1Ⅱ With Peter (the fishing ministry), Paul (the building ministry), and John (the mending ministry), we can see the Lord’s heart’s desire to have the one new man:
2A God used Peter on the day of Pentecost to bring in many Jewish believers (Acts 2:5-11); furthermore, Cornelius received a vision in prayer (10:30), and Peter also received a vision in prayer (vv. 17, 19) through which God’s plan and move (vv. 9b-14, 27-29) to gain the Gentiles for the practical existence of the one new man were carried out.
3B Paul unveils in Ephesians 2:14-15 that Christ created both the Jews and the Gentiles into one new man through His new-man-creating death (cf. 4:22-24); Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:13 that we were all baptized into one Body, “whether Jews or Greeks”; in Galatians 3:27-28 Paul tells us that those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, and “there cannot be Jew nor Greek”; in Colossians 3:10-11 Paul tells us that the Jew and the Greek have no place in the new man.
4C John tells us that the Lord purchased by His blood “men out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9); these redeemed ones constitute the church as the one new man; through John we also see that the churches are the golden lampstands (1:11-12), and consummately, these lampstands become the New Jerusalem; in the lampstands and in the New Jerusalem we can see no differences in peoples.
5D This all indicates that daily we need to put off the old man and put on the new man by drinking of the one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) so that we may be renewed in the spirit of our mind in every area of our practical daily life for the carrying out of the Lord’s heart’s desire to have the one new man in reality (Eph. 4:22-24).