Allow the Lord to Break through in us and Abolish all Ordinances for the One New Man

On the cross Christ abolished in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, the middle wall of partition, and He created the new man in Himself; He destroyed all the ordinances to make peace, and He Himself became our peace. Hallelujah!

On the negative side, Christ in His death destroyed all the negative things and people in the universe; on the positive side, He created the one new man, His masterpiece.

To us human beings and to all living things on earth death is the end of it, but to God in Christ, death was the beginning of something marvelous, for in His death and resurrection Christ brought forth a one new man.

God created man in His image and according to His likeness so that man would express Him and represent Him corporately; even though the first man, Adam, failed God, the second man came to fulfill God’s intention.

Even more, through His death Christ terminated the old man and created a new man; this new man is full of the element of Christ and is Christ Himself enlarged and expanded in humanity, and this new man will fulfill the eternal purpose of God.

On the cross Christ in His flesh terminated all the negative things in the universe – Satan, sin, the flesh of fallen man, the world, the old creation, and the ordinances.

Man is not only sinful and lifeless, void of the life of God; man is also separated and divided because of the ordinances from the law and the culture, so Christ terminated all the ordinances.

We must be filled of appreciation for Christ, the first God-man and our Savior, who in His flesh destroyed and terminated all the negative things.

Also, He created the one new man in Himself as the sphere, element, and essence. On the cross in Himself Christ created the one new man; this means that He Himself is the unique element and constituent of the new man, and in the new man Christ is all and in all.

On the one hand Christ is the creator of the one new man, the church, and on the other hand He is the sphere in which and the element and essence with which the new man was created.

So today in the church life we need to live a life not only with the realisation that the church is the assembly of God’s people, the household of God, and the Body of Christ, but also that the church is the one new man where Christ is all and in all!

For us to do this, the Lord has to expose our ordinances and terminate them, and we will be in peace, with no division or separation from anyone else who is different than us and does things differently than us.

On the Cross Christ Abolished all the Ordinances, all the Ways of Living and Worship that Divide Men

On the cross Christ created the one new man in Himself by abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, the middle wall of partition (Eph. 2:14-15).

We may think we understand this and agree with this, but we really need to pray to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation, with a heart turned to the Lord, that the Lord would remove another layer of veils concerning the matter of ordinances.

To understand the matter of ordinances we need to consider that in the law there are different types of the commandments – there is the moral law and there are the ordinances.

The law spoken of in Eph. 2:15 is not the law of the moral commandments but the law of ritual commandments, such as the ordinances of circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, and eating certain foods.

On the cross Christ did not abolish the moral law; rather, the moral law of God will go on, applying both in this age, in the kingdom age, and in eternity, for it expresses the essence of God’s being, what He is.

But the ritual law, the law that deals with ways of living such as being circumcised, keeping the Sabbath, and eating or not eating certain foods, even though this came from God, they were abolished by Christ on the cross.

God gave these ordinances to His people Israel to make them distinct from the fallen race, but eventually these things became the enmity between the Jews and the Gentiles; they became a demarcation and even a source of hatred between peoples.

In principle, any ordinance can become such a source of enmity, so we need to be careful concerning our ordinances.

What is an ordinance? Ordinances are forms or ways of living and worship, which create enmity and vision. Hallelujah, on the cross Christ abolished all the ordinances, all the regulations regarding living and worship, the regulations that have divided the nations!

Even before He went to the cross, while He was ministering on earth, the Lord Jesus seemed to be taking the lead to break these ordinances. He healed people, but He many times did it on the Sabbath, even waiting purposely for the Sabbath, to show the Jews that God doesn’t care for ordinances.

Later Peter was a little weak in this matter, and Paul stood to his face when he withdrew from eating with the Gentiles when some came from James.

Paul was very strong to talk concerning circumcision, even using the term “concision”, those who cut themselves, for he realised that ordinances such as circumcision, when imposed on others, divide the Body.

Paul even said that religionists are the dogs, biting others! Based on what the Lord did on the cross, Paul carried out in his ministry the one new man, and he had to say some extreme things to shake the believers out of their ordinances.

Thank You Lord for creating the one new man in Yourself on the cross by abolishing in Your flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances. Hallelujah, the middle wall of partition has been torn down, and now in Christ we have peace! Amen, Lord, may we see and realize that on the cross all the regulations regarding living and worship have been abolished. May we live in such a reality today, putting aside any regulations that divide the nations and being one as the one new man in God’s plan!

Allowing the Lord to Break through in us and Abolish all Ordinances for the One New Man

As long as we in the church life have ordinances, which are actually wrapped up with our culture, we cannot have the new man.

On one hand it is such a blessing to meet with saints from so many different backgrounds and cultures, but on the other, there can be a lot of culture and ordinances among us, and we may be offended or offend others secretly.

