Christ Himself is the new covenant, the new testament, of life given to us by God; according to this covenant, God writes His laws on our heart, He gives us Christ as the reality of all His riches, and the inner law of life works out in us all that God has promised and has spoken.
In Isa. 42:6 it says that God has given Christ as a covenant for the people; Christ Himself is the new covenant, which God has given to us, His people.
In Jer. 31:31-34 we see the contents of the new covenant, which is that God will put His law into our inner parts and write it on our hearts.
This law is nothing but God in Christ as the Spirit of life Himself; He has become in resurrection an automatic principle and a spontaneous power in our spirit to work out in us all that God has promised and all that He desires.
A law is something that works spontaneously; for example, the law of gravity just works – if you drop something, it will fall to the ground.
But there’s is another law, the law of aerodynamics, which is stronger than the law of gravity. In us, in our flesh, in our mortal body of sin, we have the law of sin operating; this law is stronger than the law of good in our mind.
But praise the Lord, in our mingled spirit there is another law, the law of the Spirit of life, which operates spontaneously to deliver us from the law of sin and of death in our members!
As long as we turn from our mind to our spirit, as long as we switch on the law of life, we are delivered from the law of sin and of death in our members.
Another example of the spontaneous working of the law of a life is the the dog life or the cat life; with each of these lives there is an automatic principle, a spontaneous power.
A dog does “dog stuff” such as barking, chasing cats, digging holes, wagging their tail, etc without anyone having to teach them what to do.
Similarly, the law of life in a cat spontaneously manifests a cat being a cat.
Similarly, the function of the law of the Spirit of life is the automatic principle, the spontaneous power of the law of life, and this law functions to just give us life!
The Lord Jesus said that He has come that we may have life and may have it abundantly (John 10:10).
He went through a process, He passed through death and into resurrection and then ascension, and He became a life-giving Spirit; the function of the life-giving Spirit in our spirit is to give us life.
When we switch on the law of life, divine life is imparted to all the inner parts of our being. Hallelujah, it is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing (John 6:63).
Christ is all the Bequests of the New Covenant, and He’s also the Executor of this Covenant
In Greek the same word is used for both covenant and testament; in a sense, a covenant and a testament are the same, but when the maker of the covenant is living, it is a testament, and when he has died, it is a testament.
A testament in today’s terms is a will.
A covenant is an agreement containing some promises to accomplish certain things for the covenanted people, while a testament is a will containing certain accomplished things that are bequeathed to the inheritor (Heb. 9:16-17; Deut. 11:29; 28:1, 15; Jer. 31:31-32).
When the death of the One making the will is established, his will becomes a testament; Christ made the covenant, He instituted His table, and He enacted the new covenant through His blood.
When He died on the cross, after His death, the New Testament came into being; now in resurrection, He became all the bequests of the new covenant, and He is also the Executor of this new covenant.
The old covenant of the law is a portrait of God, but the new covenant of grace is the person of God (John 1:16-17).
When we believe into Christ, the person of this portrait comes into us, and He fulfills in us the righteous requirement of the law as we walk according to the spirit and as we set our mind on the spirit (see Ezek. 36:26-27; Rom. 8:2, 4, 6, 10).
Praise the Lord, through His death Christ fulfilled the demands of God’s righteousness according to His law and enacted the new covenant (Rom. 6:23; 3:21; 10:34; Luke 22:20; Heb. 9:16-17), and in His resurrection He became the new covenant with all its bequests (1 Cor. 15:45; Isa. 42:6; Phil. 1:19).
God gave Christ as a covenant to the people; all the promises of God are in Christ and are Christ.
In His ascension Christ opened the scroll of the new covenant concerning God’s economy, and in His heavenly ministry as the Mediator, the Executor, He is carrying out its contents (Rev. 5:1-5; Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24).
Christ is now in ascension as the Executor of the new covenant, carrying out the contents of the new covenant, making sure that everything of the new covenant is carried out and applied.
Christ as the Executor of the new covenant makes sure that all the riches of Himself are being dispensed into our being.
As the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Christ overcame and defeated Satan; as the redeeming Lamb, Christ took away the sin of the fallen man; and as the seven Spirits, Christ infuses us with Himself as the contents of the scroll of the new covenant (Rev. 5:5-6; John 1:29). Praise the Lord!
Today we can just repent, return to the Lord, and call on His name, and Christ as the Executor of the new covenant infuses all that He is into us – all of God’s salvation, all of God’s blessings, and all of God’s riches!
The reality of all the hundreds of bequests in the New Testament is Christ, for God has willed Himself in Christ as the Spirit to us (Gen. 22:18a; Gal. 3:14; 1 Cor. 1:30; 15:45b; Eph. 1:3; 3:8; John 20:22).
All the bequests in the new covenant are God in Christ as the Spirit being dispensed into us. And our spirit is the “bank account” of all the bequests of the new covenant! Amen!
When we turn to our spirit, we enjoy all the riches of what God is, and God in Christ as the Spirit dispenses Himself with all He is, He has, He has done, and He has attained into us for our enjoyment.
Hallelujah, our spirit is the bank account of the riches of new covenant, and we can draw from those bequests by calling on the name of the Lord!
