Reading: Rom. 5:12,15-19;
Ephes. 4:13,20-24; Col. 3:9-11.
Here the Word says we have put
off the old man, or more literally, that we have laid down or
laid aside the old man. The same word is found in Hebrews 12:1 -
"therefore... lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth
so easily beset us..." We have laid down, or put off, the
old man. So often those words are used by us in a merely personal
connection. We speak of "our old man", by which we mean
this sinful nature, of ours which rises up under provocation.
That aspect, of course, is included in the initial act of faith's
repudiation, but that is not all that is meant by the statements
before us. It is included; but what we have here is something
very much more.
The
Significance of the Term "Old Man"
Romans 5 explains what is
meant. The old man is a racial order, represented by its racial
head, Adam. It is an order. That corporate, collective Adam, as
apart from God, having departed from God, is a kind of order
which can no longer be accepted by God, which has passed out of
God's thought and God's acceptance, and stands contrary to His
mind. That is the order into which we are born, and to which all
that we are by nature belongs, and it is spoken of as a
corporate, collective entity. It is important to remember that,
not only is the Body of Christ one, but the Body of Adam is one;
that is, that all in Adam are also a corporate being. It is a
man, a kind of man, a type of man expressed world-wide; and we
are said to have put off that man, the old man; we have laid him
aside, laid him down. We have laid him in the grave in the same
way that we lay a corpse there. The body of one who has departed
this life is laid aside. It is no longer the place in which he
dwells. He has laid aside that body, and we follow up and
likewise lay it aside. Now as believers we have put off, have
laid aside the Adam type, the Adam order, the Adam system, this
one great collective man of a certain kind, of a certain order.
The New Man
Then it is further
said that in Christ we have put on the new man. That also is
often thought to be a merely personal affair, an individual
matter. That is to say, the new man in our conception is a kind
of new personal life and nature. That is true, but it is far
more than that. In the letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle is
speaking of the new man which is the Church, "the
Christ" as it is literally expressed in 1 Cor. 12:12. Christ
is one with all His members, as the Head joined to the body, all
the members making one body, one new man. It is a collective,
corporate man, a man of a new order which is not Adam, but
Christ: "where... Christ is all, and in all" (Col.
3:11). Before it was Adam who was all, and in all, but now in
this new creation it is Christ Who is seen to be all, and in all.
The Apostle well expresses what is meant when he writes:
"But ye did not so learn Christ; if so be that ye heard him,
and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus"
(Ephes. 4:20,21). It is a great embodiment of Divine truth in a
Person, and we are represented as having divested ourselves of
the one body, of old Adam, and as having invested ourselves with
this body of Christ, with the new man.
(a) The
Primary Feature
That includes a good many
things. If you look at the context of this passage you will
observe some of them. It includes the nature of Christ. That is
why, after mention has been made of putting on the new man, the
Apostle proceeds almost immediately with words like these,
"Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children; and
walk in love, even as Christ..." (Ephes. 5:1,2). The new
corporate man is the embodiment of the love of Christ. That is
the first thing. This love must have an individual expression,
for what is said to be true of the whole body is only so in the
degree in which it is found to be true of the individual member.
Let us recognise that, when we speak of the Church, of the Body of
Christ, or make use of this alternative title, the "new
man", we are speaking of that which is the embodiment of
Christ's love; and when we say we are putting on, or have put on,
the new man, we mean that we have put on the love of Christ.
To walk in love, then, is one
thing that is involved. The Body is built up in love; the Body is
constituted by love; the Body is the means of the expression of
Christ's love. If you take the figure and follow it, you will see
how impossible it is to escape the fact. Were you to find a body
without a head, it might be said that you had found a body; but
it would be a very mutilated body! It really could not in the
full sense be called a body. The Lord Jesus has not such a Body.
For a full expression of the meaning of "body" you must
have head and members all together, properly adjusted and
related. Now Christ cannot be said to be love as the Head, and
His members be viewed apart from Him. The Body is one; Christ in
expression is inclusive of His members, and that involves a
nature. That nature is love: therefore "...as beloved
children... walk in love, even as Christ also loved you..."
