Jim Moran on The Local Church's Sin & Satan
The Bottom Line to All of this is that the language Witness Lee uses convinces a Christian that Witness Lee was not a Christian. Witness Lee does not care for the truth in spirit but rather his pursuit of mingling everything he can get his hands on, and then exalting himself on that basis. In a word we may describe his unprincipled unsalvation teachings as a life of a MINGLER, mingling everything into meaninglessness into passivity to control its people, and by so doing, the AUTHOR OF CONFUSION, like his father before him - Troy.
A common thread runs throughout all of Witness Lee's theological instruction. For instance, his tripartite view of man (note the Bible states man is tripartite: spirit, soul and body Heb. 4.12, 1. Thess. 5.23; the perfect proof of man having a spirit, soul and a body is found in Watchman Nee's, The Spiritual Man, the best work ever done on the subject, so that it is not this fact that is the problem, but something else such as no regeneration in Witness Lee, thus no real dividing of spirit, soul and body, no quickening of the spirit, and just MENTAL ANALYSIS and mistakes, for this is the flavor you get in his Witness Lee's writings. It is another way of saying, "hey, hold on a second, what you just said there, doesn't sound quite right. I don't like your choice of language or meaning there." So what should you do? Avoid Witness Lee's writings all together and move on. You do not have the time in your life to spend on shallow unsaved men who are already dead yet have a legacy of sinners in their wake. It is better to be Christlike and get it right and show people how to be rather than trying to reason with a sinner. We could all write a book on the wrong language used by Witness Lee to describe things, like "sin is Satan". It is a fact that Satan is sinful, but that Satan is not sin for sin is an aspect and Satan is not an aspect but a spirit being who is personified in the Scriptures. We can go through this document and add our comments to Jim Moran's statements and clarify it all, even where Jim Moran is mistaken, for example on tripartite man if you have the time to bother. - Troy) is significantly associated with his teaching of the nature of sin, which according to Lee, is the very person of Satan. Lee has gone on record as saying that Satan dwells within mankind as man's sinful nature. From his booklet, The Parts of Man, Lee states:
Not long after God created man, man fell. When man ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan entered into the body of man through the fruit of that tree (Gen. 3:6), for the fruit, we know, entered man's body. Romans 7:23 tells us that sin is in the members of our body. Sin is the evil nature of Satan. However, to express it in this way is rather conservative. We could even say that sin is Satan. Since sin is in the members of our body, we may say that Satan has entered our body. Satan is called by the Bible "the evil one" (Matt. 6:13; I John 5:19, ASV). The Greek text simply says "the evil." "Evil" is Satan himself; therefore, sin is Satan personified. Satan is really sin itself.
(Witness Lee said we could even say "sin is Satan." Who says we can say it this way? Eating fruit is not a sin for fruit is healthy even we are told not to eat it. What is a sin is doing something God tells us not to do like eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Witness Lee is comparing the physical swallowing of the physical fruit and having that manifest in through our body's members and by so doing he is having the physical contact the physical as sin. I think such an analysis by Witness Lee is evil for it is a misreading of the Word of God. To say "the evil" is Satan is acceptable, but to say "evil" is Satan is wrong since Satan is "the evil". Sin, therefore, is not personified, though Satan is personified since Satan is "the evil" and a spirit being, fallen Lucifer. Satan is not sin itself but the one who fell sinning, epitomizing sin, yet Satan himself is not sin. God says sin is sin and Satan is Satan, and never confuses the two; that is why Mattew and John said "the evil" not just "evil". "The evil" commits "evil" through "sin". Therefore, "the evil" is not sin per se, but the one who is the spirit being Lucifer who God cast out of heaven from 3rd heaven to 2nd heaven. Evil is that which "the evil" does. - Troy)
Because Satan as sin (sinfulness is the correct word - Troy) came into man's body (actually, Satan didn't enter man's body. Rather, Satan entered man's spirit. Since Satan is a spirit being, he enters man's spirit, not his body. The spirit is encased by the soul, and the soul is encased by the body. Now resides within the man the evil spirit in his spirit which thus permeates the soul and body as Satan came from the outer to the inner), his body was changed in nature. Man's body became the flesh. (In Rom. 8:13, "flesh" and "body" are interchangeably used.) When sin was injected into the body of man, the body underwent a change in nature. It became corrupted and ruined by sin, and thus was changed into the flesh....Originally, man's body was not flesh; it was good and pure (Gen. 1:31).It became flesh because it was ruined by The Evil in it. We must realize that fallen man has Satan as sin in his body, and the by-product is the flesh....(This is not an accurate statement since Satan is not as sin in the body, but rather Satan resides in man's spirit, gains strongholds in man's mind and possesses the body not as sin, but the possessor of the body, able to control it through that possession. The problem with Witness Lee's language is that Satan is not sin so he should not be saying "Satan as sin" or "sin is Satan". Jim Moran is very right in his commentary, except on the matter of man's tripartite nature as we shall disclose further on).
