The Lord’s heart’s desire to gain the one new man can be seen both with Peter (the fishing ministry), Paul (the building ministry), and John (the mending ministry); we need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind by drinking the Spirit daily for the carrying out of His heart’s desire to have the new man in reality.
The three main apostles in the New Testament are Peter, Paul, and John; they wrote the bulk of the New Testament, and the Lord used them in a very particular way.
Peter was a Galilean, a fisherman by trade, and he was fishing when the Lord called him when He said, Come after Me, I will make you a fisher of man. Peter, therefore, was entrusted by the Lord with the fishing ministry, and to him, the Lord gave the keys of the kingdom.
These keys were exercised on the day of Pentecost when thousands of Jewish believers were brought into the kingdom of God, and also in the house of Cornelius when the Gentile part of the Lord’s Body was brought in.
Paul was a tent-maker and a learned person (Acts 18:3); the Lord entrusted him with the ministry for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Peter gathered the materials for God’s building and Paul built them up together.
The Lord Jesus prophesied in Matt. 16:18 that He will build His church, but it was really through Paul’s ministry that the actual building up of the church was brought about, and it was through his ministry that the building up of the Body was brought in.
John was the last writer in the New Testament; when he was called by the Lord, he and James were mending their nets in the boat (Matt. 4:21).
His ministry was, therefore, a mending ministry; he mended what was broken, and through his ministry, he pointed out and cooperated with the Lord mend the leakages in the fabric of the church.
In all these three ministries of these great apostles, we see the Lord’s heart’s desire to have the one new man; the desire of God’s heart is to have the new man, for He wants to obtain this corporate person that expresses Him and represents Him on earth.
The entire divine history in the human history, the move of God in man, God being joined to man, and everything that God did was to gain this one new man who will consummate in the New Jerusalem.
The Lord’s Heart’s Desire to gain the One New Man is seen in Peter’s Fishing Ministry as he Exercised the Keys of the Kingdom
On the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Lord’s resurrection, Jewish people from many parts of the earth were gathered together for the feast, and Peter, a Galilean who was filled with the Holy Spirit, preached the gospel to them.
Even though they all spoke a different dialect, were from different places, and did not speak the same language, when they heard Peter’s preaching, they all understood his speaking.
This was a miracle, for they were all Jewish people from places such as Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and many other places.
They were of diverse ethnicities, having different features, cultures, and languages; their way of life was different, even though they were Jews.
Yet when they heard the gospel, they believed and were baptised in one Spirit into the one Body. In this way, the Jewish part of the Body was brought in.
Later Peter had a trance and he saw a vessel with all kinds of four-footed animals and unclean creatures, and a voice told him to slay and eat; he as a Jewish person never ate unclean things, so he told the Lord that he can’t do it.
The Lord’s response was, Do not call unclean that which God has called clean.
Later, some men from Cornelius, a Roman centurion, came to ask Peter to come to his house; this was Peter’s “eating the unclean animals”, that is, his being associated – by the will of God – with the unclean Gentiles.
Through Peter God had a way to bring in the Gentiles into the fellowship of the Body for the practical existence of the one new man on earth.
This is the Lord’s heart’s desire, to gain the one new man in practicality.
On the cross Christ became our peace; He broke down the middle wall of partition, the enmity, and He made us both one. All our different ordinances, our different ways of worship, and our different conventions, all the things that separate the Jews from the Gentiles were nailed to the cross.
Christ died for us and abolished in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances – both the Jewish and the Gentile ordinances were abolished!
All human ordinances, regardless of our culture, ethnicity, race, and background, everything has been terminated by the cross!
All these ordinances are a frustration for the Lord to gain the one new man; they have been terminated and replaced by Christ and Christ alone, for He made peace through His death on the cross, and reconciled us both in one Body on the cross, having slain the enmity by it. This is a fact.
Practically speaking, God used Peter and his ministry to carry this out for the bringing in of the Jews and the Gentiles to be part of the one new man in practical existence.
If we see this, we will not glorify our culture, nor will we treasure it; rather, we will put off our culture – which is lived out by the old man in the old manner of life.
Our way of living, the way that we live which expresses our culture, has been abolished already; today we need to practice to live in the new man with the new culture – our culture is just Christ!
Day by day in our church life, our marriage life, at home or abroad, we need to live the life of the new man to fulfil the Lord’s heart’s desire to gain the new man in a practical way.
We shouldn’t hold to our old way of thinking, our old way of living, and we should not prioritize things as in the old way; we shouldn’t hold on to our culture but put on the new man to live Christ.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for dying for us on the cross not only to redeem us and reconcile us to God but also to create the one new man in Yourself. Hallelujah, all the ordinances which separated us and kept us apart have been nailed to the cross, and Christ made peace in His body on the cross. Praise the Lord, the enmity has been slain, the ordinances were nailed on the cross, anything that divides and separates us has been terminated, and today we are the one new man! Amen, Lord, we thank You for making us one in You. We want to live a life for the fulfilment of the Lord’s heart’s desire to obtain the one new man in existence! We put off the old man and put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind and by drinking of the one Spirit for the one new man!
