Unconsciously, every person on earth is under the influence of his culture; when we came into the church life, we brought our culture with us, and this culture undermines our enjoyment of Christ and the church life, hence we need the all-inclusive, extensive Christ to replace our culture.
This week we come to the matter of, The Constituent of the One New Man – the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing our Culture.
Our consciousness of the one new man needs to be increased so that we may be aware of it, live in its reality, and even become the one new man in reality on earth.
The vision of the one new man has to penetrate us and make its way into our consciousness, our thinking, our prayer, and our speaking; for this, Christ needs to replace our culture, so that we may live Christ instead of living our culture.
As we consider the situation among believers in general today we see that, sadly, there’s no consciousness of the one new man; there’s a lack of vision and truth on this matter.
Many believe that the new man is the individual believer who has become new; this is not enough – we need to have a proper consciousness of the church as the one new man!
In Eph. 4:13 we are told of arriving at a full-grown man who has the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
This cannot refer to an individual believer, for no believer can be a full-grown man. However, the Body of Christ (also referred to in Eph. 4) is the one new man; the building up of the Body is until we all arrive at a full-grown man.
We ALL need to arrive at a full-grown man; this can happen not all at once, but we all arrive at this destination at different times.
What the Lord desires to gain is this fully matured, full-grown new man; every believer will arrive at this destination, for that’s our destiny.
However, the only thing in question is the timing; the overcomers will arrive earlier, in this age – may it be so with us!
Christ created the one new man on the cross out of the Jews and the Gentiles (which includes all the nations besides the Jewish nation); through the death of Christ He created the new man, and in His resurrection, He brought the new man forth.
This new man needs to reach maturity – it needs to become full-grown.
The new man is being renewed (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:23-24); the renewing takes place through our growth, which is the building up of the Body and the growing unto maturity of the new man.
We could say that Eph. 4:13 is the peak of the book of Ephesians as far as the purpose of God in creating man is concerned, for when God gains this one new man fully grown and matured, He has His corporate expression on earth, and the new man also represents Him.
The one new man is a person, that person is the bride, who fulfills the positive part of God’s purpose of bearing God’s image as His reproduction; that bride is also a warrior, who fulfills the negative side of God’s purpose, that is, dealing with and defeating God’s enemy.
So when God gains the one new man, the bride is prepared, and Christ can return.
How the Constituent of the One New Man is the All-Inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing our Culture
Such a statement: the constituent of the one new man – the all-inclusive, extensive Christ replacing culture, is packed with meaning and very rich in application and experience.
The constituent – a constituent means the basic element of something; for example, the constituent of a table is wood.
The constituent of the one new man is Christ Himself.
The one new man is the ultimate aspect of the church, from the point of view of fulfilling God’s purpose, for the new man is the bride and the warrior, and the new man becomes the New Jerusalem.
What is the constituent of the one new man? What is your constituent as part of the one new man? What are we constituted with?
We are constituted with our person, which has a lot to do with our culture. What is the one new man constituted with?
Who is this man? The one new man is Christ – but not simply Christ, but the all-inclusive, extensive Christ; such a Christ most of us have never seen or imagined, for He is both all-inclusive and extensive.
The Bible doesn’t use the words “all-inclusive” or “extensive”, these are interpretations, words intended to describe the content that is presented in the Bible.
We may know that Christ is all-inclusive, for He is the reality of all the positive things, but what does it mean for Him to be extensive?
In the book of Colossians, at our first read, when we don’t have that much perception, we may be impressed with Christ’s vastness – He is all-extensive in space, for the whole universe cannot contain Him.
The universe is vast, immense, and ever-expanding, but the universe can never contain Christ but rather, Christ contains the universe.
However, this doesn’t relate that much to us, for we don’t live out there in space.
Christ is extensive not only in space but also in time, for He is eternal; He is both the Creator of all things, the One who holds all things, the One through whom all things were created, and He is also the Firstborn of the old and new creation.
He is from eternity, into time, and into eternity; He is extensive. Even more, He is extensive in all of His attributes; to be extensive means that He is unlimited. All His attributes are unlimited.
Our love is limited, but His love is unlimited; His patience, His long-suffering, His peace, His joy, all are unlimited.
Such an all-inclusive, extensive Christ is needed for us to experience and enjoy, even to live out, and He will replace our culture with Himself.
It is not a simple Christ, a limited Christ, but an all-inclusive, extensive Christ that we need to enjoy and experience for the one new man.
We need not only the all-inclusive Christ but also the extensive Christ in order for Him to become our unique constituent for the one new man.
Christ as the constituent of the one new man replaces our culture. We cannot put something in a glass full of water until some of that water is displaced and replaced.
We all are filled 100% with culture; something is already filling our being – our culture – and for Christ to become the unique constituent of the one new man, He has to replace our culture with Himself.
If Christ is going to become our constituent for the one new man, He has to become us; for this, He has to fill us and replace our culture with Himself.
May the Lord have mercy on us and open our eyes to see that we are filled with culture, and it is only the all-inclusive, extensive Christ who can replace our culture to become the unique constituent of the one new man!
Lord Jesus, we open our being to You for You to become our unique constituent for the one new man. Come in, dear Lord, and replace anything that is a substitute for Christ, especially our culture. May we see, enjoy, and experience the all-inclusive, extensive Christ for the one new man. Amen, Lord, bring us into the enjoyment of our allotted portion of the all-inclusive Christ, who is the reality of all the positive things in the universe! May we partake of this Christ, enjoy this all-encompassing Christ, and experience the extensiveness of Christ, whose divine attributes are unlimited! Amen, Lord Jesus, may You as the all-inclusive, extensive One become our unique constituent for the one new man by replacing our culture with Yourself!
