#377 Kingdom: The Mystery Of The New Man
One of the great mysteries that the Scriptures reveal and one of the mysteries that God has purposed to make known through the church IS this mystery of the “new man.” After 2000 years of preaching and teaching it is amazing that there is ANYTHING yet to say about the new man who is the foundation and testimony of the new Creation. In fact the actual realm of Christianity IS the realm of the New Man. Without the “new man” there is no Christianity. It IS the new man that makes Christianity different from any other “religion” on the face of the earth. The new man is unique to Christianity. This “new man” is not from the earth realm and is born from a realm above. However, the new man is not born by the will of man but the new man is born from God. His birth is very similar to that of Jesus Christ by the miracle of the virgin birth. Why? Because human sperm is not involved. The birth is the sole result of the Living and Abiding Word Of God that comes into us as the divine sperma of God.
1Pet 1:22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, 23 for you have been born again not of seed {Sperma} which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God.
Therefore, understanding the new man is essential to understanding almost ANYTHING else in God’s eternal purpose. Why? Because EVERYTHING begins with this embryo. Without the creation and the experience and the growth of the new man, God’s eternal purpose can never be fulfilled through man. Coming to the “fullness” of the new man is essential for us to fulfill God’s purpose and bring joy to His heart.
One of the mysteries of the new man is in the fact that he is invisible and his existence is ambiguous to all who have not come to know and experience his inner reality. His birth and growth are in another realm and both are invisible to the earth realm. Of course his existence can not be proven by earthly or scientific evidence. The fact that the “substance” of the new man is not from the earth but is of another realm is confusing to the earth bound persons. Since he is born from the eternal dimension it makes him an anomaly to the world. Even the church, that ONLY exists because of the new man, has difficulty explaining him or to define his existence. For this reason much of the “church” completely ignores or denies the absolute necessity of the new man BEFORE there can a spiritual life or there can even be a valid church.
For example; any church that is made up of the “old man” can NEVER be considered as having any part in the “church” that Christ is building. The Lampstand Church is ONLY made from the new inner men, who after Christ is created in the image of God. It will NEVER be possible to hammer the “old creation man” into that one piece of gold that characterizes the Lampstand Church. The Mystery of the Lampstand is concealed within the substance of the Lampstand. The type of Lampstand Church, as displayed by the Lampstand in the Sanctuary of the Tabernacle of Moses, is of pure gold. It contains NO WOOD. The Mystery of the New Man is intricately linked to the Mystery of the Lampstand because they are both of the same divine substance. In fact the Mystery of ALL the furniture in the Sanctuary is “a type” of the true reality of the divine substance which is pictured as “gold” in the other furniture of the Tabernacle. The “function” of the new inner man is revealed within the furniture of the sanctuary. Therefore, the “New Covenant Priesthood” is identified within the function of the new inner man.
I will coin a new term to speak of this dimension. I will call the new inner man the “sanctuary man.” This will distinguish him from the “Outer Court” man who is in preparation for this Priesthood. The ultimate goal is the “Most Holy Place” man who has become “one with God, in Life, purpose, will and viewpoint.”
It is obvious that none of this will make any sense to the “Outer Court” man who is relying upon natural light for his understanding. The problem we have is in identifying and describing the new inner man since he is invisible and we must speak of him in abstract terms.
First we must recognize that the new man is NOT from the earth but has his origin in heaven. Still, he abides on earth and has been made flesh in our earthly body. He is not only real, he is eternal. Even though he is invisible he is as real as the outer man. The one main difference is that the outer man is limited to earth and will remain on earth while the new man is eternal and will return to his LIFE SOURCE. The realm in which the new man functions is NOT the earth realm but the Kingdom realm. The Kingdom realm is also the church realm. In the Tabernacle this realm is the Holy Place and is identified as the Lampstand {church} realm.
Even though the new man is invisible now, His Life and substance was once visible upon the earth. We can recognize the new man as he is manifested in Jesus Christ. Jesus was the FIRST new man, born of God, born from above. There NEVER existed this kind of man on earth before in any age! This “second Man” and the “Last Adam” began an entirely new Genesis and a new creation. John said we beheld Him and we touched Him, the Word of Life.
