We Need to Deny the Self and Take Christ as our Person for the Church Life Today

It is crucial that we deny the self and take Christ as our person for the church life as the living of the one new man

Why do we need to “deny the self”, lose our soul-life, and take up our cross to follow the Lord? Many believers and unbelievers alike may not like to hear these words of the Lord, but they are part of the secret of the Christian life.

It is crucial for a believer to deny the self and take Christ as his person for the church life! God doesn’t want us to have a religious practice of asceticism or self-denial in a strange way; God wants to fulfill His purpose in the church life as the living of the one new man.

In order for God to accomplish His purpose there cannot be Jew, Greek, English, Romanian, Korean, Chinese, free or slave, learned or unlearned, but Christ has to be all and in all (Col. 3:10-11).

In the new man Christ is all and in all, and this practically means that we all need to deny the self, exercise our spirit, and take Christ as our person for the church life as the living of the one new man.

Before we were regenerated we were “living souls” having the spirit as an inward organ and the body as the external organ. But after we were regenerated Christ as a living Person came into our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). All the genuine believers in Christ have two persons in them: the self is in the soul and Christ is the mingled spirit.

It is vitally important for us to know that our spirit is our inner man, and the person of this inner man is Christ. We should therefore deny our self, our own person, and live by our mingled spirit, our inward person (Matt. 16:24; Rom. 8:4).

When we exercise our spirit and deny our self, Christ can live in us as we live according to the spirit, and the church as the Body of Christ is built up in the local churches as the expression of the one new man.

May the Lord show us the vision of the self so that we may deny it and forsake it, and may He have an unhindered way to go on in us for the sake of the building up of the Body of Christ!

In the Church as the One New Man there is only One Person: Christ!

Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

The fulfillment of God’s purpose is for Him to get a full-grown corporate man, which is the one new man Christ created on the cross (Eph. 2:15) and we are being renewed to become today. The new man is a person, a corporate man, consummating in the universally great person, New Jerusalem.

In the one new man there CANNOT BE any other person but Christ Himself, and for this we need to deny our self and take Christ as our person. We deny the self not to be “spiritual martyrs” or to practice some religious asceticism; we deny the self for the fulfillment of God’s purpose of gaining a corporate full-grown man.

In the church as the one new man there cannot be English, American, Chinese, Korean, Polish, German, Swiss, Filipino, Dutch, or any other person but Christ, the One who is all and in all. Christ is the ONE person, and all other persons need to be denied.

We have been crucified with Christ and we no longer live; now it is Christ who lives in us (Gal. 2:20) and He is making His home into our heart (Eph. 3:17).

For the building up of the church as the one new man we need to take Christ as our person by denying our self (Matt. 16:24). Our fallen person is the self, and this person is versus the Body of Christ.

After we believed into the Lord Jesus we had the clear feeling that He is listening to our prayers, and we loved to ask Him for things. But after a while it seemed that the Lord is “no longer listening to us”; He wants us to listen to Him.

We need to get into His word, fellowship with Him, and listen to His speaking to us. The Lord wants us to put ourselves aside and care for His interest, His purpose, and His economy. For this, we need to deny our self (which we gladly do because we love the Lord and we have seen His economy) and take Christ as our person.

What does it mean to take Christ as our person? Paul said in Gal. 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

The old I, the self, has been crucified with Christ; the new I, the inner man renewed by Christ and mingled with God, is now living as the new person.

To take Christ as our person is to deny the self and live by the inner man, our new person, where Christ is; this living by the inner man is for the building up of the church and is the living of Christ in us for His Body.

Our Mingled Spirit is the Inner Man; the Person of this Inner Man is Christ!

Before we were regenerated our real person was the self, the soul declaring independence from God; our spirit was our inner organ and our body was our outward organ. But after we were saved, Christ as a living Person came into our spirit and now we have two persons living in us: the self lives in the soul and Christ lives in the spirit, our inner man!

We now need to be strengthened with power through God’s Spirit into the inner man (where Christ is) so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith. If we would take Christ as our person we need to see that our spirit is NOT merely an organ; our spirit is our person, our real person (see Eph. 1:17; 3:16-17).

Our old man, the self, still lives in the soul (Rom. 6:6) but it needs to be denied; our real person is Christ Himself in our spirit, our inner man.

This does not mean that God wants to “wipe us out” and completely replace us with Christ so that we would robotically and mindlessly live according to His instructions. Rather, the person of the soul – the soul life with its person and activities – needs to be denied, and the faculties and functions of the soul will be uplifted and renewed, filled, and properly used by the inner man, the person living in us.

The corrupted life in the soul has been crucified and now we experience this, and the inner man, our spirit mingled with Christ, is living in us. We should therefore deny our self, our own old person, and live by the spirit, our new person. For the church life as the living of the new man, we must reject our old person and live by Christ as our new person.

The truth about every believer in Christ is that he is crucified with Christ and he needs to live a life of rejecting the self and exercising his spirit to live by the inner man, his real person within.

We don’t practice asceticism or buffeting our body in a religious way to please God, nor do we need to keep certain strict regulations in regards to dealing with our self so that we would perfect our self to “look like Christ.”

We are here as believers in Christ and members of the Body of Christ NOT to be perfected in our self but to accomplish God’s great purpose, the building up of the Body of Christ.

We need to have an absolute consecration of handing ourselves over to the Lord and yielding our person to Him so that He can be our person; our consecration is to take Christ as our person (see Rom. 12:2; 14:7-8; 2 Cor. 5:15). We need to bring this matter to the Lord in prayer and tell Him,

Lord, grant us a vision of the self so that we may deny it and live by the inner man for the building up of the Body of Christ! Lord Jesus, You are our real person within. We choose to stand with You and live by You. Strengthen us into our inner man so that we would deny the self and live in the spirit and by the spirit. Lord, for the sake of the church life as the living out of the new man we reject our self and take You as our person. We hand ourselves over to You. We yield our person to You so that You can be our person for the church life today!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Taking Christ as Our Person for the Church Life (chs. 3-4), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Heavenly Vision,  week 4 / msg 4, The Vision of the Self.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # I take Thee as my person, Lord; / I have been crucified with Thee. / My inner man has been restored; / I’m now indwelt by Thee. / When all Thy members self forsake, / Thy glorious Body, Lord, is known; / When of Thy Person we partake, / The one new man is shown. (Hymns #1220)
  # 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)
  # Christ as my Person must possess my heart / And be preeminent in every part. / The former owner died but haunts it still. / O Lord, move in; my mind, emotion, will / Now welcome Thee. (Hymns #1179)