Living in the Kingdom of the God’s Son and Being the New Man to Fulfill God’s Purpose

When God created man in His image and according to His likeness, He had an intention: He wanted man to express Him with His image and represent Him with His authority on the earth.

The first man, Adam, failed to accomplish God’s original intention, but Christ, the second Man, came and fully fulfilled God’s intention in creating man through His incarnation and God-man living.

The world has never yet seen such a Person living on earth like the Lord Jesus Christ: He denied Himself, lived under the authority of His Father God, expressed God in all He said and did, and He brought in the kingdom of God (as seen in the Gospels).

Through His death and resurrection this One was begotten by God in His humanity to be the Firstborn Son of God, and all those who believe into Christ were raised together with Him to be the many sons of God.

Hallelujah, all the believers in Christ are now the sons of God, born of God with His kingly and royal life, and they are being transformed and conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son of God to be God’s corporate expression!

Also, we all are in the process of being organically saved by God and we are practicing to live under the restriction and limitation of the divine life within so that we may reign in life through Christ, the One who reigns in us (as seen in Romans).

Today we want to go on and see the matters of image and dominion in the Epistles of Colossians and Ephesians.

In Colossians we see that we can know and enjoy Christ as the image of God, and we can live in the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. Through regeneration we have entered into a lovely place: the kingdom of the son of God’s love, and here we can enjoy Christ in love and be ruled by God in love to express God with His image in Christ and represent God with His dominion through Christ.

In Ephesians we see the one new man created by Christ on the cross; this corporate one new man fulfills God’s original intention in creating man today. The one new man expresses Christ, bearing the image of the One who created him, and the one new man fights for God’s interest to defeat God’s enemy and bring in God’s kingdom.

Knowing Christ as the Image of God and Living in the Kingdom of the Son of God’s Love (Colossians)

God is invisible; no one has ever seen God, but the Son of God came to declare Him, express Him, and represent Him to us, and He Himself is the effulgence of God’s glory and the impress of His substance to be the image of God (Heb. 1:3; Col. 1:15).

Christ is the image of the invisible God: He expressed God in all His being and attributes, and through His living on earth He made the bountiful God made known through His God-saturated human virtues.

As believers, we can know such a Christ as the image of God, and as we enjoy Him, we have God’s image imprinted on us. When we enjoy Christ as the image of God, we become the corporate expression of God, the corporate Christ.

In Col. 1:13 we see that we have been transferred out of the authority of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. This means that we have been transferred into the Son Himself, the Beloved of the Father, who is life to us (see 1 John 5:11-12); now we have the Son and therefore we have the divine life!

Because we have been delivered out of the authority of darkness, the kingdom of Satan (Matt. 12:26) and transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, we are now qualified to partake of the all-inclusive Christ as the allotted portion of the saints in the light (see Col. 1:13 footnote 1).

The kingdom of the Son is a realm of the divine life, of the divine love, and of the divine light, since Christ is life, love, and light.

In the church life today we are in the kingdom of the Son of God’s love; here we are loved by the Father because we are in His Beloved, whom He loves most dearly (see Matt. 3:17; 17:5).

The kingdom in which we live today, the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, is a realm full of life, light, and love, and here there is no fear (1 Pet. 2:9). In this kingdom the Father delights in His sons, and we are happy to be with our Father.

We should reject Satan’s lies that God’s kingdom is a frightful place; it is Satan’s kingdom that is a fearful and terrible place – God’s kingdom is full of life, love, and light, and here we are loved by God in Christ.

We are so happy to be in this place, in the kingdom growing in His grace, where Christ is everything to us! In the church life as such a lovely place we are ruled by God in love and we represent God with His dominion over all the negative things and over Satan, and we bring in God’s kingdom wherever we go.

Lord Jesus, we are so happy in this lovely place, the church life as the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. Here we can enjoy the wonderful Christ as the image of God, the effulgence of God’s glory and the impress of His substance. Lord, thank You for bringing us into this realm full of love, light, and life. Here we have nothing to fear since we are loved by the Father in the Son. Lord Jesus, we love You! Keep us enjoying You as the image of God until we express God corporately. Keep us under Your loving rule until we bring in Your kingdom on earth!

The Church as the Universal Corporate New Man will Fulfill God’s Purpose in Creating Man (Ephesians)

In Ephesians we see a vision of the church; one of the aspects of the church is the one new man, the corporate man in God’s intention (see Eph. 2:15; 4:24; 6:10-20).

The one new man has been created by Christ in His body on the cross: He tore down any middle wall of partition and made peace between Jews and Gentiles; this new man was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality (Eph. 4:24).

All believers in Christ are members of the Body of Christ and part of the one new man. This one new man is created according to God in Christ, and it is this new man that will fulfill God’s twofold purpose of bearing God’s image to express Him and exercising God’s authority to represent Him.

God’s creation of Adam, the first man, was a picture and a type of the creating of the universal new man who will fulfill God’s eternal purpose.

On the one hand, the one new man bears the image of the One who created him (see Col. 3:10), being created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality. On the other hand, the one new man is a corporate warrior fighting against God’s enemy to bring in God’s kingdom (Eph. 6:10-20; Rev. 12:10).

The old man failed in fulfilling God’s purpose in creating man; Christ fulfilled God’s purpose in an individual way; the one new man fully fulfills God’s twofold purpose in creating man, and this one new man will end this age to bring in the age of the kingdom.

What God is after today is the building up of the church as the Body of Christ to be the one new man, the universal corporate new man who has the image of God to express Him and exercises God’s authority one with Christ to deal with God’s enemy and bring in the kingdom of God to earth.

When the Lord gains the corporate one new man, He can return to bring in the kingdom of God, and the age of the millennium will begin.

May we be those who contribute to the building up of the church to be the Body of Christ as the one new man who corporately expresses and represents God on earth!

Lord Jesus, gain the universal corporate one new man who bears Your image to express You and exercises Your authority to represent You on earth. Oh Lord, since it is the one new man who can fulfil Your twofold purpose in creating man, may this one new man come into being all over the earth! Gain the corporate expression of God in the one new man. Gain the new man as the corporate warrior fighting against God’s enemy to bring in God’s kingdom on earth!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians (msgs. 4, 10, 28, 62), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (3), week 12 / msg 12, Image and Dominion – the Heart of Genesis.
• Further reading: see msgs. 216 and 352 in, The Conclusion of the New Testament (by Witness Lee).
• Picture credit for Ephesians 2:15 and more spiritual quotes via, Christian Pictures Blog.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # What a Christ we have, the all-inclusive One, / Our allotted portion, set apart in light. / In the kingdom of the Son of God, the Son of God’s love, / Here He rules us in the light of His love. (Song on Col. 1:13)
  # I’m so happy in this lovely place, / In the garden growing in His grace! / There is no finer pleasure / Than to eat the living tree / And to get the living water into me. (Hymns #1237)
  # 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)