1John 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen
with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of
Life-- 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us–
John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
In verse 12 we see that to receive HIM is to receive HIS LIFE. The “NEW INNER MAN” is Christ and Christ is formed in us by His Life. But isn’t He seated at the right hand of God? The Man Christ Jesus IS seated at the right hand of God. What We receive to indwell us is Christ, that is His Life, the Divine Sperma, the Living and Abiding Word of God.
This LIFE is the LIGHT of God Illuminating our new inner person. The substance of the new inner man IS LIFE. The essence of the new inner man is Christ. Until we receive Him, that means His Life, we can never become the children of God. We are ONLY identified as “God’s children” when we possess His Life. Those that only have the life of Adam are “children of Adam”. Those who have the life and faith of Abraham are the “children of Abraham”.
Still, since this ETERNAL LIFE of Christ is invisible, how do we know we have it? Of course our natural life is also invisible so how do we know we have it? We see the evidence outwardly! This ETERNAL LIFE is more real than the natural life of Adam because it will live on.
Until we make the transition from the life of Adam to the Life of God we CANNOT “be saved” within the scope of God’s Eternal Purpose. It is certain that the “thief on the cross” could not be “saved” into that greater dimension because he never lived to make the transition into God’s Life that is available to us in Christ.
That “Christ / Word / Life / Sperma” which was “IN JESUS” is that which identified Him and made Him different than any other man that ever existed on the earth. That one element was “ZOE- LIFE.” As Jesus walked from village to village preaching the Kingdom of God, casting out demons and healing the sick, what was being manifested was the “LIFE.”
The reason the new inner man is both image and likeness is because both the essence and the substance of the new man is “UNCREATED LIFE.” This is a totally different “kind of Life” than Adam ever had. However, the “the essence and substance of this Life” was revealed to Adam in the Tree of Life. Adam was only given one opportunity to choose between these two trees. Either decision was permanent. Our eternal destiny hinges upon which life we are living by! The Tree of Life in Revelation 22 reveals the Life of the New Jerusalem. Here the Tree of Life speaks of the “fullness” of His Life.
In Christ this “New Creation Man” has no earthly identity. He is not male or female, not Jew or Gentile, he is not racial and has NO COLOR! He is only identified by the LIFE of Christ. This New Man is totally unique because he lives by the Life of another. That IS the uncreated Life of God. While the outer man, who came from the earth realm, only has the life of the earth realm, the new man lives on BECAUSE he possesses the Life of eternity. This LIFE is so radically different from the fallen life of Adam that the testimony and outward life-style of the Christian and the character and the characteristics of the Christian are totally radical. This radical life is just NORMAL for the true Christian. This is what infuriates the world and the life of Adam, wherever it is found. This offence is still manifested in the “Babel church” that men are trying to build. It is the old life of Adam that is causing the old problems in the church.
If we are going to live in Him, by Him, for Him, through Him and to Him it is obvious we must live by His Life. We can accomplish NO EFFECTIVE MINISTRY in this dispensation by the life of Adam. Our natural life has been inherited from Adam and can be traced in our genealogy back to Adam.
Our ONLY escape from the life of Adam is through death and burial. Our ONLY entrance into the Life of Christ is by this “birth” into another realm of resurrection. “Believing” something about Jesus is important but without receiving His Life and living by His Life, all our faith / belief is still dead AND irrelevant! Presenting the “gospel” as “believing something” is nearly criminal when those who “believe something” are assured that this “belief” IS salvation. Do you believe this and that and that? Yes! Well, according to our doctrine that means you are saved! Here we see the doctrine is irrelevant UNTIL we have died, been buried and been resurrected into a whole New Life. Putting doctrine BEFORE Life is a very serious mistake that can affect the eternal destiny of multitudes! All this “doctrinal error” can be freely practiced and is acceptable within the “church” that men are building.
