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For the new man we all need to take Christ as our person—Eph. 2:15; 3:17a:
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In the one new man there is only one person—Christ—v. 17a; 4:24.
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We need to see that the church is the one new man and that in this new man we have no place, for Christ is all—Col. 3:10-11.
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Christ is in all of us as one person; therefore, we all have only one person—Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27; Eph. 3:17a.
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In the new man all of us are simply one man; the requirement that everyone be only one man is extremely high—Col. 3:10-11.
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The new man is not about members (Rom. 12:4-5) but about the person; therefore, we all need to ask, “Who is my person—I or the Lord Jesus?”
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What God cares for is whether we live by Christ and take Christ as our person—John 6:57b; Phil. 1:21a; Col. 3:4; Eph. 3:17a:
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We should not only eat Christ's riches in order to take them in and assimilate them into our being; we should also allow Christ to be our person—vv. 8, 17a.
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We should take Christ not only to be our life but also to be our person.
Morning Nourishment
Eph. 3:16 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man.John 6:57 …He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.
We need to see the development from our new birth to the one new man where Christ is all and in all….Before being saved, man is a soul (Acts 7:14), a person, with two organs: the body as an outward organ to contact the outward, physical world, and the spirit as an inward organ to contact God and the spiritual world. When we believed in the Lord Jesus and received Him, He came into our spirit as life…. Formerly, we had only the human life in our soul, but now we have the divine life in our spirit…. Formerly, [our spirit] was only an organ because it did not have life, but now it has also become a person with a life….Formerly, you were a soulish person with the natural, soulish, human life; but now you have the divine, eternal, uncreated life in your spirit. By being regenerated, you have been converted to be another person. Formerly, your person was the soul, but now your person is your spirit. Now you must live not by your soul but by your spirit. (CWWL, 1970, vol. 2, “The Two Greatest Prayers of the Apostle Paul,” pp. 419-420)
Today's Reading
It is wonderful to be born again, but after our new birth, we need to grow. To grow simply means to have more of Christ added and worked into us. Formerly, we were people in the soul, but now we must be people in the spirit. Our soul, our former person, has already been “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). We have to take this fact and put it into our practice. Realizing that our former person has been crucified, we should not live in that person, by that person, or with that person anymore. We have to deny our former person, which the Bible calls “the old man” (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9) and the “outer man” (2 Cor. 4:16), and we have to live by our new person, “the inner man” (Eph. 3:16). We have to realize that we are now another person, the new person in our spirit with Christ as life. Our person, our spirit, and Christ's life are now one. This new person, our spirit plus Christ as life, is even our personality. Now our personality is not in the soul but in the spirit. We should not live in the old person anymore, nor should we allow or permit the old person to take any action. We have to live by the new person.How do we apply this in our daily living? Suppose a brother intends to go to a department store to buy something. He should not check whether that is the Lord's will or not. The first thing he has to check is whether his going is being initiated from his soul or from his spirit. Is it being initiated by his former person or by his present person, by the old man or the new man, by the soulish man or the inner man? It has to be initiated by his new person. It may be easy for us to learn this doctrine, but in most of our living, we may still be absolutely in our old man. To go to the department store to buy something is not bad or evil, but that may still be an activity of our former person. Although we are Christians in name, we may still be living in our old person. We may do things according to our consideration of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or evil, and not according to the principle of whether it is something of the old person or something of the new person. We, the reborn ones, may very rarely live in our new person.
God has no intention to ask you to be a good man. God's intention is for you to live in the new person. It does not matter whether you buy something or not, whether you go shopping or not. What does matter is who goes, the former person or the present one, the person in the soul or the person in the spirit. If the person in the soul goes, Christ is not there, but if the person in the spirit goes, Christ goes, because in the spirit you are one with Christ. The new person is Christ as life in your spirit. (CWWL, 1970, vol. 2, “The Two Greatest Prayers of the Apostle Paul,” pp. 421-422)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1970, vol. 2, “The Two Greatest Prayers of the Apostle Paul,” ch. 4