When Satan entered man's body, he utilized it as a base to take over the soul Man as a human being or soul, came under the influence and control of the flesh. The soul was then damaged and became the self. When the body became the flesh, it damaged, influenced and even led the soul into captivity....
Although we cannot find a verse which says that man's body is Satan, there is a verse which clearly indicates that the fallen soul, the self, is Satan. (Scarry teaching, stay away from Witness Lee, saying "the fallen soul, the self, is Satan". The fallen soul is the fallen soul and Satan is Satan. They should not be mingled for that creates confusion). We have already seen that Satan as sin is in the body. (nope) Now, Matthew 16 shows that Satan not only has ground in the soul, but is also mingled with the soulish self. (sin is mingled, Satan is the mingler, and the man is the willing participant) "Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan" (v. 22). Then the Lord said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself" (v. 24). The two terms, "Satan" and "self," are used interchangeably in this passage....(Satan and self are not used interchangeably, otherwise it would be acceptable to say, "let him deny himSatan". But Jesus is not saying deny yourself as Satan. Jesus is saying that Satan, who is residing in the man's spirit, to get behind "me". What Jesus is saying is that if any man will come after Him, he must deny his self life which is the soul life and not allow Satan to find a stronghold in that life).
Beyond a doubt, it means that Satan is mingled with self! Self is the nature of the soulish life, and the soulish life is the life of the soul, the person. (Beyond a doubt, Satan is not mingled with self, but with spirit of the unsaved man. The soulical life is the life of soul, not the soulish life. The soulish life is the life of the sinning soul. The soulical life is the natural qualities of that life that are acceptable. Satan mingles sin into man's self and possesses the self of the man gaining control of it. There is nothing wrong with self-consciousness for that is the function of man's soul. Selfishness is the nature of the soulish life. To deny even those things that are legitimate of the soul is what it means to be a spiritual man for the sake of others in being selfless.)
It means that self and Satan are mingled as one. (No. Self and sin are mingled and Satan mingles it). Therefore, the very nature of the soulish life, which is the life of the soul, the man himself, is the satanic self. (No. The soulish life is the life of the soul only if it is being soulish, not if it is being soulical. Soulish life in the sinful man is not Satanic if it does not access the supernatural evil. Because the redemptive design includes deliverance from sin, self and supernatural, the supernatural is one kind of deliverance and self is another kind. The self that is lazy and refuses to take out the garbage is not Satanic because it is not a supernatural possession, but a natural deliverance that is needed to do God's will in the soul of that person. If the self engaged in evil crime then then that is not a satanic self, but a possession by the evil spirit of man's self. Man's self is not a satanic self since Satan may gain strongholds in the soul, and possess it, yet he himself is never the man's soul and it is never appropriate to call what is of the natural of the self as being satanic, since Satan is supernatural, not natural).
The life of the soul is soulish, and the nature of this life is the satanic self. (no and no) After Satan came into man's body, he used it as a base to invade the soul and even mingle himself with the soul. Hence, the satanic self (Not satanic self, but selfish self which Satan has induced. The reason you never say satanic self is because the self is naturally designed with a free will in the image of God so that it is never a satanic self. This would be inaccurate terminology and nomeclature. We must think in terms of God's Biblical Psychology, not inaccurate terminology. If we use inaccurate terminology we harden our hearts and our spirits and don't deal effectively with God's Word.) is the nature of the fallen, soulish life...Through the mingling of Satan with the soul, the soulish life has become the ugly, sinful ego. Fallen man's nature is actually that of Satan, for his soulish life is mingled with Satan in oneness....(the same natures are mingled, but the soulish life is not mingled with Satan).