Love is not the only feature in
this new nature. We use it simply by way of indicating that this
nature does imply a new Body-disposition. You and I need to be
more before the Lord for a Body-disposition. The disposition of
this new man is the disposition of love. Let us ask the Lord for
the increase of this disposition in the Body of Christ. All that
is other than that is still the old man, and he has to be put
off. When anything that is not of the love of Christ springs up
amongst us as the Lord's people, in any form whatever - and there
are many forms of thoughts, and feelings, and words; words of
criticism, words of judgment - love has to put it off. If you and
I are found with such a thing as a spirit of criticism one toward
another, that is of the old man, the old Adam, and he has to be
put away. We have to recognise. that the Lord has put old Adam in
the grave. Then we have to follow up and say: To the grave you
go; You belong there! The new man, then, speaks of a new nature,
and of a new disposition. We all need more of this "new
man" disposition, that we may walk in love.
(b) A
Corporate Consciousness
Then this new man, being
corporate and collective, being related and inter-related in this
way, represents a life of fellowship. It demands a corporate
consciousness which is one of the most important things. In the
Lord's purpose everything depends upon this corporate life. The
Lord Himself can never reach His end by individuals, and you and
I can never reach that ultimate end as individuals. While it is
true, that Adam, the old man, is a corporate unity, the
consciousness of the old man is not a corporate consciousness; it
is an independent consciousness, a divisive consciousness. We
must have a corporate consciousness in order to reach God's end.
There are quite a number of the Lord's own dear children who
remain far too long in a state of spiritual immaturity. They
never grow much beyond childhood spiritually. You may know such
for years, and find them to be just the same simple children
today as when you first knew them. Now, it will be said: It is
very right and proper to be a simple child of the Lord! Well, let
us always have a child-like spirit, let us always seek to be of a
pure, simple spirit before the Lord, but let us remember that
there is a difference between child-likeness and childhood. There
is all the difference between keeping that simplicity, purity,
openness, teachableness of the child, and a delayed
understanding, an overdue ability to grasp spiritual things and
to assimilate food for those more advanced in years. The trouble
with so many people, or the cause of their delayed maturity, is
that they are merely going their own sweet way; that is, they are
butterflies, simply flitting from one thing to another with no
corporate life, no related life. A butterfly is quite a pretty
thing as it flits about, but there is all the difference between
a butterfly and a bee. A bee too may go from one thing to
another, but it does so to very good purpose. The bee's life is a
corporate life, the butterfly's is not a corporate life; it is an
individual life.
Delayed maturity,
stunted spiritual growth, is very often due to this lack of a
corporate sense of life which is bound up with the life of the
Lord's people in a definite and positive way. That is the way of
enlargement. That is the law of the new man. We arrest our
spiritual growth when we set aside the necessity for a life that
is linked with the people of God in quite a definite way. That is
a background in Ephesians. The whole of the fourth chapter is
devoted to this vital matter. The new man is there set forth as
the Church, the Body of Christ, and this new man is to grow unto
the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It is the
corporate man that grows to that stature; individuals cannot do
so. Only in relatedness do we move into the fulnesses of Christ.
Beware, then, of
missing that very important law of spiritual enlargement. This is
what is meant by putting on the new man. We are right, then, in
asking the question, Have we really put on the new man? Have we
really put on a Body-consciousness, a related-consciousness, a
fellowship-consciousness that belongs to the new man? It may not
always be possible for us to enjoy the immediate, local,
geographical fellowship of a large company of the Lord's people,
but that is not the point; we are talking about a consciousness.
(c) A
Disposition
Again, it is a
disposition. It is the setting aside of everything individual,
personal, separate, as such, and putting on that consciousness of
relationship in which everything is for the Body, and in the
Body, and by the Body. It is by this fellowship of spirit that
the Lord gains His end and we come to the Lord's end.
It is very sad to
see the results of failure to recognise that. There are some of
whose devotion to the Lord we have no question, but the thing
that pains us is that they have not grown one fraction of an inch
since we first knew them years ago. At least, there is no sign of
larger capacity. They are just exactly the same as they were.