The Lord’s Heart’s Desire to gain the One New Man is seen in Paul’s Building Ministry, for in the New Man there CANNOT be any other Person but Christ!
In Eph. 2:14-15 Paul unveils that Christ created both the Jews and the Gentiles into one new man through His death on the cross; Christ’s death was a new-man-creating death (see 4:22-24).
Furthermore, in 1 Cor. 12:13 we are told that we all were baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks; whether Chinese or American, British or Russian, Polish or Romanian, Korean or Japanese, Dutch or Finns, Ghanaian or Nigerian, Iranian or Iraqi, etc – we were all made one!
Through His death, the Lord has terminated all the differences and created the one new man, and in the new man, there’s only Christ!
The Lord’s heart’s desire to gain the one new man in practicality is seen in Paul’s building ministry, for more than any other apostle he speaks concerning this new man and how Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:10-11).
We all have been baptised in the same one Spirit and were given to drink the one Spirit, no matter the colour of our skin and no matter what our culture and background is.
Now there’s no black, white, yellow, red, or any other skin colour; in the new man, there’s no space for our lifestyle, our way of living, or our culture.
If we still entertain the presence of these things, this is a sign that our mind has not been yet fully renewed.
In the new man, there’s no freeman, no bondman, no slave, no Scythian, and no barbarian; all religion is over, all ethnicities are over, and all culture is over.
There is only Christ. We have been baptized into Christ and we have put on Christ, and in Him, there cannot be Jew nor Greek (Gal. 3:27-28).
Our identity as believers in Christ is not our background, nationality, or culture; our identity is Christ. Our culture is Christ. We are one with Christ and we are Christ. Our race is Christ. Our ethnicity is Christ.
Outwardly we may be a certain kind of person, having certain features, and having a particular way of living, but in the new man there’s no room for such things; we daily need to live Christ for the one new man.
We should not live our old man with the old culture but live the new man with the new culture, that is, we need to live Christ; we need to live Christ in reality and in practicality.
For us to fulfil the Lord’s heart’s desire, the cross has to be working in us, for it is the cross that terminated all these things.
On one hand, the Spirit needs to be working in us to fill us and transform us by the renewing of our mind. On the other hand, we need to allow the cross to terminate all the differences.
When we speak of the renewing of the mind for our being transformed for the one new man, we need to have our mind cleansed and washed from all the worldly thinking, the words that we hear from social media and from the people of the earth, even from our professors and teachers in school.
We need to see something different; we need to be infused with a different thinking, a different logic, which comes from a mind renewed by the Spirit. Only when we think in this way can we practice the church life in oneness as the one new man, the one Body of Christ.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your new-man-creating death! Hallelujah, we all were made one in the Lord’s death on the cross, and all the differences and ordinances were terminated on the cross. Thank You Lord for making us one new man in Yourself; You are the unique element and constituent of the church as the one new man. We give ourselves to You, dear Lord, to be renewed in the spirit of our mind so that we may live the life of the new man for the fulfilment of the Lord’s heart’s desire! We put off the old man and put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind, and we drink the one Spirit into whom we were baptized and of whom we were given to drink! Amen, Lord!
The Lord’s Heart’s Desire to Gain the One New Man is seen in John’s Mending Ministry with the Lampstands and the New Jerusalem!
The apostle John has a mending ministry, and in Rev. 5:9 he told us that the Lord purposed by His blood “men out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation”.
As redeemed ones, we constitute the church as the one new man, and the Lord’s heart’s desire is to gain the new man in a practical way on earth.
The Lord purchased us, He bought us back, by His own blood; He bought us out of so many different tribes and tongues (dialects, languages) and peoples and nations.
The Lord bought us and brought us to Himself out of so many things that are the ingredients of the different cultures on the earth, the different ethnicities, backgrounds, languages, and national philosophies.
He purchased us OUT of all these things, redeeming us, to constitute the church as the one new man.
The constituents of the one new man are people from all kinds of different backgrounds, but we are now redeemed to comprise, make up, form, and be built up to be constituted as one Body and one new man! What a salvation this is!
Through the apostle John with his mending ministry, we see that the Lord’s heart’s desire is to gain the one new man in a practical way; this is especially seen with the matter of the local churches being the golden lampstands and with the New Jerusalem.
The churches are seen as golden lampstands (Rev. 1:11-12), and consummately, these lampstands become the New Jerusalem.
