It is wonderful to be born again, but after our new birth, we need to grow. To grow simply means to have more of Christ added and worked into us. Formerly we were people in the soul, but now we must be people in the spirit. Our soul, our former person, has already “been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). We have to take this fact and put it into our practice. Realizing that our former person has been crucified, we should not live in that person, by that person, or with that person anymore. We have to deny our former person which the Bible calls “the old man” (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9) and “the outward man” (2 Cor. 4:16), and we have to live by our new person, “the inner man” (Eph. 3:16). We have to realize that we are now another person, the new person in our spirit with Christ as life. Our person, our spirit, and Christ’s life are now one. This new person, our spirit plus Christ as life, is even our personality. Now our personality is not in the soul but in the spirit. We should not live in the old person anymore, nor should we allow or permit the old person to take any action. We have to live by the new person.
How do we apply this in our daily living? Suppose a brother intends to go to a department store to buy something. He should not check whether that is the Lord’s will or not. The first thing he has to check is whether his going is being initiated from his soul or from his spirit. Is it being initiated by his former person or by his present person, by the old man or the new man, by the soulish man or the inner man? It has to be initiated by his new person. It may be easy for us to learn this doctrine, but in most of our living, we may still be absolutely in our old man. To go to the department store to buy something is not bad or evil, but that may still be an activity of our former person. Although we are Christians in name, we may still be living in our old person. We may do things according to our consideration of whether a thing is right or wrong, good or evil, and not according to the principle of whether it is something of the old person or something of the new person. We, the reborn ones, may very rarely live in our new person.
God has no intention to ask you to be a good man. God’s intention is for you to live in the new person. It does not matter whether you buy something or not, whether you go shopping or not. What does matter is who goes, the former person or the present one, the person in the soul or the person in the spirit. If the person in the soul goes, Christ is not there, but if the person in the spirit goes, Christ goes, because in the spirit you are one with Christ. The new person is Christ as life in your spirit.
When these two, Christ as life and your spirit, are together as one, you have the personality of your new person. You need to see that you were not only saved but also reborn to be another person. Formerly, you were one kind of person, but you have been regenerated to be an absolutely different person. You were once a person in your soul. Whether that person was good or bad does not mean much. You may have been born gentle, mild, patient, kind, slow, and quiet. People always consider that this kind of person is very good. It may even be hard for you to lose your temper. Everybody would like this kind of person. On the other hand, I might have been born wild, tough, rough, and quick-tempered, without any patience. No one would like me. But whether you were born good or bad does not mean anything because we all need to be reborn. If you were born bad, you need to be reborn, but even if you were born good, you still need to be reborn. Regardless of our race, nationality, or natural disposition, we all have to be reborn. In this rebirth, we are all the same.
After our rebirth, we should no longer live by that old person but absolutely by the new person. The problem is that, even after our rebirth, we still live by our old person. We always consider whether a thing is right or wrong. If it is right, we will do it. If it is wrong, we will not do it. Thus, our standard of being a Christian is not a person but a behavior. This is the standard today in Christianity, but this is wrong. Our standard must be a person, not a behavior. Whether a matter is right or wrong, good or bad, we should only care for one thing: who is going to do it? Is our old person going to do it or our new person? It is not a matter of what you are going to do but of who is going to do it. The real subjective aspect of the work of the cross is to cross out your old person. It is no more I, the old person, but Christ, the new person (Gal. 2:20). It is not a matter of adjusting or improving your behavior. It is a matter of shifting your being from the old person to the new person.
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