Now, how do we know so many things about this Zoe / Life if we can’t see it or prove it by scientific research? 1John says that it was this Life that was manifested in Jesus that was so real it could be touched with their hands. What we see in Jesus is that LIFE. That LIFE was manifest and we beheld it, full of grace and truth. What we see manifested in Jesus Christ IS “the Life.” That IS exactly the same LIFE that we have received. When “that Life” is manifested through us, it will look just like the Life that was manifested in Jesus. Why? It is the same Life. The “fullness or degree of Life” can vary in us according to our individual growth in the new inner man! The works that He did was a manifestation of His Life. The “greater Works” will also be the manifestation of His Life in us. These “works” are done by Christ In Us.
This is why we have been making a distinction between the “gift of healing” and the “Life of healing.” We are relating the “gift” with the Outer Court function and the “Life” with the Holy Place function.
Since BOTH the essence and the substance of the New Inner Man [ Christ in us] is LIFE, it is essential that we understand how this Life is manifest. As the Life was manifest in Jesus so also we have the potential for the same Life to be manifest in us. Christ is being formed in us by His Life! Of His Fulness we have all received. Not “ the fullness” but OF HIS FULLNESS; a small share!
1John 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life-- 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us–
John said that Eternal Life was displayed and we saw it and our hands handled it. Both the substance and essence were touched in this realm of earth. It would be very difficult to make Eternal Life any more real than that! However, the natural man can NEVER know what that dimension of Life even means. Jesus Christ IS Eternal Life manifested.
A Quick Summation
Any “church” that functions outside of His Eternal Life can never be more than Babylon [ the harlot church] among us. HIS LIFE is the Life of our new inner man. Our “degree” of unity with Christ is the “degree” that we share in His fullness of Life. The growth of the new inner man then can only be related to the growth of His Life in us. When His Life comes to maturity in us we can say “Christ is formed in me.”
When we begin this “race” in time we begin with “various imaginations” about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. Also about ministries, gifts, callings etc. { I emphasize THE “race set before us” because we have only been allotted a certain number of years to complete God’s Purpose for us and there is no time to waste. This IS a race in time.} imagination >noun 1 the faculty or action of forming ideas or images in the mind. 2 the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful.
This describes the lower realms of imagination. The natural mind is certainly full of “imaginations” concerning spiritual things. Many of us exercised certain “gifts” out of this realm. We prayed for healings and gave advice and spoke with confidence but most was from the natural mind. Some went to “classes” to learn how to heal the sick and to prophesy. Thousands went to “school” to lean how to do the ministries. Much of this was just done in the natural mind realm of the imaginations.
To speak of the other realms of the new inner man we need a better word to make a distinction between the “vain imaginations of the natural man ” and spiritual insight of the new inner man. It has been suggested that we use the term “Envision” or “Conceive” to speak of this realm of the new inner man. There needs to be an entirely new system of knowing things in this invisible realm of the new inner man. We may call this new system “revelation” but if we link revelation with the realm of reality, that term may go beyond what we want to present. While true revelation is in the realm of the new inner man there may be a “system of knowing” in this realm that is lower than direct revelation.
For example; Getting insight from scriptures may be in this realm of the new inner man but just short of direct revelation. Prophetic words may also be in this realm of the new inner man but still short of being the Word of the Prophetic which should involve some direct revelation by God.
Confusing these areas of the new inner man has caused certain difficulties with the “gifts of the Spirit.” The “existence” of the new inner man can be quite different from the “function” of the new inner man. The difference being in the growth and development of the new inner man so that he may manifest the Life of Christ in these ministries and gifts. The “existence” of the new inner man may fall far short of “Christ being formed in us!”
It appears obvious that the function of the Lampstand Church within the illumination and in obedience to the Seven Flames of Fire which are the Seven Spirits of God, will require much more growth and development of the new inner man than what generally is seen in the “Outer Court” assembly today. Since the Lampstand is made only of pure gold it seems reasonable to relate this “gold” to “Christ being formed in us.”