In the churches as the golden lampstands, we do not see any nationality, ethnicity, or culture; we don’t see and Gentile or Jewish person, neither do we see and race or national background – we only see the divine nature of the Father, the embodiment of the Son, and the shining forth of the Spirit.
The churches are the embodiment of the Triune God in humanity to hold forth the word of life and express the Triune God as the one new man throughout the universe.
As we read Rev. 21-22 we see the New Jerusalem, the ultimate consummation of the Lord’s heart’s desire to gain the one new man; in the holy city we don’t see any differences based on colour, culture, race, or background – we only see the New Jerusalem as God’s corporate expression.
Outside the New Jerusalem, there are the nations, but in the New Jerusalem we see no differences; we only see a great God-man, a new man in the universe.
Hallelujah, this is our destiny!
We have been redeemed, purchased by the Lord out of all kinds of things that separated and divided us, we were made the church as the one new man to be the golden lampstands as the many local churches, and we are becoming the New Jerusalem as the corporate one new man expressing God and representing Him in the universe!
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for purchasing us by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation to make us the church as the one new man where Christ is all and in all. Hallelujah, all of God’s redeemed ones constitute the church as the one new man! Thank You for bringing us into the local church to be part of the golden lampstand shining forth with the Triune God to express God on earth. Hallelujah, we are becoming the New Jerusalem as the fulfilment of the Lord’s heart’s desire, and as the New Jerusalem we are fully constituted and replaced with Christ, and we are fully one in Christ and with Christ to express and represent God for eternity! Praise the Lord!
We need to Put off the Old Man and Put on the New Man by Drinking of the One Spirit to be renewed in the Spirit of the Mind for the Carrying out of the Lord’s Heart’s Desire
As we review the ministry of the three main apostles in the New Testament – Peter with his fishing ministry, Paul with his building ministry, and John with his mending ministry – we can clearly see the Lord’s heart’s desire to obtain the new man in reality and practicality.
How can we apply this to our Christian experience and how can we enter into the experience and practicality of the one new man?
We need to daily put off the old man and put on the new man by drinking the one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) so that we may be renewed in the spirit of our mind (Eph. 4:22-24).
In this way, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind in every area of our practical daily life for the carrying out of the Lord’s heart’s desire to have the one new man in reality.
We put off the old man and put on the new man not merely by making a decision to do this; this doesn’t work.
We need to drink the one spirit, exercising our spirit to drink Him in His word through prayer, singing, fellowship, and musing on the Word.
We should only drink the one Spirit. We should not drink so much of the worldly things, the worldly teachings, its philosophies, and its culture.
We shouldn’t spend so much time on social media, for it will corrupt us, divide us, and put in us the worldly thinking, which will break up the new man by accentuating our differences. We need to come back to Christ.
As we drink the Spirit, we need to cooperate with the Lord to let our spirit invade our mind to be renewed in the spirit of our mind.
And we need to take Christ as our everything to us, realizing that Christ is our identity, our real life and person.
Even though in our practical daily life we live in a certain environment, eat a certain food, behave in a certain way, yet we learn to put off the old man and put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind by drinking the one Spirit.
As we do this little by little and day by day, our preferences will be dropped, our way of living will not be something that separates or divides us, and we will blend with others, we will have no problem entering into other’s situation to fellowship with them, and we will exalt only Christ.
As we drink the one spirit and are renewed in the spirit of our mind, we will realize that Christ is the One who has the unique superiority: He is superior to Moses, to the angels, to the law, and to culture, for Christ is all and in all in the one new man.
Dear Lord Jesus, how much we need to be renewed in all the matters of our daily life so that we may fulfil the Lord’s heart’s desire to gain the one new man. Amen, Lord, we put off the old man and we put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind. We give ourselves to You to drink the one Spirit so that we may be daily renewed in the spirit of our mind in every area of our practical living day by day. Hallelujah, in Christ we are the one new man, and in our daily living, we are becoming the one new man practically for the fulfilment of the Lord’s heart’s desire to gain the one new man on the earth!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 3, “The One New Man,” chs. 2, 5-7, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-Inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture for the One New Man (2020 Thanksgiving Conference), week 6, The Universal History according to God’s Economy — the Divine History within the Human History to Fulfill the Lord’s Heart’s Desire to Have the One New Man in Reality.
- Hymns on this topic:
– There’s only room for Christ, / The One who’s all in all. / In Him, the natural man is null / And has no place at all. / In Christ, there is no Jew, / No Greek, no slave, no free, / Barbarians and Scythians— / Crossed out entirely. (Song on, One Person and One Way)
– Thus we must put off the old man / That we may put on the new; / Thus, renewed in mind and spirit, / We will bear God’s image true. (Hymns #823)
– Christ to me is so subjective, / All my being He transforms; / By the mind and will renewing / To His image He conforms. (Hymns #537)
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