«　WEEK 4　DAY 2　»

　　2 Cor. 4:16 Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

　　Rom. 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him…

　　After our rebirth we should no longer live by that old person but absolutely by the new person. The problem is that, even after our rebirth, we still live by our old person. We always consider whether a thing is right or wrong. If it is right, we will do it. If it is wrong, we will not do it. Thus, our standard of being a Christian is not a person but a behavior….Our standard must be a person, not a behavior. Whether a matter is right or wrong, good or bad, we should only care for one thing: who is going to do it? Is our old person going to do it or our new person? It is not a matter of what you are going to do but of who is going to do it. The real subjective aspect of the work of the cross is to cross out your old person. It is no longer I, the old person, but Christ, the new person (Gal. 2:20). It is not a matter of adjusting or improving your behavior. It is a matter of shifting your being from the old person to the new person. (CWWL, 1970, vol. 2, “The Two Greatest Prayers of the Apostle Paul,” pp. 422-423)

　　We have to live and do everything by this new person. We should not care whether a thing is right or wrong, good or bad. We must only care for one thing: which person is going to do it, the old person or the new person?

　　If we know how to deal desperately with Christ, how to feed on Christ through pray-reading the Word, how to drink of Him by calling on His name, and how to breathe Him in day by day, we will be one with Him in our spirit. This will cause us, day by day, to grow in our new person. Today we cannot see or realize that our new person is growing, but one day we will “be no longer little children” and will “arrive… at a full-grown man” (Eph. 4:14, 13). That full growth will be the accumulation of Christ as the reality in us through all our experiences of Him. It is not merely that we experience Christ a little bit as our patience, our strength, or our life. Rather, all day long we would live by the new person. If we are going to visit a brother, we have to check whether this is our old person, our self, or our new person, our spirit. We must check with this point and get a proper answer. Then we must go, not in our old person but in the new person. Even if a mother is going to talk to her children, she has to check whether her old person or her new person is going to talk. We are all born again, but are we living by the old person or the new person? Only by living in the new person can we have Christ as our reality. All day long, we must live by the new person. Even to study your lessons in school, you need to check this one point. For school you have to exercise your mind, but the new person, not the old person, should be using your mind. Whenever you study your lessons, you have to check: which person is going to study? If you study in the new person, your mind will work for you as an organ under the control of your new person. If you are going to dress yourself, do not check what kind of clothing you are going to wear. First, you have to find out who is going to dress, the old person or the new person. We are newborn Christians, yet most of the time we live by our old person and not by the new person, our spirit.

　　We should not live by a high moral standard or by an immoral standard. We should not live by any standard of behavior, but by a person. This is why 2 Corinthians 4:16 says that our outer man, the old person, is decaying, but our inner man, the new person, is being renewed day by day. The outer man has to be reduced, but the inner man needs to increase. We really have two persons within us; one is old, and one is new. The old one has to be consumed, but the new one needs to increase. Our problem is that we do not realize this and continue to live by the old person and not by the new. We need a revelation so that we may have a shift from the old person to the new. (CWWL, 1970, vol. 2, “The Two Greatest Prayers of the Apostle Paul,” pp. 424-425)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1977, vol. 3, “The One New Man,” chs. 1, 3-4