Now let us see the condition of man's spirit as a result of the fall. Although the Bible clearly shows that Satan entered into man's body, using it as a base to mingle himself with the soul, we cannot find one hint in the Scriptures that Satan has ever entered man's spirit. (This is where we see Witness Lee directly contradicting Watchman Nee's The Spiritual Man. Since man's spirit is spirit and Satan is spirit, the only place that Satan can ever reside in man is his spirit, not his soul, nor his body. Again it must be realized that Satan can possess the soul and gain a stronghold in the mind, but he can never enter the body or soul anyway other than by being in the man's spirit. Nowhere does it say in the Bible that Satan lives in man's flesh or his soul since strictly speaking the flesh is not spirit, nor is the soul. - note to self - get some verses of Satan residing in man's unregenerated spirit when he is unsaved.) This is very interesting. Not one verse shows that Satan has any ground in man's spirit. It seems that God must have drawn a boundary line, telling Satan to stop and go no further. Satan may be in man's body and soul, but not in his spirit. (Satan is never in man's body, and never in man's soul. Satan is either in man's spirit, or not in man's spirit. This is the same finding in Watchman Nee's The Spiritual Man. What removes Satan from man's spirit is the Holy Spirit the moment the person believes. Then after that all Satan can do is possess the Christian, but he can never enter man's spirit again since there is one greater there now in the regenerated man).
Fallen man's spirit has been defiled and even deadened, but it has never been taken over by Satan....(true, and Satan resides their in the unregenerated spirit, not the soul, nor the body, since Satan is a spirit being, not a physical being, nor a soulical being).
Thus, man who was created by God with the purpose of being His vessel to contain and express Him (Man was not created to contain God or express Him, but to walk with His creation. That was His purpose. That is why God will be at the center of the new city, while man will be its pillars it says in Revelation. We need to be careful not to say that we express God as if we are God, and we know this is a big problem in Leeism because the Leeists say they will become God and this wrong, nomenclature or any other nature), has been completely damaged by the Fall. The body as the outward organ has been taken over by Satan and thereby corrupted to become the flesh. (The body has not been taken over by Satan, but rather the body has sinned, and in so doing the man allows Satan to get away with stuff in the man. The man still has use of his body and is not completely under the power of Satan, though Satan does reside in the spirit of man and salvation is lost unless the man comes to Christ. The man still has his own sovereign will but it is not a renewed will without new life). The spirit as the inward organ has been defiled and deadened - made dormant and put out of function. The soul as the person, the human being, having been mingled with Satan as one, has become the self. (This is wrong nomenclature because the self is not wrong in itself, just as the soul is not wrong in itself unless it becomes soulish or selfish). And the heart is deceitful above all and desperately wicked, with the mind blinded and hardened by Satan. This is the condition of fallen man.1
Witness Lee will take the matter of Satan as sin in our body farther by stating that Satan actually indwelt and was trapped in the bodies of mankind and the Lord Jesus Christ. From his book, The Economy of God, Lee states: The significance of Adam taking the fruit of the tree of knowledge was that he received Satan into himself....When he took the fruit...he received Satan, who then grew in him....Satan grew in Adam and became a part of him.
Satan not only came into Adam when he fell in the garden, but he still remains in the human race....(not in the body, but in the spirit since the body is not spirit. The Holy Spirit resides in man's spirit, so too does the evil spirit in the unregenerated man, not in the body).
