Excerpt from "Restoring the Restoration

 

 Many say we cannot take an action for salvation. That God’s Grace is sufficient. That is true. However, Revelation 3:20 (NASB), says,  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me” (Zondervan). That scripture implies a conscious effort to reach out and turn a door knob. The verse says we must open the door. Not God. God want us to signal Him to come in. Yes, we have to open that door with mental assent. We have to take an action. He says we must confess His name before men. That is a physical action demonstrating mental assent. God is no respecter of persons. He calls us but we must take the step toward Him. He will not make us. We must ask to be reborn in body, soul and spirit. Then God will hear us and come through the ‘Door.’

Many years ago, a fabulous Pastor, I knew named Gordon Venturella, told me that the Holy Spirit coming into my spirit was similar to the analogy of a large house. So often, when we let the Spirit in we only open the front hallway. Then as we grow spiritually, we open more rooms and the Spirit floods in those, until the whole house is filled.

This writing has several references to the ‘Nous’ particularly by Watchman Nee. It is important to define what we are intending by ‘Nous.’ My understanding is that Plato and Aristotle believed the ‘nous’ meant ‘good sense, awareness, and is distinct from the soul’s function. According to Aristotle the soul’s function is to to observe what is noted by the five senses. According to them, the ‘nous’ was similar to what we Christians think of as man’s spirit. As already noted, Watchman Nee believed that man’s spirit must be reborn by God’s Spirit in order for God to spiritually communicate. It is acknowledged that the Soul can be communicated to by God, but only through the five senses and the spiritual communication with God only comes with the infilling of our spirit by God’s Holy Spirit.

Plato and Aristotle did not have a concept of man’s spirit. They believed that the soul (or psyche) was the entire content of man’s intelligent life that separated man from the animals. Yet the Christian concept is much different. As espoused by Watchman Nee, a fair generalization of the ‘nous’ in Christianity would be a mystical interim spiritual condition through which man’s formerly dead spirit (with God’s input) communicates with man’s soul. This ‘nous’ could be said to contain such terms as ‘common sense,’ ‘conscience,’ ‘intuition,’ ‘God’s moral code,’ and spiritual understand which are transmitted to the human’s psyche (Soul). Nee writes that the mind is part of the human’s soul and through the mind the soul controls the minds thoughts and the body’s actions.

I must confess I own a reluctant nous. I want to understand everything. It has been slow for me. Many Christians get it all at once because they are open to it. I have struggled for years and still do. I could blame it on my church upbringing which actively taught against the Holy Spirit’s power, however, it is only my fault because the scriptures are clear. I confess that Watchman Nee has been an amazing source for me to understand the relationship of body, soul and spirit. I pray every day for God to fill me with the Holy Spirit and empower me to be a better servant to Him.