God desires to get a group of people who express Him with His image and represent Him with His dominion.
For this, He created man in His own image and likeness (Gen. 1:26) and He prepares everything for man to take God in as the tree of life and live by Him. However, man fell, and God’s image and dominion were not expressed through him.
God then came to call Abraham and his people after him to be His special people, His personal possession, to express Him and represent Him on the earth. However, as we read the Old Testament we realise that the people of Israel also failed God, to the extent that they were taken into captivity and dispersed among the nations.
Then, God Himself became a man, and in Christ God was fully expressed and His dominion was exercised. In the individual person of Christ God’s image was manifested and His dominion was exercised.
Through death and resurrection Christ was reproduced into the many believers who form the church, the house of God, God’s spiritual people on earth. Through the church God had a new beginning, with a people called out of every nation and regenerated with His life.
Especially in the beginning of the church life as seen in the first few chapters of Acts, God’s image was expressed and His dominion was exercised on earth, starting from Jerusalem and spreading all throughout the inhabited earth.
But as we look at church history and at the present situation in Christianity today we realise that even the church as a whole has failed God. This is why in Rev. 12 the great universal shining woman (a type of the totality of God’s people throughout the ages) is in labour today to deliver a man-child, a son, who represents the overcomers in the church today.
God is now calling some who have an ear to hear what the Spirit speaks to the churches, and who rise up to be one with the Lord to fulfill His purpose to express Him with His image and represent Him with His dominion in the church and on behalf of the church!
Oh, may we be those today who answer the Lord’s call to come back to His original intention and fulfill His heart’s desire!
May the Lord be merciful to us that we may see that His original intention has never changed, but He is continually seeking a people who would be His sons to express Him and the real Israel of God to represent Him!
Living a New Creation to be the Israel of God
Paul’s utterance in Gal. 6:15, a new creation is what matters us very particular. Later in v. 16 he says, And as many as walk by this rule, peace be upon them and mercy, even upon the Israel of God.
For us to be qualified to be the Israel of God we need to walk by this rule – the new creation. We need to live a new creation so that we would be in reality the Israel of God.
We are the sons of God if we walk in a general way by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16), and we are the Israel of God if we walk in a regulated way, according to the new creation.
What matters to God is a new creation. The old creation was created by God, has God around it and above it, but it doesn’t have the element of God. The new creation has God wrought into it.
To live out the new creation we need to focus on having God wrought into us and on having God mingled with us. It is a mingled living, a living of God mingled with man so that we may be God’s princes and victors, representing God with His dominion on earth today, those executing His authority and representing His government.
This should be our reality in the church life today – living out the new creation to both express God and represent Him as the church. Such a church life is a miniature of the New Jerusalem, which will be the ultimate consummation of the new creation and the Israel of God.
Living by the Spirit as the Elementary Rule
Everything that has accomplished, attained, and obtained in Christ is now in the Spirit, who is mingled with our spirit making us one spirit with the Lord. As long as we are in our spirit and live by the spirit, we will fulfill God’s desire to express Him and represent Him.
The all-inclusive, compound, life-giving Spirit is with our spirit today to anoint us, work in us, move in us, and operate in us to make us sons of God in a full way.
We, as God’s sons, need to walk according to the spirit both in a general way (by daily touching the Lord, being filled in spirit, contacting the Lord in everything, etc) and in a more regulated way, living by the Spirit as the elementary rule and basic principle.
Our principle of living is not religion, ethics, morality, or even spirituality, but the Spirit as the elementary principle. As we take care of this, having God wrought into us and living by the Spirit as the elementary principle, we will grow in life into maturity to be full sons of God and the Israel of God, expressing Him and representing Him with His image and dominion.
Every day in our doing this and that we need to take the new creation as our rule, exercising to live and walk by the mingled spirit, and we will grow in God’s sonship unto maturity to be the mature sons of God and the real Israel of God.
If we allow the Spirit to regulate us, living the church life as the kingdom of God, we will be qualified by the Lord to be His co-kings and rule with Him over the earth as His kingdom.
Lord, we want to live and walk by the mingled spirit today. Keep us turning to You as the Spirit with our spirit. May the Spirit be our rule, our way, and our walk, not only in a general way but also in a regulated way. Lord, make us the Israel of God in reality. Gain us as those who represent You with Your authority and exercise Your dominion on earth for You to have Your kingdom brought in! Even today, Lord, keep us walking by the Spirit as the basic principle and elementary rule for our living.
References and Further Reading
- Inspiration: Bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing and portions in, Life-study of Galatians (msgs. 42, 44, 46), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, “The Completing Ministry of Paul“, week 5 entitled, Five Aspects of the Church.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Eating gives the manchild birth, / Eating brings the Lord to earth; / Eat Him now midst all the dearth— / Overcome! / Be the manchild Christ requires, / Thus the church that He desires, / Then the Bride that He admires— / Overcome!
# And now I’m walking by the Spirit, / Marching on toward the goal. / O Lord, Your purpose / Means everything to me. / All self-love I lay aside / For the churches, for Your Bride, / For the fulfillment / Of Your economy.
# Lord, teach me how to exercise / My spirit now to contact Thee, / That in Thy Spirit I may walk / And live by Thy reality.
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