What is the law of sin? Paul said, "...no more I, but sin that dwelleth in me" (Rom. 7:20), and, "...no longer I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). Here we have the contrast between "no more I, but sin," and "no longer I, but Christ." Christ is the embodiment of God, (Christ is not the embodiment, but the 2nd Person of the Trinity for God is more than embodiment and Christ was without physical body before creation) but sin is the embodiment of Satan. (Sin is not embodiment of Satan. Sin is of the body, as self is of the soul, but sin is not embodiment of Satan since Satan does not embody a person). The word "sin" in Romans 7 should be capitalized, for it is personified. (No it should not be capitalized since it is not personified. Romans 7.23 - "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind". This is not a personification, but a fact that the law of sin wars for it is a sin nature). It is like a person, (sin is not like a person for a person has a soulical life and sin is of sin nature) for Sin can dwell in us and force us to do things against our will....Sin can be lord over us; (and still not a person; for such is a bad analogy) hence, Sin must be the evil one, Satan. (only if you believe in bad analogies. Hence sin must not be the evil one, but is the "evil"). Through the fall, Satan came into man as Sin,(no, as we have seen Satan is not sin, but Satan commits sin for Satan is the "evil one" or "the evil" who commits "evil" "sin") and is ruling, damaging, corrupting, and mastering him. In what part? Satan is in the members of man's body. (no, the body if flesh. It is impossible for the evil one to reside in the flesh since the evil one is spirit. Only sin can reside in the flesh. That is why we say the flesh is the sin of the body and the self of the soul. If the self is selfish then it is soulish. If the self is soulical then it is acceptable).
Man's body as originally created by God was something very good, but it has now become the flesh. The body was pure, since it was created good, but when the body was corrupted by Satan, it became flesh. Paul said, "...in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. 7:18). By the fall, Satan came to dwell in our body, (no, he never did dwell in the body) causing our body to become flesh - i.e., a damaged, ruined body. (our body has always be flesh, but after the fall that flesh is also referred to in other places as sin of the body and self of the soul, a selfishness or not a selfishness. There is the soulical self and the soulish self).
The body is called "the body of sin" because Sin is in the body. The body simply became the residence of sin, which is the embodiment of Satan....Sin is the embodiment of Satan and death is the issue or effect of Satan. (Sin is not the embodiment of Satan since that is personifying sin as Satan and that is not true. Rather sin is nature of Satan). This corrupted, transmuted body is called the "body of sin," and the "body of death," because this body became the very residence of Satan (no it didn't, since Satan never resided in the body)....The body is something satanic and devilish, (The body is not satanic nor is it devilish. The body has to die because as soon as one sin came into it, that led the law of sin to the law of death in the body. Since the body was originally made perfect, it is never Satanic and never devilish for these are terms reserved for the supernatural realm, not the physical. The cause of this error was in thinking the fruit was evil, and it was not. Knowledge is not wrong in itself. So let us not misrepresent the body or blame the body for the body is just the conduit of the sin. It is not Satanic and it is not Devilish and it does not have a will of its own so stop blaming. Leave the body alone. Don't be aesthetic, nor attack the root of sin but put the old man on the cross and let the flesh die on the cross) because Satan dwells in this body (no Satan does not dwell in the body)....Now you see that the fall of man was not just a matter of man committing something against God, but of man receiving Satan into his body. (no Satan had not entered man's body. Satan entered man's spirit) Satan, from the time of the fall, dwells in man....(not in the body, but in the spirit).
Since Satan and man became one (they didn't)...Satan is no longer outside of man, but in man. (Satan resides in the spirit of an unregenerated man) The prince of the air, Satan himself, is working in the disobedient people (Eph. 2:2). Satan was joyful, boasting that he had succeeded in taking over man. (Satan didn't take over man, but found his abode in the man). But God, who was still outside of man, seemed to say: "I will also become incarnated. If Satan wrought himself into man, then let Me enter man and put man upon Myself." (Man does not put himself upon God. God never reacted to Satan, but God with foreknowledge already had it set out to defeat Satan) Do you see the complicated situation? God put on this man (God never put on man, God created man in His image)- Satan being in him - (Satan is in man not because of God, but because man sinned and did not listen to God so it is not God's fault the unregenerated man has the evil spirit in his spirit, and Christ is incarnated, but Satan was never in Him; it's impossible) through incarnation. (not by incarnation for man is not God, since God created man, did not incarnate Himself in man. Christ is incarnated only since only Christ is the 2nd Person of the Godhead. Man is be Christlike, but is not incarnated. To be incarnated is to be given bodily form from something else. Wrong Witness Lee nomenclature trying to be God). When God became incarnated as a man, the kind of man He put on was a man corrupted by Satan (no, he did not put on a man corrupted by Satan since Christ was sinless. Jesus Christ was born sinless, not corrupted by man. The flesh seemed similar but Christ was with flesh that was sinless)....Let us read Romans 8:3: "God, sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin" - not "the sinful flesh," as in the King James Version, but "the flesh of sin." When the Lord Jesus incarnated Himself in flesh, He was "in the likeness of the flesh of sin." There was no sin within Him, but there was "the likeness of the flesh of sin." (this is not the same thing as saying, as Witness Lee does that He put on a man corrupted by Satan. This simply was not so. Sin was within the corrupted man, but there was no sin within the Lord Jesus.... Then God put upon Himself the man with Satan within him. (No. God did not put upon Himself the man with Satan in Himself. Likeness does not mean it is nor is it even possible that God could have Satan in Himself. What an evil cult the LSM-LEE-LC system really is).