Thank You Lord for the new covenant, which You enacted by Your blood, You became through Your death and resurrection, and which covenant You now work it out as the Executor in ascension! Hallelujah, Christ overcame and defeated Satan, He took away the sin and sins of fallen man, He became the new covenant with all its bequests, and now He infuses Himself into us as the contents of the new covenant! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to call on Your name so that we may enjoy the bequests of the new covenant! Praise the Lord Jesus for our spirit, the bank account for us to enjoy all the riches of the new covenant, which is God in Christ as the Spirit with our spirit!
The inner Law of Life imparts God’s life into us and Constitutes us as Members of the Body
By the law of the Spirit of life, all the bequests of the new covenant are dispensed into us and are made real to us (Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11, 16; Heb. 8:10; John 16:13).
The center, the content, and the reality of the new covenant is the inner law of life (Rom. 8:2).
We have received the divine life in us, and this life has a law, which functions to dispense life into us and accomplish God’s purpose in us.
The divine life we received and which we have in our spirit is the Triune God, who is embodied in the all-inclusive Christ and realized as the life-giving Spirit (Col. 2:9; 1 Cor. 15:45); He is the One who has been processed and consummated to be everything to us, His chosen people.
In the new covenant God puts Himself into us, His chosen people, to be our life; this life is a law, a spontaneous power and an automatic principle.
According to its life, the law of the new covenant is the processed Triune God; according to its function, the law of life is the almighty divine capacity which is able to do everything in us for the carrying out of God’s economy.
In essence, the law of life is God in Christ as the Spirit; in function, the law of life has the capacity to deify us, that is, to make us the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function, but not in the Godhead (Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11, 28-29).
The capacity of the inner law of life constitutes us the members of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 5:30) with all kinds of functions (see Rom. 12:38; Eph. 4:11, 16).
When we turn to our spirit by calling on the name of the Lord, praying His word, having fellowship with the Lord, and turning our heart to Him, the law of life automatically and spontaneously functions in us to impart the divine life into our inner parts.
By giving us life in such an automatic, spontaneous way, God is deifying us; He does this by working in us in an automatic and spontaneous way.
The writing of the law of life on our heart corresponds to the New Testament teaching concerning the spreading of the divine life from the center of our being – which is our spirit – to the circumference – which is our heart (Heb. 8:10; Rom. 8:9; Eph. 3:17).
God writes His law on our heart by moving and spreading from our spirit into our heart to inscribe what He is into our being; we become “letters of Christ” (2 Cor. 3:3) by having Christ wrought into all the parts of our inner being as the law of life operates in us.
Through this spontaneous, automatic function of the divine life within us, we have the capacity to know God, to live God, to live God, and even to become God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead so that we as His people become His increase, His enlargement, to be His fullness for His eternal expression (Eph. 3:16-21). Hallelujah!
This is the reality of our Christian life and this should be our experience day by day. In ourselves, in our fallen condition, we are hopeless, utterly corrupt, incurable, and unchangeable, but praise the Lord, Christ has come to be our righteousness and our inner life!
On one hand, when we believe into the Lord, Christ becomes our righteousness for us to be justified before God and be right with Him; on the other hand, He comes into us as the divine life to fill us, to make us one with God, and to constitute us with the element of God so that we may spontaneously manifest God as we live God.
The divine life which all the believers in Christ have is fully able to saturate them with the element of God and make them the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function, and this divine life has the capacity to make them members of the Body of Christ with all kinds of abilities and functions.
The law of the inner divine life can constitute us to be members of the Body, including all kinds of functions – those of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers, and those of every part of the Body that functions in its measure. Hallelujah!
The inner law of life has the full capacity to operate in us and work in us according to God’s good pleasure, as long as we cooperate with the Lord by switching on this law of life! Hallelujah!
So we have seen that God desires that we would come to Him and take Him as the fountain of living waters, but in our fallen condition we are sinful and unchangeable, but Christ has come to be our righteousness and our life, even the inner law of life for us to become and be the person that God wants to be!
These three matters are the kernel of the book of Jeremiah, and they are the complete teaching of the entire Bible.
Thank You Lord for coming into us as the divine life to operate in us as the law of the Spirit of life to deliver us from the law of sin and of death and constitute us with the element of God! Hallelujah for the function of the inner law of life, for the law of life in essence is God in Christ as the Spirit, and in function this law of life has the capacity to deify us! Amen, Lord, we open to the inner operation of the law of life which has the capacity to impart the divine life into us and constitute us the members of the Body with all kinds of functions! Hallelujah for the spontaneous, automatic function of the divine life within us which enables us to know God, live God, and even become God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead so that we may become His increase to be His fullness for His eternal expression!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Jeremiah, msg. 26 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 2, The Kernel of the Book of Jeremiah.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Christ to me is so subjective, / Liberating pow’r is He, / By the law of life and power / As the Spirit setting free. / Christ to me is so subjective, / Regulating all the day; / He corrects and rules and guides me, / And adjusts in every way. (Hymns #537)
– The law of life is put within our mind / And on our heart ‘tis written sovereignly, / Inwardly ruling us that God we know / More than by teachings given outwardly. (Hymns #739)
– O Lord, Thou art the Spirit now / That with Thy power liberates; / And by Thy liberation true / The law of life now regulates. / O Lord, Thou art the Spirit now / That transforms us and saturates, / And to Thine image true conforms / And with Thy light illuminates. (Hymns #493)
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