Realizing that our Culture Undermines our Enjoyment of Christ and the Church Life
If we were to get into the depths of the book of Colossians, we will realize that in this book Paul is dealing with a hidden matter with many aspects; this hidden matter is the human culture that has pervaded the church in Colosse.
Colossians is a short book, with words that we can all understand, but if we’re to get into its depths, we will see there’s a major hindrance, which is hidden; this hindrance to the enjoyment of Christ and to the church life is our culture.
According to Websters’ dictionary, culture is the customary beliefs, social reforms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; this is not a bad definition.
However, we can expand this definition a bit to say that culture includes our beliefs, our world view, our philosophy, our customs, our habits, our forms, our norms, our ways of living and worship, and our tradition.
What fills the entire human being is culture, for it is so broad; by extension, culture also includes the process by which all these things got into us, such as our upbringing, our nationality, our education, and everything of the old man.
Culture is the all-inclusive old man – all of it put together; such a thing is everywhere, yet nobody is aware of it.
This is why we need to see a vision of what culture is; we need our culture to be exposed, and we need a revelation of Christ.
Once our culture is exposed, we need to allow the all-inclusive, extensive Christ to replace it with Himself.
In ch. 2 of Colossians especially Paul mentions some of the elements of culture, such as philosophy and tradition (v. 8), the elements of the world (vv. 8, 20), the ordinances (vv. 14, 20), and the commandments and teachings of men (v. 22).
Culture includes the elements of the world, which refer to the rudimentary teachings of both Jews and Gentiles consisting of ritual observances regarding eating, drinking, washing, asceticism, and many other matters.
Culture includes the ordinances; these are the ceremonial law with its rituals, which are the forms and ways of living and worship such as circumcision.
Culture also includes the teachings of men; these are not the Ten Commandments but man’s teaching, such as self-imposed worship of angels and asceticism.
The Bible doesn’t teach us to worship angels but on the contrary, that we should worship God; some teachings of men include that we should worship angels, for they are like God.
We can clearly see that culture, though developed by the man who lost God, is actually satanic, for Satan is behind it to usurp God and replace Him in our being.
Paul’s use of the word, barbarian, in Col. 3:11 is a strong indication that this Epistle deals with culture.
Today a barbarian is someone who is a savage; at that time, however, a barbarian was one who was not a native Greek speaker – he might speak Greek because he was in the Roman Empire, but because he was not a native Greek, he was a barbarian. This is culture.
Culture is the systematic method that we have developed to exist and to maintain our being (Gen. 4:16-22); after man left the presence of God, he developed a godless culture to maintain his being and existence, but all this was under the instigation of Satan.
Culture is the unconscious living of every human being (Eph. 2:2-3; 4:17); we don’t have to ask ourselves how should we live today – we simply live according to our culture, it is unconscious and spontaneous.
Throughout the world, people are under the influence of their culture; even the poorest country in the world has a culture, and they insist their culture is better than others, at least in some ways.
Just as culture exerted a strong influence on the believers in Colossae, culture today also exerts a strong influence on us (Col. 2:8-10, 16-18).
When we came into the church life, we brought our culture with us, and this culture undermines our enjoyment of Christ and the church life. This is a big problem.
The reason the Roman Empire and all other empires have failed is that they can’t bring people together and impose uniformity of culture – it never works.
Similarly, in the church life, we have all kinds of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and it is futile to try to impose uniformity, for there are many languages and cultures.
We get exposed of our culture and we see others’ culture when we visit another country, especially if we stay there for a while.
It takes divine light for us to see our own culture; it doesn’t take any light to see others’ culture. So when we blend with the saints, our culture is exposed, and we realize how culture is a hindrance to our enjoyment of Christ and to the church life.
Praise the Lord that in the church life we have the culture of blending, and through blending we are learning to drop our culture and just live Christ, focusing only on the enjoyment of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ who is the unique constituent of the one new man!
The only reliable thing is the vision of this all-inclusive, extensive Christ and the blending; when we have this vision and we blend with others, we become conscious of the one new man, and we also become conscious of our culture.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on us and shine on us, on our being, and on our way of living so that we may see our culture and reject it. May we realize that we unconsciously and spontaneously live according to our culture and not according to Christ. May we see how our culture undermines our enjoyment of Christ and the church life. Amen, Lord, we allow Your light to shine, expose, and eliminate all the elements of our culture that are a substitute for Christ. May the all-inclusive, extensive Christ be wrought into us through our enjoyment and experience of Him so that He may become our unique constituent for the one new man, thus replacing culture with Himself. Amen, Lord! Keep us under Your shining and keep us in the blending in the Body so that our culture would be exposed, rejected, and replaced with Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians, msg. 33 (Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-Inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture for the One New Man (2020 Thanksgiving Conference), week 3, The Constituent of the One New Man — the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Christ to me is so subjective, / In my spirit dwelleth He; / Christ to me is all-inclusive, / As the Spirit one with me. (Hymns #537)
– The universal Fullness / So pleased resides in Thee. / Within Thee dwells the Godhead, / And Thou, Lord, dwell in me! / Preeminent, transcendent, / Unique in all Thou art, / O’erflowing all the heavens, / Thou now dost fill my heart! (Song on, Christ in Colossians)
– Oh, what a prize! Oh, what a gain! / Christ is the goal toward which I press. / Nothing I treasure, nor aught desire, / But Christ of all-inclusiveness. / My hope, my glory, and my crown / Is Christ, the One of peerlessness. (Hymns #499)
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