Such as these are never to be found making a supreme effort for a
relatedness of a definite kind with the Lord's people. They flit
about from one thing to another, and they say: I am not going to
settle down in any one particular fellowship of the Lord's
people! I am going to keep free! I am going to move about and
keep in touch with everything that there is! That may be very
good from one point of view; and you must not misunderstand and
suppose it to be said that we are not to be in sympathetic touch
with all that is of the Lord. But there is something else which
is necessary to building up, and that is a concrete relationship
with the people of God. It is necessary to the Lord for fuller
revelation. What do we not owe in the matter of revelation to
this very thing! For revelation the Lord must have the Body
spiritually expressed. It is tremendously important to know that.
It is there that
the Lord's ministry functions. Ephesians 4 is a great ministry
chapter. You lose all isolation and departmentalism in ministry
when you have the Body in realised expression, when every one is
found occupying some place of spiritual value in the work of the
Lord; not according to the technical terms that man is wont to
use with reference to such work, but where everyone represents
something of spiritual value, where everyone is a minister before
the Lord in some way. Whether you recognise it or not, it is a
fact, and unfortunately a great deal of loss is suffered because
it is not realised how greatly obedience on the part of every one
of us affects the issue.
I will tell you
how to test it. Is there going to be something personal for the
Lord by a corporate means, say a conference? I venture to say
that there are not many people who are spiritually associated
with that who do not know some aspect of the Devil's rage and
pressure in connection with it. You do not have to provoke the
Devil in any way. It is one conflict, and not only are the more
evidently responsible individuals in ministry affected, but the
conflict reaches to those whom we do not connect with ministry in
that specific sense. In our thought we so often limit the
ministry to this one expression of it. Those who have ordinary
home and domestic duties may haply think of them as something
quite other, and not as part of the ministry, but the conflict
finds its way in there. It gets into your personal consciousness,
into your business, apart from your being in any more immediate
way involved in what is going on. It is because you are
spiritually related to a testimony, because you have come in a
spiritual way into the Body of Christ, recognising what the Body
of Christ is. Whether you have understood the truth or not in any
large measure, you have put on the new man and you are suffering
as a part of one man.
Now that is not
only a fact which perhaps we recognise in a painful way, but it
is a privilege. Paul said, "I... fill up on my part that
which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his
body's sake, which is the church" (Col. 1:24). There in your
homes, in your business, in what you would call the back places,
you meet with the conflict. It is for the Body's sake. Out there,
far away from others, you are meeting the impact. That is the
proof that every part of this Body is a partaker in this
ministry. The whole is being served by every part in a spiritual
way putting on the new man.
While it involves
us in the cost, in the suffering, it equally means that we come
into the good and the value for no few members can come into
blessing without all who are in spiritual relationship receiving
benefit. If one member suffers, all the members suffer; if one
member rejoices, all the members in some way rejoice, in some way
come into the good of it.
God's Quest
is a Man
You will see that
this is very closely related to what the Lord is seeking to bring
to us in these days. We are still speaking of it in very general
terms, but the presentation of the Lord's mind ought to be very
clear to us. It is a man that God is after. That man is
represented by His Son, and the Church is His expression as His
Body. This new man is the universal manifestation of what Christ
is - one Lord, one Life, one Love. It is important, lest you
should make a mistake in interpretation, to recognise that there
is a difference between the word used in Ephesians and that in
Colossians. In Ephesians we read of putting on the new man, in
Colossians we read of having put on the new man. In Ephesians the
word "kainos" means something that never was before,
something altogether new. This Church never was before; this
corporate man according to Christ never existed before, it is
something new. In Colossians another word is used which simply
means "fresh", not necessarily altogether new. You will
see the significance of the different word if you look at the
context. There, is a freshness of mind, a freshness of spirit
that is to be a mark of those who are in Christ. But our word at
this time has to do with the former word, which is
"kainos", the new man, the man that never was before.
There is an old man who was before, and he has to go. Here is
another man that never was before, and he has to be put on.
This new man is
after God. That takes us back to our previous meditation, God
thinking His thoughts, desiring His desires, and willing His
wills, all of which express His own nature, and all of which are
focussed upon a created being called "man":
"...which after God hath been created..." (Ephes.
4:24). That is a marvellous expression. You know how we speak of
certain works of men, and use that word. We say, After Landseer!
We mean that it is a reproduction of Landseer. Now here is a new
man which after God is created in righteousness. The Lord teach
us the meaning more clearly of so learning Christ.