We are just beginning to relate “all ministry” to just doing His will. For example; by the present standard, if we share something, with someone, in some place, we call that “ministry.” However, what we did may not be wrong but had nothing to do with the will of God. This is the great danger with pulpit ministry or the other ministries. We may be very busy doing all kinds of things, in all kinds of places, and none of it has anything to do with the will of God. We may think that anything we decide to do in the name of Jesus is acceptable to God and has something to do with His will. This is simply because of the vain imaginations of the natural mind. My theory is that the Lampstand Church must certainly “minister” on a higher lever than that! This shallow level of ministry today must be out from the “active imaginations” of the natural mind.
Is shallow ministry wrong? No, but it is pitiful! Maybe it is acceptable in the Outer Court. It is the best the natural mind can conceive under natural light. Still, this level of ministry is much too shallow for the Holy Place Life and ministry. The Outer Court is designed to develop and mature the new inner man to prepare him for the Priesthood Ministry after the order of Melchizedek. The “preparation in this Outer Court dimension” must BOTH add many things AND remove many things that we carried into this realm of redemption. This “priesthood ministry” is ONLY related to the new inner man. Ideally the priesthood ministry should be minus everything connected to Adam and JUST the operation of Christ in us. The outer man is limited to the priesthood after the order of Aaron. The world system and much of the church system is limited to the priesthood after the order of Adam. Even this “priesthood” is popular in the visible church.
IF informational type preaching was able to mature and develop the inner man we would certainly indorse it. However, the church has tried that kind of ministry for 1700 years and seen very little results. The condemnation type preaching produces nothing either. Holiness type preaching doesn’t produce “holiness” either. None of these types of ministries cause the inner man to develop or grow. None of these ministries can “feed” the new inner man. Why? Because his food is of a completely different realm.
Since the new man has his Life and being from CHRIST, to eat from Christ is his only source of life that causes him to grow. Why? Because the new inner man is from that realm and CANNOT eat from this earth realm. Unfortunately, that is beyond the capacity of man to feed from Christ. Even the manna that fell from heaven and was FROM God was able to sustain earthly life but Israel ate that bread in the natural / earth realm and died.
John 6:31 "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT.'" 32 Jesus therefore said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.
John 6:33 "For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world."
Christ IS THE BREAD OF GOD that is defined in John 6:53. It is THIS BREAD that gives LIFE.
John 6:53 Jesus therefore said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 "For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.
The “manna” in the wilderness is the picture or type of the true MANNA that gives US this “EXCLUSIVE” eternal life. This “manna” in the wilderness was available to all who were traveling into God’s purpose. This is a different God than the god of the Muslims because that god CANNOT give Life.
We might spend our life in church and doing all kinds of “ministry” but if we never
experience {eat and drink from} Christ in this dimension we have NO Life. This “eating and drinking” is NOT AN OPTION. Ministering out of His Life in the inner man requires that we come to Him to receive His Life. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is essential if we are ever going to minister in the Holy Place dimension.
There seems to be quite a difference between “accepting Jesus as personal Savior” and eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The difference is a matter of a new inner man who is living by His Life. He who eats Me refers to His Flesh and His blood. This is NOT speaking of the man, Christ Jesus, but must refer to Christ Himself who IS LIFE that was with God and was God, who was in the very beginning at the creation. This LIFE preceded Jesus but was made flesh in the man Christ Jesus.
Man has NONE of this LIFE in himself. The ONLY place man can get that LIFE is by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. To minister out from the OTHER life is producing nothing eternal and is surely irrelevant. Being constantly busy ministering out of the OTHER life is a big waste of precious time and produces ONLY wood, hay and straw that is consumed by the fire! Having an EMBRYO or “conception of life” and ministering His Life is two different things.
The fact that we may have 20,000 souls in a church pew that cannot minister His Life, does not make us successful in the Kingdom / Priesthood realm. Out of the 20,000 we may only find very few who will pass through that narrow gate and be equipped to minister HIS LIFE. However, until we pass through the narrow gate, it is certain that we will not lead others through that narrow gate. I am relating that “gate” to the Second Veil in the Tabernacle of God that leads to HIS LIFE.
Mat 7:14 "For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.
Finding THAT HIDDEN TREASURE should be our FIRST priority.