Int’l Training for Elders and Responsible Ones (Fall 2013)
Entering Into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life
to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose
Message Seven
Arriving at a Full-grown Man (1)Taking Christ as Our Person and Living the Life of a God-man
Scripture Reading: Gal. 2:20; Eph. 2:15; 4:24; 3:17a; Col. 3:10-11; Phil.1:21a
Outline
Day 1
I. In order to
arrive at a full-grown man for the fulfillment of God’s purpose, we need
to take Christ as our person—Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:17a:
A. For the new man we all need to take Christ as our person—2:15;3:17a:
1. Christ is both the life of the Body and the person of the new man—Col. 3:4; Eph. 3:17a.
2. In the one new
man the natural man has no place; we all have no place in the new man,
for here Christ is all and in all—Col.3:10-11.
3. Christ is in all of us, so we all have only one person—1:27; Eph.3:17a.
4. What God cares for is whether or not we take Christ as our person—John 6:57b; Phil. 1:21a; Col. 3:4; Eph. 3:17a.
5. What is first is not taking Christ as our life but taking Christ as our person:
a. If we take Christ as our person, we will surely take Him as our life—1 John 5:11-12; Col. 3:4.
b. If we take Christ as our person, we will be able to grow and mature—2:19; Eph. 4:13-16.
c. Taking Christ as our person is for the growth of the new man—v. 13.
Day 2
B. When we live our life by taking Christ as our person, especially in making decisions, our living will be the living of the new man—John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38; 17:4; Rom. 15:32; James 4:13-15:
1. In the new man we take Christ as our person to make plans and to decide how we should live—Rom. 15:32.
2. If we take Christ as our person, we will not decide anything in our life by ourselves—Philem. 14:
a. Once we see that we are a part of the one new man, we will not be able to decide things merely by ourselves.
b. Since we are part of the new man, our decisions and our living should not be ours; they should be the decisions and the living of the corporate new man.
c. The living of the new man is a corporate living; therefore, our decisions are corporate decisions and not our personal decisions—1 Cor. 4:19.
3. Paul is a pattern of taking Christ as our person—1 Tim. 1:16;Gal. 1:15a, 16a; 2:20; 4:19; Eph. 3:17a; Phil. 1:8; 2:5; 2 Cor. 2:10.
Day 3
C. For the church as the one new man, we all need to take Christ as our person in the matter of speaking—Matt. 12:34-37; Eph. 3:17a; John 7:16-18; 8:28, 38a; 12:49-50; 14:10:
1. In the one new man there is one mouth to speak the same thing—Rom. 15:6; 1 Cor. 1:10.
2. We need to consider one new man in Ephesians 2:15 together with one mouth in Romans 15:6 and speak the same thing in 1 Corinthians 1:10:
a. There is only one new man, and the one new man has only one person, so the one new man speaks with one mouth and says the same thing.
b. With one accord and with one mouth (Rom. 15:6) mean that even though we are many and all are speaking, we all speak the same thing—1 Cor. 1:10:
(1) The church is the one new man with only one person—Christ—and this person controls our speaking; thus, whatever He speaks is surely the same thing.
(2) If in our speaking we take Christ as the person, there will be one mouth, and everyone will speak the same thing.
c. In the one new man there is only one person—Christ—and only this person has the freedom to speak; there is no freedom for us to speak our own things—Matt. 17:5.
3. Although we are many and come from many places, we all have one mouth and we all speak the same thing; this is because we all are the one new man having only one person—Eph. 2:15;4:22-24; 3:17a; Rom. 15:6; 1 Cor. 1:10.
Day 4
II. In order to arrive at a full-grown man for the fulfillment of God’s purpose, we need to live the life of a God-man—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21a:
A. In Christ God and man have become one entity, the God-man—Luke 1:35; John 1:14; Matt. 1:18, 20-23.
B. Initially, the Bible speaks of the God-man; today this God-man has become the God-men—Rom. 1:3-4; 8:29:
1. The Lord Jesus, the first God-man, is the prototype for the producing of the many God-men (1 Pet. 2:21); the many Godmen are His reproduction.
2. God became man (Rom. 8:3) to have a mass reproduction of Himself and thereby to produce a new kind (v. 29; Heb. 2:10);this new kind is God-man kind.
3. We need to see that we are God-men, born of God, possessing the life and nature of God, and belonging to the species of God—John 1:12-13.
Day 5
C. The one new man is the corporate God-man—Eph. 2:15; 4:24; Col.3:10-11:
1. The first God-man, the firstborn Son of God, is the Head of this corporate God-man, and the many God-men, the many sons of God, are the Body of this corporate God-man—Rom. 8:29; Col.1:18; 2:19.
2. The God-men, as the regenerated children of God, constitute the new man—Eph. 5:1; 4:24:
a. The one new man is a corporate man, and this corporate new man is the aggregate of all the God-men—2:15.
b. Through His death and resurrection, Christ produced many brothers (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:11) who, with Him, have become the universal one new man; this is the corporate God-man, who is God yet man and man yet God.
D. For the one new man as the corporate God-man, we need to live the life of a God-man—Phil. 1:19-21a; 3:10:
1. Christ’s human living was man living God to express the attributes of God in the human virtues—John 6:57a; 14:10:
a. His human virtues were filled, mingled, and saturated with the divine attributes—Luke 1:26-35; 7:11-17; 10:25-37; 19:1-10.
b. The Lord Jesus lived God and expressed God in everything;whatever He did was God’s doing from within Him and through Him—John 14:10-11.
2. As the expansion, increase, reproduction, and continuation of the first God-man, we should live the same kind of life that He lived—1 John 2:6:
a. The Lord’s God-man living set up a model for our God-man living—being crucified to live that God might be expressed in humanity—Gal. 2:20.
Day 6
b. The One who lived the life of a God-man is now the Spirit living in us and through us; we should not allow anything other than this One to fill us and occupy us—2 Cor. 3:17;13:5; Eph. 3:16-19.
3. A God-man who knows the excellent Christ should live a life conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection—Phil. 3:8, 10.
4. A God-man who has Christ living in him should live and magnify Christ by the bountiful supply of His Spirit—Gal. 2:20;Phil. 1:19-21a.
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