LNTW, Chapter 5: Distinctiveness

In this chapter Watchman Nee goes even further with his ideas about the separation to God of the Christian, and begins to tie together the incredible gift of God in Jesus Christ to accomplish that separation.  Here are some of the major points in this chapter:
1.  In John's Gospel, Jesus contrasted the "religious" Jews with His disciples.  To the Jews He said, "You are of this world; I am not of this world" (8:23), but to His disciples, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own:  but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (15:19).  Christians are not of the world because they have been chosen out of the world by Jesus.
2.  The Greek 'ek' means 'out of'; the term for Christ's Church - 'ekklesia' - means 'called out ones.'  Nee states, "From the midst of the great kosmos God calls one here and one there, and all whom He calls He calls out."  Those so called out must live in spirit outside the world system.
3.  As those chosen out of the world, we have a new life that is from above; our origin then also becomes of heaven, not the world.  We are "otherworldly"; God's gift is a new life that never was of the world.  That life is uneasy mingling with the world.
4.  In 1 Corinthians 1:30, Paul made two statements related to this new life:  1)  God Himself placed us in Christ; since Christ is not of this world, then neither are we; 2)  Christ has been made to us redemption; as Israel was redeemed by God out of Egypt through Moses, so we become redeemed out of the world through Christ, who then becomes our barrier to resist the world.

5.  Our own effort to resist the world then becomes unnecessary; Christ IS that barrier of resistance.  In my heart I have that barrier in Jesus, so that the world cannot reach me.  My own efforts at resisting the world will just draw me more closer to and more involved with the world.  Like Israel out of Egypt, we have been redeemed by Christ out of the world.
6.  The new Christian life from above makes the world hate us.  The world can accept the fruits of that life - good deeds, charity, patience, etc. - but cannot accept its basis in God and Christ.  The world is always hostile to that basis.  Nee states, "The best heart of the world has nothing in common with the least significant Christian."
7.  God planted His Church in the world for a purpose.  Because of its heavenly origin, physical separation from the world is not necessary.  Jesus prayed that His disciples not be taken from the world, but rather be protected from the evil one (John 17:14-15).  Believers in Christ are not to try to leave the world, but to have a vital place in it, to stay and overcome in Christ.  Nee states, ". . . we are to accept with joy the fact that God has placed us in it (the world)" and "that distinctiveness, our gift from God in Christ, is all the safeguard we need."