The creation of the new man has been completed on the cross, but the renewal of the new man is still going on; the new man was created by Christ on the cross, but we believers need to partake of this creation.
This week in our deeper study of the matter of the one new man we come to the topic of, Being Renewed in the Spirit of our Mind for the Practical Existence of the One New Man.
We have seen the vision of the one new man in God’s eternal purpose, and we realised that His desire is to gain a corporate man to express Him with His image and represent Him with His dominion.
Adam was created by God in His image, but he failed to fulfil God’s purpose; however, God was incarnated to be the second man, and He came to fulfil all of God’s intention for the man that He created.
This man, Jesus Christ, at the end of His life went to the cross to be crucified, and on the cross He abolished in His flesh all the law of commandments in ordinances, and in Himself He created the one new man from two peoples – the Jews and the Gentiles – with His divine life in resurrection.
This resurrected and ascended Christ is the Head of the new man, and all the believers are the members of the one new man.
He is both the life and the person of the new man, and all believers as constituents of the new man need to take Christ both as their life and as their person for the one new man.
In this way, they grow up into Him, into Christ who is the Head of the Body, in all things, in order to arrive at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Such a new man, the reality of which is altogether the Spirit, needs us to persevere in prayer; we need to have a prayer life, pray desperately, and pray perseveringly, so that we may stand against and fight the opposition of God’s enemy who hates the coming forth of this new man.
Seeing all these things, we need to realise how strategic and crucial the matter of the renewing of the mind is; this matter touches directly the practical existence of the one new man.
Our growth in life, our prayer for the new man, our living by taking Christ as our person, and our growing into Christ in all things, all these are related to the new man, but the renewing in the spirit of our mind directly relates to the practical existence of the one new man.
The only possibility for God’s purpose to be fulfilled in this age is that we would be willing to be renewed in the spirit of our mind.
After seeing all this vision, after seeing what Christ did and praying perseveringly, we still need to be renewed in our mind, otherwise it would be impossible for the new man to be practically brought forth.
The Creation of the New Man was Completed on the Cross, but the Renewal of the New Man is still Going on
In Colossians 3:10 we see both the creation of the new man and the renewal of the new man; in this verse we are told that the creation of the new man was completed on the cross, but the renewal of the new man is still going on.
On one hand, we are told to put on the new man, which is being renewed unto full knowledge according to the image of Him who created him; on the other hand, we are told that the new man was already created by Christ.
Both the creation and the renewing of the one new man are mentioned in the same verse; this means that the one new man was created, but he needs to be renewed.
Why would a new man need to be renewed?
If we buy a new car, do we have to bring it to another car dealer to have it renewed? No, it is a brand new car, so it doesn’t have to be renewed.
But regarding the new man, we need to realise that yes, on one hand, the new man was created by Christ, and on the other, the constituents of the new man is us, the people of the old creation, so we need to be renewed.
Christ created the new man, but we as people of the old creation are the constituents of the new man; although we are part of the new man, we are still very much in the old creation, especially in our soul with its mind, emotion, and will – and we need to be renewed!
So there’s the aspect of Christ creating the one new man, and at the same time as far as the constituents of the new man, which is us, we need to be in the process of being renewed. Praise the Lord, on the cross Christ did a marvellous thing:
He abolished in His flesh all the laws and commandments in ordinances, and He created the one new man!
The one new man has been created – he is in existence and has been for two thousand years. Only Christ was and is qualified to do this, and He did this on the cross.
Two things happened on the cross; negatively, in His flesh He abolished all the ordinances and terminated all the negative things, and positively, He regenerated us to bring forth the new man with His life in resurrection.
When we speak of the cross, we may consider only His death, His crucifixion, but actually when we read both Ephesians and Colossians, we realise that at the cross not only Christ’s death happened, but also the resurrection of Christ was there.
According to 1 Pet. 3, when Christ was dying on the cross, He was being made alive; He didn’t have to wait for three days to be resurrected but rather, as He was hanging on the cross and dying, He was being made alive!
In Col. 2 Paul describes the scene at the cross, the things that took place in the spiritual realm beyond what could be seen by the naked eye; the Father was there, the Son was there, and all the evil powers were hanging on Christ, trying to stop Him from going through with His death.
The Father nailed on the cross all the ordinances that were against us, and Christ stripped off all the rulers hanging on Him, putting them to open shame!
The Father applied the resurrection life of Christ, dispensing it into God’s chosen people; all this happened on the cross – both death and resurrection were operating.
