For the practical existence of the one new man, the total person of the old man must be put away, and we must live by our new person; we need to have an inward shifting from the old person to the new person.
What God cares is not that we improve our behavior or do great works for Him; He cares whether we live by Christ and take Christ as our person.
In other words, through regeneration we have received another person in our spirit, and this Person has another life and another living; but who lives in us and is expressed through us – is it still us or is it Christ?
God cares not for what we do as much as He cares for who does it, that is, whether it is Christ who does it or is it us.
How do we live Christ? It is by taking Him as our life and person; on one hand we take Him as our life and life supply, and on the other, we take Him as our person so that He as a person may live in us.
The Lord Jesus didn’t just take the Father as His life – He also took the Father as His person, and when He spoke, He spoke the Father’s words, when He worked, He did the Father’s work, and He sought the Father’s glory.
We need to eat the Lord and live because of Him, taking Him as our life and life supply, and we also need to take Him as our person, allowing Him to live in us. It is quite a mysterious yet wonderful matter to take Christ as our person.
How can a person that is different than us live in us? We have always been our own person, making our own decisions, thinking our own way, and doing things the way we always do, so how can Christ become our person?
Well, on one hand we need to eat His riches so that He may get into our being and be assimilated into our inward constitution, and on the other hand, we should allow Him to make His home in our heart and become our person.
How we love the Lord’s supply! How we love to eat Him, take Him in, and be supplied by what comes out from Him! But we need to go on – we need to take Him as our person also, so that He as a person may be expressed through us and may live in us.
Christ is not only our life supply, the resource that supplies us with the divine life for us to live as a believer; He is also our person, our personality, and He wants to be expressed through us.
For this to happen, there has to be a shifting from the old person to the new person, and our living has to be not in the old man but in the new man.
Who Lives: is it us or Christ? May we live by the New Person in our Spirit Daily
The Christian life is not a life according to the principle of right or wrong, good and evil; in our daily living we shouldn’t be guided by “Is this right? Is this a good thing to do?”
Rather, our question should be, Lord, who lives in me right now: is it I or is it You? Who is the person living in me, is it me or is it Christ? Our standard in our Christian life is not a behavior but a person.
What matters is not whether the things we do are right or good, or even scriptural; what matters is who is doing these things – is it us or is it Christ? Is it our old person that does things and lives in us, or is the new person in our spirit that lives and does things?
It’s not a matter of improving our behavior or adjusting our temper; it is a matter of realising that Christ is our real person and living by this new person in our spirit daily.
To do this, we need to deal desperately with Christ and feed of Him through pray-reading the word, and we need to drink of Him by calling on His name; in this way, we will be one with Him in our spirit.
As we eat the Lord, drink Him, and breathe Him in, we become organically joined to Him – we become one spirit with Him. Though we may not realise this, we are daily growing in life and the Lord grows in us as we contact Him and fellowship with Him.
The new person in our spirit is growing daily until one day we will no longer be little children but rather, we will arrive at a full-grown man, at the stature of the measure of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13-14).
As Christ grows in us, there’s an accumulation of His element in all the parts of our being; the more we experience Christ and enjoy Him, the more He expands, He spreads, and the grows in us.
It’s not that we experience Christ a little bit as our patience and our strength, and we take Him as our forbearance and our life. Rather, as we contact the Lord and call on His name, as we turn to Him and pray-read His word, we are slowly but surely living by the new person in our spirit.
Then, if we want to visit someone, our prayer will not be, Lord, should I go to visit this person? but rather, Lord, are You going to visit this person? I am going with You, and You go in my going!
When we study, we don’t just ask the Lord to be with us in our studies and give us wisdom, but rather, we take Him as our person, realising that He in us wants to study and wants to do everything.
We do have to exercise our mind to study and our body to be in the right location so that we may be awake to study, but we will study in the new person, the Christ who lives in our spirit.
When we get dressed, we don’t merely check with the Lord concerning what we should wear, but check with Him who is getting dressed, that is, who lives – is it I or Christ?
As we check with the Lord again and again, as we contact Him in spirit, we will live not by a moral or ethical standard of behavior but by the new person living in our spirit.
In this way the outer man is decaying, and the inner man is being renewed and increases day by day (2 Cor. 4:16).
The old man, being jobless and not consulted, will decay, and the new man, being strengthened with power, has Christ making His home in our heart, and he becomes the person in us.
