“Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubim of cunning work shalt thou make them. Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make in the edge of the curtain that is in the coupling of the second; that the loops may take hold one of another. And thou shalt make fifty taches of gold, and couple the curtains together with the taches: and it shall be one tabernacle” (Exo. 26:1, 5-6).
Now let us read some verses from the New Testament. “For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Cor. 5:1-4). In these verses we see the concept that the clothing is the housing. They refer to being clothed with a home, not with a garment. So the housing is the clothing, and the clothing is the housing. Our garments, in a sense, are a house. When we are in the garment, we are in the house.
Now let us read Ephesians 4:22-24: “That you have put off, as regards your former manner of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of the deceit; And are renewed in the spirit of your mind, And have put on the new man, which according to God was created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” “To put on” in this verse means to be clothed with the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth.
To find what the new man is, we must turn back to Ephesians 2:15-16: “Having abolished in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, that He might create the two in Himself into one new man, making peace, And might reconcile both in one Body to God through the cross, slaying the enmity by it.” Christ created one new man of both the Jews and the Gentiles. This proves that the new man is not something individual, but something corporate.
We must realize that in the new creation, every one of us is not a complete man. In the new creation each of us is a member, not a man. The whole universe has only one new man, created of the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers. All believers, whether Jewish or Gentile, are members of this one unique man. Thus no one of us should consider himself a complete man, but only a member. If any of us is a complete man, he can be independent; but if he is a member, he cannot be independent. Look at our hands or our feet. These members can never be independent. They must be dependent upon the body.
The new man is a corporate, universal man—the very Body of Christ. That He “might reconcile both in one Body to God.” The one new man in verse 15 is the one Body in verse 16. We must be very clear about the definition of the new man. Sometimes we think that the new man is just the new creation. Some of the translations of Ephesians 4:24 even render the new man as the new nature. But according to the book of Ephesians itself, the definition of the new man is the very Body of Christ.
When we are clear that the new man is the Body of Christ, we can understand that to put on the new man simply means to put on the Body. And to put on the Body means to be clothed with the Body. The Body must be our clothing. In other words, we must “wear” the Body. The Body is our clothing and our covering. This is what it means to put on the new man.