Christ is the reality of the law to infuse His living substance into His loving seekers!

Why was the law given? What is our relationship with the law as New Testament believers? In message 8 in the Crystallization-Study of Psalms(2) we were enjoying Psalm 119, the longest Psalm / chapter in the Bible, where we see the psalmist’s love for the law, the word of God.

Actually, Christ is the reality of the law – which is God’s living Word – to infuse His living substance into His loving seekers!

Are you a loving seeker? We need to come to the Word of God as loving seekers so that Christ as God’s living Word would infuse His living substance into us!

Christ is the reality of the law

The law is the testimony of God, making the ark in which it was placed the ark of the testimony (Exo. 25:22), and making the tabernacle in which it was the tabernacle of the testimony (Exo. 38:21). The law is a portrait of God, showing that God is jealous, loving, righteous, truthful, and pure.

Christ is the living portrait of who God is – Christ is the reality of the law as the testimony of God! Yes, the Word of God is composed of letters, but the living Word is the Spirit, who is the reality of those letters, and Christ is the Spirit!

Two aspects of the law – the letter and the Spirit

“… ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). Our attitude in coming to the law as the Word of God is important – if we care for the commandments in letters, the law is the killing letter to us.

But if we take every aspect of the law – all the commandments, ordinances, statutes, precepts, and judgements – as the word which the God whom we love breathed out, we will have the law in the aspect of the life-giving Spirit! May we be God’s loving seekers and not the zealous letter keepers!

Two aspects of the function of the law

On the negative side, the law exposes man’s sin and subdues the sinners before God (Rom. 7:7, 3:19-20) – the law as a portrait of God exposes man, convicts man, and subdues man! This is for man to be guarded as God’s chosen people and be kept in the custody of the law so that they might be conducted to Christ (see Gal. 3:23-24).

But on the positive side, the law as God’s living word is full of many positive functions! Some of these functions are:

• ministering the living word of God to His seekers (Psa. 119:2, 88),
• dispenses God as life and light into those who love the law (Psa. 119:25, 50, 107, 116),
• restores man’s soul and makes man’s heart joyous (Psa. 19:7-8),
• brings us to salvation (Psa. 119:41, 170),
• strengthens and comforts and nourishes us (Psa. 119:28, 76, 103),
• causes us to enjoy God as our portion (Psa. 119:57),
• causes us to enjoy God’s countenance and the shining of His face ((Psa. 119:58, 135),
• makes us wise and gives us understanding (Psa. 119:98-99),
• gives us the proper discernment and knowledge (Psa. 119:66),
• keeps us from sinning and from every evil way (Psa. 119:11, 101), etc.

The condition of our heart when we come to the Word

In our experience whether the law as the living word of God is positive or negative depends on what the condition of our heart is when we receive the Word! If we are loving seekers of God loving Him, humbling ourselves before Him, and regarding the law as His living Word through which we can contact Him and abide in Him – then the law will become a channel through which we receive life and nourishment for our supply!

If our heart is humble, open, unloaded, unveiled, and appreciative for the Lord we love, we are infused with God’s substance through the law as God’s word and we even become one with God in life, nature, and expression (Rom. 8:14; Phil. 1:21)!

However, if when we come to the law as the word of God with a heart that doesn’t seek God in love but we have a divided heart, a lack of heart, or there may be some coverings, hindrances, and frustrations in our being when we come to the Word, then we tend to separate the law from the living God and what we get is the negative aspect of the law.

If we have unforgiven offenses, unconfessed sins, hidden sins, or if we are confident in ourselves that “I know that!”, the law doesn’t give us life but rather “kills us”, condemning us and exposing us (see Exo. 19:8; John 5:39-40, Rom. 7:10-11; Gal. 3:21).

Being God’s loving seekers

O, Lord Jesus! May we be God’s loving seekers when we come to the law as the word of God! We don’t want to be the letter-keepers – as the Judaizers were and as Saul of Tarsus was before he believed in the Lord (Phil. 3:6, 2)!

We want to be God-seekers, even loving seekers of God, who seek God with all their heart (Psa. 119:2), love God’s name and remember it (Psa. 119:132, 55), ask for God’s face to shine on them (Psa. 119:135), walk in God’s presence (Psa. 119:168), consider God’s law as being sweeter than honey to their mouth (Psa. 119:103), and take God’s word as a lamp to their feet and a light to their path (Psa. 119:105, 130).

God’s loving seekers’ attitude toward the law

In Psalm 119 we clearly see the proper attitude the loving seekers of God have toward the law as God’s living Word. They chose God’s word, believed God’s word, lifted up their hand to God’s word, loved God’s word, delighted in God’s word, tasted God’s word, rejoiced in God’s word, sang God’s word, regarded God’s word, had a perfect heart in God’s word, inclined their heart to God’s word, trusted in God’s word, mused on God’s word, considered God’s word, learned God’s word, treasured God’s word, stood in awe of God’s word, turn their feed toward God’s word, etc. We love God’s living word as the portrait and definition of the God whom we lovingly seek!

[sharing inspired from the wonderful Psalm 119 and the message given by brother Ed Marks, at least the first part of it, on, The Functions and Blessings of God’s Law as His Living Word to His Loving Seekers. Follow this series via, Crystallization-Study of Psalms. O, Lord, make us Your loving seekers with a proper heart towards You when we come to Your Word! Similar sharing: the functions and blessings of God’s law.]