The Church as the One New Man Fulfills the Twofold Purpose of God in Creating Man

The church as the one new man is the corporate man in God’s intention in creating man, and this new man will fulfill the twofold purpose of expressing God and fighting God’s enemy to bring in His kingdom.

When God created man in His image and according to His likeness, He stated His intention: He gave man dominion over all things so that he would regain the earth for God.

Throughout the Bible we see that God’s intention in creating man is, on the positive side, to work Himself into man to be man’s life (see the tree of life in the garden of Eden) to inwardly constitute man and be outwardly expressed through man.

On the negative side, God’s intention in creating man is that man would exercise His authority to deal with and subdue His enemy, bring in the kingdom of God, and recover the earth for God.

Both God and Satan are fighting to gain (or usurp, in the case of Satan) man, for man fights the battle and helps one or the other to win the war.

When man stands on God’s side, God has a way to be expressed and Satan is put to shame, while the earth is being recovered back to God.

But if man stands on Satan’s side, being deceived by Satan and usurped by him, God suffers a temporary setback, and His intention in creating man is temporarily delayed.

It has been six thousand years since God has waited for man to cooperate with Him, and in these days, with the gospel of grace and of peace being preached all over the earth, more believers are on this earth than at any time during history.

But will God gain the one new man that fulfills His intention in creating man? He has gained Christ, the first God-man, who through His being and His living expressed God in His image and represented Him with His authority, but what about the Lord’s followers, the members of His Body?

The Lord is working both in the world situation and in our inward situation to remove all the hindrances for Him to gain the one new man who would fulfill His purpose in creating man.

Even though Satan is rampant and causes more damage than before, going to such an extent of doing his best to destroy the earth, corrupt man, and even cause man to be completely unaware of God’s intention, God is still operating in man to gain the one new man. It is time for us to put ourselves aside, put off the old man, and put on the new man, so that the Lord may have a way to gain what He is after.

He wants both to be expressed and to deal with His enemy, and for this He has to gain the reality of the one new man in all the local churches on earth today.

God desires to Gain a Man to Express Him with His Image and Represent Him with His Authority

God’s purpose and desire in creating man in His image and according to His likeness is that He would gain a man to express Him and represent Him (Gen. 1:26).

God created man in His own image and gave man His dominion; God’s image is for Him to be expressed, and God’s dominion is for Him to be represented with His authority.

God created man with a twofold purpose: to express Him with His image and to represent Him with His authority. We could say that God’s expression with His image is His positive intention, while God’s dominion is the negative aspect of His intention.

God’s positive intention is that man would express God in His image; for this, God put man in front of the tree of life, and later He Himself became a man to be the bread of life, then He became a life-giving Spirit to impart His life into man for man to express Him.

God’s negative intention is that man would represent Him with His authority; for this Christ came to destroy the works of the devil and destroy the devil himself, and now the church stands as the one new man in the victory of Christ and manifests this victory to the enemy.

In this universe God has a problem – it is His enemy, the devil, a creature; He will not deal with the devil directly but rather, He created man so that man would subdue and execute God’s judgment on His enemy.

We need to realize that, as human beings, we are here on earth not to live a good life and have a good career, a good family life, a good house, etc; we are here for God’s purpose.

Actually, when we fulfill God’s purpose, we are satisfied, for God is satisfied. God gave man His image and also His dominion, and He desires to gain a man – a corporate man – that would express Him with His image and represent Him with His dominion.

When God gains such a corporate man, He is satisfied, and the Lord is ready to return. But it has been two thousand years since the Lord Jesus was ascended, and where is the one new man?

In the new creation God gave man dominion not only over the earth but also over the whole universe.

In the old creation man had dominion over the earth, for the enemy was on earth; but now the church as the new man has dominion over the entire universe to deal with God’s enemy.

God wants a man to express Him and represent Him, so He created Adam; Adam, however, was not the real man that fulfills God’s purpose – Christ is, and on the cross He has created a new man, where Christ is all and in all.

This one new man fulfills the dual purpose of God to express Him and represent Him.

The old man didn’t fulfill God’s dual purpose, but the new man in God’s new creation does fulfill the twofold purpose of expressing God and dealing with God’s enemy. This is what the church should do today; the church as the Body of Christ is the one new man to fulfill God’s purpose in creating man. Hallelujah!