After God became a man and put that man with Satan within him upon Himself,(He never did put Satan within him upon Himself. This is an evil thought.) He brought that man to the cross. Satan thought he had succeeded, but he only gave the Lord an easy way to put him to death....Adam became a trap to catch Satan....Man was the trap, and the devil was trapped within him. (No. Satan was not trapped within Him since Satan can't be in Christ. The reality is that God died on the cross as the perfect sacrifice. Since in the OT the perfect sacrifices were the best lambs of the flock, those without any blemish, then so to is it with Christ being the perfect unblemished sacrafice. Christ had no sin in his flesh, none whatsoever. By Christ showing how the likeness of flesh has no power over him, so too man can from substitutory death and codeath have the same power over Satan who tries to impact the flesh. Satan is defeated because his avenue of approach is through impacting the sin of the body and self of the soul, but if the believer accepts the perfect sacrafice in Christ, not only is there forgiveness, the washing away of sins committed in the body, but also through co-death the self life can be put to naught. What can Satan do now? He can't do anything since the Holy Spirit is now in the believer, the flesh has died on the cross, so now Satan has not a single source or avenue in which to attack the man. Christ knows it. The problem is that most Christians don't avail themselves of it. They love substitution, but not the co-death part, so Satan still has his way with them in lots of ways.) Through incarnation God put the corrupted man upon Himself and brought this man to death on the cross. (Christ took upon himself not the corrupted man, but He took upon Himself the sins of all men. That is a major difference. He did not bring this man to death on the cross since man must make a choice whether to die with Christ for that would kill his personality otherwise. Instead Christ died sinless, the sins were taken upon him from all men, and then God let Him go down to Hades for 3 days, so that He could show His resurrection. At the same time, Satan within this fallen man was put to death also. (Satan wasn't put to death for Satan still lives. Instead Satan was defeatable now for those that believe. Satan's death will come at the end of the millennium). Thus, it is by this death on the cross that Christ destroyed the devil....(the devil is destroyed, just defeated or defeatable in believers).
Where is Satan? Satan is in me - in my flesh. (no, in your unregenerated spirit Witness Lee) But where is my flesh now? Look at Galatians 5:24: "...crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts." My flesh, with Satan in it, (Satan is not in the flesh) is on the cross; thus, Satan is put to death on the cross(Satan is not put to death, rather Satan ability is put to naught)....Christ brought man with Satan into death (no) and the grave and brought man without Satan out of death and the grave.(no, rather, the ability of Satan was put to naught). He left Satan buried in the grave.(Satan is not left buried in the grave since Satan roams the world and Satan was never in the flesh to begin with). Now this resurrected man is one with Christ.2 (not one with Christ, but rather "with Christ". Christ is Christ. Man is man. They are never One Being. And you can never be God).
A Local Church hymn, #1288, which is sung to the tune, A Mighty Fortress, yields significant understanding of this teaching of Witness Lee.
In Eden's Garden, Satan thought
He'd wreck the Lord's intention.
And so, conspiring, then, he wrought
His subtle intervention.
To man he entered in,
Became indwelling sin, (he did not become sin, rather
he instilled sin)
And by this deed so bad
He really thought he had
Undone the Lord completely.
'Twas all according to God's plan
To trap the Devil, Satan. (this is not about Satan, but
God's mercy for his creation)
His sphere of moving narrowed now,
Man's flesh his habitation; (no)
Though brilliant was his plan
To enter into man, (his spirit)
This man became instead
The means to bruise his head,
And finish him forever. (Christ won, not man)
So Christ put on our human flesh -
(Christ did not put on human flesh but was in the
"likeness" of human flesh since Christ was sinless in his body).