Even the way we eat can be something that offends others. The Europeans and Americans eat with “weapons”, that is, with fork and knife, while those in Asia eat with chopsticks and some even with their fingers. Does this separate us? Does this ordinance cause us to not meet or fellowship with others?

The history of Christianity is a history of fighting over practices.

As the Lord would advance in His recovery, a certain practice would develop that would be helpful and even scriptural, but at a certain point in time it would become an ordinance.

For example, baptism is a wonderful and necessary thing, but the way to baptize others can be an issue; some baptize others in running water while others don’t, some baptize others forward while others do it backward or even standing and dropping down in a barrel of water. Would we be bothered because of this?

Practices such as speaking in tongues, foot-washing, the instruments to be used in a meeting, etc have been dividing Christians for years.

There are four main things in the New Testament that we cannot compromise on: idolatry, immorality, divisiveness, and the denial of Christ’s deity. As for the other things, we shouldn’t make any issues regarding them.

When we see others doing something and there may be a feeling of being bothered in us, this shows that we hold an ordinance about that thing; therefore, we don’t have the reality of the new man.

Even we the saints in the church life can have the “ordinance of pray-reading” and “the ordinance of calling on the name of the Lord”; we may not just practice these to contact the Lord, but these may be a criteria of whether or not we accept others. Oh Lord!

May we not make pray-reading an ordinance; may it not bother us if some don’t pray-read, or don’t call on the name of the Lord.

We receive great help when we pray over God’s word and call on the name of the Lord, but we love the Lord and the church much more than any practice, and we do not accept others based on any particular practice.

Even our way of testifying or praying in a short and living way, our saying Amen to others, and our reading the Holy Word for Morning Revival can be an ordinance.

We need to learn to adapt to the situation and learn to minister Christ in any situation, not being held back by our ordinances.

If others don’t read the morning revival book, we shouldn’t criticize; if other genuine believers or even local churches don’t practice pray-reading or calling on the name of the Lord, this should not be an issue.

From the time of Babel, mankind has been divided by ordinances concerning the ways of living and worship; in God’s economy, however, as we live in the church life, we must overcome Babel (Gen. 11:1-9).

Due to man’s fall there are many ordinances, many customs, habits, ways to live, and ways to worship; all these differences among peoples have divided, scattered, and confused mankind.

One of the main elements of ordinances is language; even our very own language can become an ordinance.

At Babel it was the language that separated and divided mankind, but praise the Lord, in Acts 2:1-11 we see that the divisions caused by language were overcome, and the church as the one new man came into existence!

In Acts 2 we see how people who spoke fifteen different dialects, as sovereignly arranged by the Lord, were all in oneness, for they all heard the gospel in their own language.

If we can overcome the difficulty presented by language, a great part of our problem with ordinances will be solved.

In Acts 6:1, we see that there was a disturbance among the saints because of the dispensing to the widows, to the Helenists; these were the Jews who spoke Greek.

In Acts 2 there were fifteen languages and these were overcome, but in Acts 6 there were two languages and there was a problem.

Language is not an easy thing; we need to pray for the intrinsic reality of the one new man to overcome our culture and ordinances. We may not realize how much we are bound by our culture.

On the cross Christ abolished all the ordinances – all have been abolished, and today we need to allow the Lord to break through in us and abolish all the ordinances for the sake of the one new man!

Hallelujah, all the ordinances have been abolished on the cross by Christ, and the one new man came into being! Amen, Lord, break through in us today – expose our ordinances and save us from imposing any ordinance on others. May we give ourselves to You to live the church life in the mingled spirit and without insisting on any practice or ordinance! Amen, Lord Jesus, may any ordinance be abolished in our experience, and may we live the church life in the reality of the one new man, having peace and oneness with all the saints in the mingled spirit and in our transformed soul!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ricky Acosta for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 202-203, 713-714 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man (2019 fall ITERO), week 3, The Creation and Bringing Forth of the One New Man.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – On the cross ordinances slain, / That He might form just one of twain. / Reconciling us to God, / Thus on the serpent’s head He trod. / He breaks down the middle wall / As upon His name we call; / On the cross ordinances slain, / That He might form just one of twain. (Hymns #1230)
  – We’d allow Thy peace to reign, / In the Body-life we’d live; / No more self-directed be, / For Thy church our all we’d give. / Be the person of our heart; / Manifest Thyself through us. / Build the saints into Thine house / That we’d bear Thine image thus. (Song on, Lord, Bring Forth the One New Man)
  – Live through me, Lord; stop independent action; / Each breath, each step, would in Thy Body be. / Build us in Thee till we’re Thy full reflection, / Thy corporate one new man eternally. (Song on, Live Through Me, Lord)