GENERAL SUBJECT
THE RECOVERY OF THE CHURCH
Message Eight
The Status of the Church—the New Man
Scripture Reading: Eph. 2:15-16; 4:22-24; Col. 3:10-11
I. The church, the Body of Christ, is the one new man to accomplish God's eternal purpose—Eph. 1:9, 11; 3:11; 2:15-16; 4:22-24; Rom. 8:28; 2 Tim. 1:9:
A. God's intention in His creation of man was to have a corporate man to express Him and to represent Him—Gen. 1:26.
B. God's creation of man in Genesis 1 is a picture of the new man in God's new creation; this means that the old creation is a figure, a type, of the new crea-tion—Eph. 2:15; 4:24; 2 Cor. 5:17.
C. Eventually, the church as the one new man is the corporate man in God's inten-tion; the one new man fulfills the twofold purpose of expressing God and dealing with God's enemy—Gen. 1:26.
II. The one new man was created through Christ's death on the cross—Eph. 2:15-16:
A. The one new man was created by Christ with two kinds of material—the re-deemed created man and the divine element; on the cross Christ put these two materials together to produce a new man.
B. In the creating of the new man, first our natural man was crucified by Christ, and then through the crossing out of the old man, Christ imparted the divine element into us, causing us to become a new entity—Rom. 6:6; 2 Cor. 5:17.
C. Apart from being in Christ, we could not have been created into one new man, because in ourselves we do not have the divine essence, which is the element of the new man—Eph. 2:15:
1. Only in thedivineessenceand with thedivineessencewerewecreated into the one new man; it is possible to have this essence only in Christ.
2. Christ Himself is the essence of the new man; hence, in Himself He created the two, the Jews and the Gentiles, into one new man.
3. In the one new man Christ is all because He is the essence with which the new man was created; therefore, the one new man is Christ—Col. 3:11.
III. The church is the one new man, and in this new man Christ is all and in all; we have no place—vv. 10-11:
A. God's intention in His economy is that Christ be everything; therefore, it is crucial for us to see that God wants nothing but Christ and that in the eyes of God nothing counts except Christ—Matt. 17:5; Col. 1:18; 2:2, 17; 3:4, 10-11:
1. God's intention is to make Christ His Son the center of His economy and also to make Him everything to the believers—1:18; 2:17.
2. God's economy is to work the all-inclusive Christ into us—Gal. 4:19; Eph. 3:17a; Col. 3:11.
B. There is no natural person in the one new man, and there is no possibility, no room, for any natural person—vv. 10-11:
1. In the one new man there is only one person—the all-inclusive Christ—2:17; 3:4, 11.
2. The one new man is just Christ—Christ spreading and Christ enlarged.
C. The new man is uniquely one—one in Christ and one with Christ; we are one by Christ and through Christ—Eph. 2:15; Col. 3:11:
1. If we arenot in Christ, wehavenoshare, nopart, in thenew man; rather, we are through with the new man.
2. If we are in Christ but do not live Christ, we have a problem related to the new man.
D. The one new man comes into being as we are saturated, filled, and permeated with Christ and replaced by Him through an organic process—2 Cor. 3:18:
1. The new man is Christ in all the saints permeating us and replacing us until all natural distinctions have been removed and everyone is constituted of Christ—Col. 3:11.
2. The all-inclusive Christ must be wrought into us organically until He re-places our natural being with Himself—Eph. 3:17a; Gal. 4:19.
E. In the one new man, Christ is all the members and is in all the members—Col. 3:11:
1. The Christ who dwells in us is the constituent of the one new man—1:27; 3:11.
2. Because Christ is all the members of the new man, there is no room in the new man for any race, nationality, culture, or social status—vv. 10-11.
3. In order for us to experience the reality of Christ being all the members of the new man, we need to take Christ as our life and person and live Him, not ourselves—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:20-21a.
4. It is very significant that Paul said both that Christ is all and that He is in all—Col. 3:11:
a. We should not think that because Christ is all the members of the one new man, we are nothing and are not needed.
b. The fact that Christ is in all the members of the new man indicates that the members continue to exist—v. 11.
IV. We need to see that all the local churches in the different countries are one new man—vv. 10-11; 4:15-16:
A. All the churches are not merely individual local churches but are the one new man—Eph. 2:15-16:
1. We cannot say that each local church is a new man; rather, all the local churches on earth are the one new man—4:24.
2. The one new man is a matter not merely of individual localities and indi-vidual churches but of all the churches on earth corporately.
B. Among the churches in the Lord's recovery, there should be no "nations"—Matt. 16:18; 1 Thes. 1:1; Rom. 16:16b; 3 John 9-10:
1. We do notcaretohavealittle"nation," an empire, inwhich we canbeaking; rather, we care to be in the one new man—Matt. 20:25-26a.
2. The building of the church depends on the existence of the one new man— 16:18; Eph. 2:21-22.
C. Today is the day to have a new man constituted of all the local churches, including all the saints as one in Christ, who is all in all; this will be the ulti-mate church life—a universal new man living out Christ—Col. 3:10-11; Eph. 4:24; Phil. 1:20-21a.
V. The goal of the Lord's recovery is to bring forth the one new man—Eph. 2:15; 4:22-24; Col. 3:10-11:
A. What was divided and scattered in the old man is recovered in the new man; to put off the old man is to put off the divided and scattered man; to put on the new man is to put on the gathered and one new man—Gen. 11:5-9; Acts 2:5-12; Eph. 4:22, 24; Col. 3:10-11.
B. What the Lord has been doing and is now doing in His recovery is bringing forth the one new man with Himself as the life and the person for God's expression— Eph. 3:17-19; Col. 3:4, 10-11.
C. The requirement that everyone be only one man is exceedingly high; for the practical existence of the one new man, we need to rise up together to take Christ as our person—Gal. 2:20; Eph. 2:15; 3:17a.
D. The one new man will conclude this age, usher in the kingdom of God, and bring Christ, the King, back to this earth—Rev. 11:15.