For the one new man we all need to take Christ as our person so that He in us may have a certain living that is the living of the new man.
This week in our morning revival we come to a new topic, which is, Taking Christ as our Person for the One New Man. We take Christ as our person FOR the one new man; our taking Christ as person is for the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose, which is the one new man.
If we don’t get through in the matter of taking Christ as our person in our daily living, we cannot have the new man.
If we only understand this doctrinally, appreciate it, and agree with it, but we don’t experience taking Christ as our persons, this cuts short the possibility of arriving at the one new man. May this not be a theory to us but may this be our daily living in a spontaneous way.
It is by taking the Lord as our person that we urge, hasten, and bring forth the practical existence of the one new man.
Furthermore, when we take the Lord as our person, there’s a certain feeling, atmosphere, and fragrance; there’s something fragrant about Christ being our person and living in us.
The Lord living in us is a lovely experience, bringing us into a sweet taste, a lovely fragrance, making this so desirable and wonderful.
When we take the Lord as our person in our experience, what comes forth is the one new man, which is the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
If we are working in the church or visiting other churches yet we don’t have the sensation of the Lord’s fragrant presence with us, this can be a warning signal to us – we should check whether we take Christ as our person.
The one new man is the highest aspect, the consummate aspect of the church as presented in Ephesians. On the one hand this one new man is the warrior fighting the spiritual warfare, and on the other he is the bride.
In Rev. 22:17 we see that, as God’s corporate people are about to step into eternity, there’s a particular sensation that is fragrant, for God’s people have become the bride for the Lord’s satisfaction.
Hallelujah, as the one new man develops, it has to be a sweet sensation an aromatic sense of the Lord’s person being lived out in us and moving in us.
May we no longer live by our old man in our natural being as we go about our daily life; may we allow the Lord to make some progress in us and revolutionise us a little more so that we would take the Lord as our person constantly.
No Longer living by the Old Man but by the New Person in our Spirit, Christ as our Person
We believers in Christ are wonderful beings and mysterious persons, for we not only have the human life in our soul and body, but we also have the divine life in our spirit.
Before we were saved, we were a living soul (Gen. 2:9; Acts 7:14); we were a person with two organs – the body as an outward organ to contact the physical world, and the spirit as an inward organ to contact God and the spiritual world.
When we believed into the Lord Jesus, however, we received another life – we received the divine life in our spirit, and now we have another life – the divine life, beside our human life.
Our spirit is no longer just the organ to contact God: our spirit is our person, for Christ as life lives in our spirit.
We used to be a soulish person with the natural, soulish, human life, but now we have the divine life in our spirit, and our real person is Christ in our spirit, while the soul is for His expression.
We could say that by being regenerated we were converted to be a new person: formerly it was our soul who was the person, but now the person is our spirit.
Our Christian life is a life of living by our spirit, by the new Person in our spirit, which is Christ. After being born again, we need to grow; to grow is simply to have more of Christ added to our being and wrought into every part of our being.
We shouldn’t be persons in the soul anymore, for our former person – the old I – has already been crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20).
We need to stand on this fact and practice it; we should not live anymore by the old man, the old person, but live by Christ and with Christ as our person.
In fact, the old man has been crucified and terminated; in our experience, however, we need to deny the former person, “the old man” (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9), “the outer man” (2 Cor. 4:16), and live by our new person, “the inner man” (Eph. 3:16).
Hallelujah, there’s an inner man in our being, which is Christ as the Spirit mingled with our spirit, and this new man wants to live in us and be expressed through us!
Our person should be our spirit, and our spirit is mingled with Christ with His life; this new person in us is the spirit plus Christ as life, and this new person is also becoming our personality.
Our personality is no longer our soul but our real person, Christ as the Spirit mingled with our spirit. Amen! A real Christian is one who no longer lives by the old person, the old self, the old man, but lives by the new person in his spirit, Christ as his person.
Thank You Lord for regenerating us with Your life to become not only our life but also our person. Hallelujah, Christ as the Person has come into us, and He is mingled with our spirit to become the person living in us! Amen, Lord, we no longer want to live by the old man (who has been crucified with Christ) but by the new person in our spirit, Christ as the Spirit! May our daily living be a living of taking Christ as our person for the practical existence and bringing forth of the one new man to fulfill God’s plan!
We all need to Take Christ as our Person for the Practical Existence of the One New Man
For the one new man we all need to take Christ as our person (Eph. 2:15; 3:17).
