Praise the Lord for our covenanting God! He does not have to promise us anything or do anything for us, but He comes to us again and again to enter into a covenant with us so that we may be assured and at peace.
The new covenant which the Lord Jesus enacted through His blood was promised and spoken of in Jer. 31:31-34, where the Lord said,
31 Indeed, days are coming, declares Jehovah, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
32 Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by their hand to bring them out from the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was their Husband, declares Jehovah.
33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares Jehovah: I will put My law within them and write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.
34 And they will no longer teach, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for all of them will know Me, from the little one among them even to the great one among them, declares Jehovah, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.
This new covenant will come in full effect in the coming kingdom and in the new heaven and the new earth, but today we can have a foretaste of the new covenant until we have the full taste. In the new covenant God promises four major things:
- God assures us that He will take away our sins,
- God puts Himself as life in our spirit and will develop this life into laws in our inward parts,
- God will be our God and we will be His people according to the inward life law,
- We will spontaneously have the inward ability to know God.
In the new covenant God doesn’t require anything from us except to believe into Him and be open to Him; according to the new covenant God made with us and enacted through the blood of Jesus Christ, He takes away our sins, He imparts Himself into us as life and becomes in us the law of life, He makes us His people and He becomes our God, and we have the inward ability to know God. What a wonderful covenant God made with us!
God entered into an agreement, a contract, a legal binding covenant with us in which He promises to remove our sins and never remember them, come into us as life and become the many laws in our inward parts, He will be our God and we will be His people, and we will all know Him inwardly! Thank You Lord!
We need to see more of the details of this new covenant, especially how God will impart His laws into our mind and how He inscribes them into our heart, and what does this mean in our Christian experience. The entire Bible (especially the New Testament) is needed to unpack, unfold, and bring us into the full realization of the new covenant God made with us.
I will Impart My Laws into their Mind, and on their Hearts I will Inscribe them
In Heb. 8:10 Paul quotes Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning the new covenant and says, I will impart My laws into their mind, and on their heart I will inscribe them. In Jer. 31:33 the Lord says “I will impart my law into their mind”, but Paul quotes this as, “I will impart my laws into their mind”.
The footnote in the Holy Bible Recovery Version is really enlightening on this matter,
In Jer. 31:33, the source of this quotation, the word used is law (singular), whereas in this verse it is laws (plural). This proves that it is one law that spreads to become a number of laws. This one law is the law of life (see the law of the Spirit of life — Rom. 8:2). Every life has a law. The higher the life, the higher is its law. The divine life that we receive of God is the highest life; therefore, it has the highest law, the law referred to here. By imparting His divine life into us, God puts this highest law into our spirit, whence it spreads into our inward parts, such as our mind, emotion, and will, and becomes several laws.
The law of life differs from the law of letters. The law of life regulates us from within by and according to its life element, whereas the law of letters regulates us from without by and according to its dead letters. The law of dead letters depends on outward teachings, but the law of life depends on the inward consciousness. Since we all, great or small, have the law of life, we do not need outward teachings that are according to the law of letters (v. 11). (Heb. 8:10, footnote 1, Recovery Version)
In our experience we can testify that, when Christ came into us as life, this life has a law – it is the law of the Spirit of life; as Christ grows in us and His life spreads in us, this one law of life becomes the many laws in our inward parts.
The living law of God is being imparted into us – into the various parts of our inward being consisting of our mind, emotion, will, and conscience, and this one law becomes the law in that part, regulating our mind, emotion, and will, and imparting the element of God into that part.
Every life has a law and even is a law (Prov. 30:19a); the human life just works, the plant life simply grows and bears fruit, and the animal life is constantly operating. A law of life is the innate ability of that life, something that just works all the time, and is repeatable.
For example, we don’t have to strive and plan to breathe: we just breathe again and again, and it happens spontaneously and automatically. We don’t have to worry about digestion: as long as we get food in our stomach, digestion just happens. Just as the human life has a law, so the divine life, God’s life as the highest life in the universe, also has a law; this is the highest law, since this life is the highest life.
The young men may get weary and exhausted, but whoever waits on the Lord shall renew his strength (Isa. 40:30-31); when we wait on the Lord, enjoy Him, turn to Him, and exercise our spirit, the law of life within us spontaneously operates in us to strengthen us, give us more of the divine life (it is the law of the Spirit of LIFE), regulate us, and conform us to the image of Christ.
Lord Jesus, thank You for entering into a new covenant with us in which You promise to impart Your laws into our mind and inscribe them on our hearts. Lord, we just want to be open to the inward operation of the law of the Spirit of life. May Your divine life in us grow and may the law of life operate in us to impart more of the divine life into our being, regulate us inwardly, cause us to know God in a subjective way, and conform us to the image of Christ. Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You!
The Triune God was Processed to become the Law of the Spirit of Life Installed in our Spirit
What is this “law of the Spirit of life” which is installed in our spirit (Rom. 8:2)? This law is not a doctrine but a living law, something that is imparted into our inward parts. It is the innate function of the divine life, and it is nothing else but the processed and consummated Triune God as the law of the Spirit of life.
The Triune God has passed through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, and in resurrection He has become a life-giving Spirit; when we receive the Lord Jesus, we receive Him as the Spirit – the consummation of the processed Triune God.
God came in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), condemned sin in the flesh, died on the cross, and was raised; now the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead is one with our spirit, and we can testify that we are children of God (see Rom. 8:3, 11, 34, 16).
This Spirit is now with our spirit, and He is a law – the law of the Spirit of life. In a wonderful yet mysterious way God accomplishes His purpose not from outside of man trying to train man to do His will but from inside of man by becoming the life-giving Spirit and being imparted into man as the law of the Spirit of life to inwardly dispense life to man, shape man into the image of Christ, and make man the same as Christ.
The law of the Spirit of life is the very Triune God who was processed through incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, and who is now the indwelling Spirit in us. What we have in us is not “a force” or “a principle” but the living person of the Triune God who is now installed in our spirit as the law of the Spirit of life.
As we open to the Lord and call on His name, pray over His word, fellowship with Him, pray, and fellowship with other believers, the law of the Spirit of life spontaneously operates in us. Actually, even when we don’t realize it and we may not do much outwardly, as long as we keep turning our heart to the Lord and “spiritually breathe”, the law of the Spirit of life operates in us organically, spontaneously, and automatically.
Hallelujah, the Triune God has been processed through incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to become the law of the Spirit of life installed in our spirit! The Triune God is in us in Christ as the Spirit to be the innate, spontaneous, and automatic law of the Spirit of life. Lord, we want to give You our best cooperation so that the law of life would operate in us to fulfill God’s purpose and shape us into the image of Christ! Praise the Lord!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and Life-study of Hebrews, msg. 36 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2) week 7 / msg 7, The Covenanting God and His Covenants (2) – The Contents of the New Covenant.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# There is now then no condemnation to those / Who are in Christ Jesus. / For the law of the Spirit of life has freed me / In Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Song on The law of the Spirit of Life)
# The law of life from our spirit within, / Saves us from death and the bondage of sin; / Spontaneously working, from slavery freed, / His divine life is forever increased. (Song on the Law of Life)
# Thy law of life in heart and mind / My conduct regulates; / The wealth of Thy reality / My being saturates. (Hymns #539)
About aGodMan
