When we as believers in Christ live our life by taking Christ as our person in making decisions, our living will be the living of the one new man, for Christ lives in us for the church as the one new man.
Our Christian life is not a life according to right or wrong, good or bad, or even scriptural and unscriptural; our Christian life is a matter of the person living in us.
Our old man has been crucified with Christ, so we should no longer live in that person or by that person; we should no longer live in the natural man, the old man.
Hallelujah, our old man has been crucified and terminated on the cross, and today we can live by another life, by another person, which is the new person in our spirit!
We must deny our former person – “the old man” and “the outer man” – and live by our new person – “the inner man” (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9; 2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16).
When we are about to do things, when we want to go places, or we are about to say something, we shouldn’t just check with the Lord whether what we do is good or not, but we should take Him as our person.
Our standard for being a Christian shouldn’t be right or wrong, good or bad, but a person; our standard is who is doing things, who is speaking things, and who makes the decision. Oh Lord Jesus!
We need to spend much time with the Lord in His word, calling on His name, and allowing Him to draw us to Himself; as we’re drawn by Him, we become one with Him organically, and we let Him live in us.
Christ wants to live in us and express Himself through us not only as life but also as our person. So we shouldn’t care merely for outward adjustment of our outward behavior but for the inward shifting from the old person to the new person.
Like Paul testified in Gal. 2:20, we have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us; yet the life which now we live in the flesh we live in faith, in the organic union with the Lord.
This is mysterious, wonderful, and so sweet and practical! Somehow we as human beings live a human life not by ourselves as men or by the old man in our soul, but by Christ as the new person in our spirit!
We can practice to shift from the old person to the new person by continually turning to the Lord and enjoying Him! May there be much “shifting” to the Lord today in our daily living, so that He as a person may live in us and be expressed through us!
Taking Christ as our Person in Making Decisions to have the Living of the New Man
The Lord Jesus was God incarnated, and He learned to choose the good and reject the evil by eating curds and honey (Isa. 7:15).
He enjoyed the Father as the richest grace (butter, curds) and the sweetest love (honey), and He was able to move properly, to make decisions according to the Father, and to let the Father make the decisions.
When we take the Lord as our person especially in making decisions, we have the living of the one new man, for Christ as a person lives in us.
When we take Christ as our person and move with Him, we are a merged person – we’re one spirit with Him, and in this organic union it is He who makes the decisions. In this way we are sure we do not make mistakes, for the Lord takes full responsibility for the decisions we make.
All we have to do is love the Lord, give ourselves to take Him as our person, and be involved with Him personally and affectionately in our way of living, shifting back to Him repeatedly as much as needed, and we will take Him as the Decision-Maker.
When we are taking Christ as our person in making decisions, our living will be His living, our doing will be His doing, and our speaking will be His speaking.
The input that comes from Him, the Head, is for the entire Body; Christ as the Head decides, and we as the constituents of the one new man agree and carry out His decision.
Eighty to ninety percent of our living is in making decisions; if we make the right decisions – if the right person is making the decisions – then we have a certain kind of living that fulfills God’s purpose.
On one hand we as the church are the Body of Christ, and as such we need to take Christ as our life for our living and moving.
On the other hand we as the church are the one new man, and as such we need to take Christ as our person in making decisions and plans, and in deciding how we should live and what we should do.
We need to check with the Lord again and again, allowing Him to be the person deciding all things.
Also, we need to be in fellowship with the saints, for the Head is expressed through and lives in all the members of the Body; our living today is not individualistic but corporate, with the Lord and in the Lord, with the Body and in the Body.
We must see that our living today should be the living of the new man, a corporate living, and our decisions are corporate decision – not merely personal decisions – which affect the entire Body.
In both big and small decisions we need to take the Lord as our person, and we need to learn to open to the other members of the Body for prayer and fellowship, for in this way the Lord will have a way to be the One who decides in us.
If we see that we’re part of the one new man, we will not want to decide by ourselves as the person but rather, we will take Christ as our person in making decisions, together with all the other parts in the new man.
At this time, when we are about to make a decision concerning our human life, we will not take ourselves as the person but rather, we will take Christ as our person in the new man to make the decision.
When we live our life by taking Christ as our person, especially in the matter of making decisions, our living will be the living of the new man.
