«　WEEK 6　DAY 5　»

　　Acts 10:45 And the believers who were of the circumcision…were amazed, because on the Gentiles also the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out.

　　1 Cor. 12:13 …In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.

　　Rev. 5:9 And they sing a new song, saying: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain and have purchased for God by Your blood men out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

　　According to the New Testament record, there were three prominent and leading apostles: Peter, Paul, and John. With all these apostles, we can see the Lord’s heart’s desire to have the one new man.

　　According to the record of the New Testament, Peter caught the fish, gathered the materials, for the building up of the church. Paul was a tentmaker (Acts 18:3). His trade was a building trade, and his ministry was a building ministry. When John was called by the Lord, he and James were mending their nets in the boat (Matt. 4:21). Eventually, John became a real mender, mending the breakages in the church by his ministry of life…. Thus, in the New Testament we see the fishing ministry, the building ministry, and the mending ministry. (CWWL, 1977, vol. 3, “The One New Man, ” pp. 522-523)

　　God used Peter to bring in many Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost. Under the Lord’s sovereignty, many of them were from different cultures and spoke different languages (Acts 2:8-11). This implied something of God’s desire to gather together different peoples with different languages into one…. In Acts 10 while Peter was keeping his hour of prayer, he received a vision concerning God’s plan and move. When Peter was praying, he was, no doubt, in the spirit. When he was in the spirit, he saw a vision. Acts tells us that “a trance came upon him” (v. 10)…. In this trance Peter saw a vessel like a great sheet descending onto the earth, in which were all manner of unclean animals [symbolizing Gentiles].

　　Paul was much deeper and stronger in Judaism than Peter was. Peter was a fisherman from Galilee, but Paul was a scholar in the Jewish religion…. Despite Paul’s strong Jewish background, he was able to tell us in 1 Corinthians 12:13 that we were all baptized into one Body, “whether Jews or Greeks.” In Galatians 3:27-28 Paul tells us that those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ and “there cannot be Jew nor Greek.” In Colossians 3:10-11 Paul tells us that the Jew and the Greek have no place in the new man…. For Paul to speak in such a way with his deep and strong Jewish education shows the marvelous renewing in his mentality.

　　In the book of Revelation John told us that the Lord purchased by His blood “men out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (5:9). We should not forget that John was also Jewish, but this word indicates that his mind was greatly renewed. He confirmed that Christ died on the cross to redeem men from different tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations. Through John we also see that the churches are the golden lampstands (Rev. 1:11-12), and consummately these lampstands become the New Jerusalem. In the lampstands and in the New Jerusalem we can see no differences in peoples.

　　We can see how much renewal we need in all the matters of our daily life …. This is not a matter of adjusting our behavior but a matter of being transformed by being renewed in the spirit of our mind to make us another person. Daily we need to put off the old man and put on the new man. For this we need to drink of the one Spirit so that we may be renewed in the spirit of our mind in every area of our practical, daily life. (CWWL, 1977, vol. 3, “The One New Man, ” pp. 523-526, 530)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1977, vol. 3, “The One New Man, ” chs. 2, 5-7; CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 2, “The God-men, ” ch. 1; Life-study of 1 & 2 Chronicles, msgs. 2, 4