Taking Christ as our Person for the New Man to Speak the Same Thing in One Accord

As the Body of Christ, the church has Christ as its life; as the one new man, the church has Christ as its person.

In order for us to be in reality the Body of Christ, we need to take Christ as our life and live by Him to live Him out. In order to be the new man in reality, we all need to take Christ as our person and let Him do and speak things through us.

When the Lord Jesus died on the cross He didn’t just redeem us back to God but He also created in His flesh one new man, breaking down the middle wall of partition, thus making peace, and made us all one in Christ to be the one new man (see Eph. 2:15).

Now all the believers in Christ, no matter their skin color, culture, background, race, age, height, or education, are one in Christ.

When we are regenerated by receiving God’s life into us, we become members of the Body of Christ and members one of another, and we become part of the one new man.

Now daily we need to take Christ as our life so that it would be no longer us who live but Christ living and being expressed in us, and we need to take Christ as our person so that Christ would speak through us the same thing as He speaks through all the believers.

In the matter of the one new man the Bible emphasizes our speaking: speaking with one mouth and speaking the same thing. The glory of the one new man is that all the believers take Christ as their person, and they all speak the same thing.

The Bible speaks the same thing, even though it was written by numerous writers and during a long period of time. It is such a pity that in today’s Christianity the Lord does not have the reality of the one new man but rather, many believers choose to speak what they think (and not what Christ thinks), while other believers follow blindly and speak what others speak.

May the Lord have a way to recover the reality of the one new man in the church life in the Lord’s recovery by all the saints taking Christ as their person in the matter of their speaking, so that God would get the glory and Christ would speak what is in His heart for this time on earth today!

We need to Take Christ as our Person in the Matter of Speaking

If we consider the one new man in Ephesians 2:15 together with the one mouth in Rom. 15:6 and speaking the same thing in 1 Cor. 1:10 we will realize that we all need to take Christ as our person especially in the matter of our speaking.

The church is not merely the Body of Christ but also the one new man, and for the church to be in reality the one new man on earth we need to take Christ as our person. The one new man refers especially to the person; in the one new man Christ is all the saints and in all the saints (Col. 3:10-11).

If we take Christ as our person, He will speak the same thing in us as He speaks through all His believers that take Him as their person. For the church as the one new man we ALL need to take Christ as our person in the matter of speaking.

We need to take Christ in, enjoy Him, and have Him as the good treasure of our heart, and then when we speak we will bring out good things, the Christ who has made His home in our heart (see Matt. 12:34-37; Eph. 3:17).

The Lord Jesus took the Father as His person and source, and He said time and time again that His teaching is not His but what He hears He speaks (see John 7:16-18; 8:28, 38a; 12:49-50; 14:10).

If you read the Bible, you will see that it speaks the same thing with one mouth; the Author of the Bible is One, God Himself, the writers are many, and the timespan is long, but the entire book speaks only one thing: Christ Himself (see Heb. 1:1-2).

We all should speak the same thing in the church life as the one new man today; for this we need to take Christ as our person.

However, if we look at the pitiful history of Christianity and even in today’s churches, there are many mouths, each speaking a different thing. Many preachers speak their own thing, thinking it is a shame to speak what others have spoken.

But it should not be like this among us in the church life: we need to break through the curse of Babel (Gen. 11:7, 9) and speak the same thing by taking Christ as our person.

In the past there were a lot of mouths among us because there were too many persons, but today we all need to take Christ as our person in the matter of speaking, and we all will speak the same thing (Rom. 15:6; 1 Cor. 1:10).

Christ is a living Person, and He speaks only ONE thing based on His feeling and His thinking; when I take Christ as my person and you take Christ as your person, we will speak the same thing. The Christ I take as my person is the same Christ that you take as your person, the collective Christ, and He as the Person speaks the same thing; He is the unique person in the one new man!

Lord Jesus, we take You as our person in the matter of our speaking. We refuse to speak our own thing based on our own feeling or understanding. Lord, save us from having many mouths speaking in the church life. Bring in the reality of the one new man where we have only One Speaking, Christ Himself speaking through us all! Save us from repeating the pitiful history of Christianity and save us from following others blindly. Lord, be our person today! Speak to us, in us, and through us!

Taking Christ as our Person for the New Man to Speak the Same Thing in One Accord

The church as the Body of Christ is the one new man; there is only one new man, and the one new man has only one Person – Christ Himself – and this one person speaks with one accord with one mouth saying the same thing.

In the church in Corinth and in Romans there were some who spoke different things, so Paul encouraged the believers to speak the same thing with one mouth. Even though we are many and we all are speaking, we all speak the same thing if we take Christ as our person (1 Cor. 1:10).

Today we are in the age of the church, the age of the Body of Christ and the one new man, and the Lord wants to recover both the proper function of all the members in the Body and Christ being our person so that He may speak the same thing.

When we are about to speak something in the church life (and at home, wherever we are), we need to ask ourselves, Am I speaking right now or is Christ my person as I am saying this? It’s not about saying the right thing versus saying the wrong thing; it is about taking Christ as the person and letting Him speak through us.

When we take Christ as our person, He will control our speaking, and we all will speak the same thing. If we take Christ as the person and allow Him to speak through us, there will be one accord with one mouth speaking the same thing, and Christ will get the glory.

God desires that He would have a recovery wholly and purely of the person of Christ, and in the one new man there is only Christ: He is the one Person, and we all take Him as our person.

In a sense, in the church life there’s no “freedom of speech”, that is, we are not free to speak whatever we want to speak but rather we all need to take Christ as our person so that we may speak the same thing.

In the church there’s no “democracy” nor “communism”; in the church Christ is all and in all, and Christ is the unique person. Of course, there’s no “speaking police” or censorship in the church life, but there’s the feeling of disturbing the one accord when one speaks from his own.

God the Father wants His Son to be expressed and spoken forth, and we should listen to Him (Matt. 17:5) and then speak.

In the one new man there’s no freedom for us to speak our own things according to how we feel and what we think. Only the Lord Jesus has the absolute freedom to speak, and our natural man has absolutely NO freedom to speak.

In this way, although we are many and come from different places, we all have one mouth and we speak the same thing by taking Christ as our person.

In the church as the one new man we can see a miracle becoming a normality: we all speak the same thing not by being conformed to some norm or teaching but by taking Christ as our person.

In the church life we all are learning to take Christ as our person, and even when we want to say something from ourselves, Christ within “pinches” us and bothers us until we speak what He speaks in us.

Lord Jesus, bring in the reality of the one new man where we all speak the same thing with one accord and with one mouth by taking Christ as our person. May we realize that in the church life as the one new man the natural man has no freedom to speak – only Christ can speak! Lord Jesus, have the absolute freedom to speak in us and through us! We want to come to You, listen to You, take You as our life and person, and let You speak through us!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 3, “One Body, One Spirit, and One New Man” chs. 5-6, as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Vision, Practice, and Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, week 6 / msg 6, Crucial Experiences in the Practice of the Church Life (3) How to Realize the Church Life in a Practical Way in the Reality of the One New Man.
• Picture credit for Rom. 15:6 and more spiritual quotes on this topic via, Christian Pictures Blog.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # So, Lord, I give my heart to Thee today, / That it may be Thy home in every way, / A place for Thee to come and settle down, / And all Thy grand recovery work to crown / In one new man. (Hymns #1179)
  # Once in the local church, I need / To take Thee as my person, Lord; / My outward man each day recede, / My heart is for the Lord. (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)