Thank You Lord for giving us Your image to express You and Your dominion over the entire universe to represent You with Your authority. Hallelujah, the one new man was created by Christ on the cross, and this new man fulfills the twofold purpose of God in creating man, for the new man expresses God and represents Him to deal with His enemy! Amen, Lord, may You gain the reality of the one new man on earth today in all the local churches. May You gain our cooperation for You to obtain this new man that fulfills Your purpose in creating man!

The Church as the One New Man Fulfills the Twofold Purpose of God in Creating Man

The first man, Adam, who was created by God in His image and according to His likeness, has failed in fulfilling the twofold purpose of God in creating man.

Adam failed to express God and represent Him; even worse, he was deceived by the enemy of God and through him the poison of the enemy was injected into humanity.

But this was not a surprise for God; rather, He foreknew this, and He also planned for Christ to come to be a God-man, and this One individually expressed God and represented Him, thus fulfilling God’s twofold purpose in creating man.

On the cross, Christ tore down the middle wall of partition between the Jews and the Gentiles, He wiped the ordinances, and He created in Himself one new man; this one new man has only one element and constituent – Christ, and this new man fulfills the twofold purpose of God in creating man.

The church as the one new man is the corporate man in God’s intention, and this new man will fulfill the twofold purpose of bearing God’s image to express Him and of fighting against God’s enemy for God’s kingdom (see Eph. 2:15; 4:24; 6:10-13; Col. 3:10).

The man created by God in Genesis was a type, a figure, of the corporate one new man which He desires to gain; the fulfillment and reality of the man created by God in Genesis is the new man.

On one hand the church is the Body of Christ, and on the other hand, this Body must be the one new man, for the one new man will fulfill the twofold purpose of God. The Bible reveals that the one new man is not an individual but a corporate, universal new man.

This one new man that Christ created on the cross is a corporate God-man, with Christ – the firstborn Son of God, the first God-man – as the head, and the Body of Christ as the many members or components (Rom. 8:29; Eph. 4:15).

We as the many God-men, the many sons of God, are the Body of this corporate God-man – the new man. Hallelujah, we the believers in Christ are all one with Christ to be the one new man, for we are all parts of the one new man!

There are many believers and many local churches, but there’s only one new man in the universe, and all the believers are components of this corporate and universal new man.

When we see the vision of the one new man, we will not have a concern about where we are, who we are, and what we should do, because we realize that Christ is all and in all.

When we first see the Body, we may still distinguish that we are a foot or an ear, but in the one new man, Christ is all and in all. For the one new man, therefore, we need to put off the old man, the old society, the old way of living, and put on the new man, the church.

This is something we have to do daily; the one new man is the Body of Christ, and in the new man Christ is all and in all.

Christ is the One who has defeated Satan and expressed God in His image; He is being reproduced in us, constituted into our being, and lived out in us as we put off the old man and put on the new man.

Before our salvation we were living in the old man, in the old society, but now we are members of Christ, living in His Body; we should therefore put off the old man with the old social life and put on the new man, the church.

In the new man there’s nothing natural, nothing of our race and background, and nothing of our social rank; here everyone is full of Christ, Christ is in everyone, and Christ is everyone.

This is what God is after: a corporate new man who is filled with Christ, one with Christ, even is Christ, and this corporate man fulfills the twofold purpose of God in creating man.

May we allow Christ to be our life, our living, our intention, our ambition, our will, our love, and everything about us; may we allow Him to saturate our being so that we may be part of the one new man.

Lord, saturate us and permeate us with Yourself until You become our life, our living, our intention, our ambition, our will, our love, and everything to us. Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to put off the old man with its social life and put on the new man, the church, for us to live in the reality of the one new man. Hallelujah, all believers in Christ are one with Christ to be the one new man, and this new man fulfills God’s twofold purpose in creating man, that is, to express God with His image and represent Him with His authority!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 2302-2303 (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 1, God’s Eternal Purpose and the One New Man.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – For this cause Your Person, Lord, / We take and stand in one accord; / All the members self forsake, / And of the Body-Christ partake. / We in Christ as one new man / Now come forth to take this land. / For this cause Your Person, Lord, / We take and stand in one accord. (Hymns #1230)
  – God would have a group of people / Built together in His plan, / Blended, knit, coordinated / As His vessel—one new man. / God would come into this vessel / With His nature, life and ways, / Mingling Spirit with our spirits / For His joy and to His praise. (Hymns #1325)
  – O hallelujah, one new man, / The building of God’s plan! / God’s plan throughout eternity— / Not man, but men built corporately. / This man cannot be beat, / All things beneath his feet, / Christ and the church one man complete. (Hymns #1231)