God wants a Group of God-men, the One New Man bearing God’s Image to Express Him

God created man for the accomplishment of His economy; His intention in creating us is that we would become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead for His expression (see Rev. 4:11; Eph. 1:4-5; John 1:12-13).

Hidden in His heart for eternity, God’s desire and dream is not merely that He would create the universe and have man “to fellowship with” but that He and man would be one, and that man would be brought into God to be made the same as God in every possible way (not in the Godhead, in His aspect of being worshipped).

Based on His heart’s desire, His dream, God made a plan – He made an economy, in which He created the universe and man – the center; when God created man He was fully satisfied, for man had God’s image and likeness, and man had the potential of eating the tree of life to receive God as life into him (Gen. 1:26; 2:9).

After the creation of man, God was rested and was satisfied, because man is the same kind as God is (man was not created according to the mankind but according to God’s kind).

However, the man created by God in His image and according to His likeness fell, being deceived by the serpent, and now all human beings – even though they have God’s image and own a spirit to contact God – are born in sin, in a fallen state.

But praise the Lord, eventually God became a man – the God-man Jesus, and this God-man, through His death and resurrection, reproduced Himself into millions of believers by imparting His life into them through their believing into Him.

Now all the believers in Christ – all those who receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and life – are the many God-men as the reproduction of Christ. We as believers in Christ are a new kind: we are no longer the “mankind” but the “God-man kind”, the divine-human beings who live not by the human life but by the divine life in our spirit.

God became man so that He may have a reproduction of Himself and produce this new kind, the God-man kind, the many believers in Christ who together are the Body of Christ and the One New Man!

God wants a Group of God-men, the One New Man bearing God’s Image to Express Him

What God wants today is not a group of good people who obey Him, read His word, do all that the Bible says to do, and live a good life; God desires to have a large group of God-men! This group of God-men is the one new man, the corporate God-man bearing the image of God for the expression of God (see Eph. 2:15;4:24; Col. 3:10-11).

When we received Christ as life and were saved and regenerated, our old man has been crucified and the new divine life was imparted into our being for us to be a new man, a new kind – the God-man kind; now the life we live in the flesh is in faith, in the organic union with God as life in our spirit (Gal. 2:20; Eph. 4:22-24).

This is the great mystery of godliness: God is manifested in the flesh, that is, God Himself became a man so that man would become God in life and nature for the corporate expression of God in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). Godliness is not merely piety but God being lived out in us for the manifestation of God in the flesh as the new man.

This new man was created by Christ through His death on the cross: in Himself He crucified all the commandments in ordinances, thus making peace, and He made the two people – the Jews and the Gentiles – into one new man.

We were born in the old man, but one day we heard about the Lord Jesus we believed into Him and received Him into us; when He came into us, God came into us, and His divine element was imparted into our being. On the one hand our old man has been terminated at the cross, and on the other hand the divine element has been wrought into our being.

Christ terminated our old nature and imparted God as the new element into our being, and we became part of the one new man. In our old man we didn’t have the divine element, but now as believers we have God Himself as the new element imparted into us and growing in us to make us the one new man.

Since we have God’s element in us, we have become something new: we are the one new man! As the Body of Christ, we take Christ as our life, and as the new man, we take Christ as our person so that we may live a life like that which Jesus lived on earth, that is, a life of reality that expresses God and causes God to be realized as the reality by man.

In this new man there’s room only for Christ: here there’s no Jew, Greek, barbarian, British, American, Chinese, black, white, yellow, brown, etc – in this new man there’s only Christ! In the new man Christ is all and in all, He is all the members and in all the members; He is everything in the new man.

Actually, Christ is the new man, His Body (1 Cor. 12:12), and so we as believers in Christ are being made Christ, the same as He is in life and nature, to be in reality the new man where Christ is the centrality and universality. This new man, this large group of God-men, bears God’s image to express Him in a corporate way.

Thank You Lord for regenerating us with Your divine life to make us God-men, part of the one new man bearing the image of God for the expression of God! We open to You, Lord: keep adding Your new divine element to our being, keep renewing us inwardly with Your divine element, so that we may be in reality the one new man that You desire to obtain. Amen, Lord, gain the large group of God-men – the corporate God-man bearing God’s image for God’s corporate expression!

Growing up in Christ and being One with Christ for the One New Man

What God desires today is a group of God-men who are mature in the divine life and express God in a corporate way; it is for this that He created us in His image to express Him, with a human spirit to receive Him, and with a loving heart to seek after Him.

However, regardless how much of our natural capacity is cultivated and regardless how much our natural self can be built up, we can never be God’s expression as the Body of Christ and the one new men unless we are becoming God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.

Only God can express Himself; only God in Christ as the Spirit in us can express Himself, so we who are born of God need to live by this mingled life in a mingled nature to build up the Body of Christ as God’s manifestation.

How can we be in reality the one new man? It is by allowing Christ to grow in us and be lived out of us, and by being one with Christ for God’s corporate expression. The one new man was created by Christ on the cross, but this new man needs to be raised up, to grow.

There is only ONE new man – there are not many new men (Eph. 2:15); all the regenerated believers are the many God-men, and the aggregate of all the God-men is One New Man (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). This one new man refers to the new mankind that God is after; Adam was the old mankind, and all his descendents are one with him, but today we the believers in Christ are one with Christ to be the one new man.

To be part of the one new man we need to be regenerated with God’s life and become a God-man, and we need to grow in life, take Christ as our person, be renewed in our mind day by day, and be built up with the other saints to be the one new man corporately who expresses God.

We need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind from any old concepts, religious doctrines and opinions, and natural thoughts, and we need to be brought on to maturity by letting Christ grow in us and by being one with Christ for the one new man.

When God gains the reality of the one new man all over the earth, He can have a corporate man that can express Him and be one with Him for the fulfillment of His purpose.

Lord Jesus, grow in us more today for the one new man. We give You more ground in our being so that You may grow, increase, and spread into every part of our inner being for the one new man. Lord, gain us fully that we may be one with You for the one new man. Be everything to us, for us, and in us. We take You as our life and person, and we want to be one with You for the one new man. Lord, we stop all our struggle and striving and we take You as our everything for the building up of the Body so that the one new man would come into being.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message for this week, and The God-men, ch. 1 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Gospel (2016 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 5 / msg. 5, The Highest Point of God’s Gospel.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # God would have a group of people / Built together in His plan, / Blended, knit, coordinated / As His vessel—one new man. / God would come into this vessel / With His nature, life and ways, / Mingling Spirit with our spirits / For His joy and to His praise. (Hymns #1325)
  # Now we’re one His purpose to fulfill, / As the one new man of His plan. / Unto Him be glory in the church, / And in Jesus Christ forevermore—Amen! (Hymns #1232)
  # 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)