From the moment of our regeneration, Christ has come to indwell us, and He has been with us as the indwelling Spirit waiting for us to engage Him in instance after instance and junction after junction in our personal life and church life.
When we touch the Lord, we have a fragrant sense, a lovely experience that He and we, we and He, merge in experience, and He is able to take us out of our natural makeup, out of our old living, and out of our old man, to make us new, a new person with Christ as his person.
As constituents of the one new man, we all need to take Christ as our person.
The elders, the serving saints, and all the saints, including the older saints, the middle-aged saints, the young adults, the students, and the young people, all believers in Christ need to take Christ as their person.
The young people are not too young and the older saints are not too old to take the Lord as their person. In the one new man there’s no place for YOU or I, for her Christ is all and in all.
This new man is both a person and a place, for it says “where there cannot be” (Col. 3:11).
In this person-place we only have Christ, and Christ fills this person-place. In this place there cannot be any other person but Christ; this means that we all – all the persons in the one new man – need to take Christ as our person.
There’s a realm we can live in, the realm of the new man; when we contact the Lord and take Him as our life and person, He spreads in us, we are one with Him, we live in Him, and He lives in us.
Taking Christ as our person for the one new man rescues us from having an episodic living in Christ, where we take vacations from our enjoyment of the Lord and we return to Him when we need a supply of life.
When we take Him as our person, we are integrally involved with Him, the one new man as the person in our spirit, and we live in Him and with Him; we don’t have a sporadic, in-and-out kind of experience, but a more resilient living of Christ.
We need to see that the church is the one new man and that in this new man we have no place, for here Christ is all the persons and in all the persons (Col. 3:10-11).
Christ is in all of us as one person; therefore, we all have only one person – Christ. In the new man all of us are simply one man; the requirement that everyone be only one man is extremely high.
So we need to endeavor, pay the price, and strive to contact the Lord, engage the One who has come to captivate us with His beauty and holds us by His attractive power.
As we hold Him and take Him as our person, the high requirement for the one new man is kept in a spontaneous way.
The new man is not about the members (Rom. 12:4-5) but about the person; therefore, we all need to ask, Who is my person – is it I or the Lord Jesus? Who is doing this particular thing I’m doing – is it I or Christ as my person? Who is speaking right now, is it I or Christ?
We need to practice taking Christ as our person; as we take Him as our person, we become conscious of Him living in us and no longer conscious of ourselves.
Most time we’re conscious of ourselves, but in taking Him as our person we’re moving toward a place where He is so important to us, so involved with us, and we cultivate and hold and sustain our registration and consciousness of Him so that we can assure ourselves, Lord Jesus, I love You – You are my person!
What God cares for is whether we live by Christ and take Him as our person.
On one hand we need to take Christ as our life and live because of Him, even as He took the Father as His life and lived because of the Father (John 6:57); Paul was a pattern in this respect, for he testified that the life he lived was Christ (Phil. 1:21) and Christ is our life (Col. 3:4).
On the other hand, we need to not only eat Christ’s riches in order to take them in and assimilate them into our being, but we should also allow Christ to be our person (Eph. 3:8, 17).
We love the Lord’s supply, we call on Him, we are nourished by Him, but we need to go on and take Him as our person, be involved with Him and let Him be involved with us. When we take Christ as our person, we definitely take Him as our life also.
Oh, may we take Christ not only to be our life but also our person! May we all take Christ as our person for the one new man!
Lord Jesus, we take You as our life and as our person so that we may live because of You and live Christ. You are all in all in the one new man, Lord, and You are in our spirit; we turn to You and we take You not only as our life but also as our person for the one new man! We come to You, dear Lord, for You have captivated by Your beauty and You hold us by Your attracting power; we take You as our person today, and we allow You to live in us for the one new man! Save us from having an episodic living of Christ in which we are in-and-out; bring us into a more resilient experience of Christ as our life and person for the practical existence of the one new man!
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, 1970, vol. 2, “The Two Greatest Prayers of the Apostle Paul,” ch. 4, 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:
– 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)
– My old person has been nullified; / With my Lord upon the cross he died; / Now in nothing shall he be applied; / He’s dead to me. / My new Person in my spirit dwells; / Springing in me as a bubbling well; / Flowing out until each part He fills / With abundant life. (Hymns #1180)
– 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. / 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. (Hymns #1220)