In His flesh, where the death took place, Christ took care of all the negative things; in Himself, with the divine elements in resurrection, He germinated and produced the one new man.
While the one new man was completed on the cross, the renewal of the new man is still going on today, even right now.
The speed of the renewal of the new man has been very slow, because there’s hardly any of God’s children that realise what happened there on the cross; they may be familiar with Christ shedding His blood for us, for our sins, and taking care of our flesh, the world, Satan, and all the negative things, but who realises that on the cross Christ abolished all the law of commandments in ordinances – which separated God’s people one from another – and created the one new man?
Without this realisation, how can there be the renewal off the new man? Many Christians are concerned mainly for their own welfare, for their spiritual welfare, and hardly anyone knows there’s such a thing as the one new man being created on the cross and that there’s the need for renewing!
Lord Jesus, we praise You for creating the one new man in Yourself on the cross and we give ourselves to You for the renewal of the new man today! Hallelujah, Christ in His flesh terminated all the negative things including the law of the commandments in ordinances, and He created in Himself the one new man. Thank You Lord for making us constituents of the new man in Your plan. May there be a daily renewal going on in our being so that the new man would have a practical existence. Renew us in the spirit of our mind for the one new man!
Partaking of the New Man by Putting of the Old Man and Putting on the New Man through the Renewing
The one new man was created by Christ, but we as believers in Christ today need to partake of this creation (Eph. 2:15; Col. 3:10).
How can we partake of the new man, and how can we be the new man in reality today? We live so much in ourselves, in the flesh, and in the natural man; how can we be the new man in reality and practicality?
According to Col. 3:10, we need to put off the old man and put on the new man. This expression “put on” is used with respect to clothing; if someone has a suit of clothes tailor-made for him, we may say that the suit is completed, so now he needs to put it on piece by piece.
Such an illustration falls short of what it is to put on the new man, for it is an objective illustration whereas the putting on of the new man involves an inward renewing.
We need to partake of the new man by putting off the old man and putting on the new man through renewing; there has to be the renewal of the new man going on all the time.
The putting on of the new man begins from within; it is related to an inward, subjective renewing.
When we believed into the Lord Jesus, the life-giving Spirit came into our spirit, bringing with Him the new man as a finished product; in this way, the new man was born in our spirit.
Now the new man must saturate every inward part in our being, spreading in our mind, emotion, and will. This spreading is both the putting on of the new man and the renewal of the new man.
How much we put on the new man depends on how much we are renewed.
Everything of our old manner of life, our heritage from the fall, and all the Jewish ordinances have been abolished in the flesh of Christ by His death on the cross; we should not trust our heritage or natural being but disown it, and put on the new man.
Our spirit needs to become the dominant part of our being; this means that our spirit mingled with the Spirit of God must become the spirit of our mind (Eph. 4:23) as this mingled spirit spreads into our mind.
When we experience the renewal of the new man by allowing the mingled spirit to spread into our mind, this spirit of our mind will become the renewing spirit, and we put on the new man.
There are these two things that we need to actively do: we need to put off our former manner of life, and we must allow our spirit to become the leading, dominating, directing, and governing element in our whole being.
If we live in this way, spontaneously the process of renewing will take place within us, and such a continual renewing is the putting on of the new man. This is the church life – the life and living of the new man, the continual living in the renewal of the one new man.
Lord Jesus, we put off our former manner of life and we choose to live according to the spirit! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit and we allow our mingled spirit to become the leading, dominating, directing, and governing element of our whole being! May we live a life in the mingled spirit, and may our daily living be in the continual renewing of the one new man so that we may live the real church life – the life and living of the new man! Hallelujah, the new man was already created by Christ on the cross, the new man was born in our spirit at regeneration, and we need to be daily renewed in the spirit of our mind for the one new man!
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, Life-study of Ephesians, msg. 25 (Witness by 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 7, Being Renewed in the Spirit of Our Mind for the Practical Existence of the One New Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Put on the one new man, / The old man strip away. / Pass through the cross to take Christ as / Our Person now today. / The Spirit with the cross / Is our unique supply / That causes us to be renewed / As one new man thereby. (Song on, One Person and One Way)
– Thus we must put off the old man / That we may put on the new; / Thus, renewed in mind and spirit, / We will bear God’s image true. (Hymns #823)
– First, Thou to the cross didst go, / Our old man to terminate; / Then, in resurrection, come, / Thy new man to germinate. / Now Thou in our spirit art, / As the inner man within; / As our heart becomes Thine home, / Thou dost live and rule therein. (Song on, Lord, Bring Forth the One New Man)
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