An act of wisdom purely.
And on the cross did thus enmesh
His foe held so securely.
Though desperate Satan's plight -
He fought with all his might;
But when the morning came
Christ was alive again, (Satan is crushed because he is
powerless, that is why, not because he is Christ's likeness of flesh.)
And Satan crushed forever.3
Witness Lee presents some serious doctrinal ambiguity. Lee would have us believe that God had planned for Satan to enter into man. (good point, like calvinism) This would seem to imply that if God had planned for Satan to enter into man, God must have intended for Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. (yes, good point) The Fall therefore, according to Witness Lee, must have been a planned event as well! (yes, good point).
Lee then suggests that Christ joined himself to the human race that had been corrupted by the presence of Satan. According to this hymn, Christ joined Himself to the human race so that He could take on a body that was inhabited by Satan himself. (These Leeivites are crazy!!!) Christ then went to the cross to put Satan to death. Satan within Christ (Leevites are crazy!!!) was then put to death. Christ destroyed Satan. He left Satan buried in the grave and Satan was crushed forever. However, according to Lee, the following description of Satan as sin in man's body suggests that Satan is very much alive and active inside of man.
Satan is the source of sin. As we have pointed out a number of times, sin is the nature of Satan injected into man. According to the revelation of the Bible, Satan as sin is in our flesh, in our fallen, contaminated body. Romans 7:18 says, "For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells." When God created man, He created him with a body that was pure. But when Satan injected himself as sin into man's body, the body became corrupted. Hence, in the Bible man's body is called the flesh. In our flesh we are one with Satan (figuratively), for the flesh is Satan's dwelling place in man (actually no, his dwelling place is man's spirit). In the same principle, our spirit is the Lord's dwelling place in us (Yes, if we are believers). A saved person is rather complicated because Satan as sin (Satan is not the sin in the flesh but the implanter of the sin in the flesh) is in his flesh and the Lord as the life-giving Spirit (spirit who is the Spirit) is in his spirit. Satan, sin, and the flesh go together. When Satan injected his evil nature into man (by entering man's spirit as the evil spirit), Satan became sin in man. (Satan did not become sin in man). When the nature of sin was injected into man's body, the body was transmuted into flesh. Hence, Satan, sin, and the flesh are mutually related within man. If we would overcome Satan and reign in life over him, we need to recognize that Satan as sin dwells in our flesh.4 (to repeat yet again Satan is not sin, though Satan does sin).
Before God could fulfill His intention, Satan, the enemy of God, wrought himself into the body of man. (nope) Thus, in the members of the body there is Sin - Sin personified. (nope, sin is not personified Satan, Satan institutes sin) As an illegal king, it can overrule and force us to do things against our will. Satan himself, as the evil nature and as the law of sin, dwells in us to corrupt our body (no he does not, and thus he is not like a king that can force us to do things against our will)....Satan came into our body as the law of sin;(he didn't come into our body) but, praise the Lord, when we were saved, the Triune God came to dwell in our spirit as our life (actually, only the Holy Spirit came into our spirit, not the Father, nor the Son). Christ as our life is in our spirit. What then is in our soul? Self. Our self is in our soul. Have we been impressed that all three beings - Adam, Satan, and God - are in us today? (Adam is in us sometimes when we live fleshly, God is in us by His Spirit, that is His same life, not His Trinity for that would make us God, and Satan is never in us believers and resides in non-believers only in their spirit since spirit communes with spirit) We are quite complicated. The man, Adam, is in us; the devil, Satan, is in us;(not believers) and the Lord of life, God Himself, is in us not God Himself unspecified, but God the Spirit the 3rd Person Himself). Hence, we have become a little garden of Eden. (Actually no, we are something else, since we are not going back to the eden but onto something better, that is the second adam, new life, having already eaten the tree of life, receiving the life of Christ.) Adam representing the human race, the tree of life representing God, and the tree of knowledge representing Satan are the three parties in the garden of Eden; and now they are all in us. (No. It's not possible. You either have Satan in your spirit or the Holy Spirit. There is only two possibilities: as men born like Adam we either have the evil spirit in our spirit or the Holy Spirit in our spirit). Adam, the self, is in our soul; (Adam is not the self, for the Adam has a body and spirit also so he is more than self). Satan, the devil, is in our body (no he isn't); and God, the Triune God, is in our spirit.