Brother Nee was saved at the age of seventeen, and he began to minister in 1922 at the age of twenty. In that year the first local church in mainland China was raised up through his ministry. Brother Nee's ministry spanned three decades, from 1922 to 1952. In 1952 he was put into prison, where he stayed until his death in 1972. In his early ministry, from 1922 to 1932, his knowledge on certain matters was not yet full or complete. Then from 1932 to 1942, his understanding improved. But from 1942 to 1952, he reached the stage of maturity in his ministry. Whatever he spoke or published from 1940 until the end of his ministry was very accurate. Brother Nee continually progressed in his understanding of the depths of the Bible. We need to keep this in mind as we read Brother Nee's writings through the three decades of his ministry.
For example, the book The Normal Christian Life consists of messages given by Brother Nee in northern Europe and in China before 1938. In that book Brother Nee stressed the matter of reckoning ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God, according to Romans 6:11. But eventually many discovered that reckoning did not work in their experience.
The book of Romans does not end at chapter six. Romans has sixteen chapters, which can be divided into four sections. These four sections and their main subjects are: chapters one through four, on justification; chapters five through eight, on sanctification; chapters nine through eleven, on God's selection; and chapters twelve through sixteen, on the Body life, which consummates in the local churches. To say that chapters five through eight deal with sanctification is a superficial understanding of that section. Actually, the subject of these chapters is the pneumatic Christ, that is, Christ as the Spirit. In chapter eight, Christ is in us (v. 10), and the Spirit of Christ also is in us (v. 9). Christ is the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is one with Christ. It is in the pneumatic Christ that we experience Christ's death and resurrection. It is not by reckoning but by identification with Christ. This Christ with whom we are identified is not merely the incarnated or crucified Christ, but the Christ who became pneumatic in His resurrection. Unless we see this, we can never experience what is revealed in Romans 5—8.
The fourth section of Romans begins with the Body life in chapter twelve and consummates with the local churches in chapter sixteen. Ultimately, the entire book of Romans is a book on the gospel of God (1:1; 16:25). Hence, the local churches are a part of the gospel of God. Without the local churches as part of the gospel of God, the gospel of God would not be complete. Romans begins with sinners in chapter one and ends with local churches in chapter sixteen. Thus, Romans reveals that God in His sovereign economy is able to cause sinners to become the local churches.
We need to enter into the Word of God, not in the natural way of merely studying the geography, the history, and the Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible, but in the way of apprehending the spiritual significance of what is revealed in the Bible. We need to enter into the Lord's way of interpreting the Bible. In Matthew 22:23-33 the Sadducees came to the Lord with a question concerning resurrection. They did not believe in resurrection (Acts 23:8), and they wanted to argue with the Lord Jesus concerning this matter. The Lord answered them by interpreting Exodus 3:6. According to the Lord's interpretation, the clause "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" implies resurrection. The Lord said that God is "not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matt. 22:32). God could never be the God of dead persons; He is the God of living persons. As God is the God of the living and is called "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," so the dead Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be resurrected. Such a title of God implies resurrection. Simply to remember the title itself is easy and is of little value; but the implication of this title is of great significance. This is the way to interpret the Bible, and this is the way that we must learn to study the Bible. Paul also quoted and interpreted many portions from the Old Testament in this way, such as in the book of Hebrews, which is an interpretation of the book of Leviticus. We should not only read the Word according to the black and white letters. Rather, we must read, study, and pray, asking the Lord to show us the real significance of the words that are printed in black and white.