Such a living is of a highest standard, for it requires us to give ourselves to the Lord and pay the highest price, acknowledging and taking into account both the Lord and all the saints in all the churches.
When we take Christ as our person and have Him as the registration and sensation on which our decisions are made, we have this kind of sensitivity in taking care of the church and of all the dear saints.
In this way, all our decisions are safeguarded, for they are the decisions of the Head and of the constituents of the one new man being carried out in us.
Lord Jesus, we take You as our person in our making decisions. We give ourselves to You, Lord, to be involved with You personally and affectionately in our way of living, shifting back to You repeatedly as much as possible so that we may maintain the living of the one new man. Lord, You are the Head, and we are members of the Body; You are the unique person in the new man, and we are the many constituents of the one new man. We take You as our person in making decisions, Lord, and we want to consider all the saints and all the churches in the decisions that we make!
Seeing that we are Corporate Body and a Corporate New Man and our Living and Moving are Corporate
If we take Christ as our person, we will not decide anything in our life by ourselves; rather, we will check with Him, we will take Him as the decision-maker, and we will also check with the members of the Body.
In Philemon 14 Paul checked with Philemon concerning Onesimus, for he wanted to know his heart, his feeling, before he would make any decision.
Once we see that we are a part of the one new man, we will not be able to decide things merely by ourselves.
Rather, since we are part of the new man, our decisions and our living are not ours but the decisions and living of the corporate man; this is the ultimate requirement, for this is to take Christ as our person in making decisions.
The living of the new man is a corporate living; our decisions, therefore, are not personal decisions but corporate decisions (1 Cor. 4:17). We need to see that we are a corporate Body and a corporate new man, and therefore both our living and our moving are corporate (1 Cor. 12:12; Rom. 12:4-5).
On the one hand we need to consider the Lord and be intimately involved with Him in everything we do, taking Christ as our person in making decisions; in the other hand, we need to realise we’re in the Body, that is, we’re members of the Body and constituents of the one new man, so we need to consider the saints in our decisions.
The living of the new man has two characteristics: one is righteousness and the other is holiness (Eph. 4:24). Righteousness is according to God’s ways, which are righteous; holiness is according to God’s nature, which is holy.
When we do all things in our daily living – whether great or small – exactly the same in their nature as God’s nature and exactly the same in their ways as God’s ways, then there’s holiness and righteousness.
If we check with our experience, however, this is many times not the case; rather, we may strive to live a holy life individually and be righteous individually, and we fail at it.
How much we need to take Christ as our person in a moment-by-moment way so that He would be our person, He would make all the decisions, and He would live out in us His holiness and His righteousness!
May we not be individualistic but may we have a corporate living and a corporate moving; in our living we take Christ as our person, and in our moving we take Him as our life.
Thank the Lord that He doesn’t want us to live Him and express Him individually; thank Him that He put us in the Body and in the new man, and as constituents of the one new man we can take Christ as our person in making decisions and in every aspect of our daily life!
Lord Jesus, grant us to see that we are a corporate Body and a corporate one new man, and that all our decisions and acts impact the Body and the new man! Amen, Lord, we take Christ as our person in making decisions, so that He as the person would live in us, move in us, decide in us, and do everything in us! May we have a corporate living of Christ and a corporate moving one with the Lord. Thank You Lord for putting us in the church as the Body of Christ and the one new man for us to have a corporate living in oneness with Christ and in fellowship with the Body!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Rick Scatterday for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 3, “One Body, One Spirit, and One New Man,” chs. 5-7, 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 4, Taking Christ as Our Person for the One New Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Live through me, Lord; stop independent action; / Each breath, each step, would in Thy Body be. / Build us in Thee till we’re Thy full reflection, / Thy corporate one new man eternally. (Song on, Live Through Me, Lord)
– Not just by the outward teachings, / But by His anointing moved; / Not just by the outward pattern, / But by inward vision proved. / Not by human rules or rituals, / But by heaven’s rule within; / Not by human-made decisions, / But by guidance giv’n of Him. (Hymns #908)
– Not Himself just individually, / But the church together corporately, / Taking Christ as all in all, to be / The full-grown, perfect man. (Hymns #1180)
About aGodMan