(no only His Holy Spirit is in our spirit). But we are more than a little garden; (we are not a little garden, we are fallen, whereas the garden is passed and locked by Seraphim) we are a great battlefield. (we are not a great battlefield, we are not battlemen, but we are children of God) Satan is in us fighting against God, and God is in us fighting against Satan. (Satan is not in us, nor can He be if Christ is in us, but Satan can still possess us, gaining strongholds in the mind and possessing the body. This means he gains ground and control, not himself being in it literally). Satan takes our body, which is the flesh, as the base for his battles; (Satan does not limit himself to our body and our soul in attacking us, for he also tries to work in our spirit also - inner man). God takes our spirit as the base for His warfare (Satan works from the outer but God works from the inner).... These two parties are always warring with one another. Satan is in our flesh (Satan is not in our flesh) as Sin (Satan is not sin, but the instiller of sin and its promoter) and the Triune God is in our spirit as Life, (Actually the Holy Spirit is in our spirit, not the Father, nor the Son; the Son is with the Father in heaven, and now the Lord is the Spirit meaning now His life is available to all of us, resurrected life) and day by day there is a spiritual warfare raging between them in the battlefield of our soul.5 (The mind a battlefield, yet this does not mean Satan is sin in ourterman for sin is sin and Satan is Satan. Satan first committed sin but who is to say Satan is is the originator? If Lucifer never sinned, and another angel sinned would Lucifer still be the originator of sin. I don't think so, therefore Lucifer/Satan is not the originator of sin just the lover of sin).)
Quite disturbing is Witness Lee's teaching that Satan had been mingled and entrapped in man (and in Christ?), (YUP! Very disturbing) and then having been crucified on the cross with the Lord Jesus Christ. This viewpoint would certainly raise the question of Christ's sinlessness (Yes, good point). In order for Christ to take our sins upon Himself as a perfect sacrifice, which He did WHILE on the cross, His divine and human natures could not have been diminished in any way. Peter told his readers that they were redeemed by the precious blood of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Pet.1:19). Although Lee has gone on record as saying Christ was without sin, and that He had no sin within Him, his teaching concerning man, sin, Satan, and Christ warrants our serious evaluation. (actually not really, we should not waste time on men's activities that are possessed with Satan's life).
The Bible clearly attests that Satan is an independent and separate personality apart from mankind, whereas sin and our sinful nature are non-material in nature, entirely devoid of human or angelic personality. Our human bodies are not sinful, they do not cause us to sin, and they have not been corrupted (yes, there is something wrong with going around saying, our bodies are corrupted, a strong word that is unecessary to depict that our bodied have sinned, and must die as a result as the consequence of even this one sin. It is as if before Adam, pre-adamic man lived a long time but still died, but it was ok because man was not yet made in His image. Then when man was made in His image there was a perfect lifespan in the body, sinless. But as soon as man sinned that body had sin in it. When it sinned it's days were shorted, generation after generation) by sin as Witness Lee claims, though they do carry out sinning as prompted by our hearts and minds, and do suffer the consequences of sinful behavior. It is the evil nature of sin housed within our human bodies of flesh that can cause sinning to take place.
It's apparent from Witness Lee's cited works above that he reads too much into the literary language that attributes human-like qualities to sin and its power (anthropomorphisms), great evilness to the human body and its qualities, and to the supposed indwelling of Satan and his evil work directed toward mankind.
Witness Lee's teaching that Satan dwells within us as our sinful nature shifts the emphasis of responsibility of our own sinfulness from ourselves to someone else - certainly adding a new dimension to the old saying - the devil made me do it! (YES!! That seems to be the net effect of it. It is like Biblical Psychology and Witness Lee's mentality is misrepresentative of the man's true condition and the condition of the body, Satan and sin. How sad for people that grow up in this environment - One can't help but think of the net effects of this on its adherents. To believe that Satan is in your body is to misplace blame and not accurately realize whether something comes from Satan, self or God will end up making one always blaming Satan for everything when it could very well be your own sovereign will, or perhaps God that has allowed something. Read Jessie-Penn Lewis's War on the Saints to compliment Watchman Nee's, The Spiritual Man)
Endnotes