your spirit, your inner man, is dry. But when you contact the Lord Jesus, it is not long before you feel refreshed.” The practical instruction is simple: “Simply come to the Lord in your spirit for a personal contact with Him” and “By exercising your faith and your spirit to apply the ascended Christ to your situation, you will immediately sense a living stream flowing within you.”
The inner man is not passive but must be actively exercised — this is the synergistic element in Nee/Lee’s pneumatology. The Holy Spirit dwells in the inner man and from there renews the soul and transforms the whole person (2Cor. 3:18). Nee/Lee argue that the inner man is systematically neglected in institutional Christianity, which approaches Scripture intellectually without engaging the spirit: “Christianity teaches us to deal with forms, rules, and doctrines. Even the Scriptures are read in a wrong manner, because little or no contact is made with the Holy Spirit in reading. We merely learn doctrines in black and white letters. We must read the Scriptures by exercising our spirit to contact the Holy Spirit, not by using our eyes to see words and our mind merely to understand its doctrines.” [Nee/Lee, The All-inclusive Christ, Chs. 2-4; The Economy of God, Ch. 3]