Lord Jesus, keep us coming to You and checking with You concerning who is the person living in us – is it us or is it Christ! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to call on Your name and pray-read Your word so that You may grow in us, spread in us, and increase the element of God in us. Make us organically one with You, Lord, by Your working Yourself into us slowly, imperceptibly, and constantly. Dear Lord Jesus, we love You, and we take You as our life and as our person. Be the person living in us right now. May our outer man decay day by day as our inner man is renewed and strengthened to live a life for the fulfilment of God’s eternal purpose in us!
Inwardly shifting from the Old Person to the New Person in our Living for the New Man
When we speak of taking Christ as our person for the one new man, this is a very personal and intrinsic matter, for it has to do with our very person, our personality, the person who lives in us.
Paul tells us that our old man has been crucified with Christ and terminated on the cross (Rom. 6:6), and the life we now live we live in faith, the organic union with Christ (Gal. 2:20).
For the practical existence of the one new man, the total person of the old man must be put away, and we must live by our new person (Eph. 4:22-24; 3:17).
How can we put away the total person of the old man? It is not as we think, that is, by dealing with the old man directly, for the more we deal with the old man and interface with him, the more we are in our old man.
This is similar to what happens in some countries in the marketplace; you may go there to buy something or look around, but some sellers are quite insistent, and they follow you to convince you to buy what they are selling.
But you don’t want to buy those things, for you have no need of them, so you may tell them that you don’t want or need those things….yet they pursue you, and the more you engage with them, the more they prevail.
But if you just ignore them and do not talk to them, they will leave you alone and will go away. In the our one hundred percent dealing with the old man, we do not have to deal with him directly; rather, we need to do a shifting from the old person to the new person!
We simply need to be involved with the Lord as our new person in our living, loving Him and kissing Him and contacting Him, being freshly drawn to Him and captured by Him. In this way, we are captured by the Lord, and the old man is left aside, jobless and weakened.
This involves that, as we are drawn by the Lord’s attractiveness, there’s a shift happening in us, for we enjoy the Lord, and even when we still live in the old man, we remember how good it was with the Lord, so we turn to Him!
The more we touch the Lord and contact Him, the more we are shifting from the old person to the new person in our spirit, and we are no longer involved with the old man but with the new man!
The more we experience such a shifting, the more we enjoy taking Christ as our person, and the more the one new man is lived out practically. When we shift and contact the Lord in His indwelling in our mingled spirit, we actively choose Him, and in this way we take Him as our person.
With this, there’s also a passive receiving of Him, for as we contact Him in spirit, He has access to our being and strengthens us into our inner man to make His home in our heart! Hallelujah!
In this way He is constituted into our being, becoming part of the center and core of our being, and He becomes our person in a practical way.
This shifting from the old person to the new person can be likened to being involved in a courtship; before entering in the process of courtship, a young man may not have an interest in the young lady, but at one point he develops an interest, so he would like to shift from being involved just with himself to being involved with her.
If the courtship is successful, the interest he has in her is increased, and he wants to be with her even more and more, so he shifts out from being in himself and with himself, to being with her more and more.
Every time we are drawn to the Lord and experience Him, that experience is so rewarding and positive, full and supplying, that it begs and asks for another occasion; in this way, the Lord makes His home in our heart, and we have more of an affinity for Him, for enjoying Him and experiences Him.
The jubilant practice of calling on the name of the Lord serves the function of bringing us out of our old man and into the new man; every time we call on the Lord, we are drawn by His fragrance, and we are shifting from the old man to the new person.
Similarly with pray-reading the word and all the other life practices: they all are to bring us out of the old man and into the new man. We must deny our former person – the old man / the outer man – and live by our new person – the inner man (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9; 2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16).
We should care not for the adjustment of our outward behavior but for the inward shifting from the old person to the new person (Gal. 2:20).
Lord Jesus, You are lovely. We love spending time with You to enjoy You, call on Your name, and pray over Your word so that we may be infused with You and You may make Your home in our heart. We love to live in a personal and affectionate relationship with You, for You draw us, You capture us, and we are taken over by You. We love You, Lord, and out of love for You we put our old man aside and we live in the new man. Amen, Lord, we are shifting from the old man to the new person, the Christ in our spirit who is our real person for 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, 1977, vol. 3, “The One New Man,” chs. 1, 3-4, 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. / 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)
– Take time to behold Him, gaze oft on His face, / Receiving His Person, and grace upon grace. / By His pleasant shining, infused we will be; / Our faces will glow with His light, radiantly. (Song on, Take time to absorb Him)
– Be the person of our heart; / Manifest Thyself through us. / Build the saints into Thine house / That we’d bear Thine image thus. / Consummate Thy central work / That we’d match Thee perfectly; / Thus, the church would builded be— / One new man eternally. (Song on, Lord, Bring Forth the One New Man)
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