In Rom. 8 Paul made a great discovery: he discovered that the law of the Spirit of life (the automatic principle and spontaneous power of the divine life) is stronger than the law of sin and of death, and when we activate this law, we are free from the power of sin! Hallelujah!
God passed through the process of incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, and in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit to be received by man and become in man a law – the law of the Spirit of life – that frees man from the law of sin and of death.
This is why we say that the only way for us to be released and have real freedom is only by enjoying Christ as the life-giving Spirit, for when we exercise our spirit to enjoy Christ as the life-giving Spirit, we do not commit sin but are really free.
The way to live a life of liberty, release, and freedom from bondage is to enjoy God. But if we don’t enjoy the Lord sufficiently, we will still be in bondage to many things.
Many times we think that we are free, for there’s nothing outward that enslaves us, and we’re not in besetting sins such as drinking, gambling, or fornication.
But there are many things that are necessary to us and yet they enslave us; many things, matters, relationships, and situations can be used by the enemy to enslave us and usurp us, so that we may not spend time with God and with the saints.
We thank the Lord that He is faithful; He has called us into the fellowship of Christ, and He is faithful to remove from us anything that stands in the way of this fellowship, this enjoyment, this communion.
The Lord is jealously loving us, and He gives Himself to us to be our inheritance and possession; through our enjoyment of Christ we are delivered from the law of sin and of death in our members.
We need to continually come to the Lord and enjoy Him sufficiently. We may think we need to do things for God or fulfill His law and keep His commandments, but the secret to all these is NOT our effort or struggle, but for us to simply enjoy the Lord and let Him do in us what He requires us to do.
It is the Lord Jesus in us who can live the Christian life; it is the Lord Jesus in us as the real jubilee who can deliver us from any bondage, slavery, or usurpation, and it is only by enjoying Him can we be really free.
Christ as the jubilee frees us from our poverty; He releases us from our captivity, He heals us from our blindness, and He sets us free from any oppression. Oh, may we all come to Him again and again and enjoy Him!
God was Processed to become the Law of the Spirit of life to Deliver us from the law of sin
Paul’s desperate cry in Rom. 7:24 is answered in Rom. 8:2, which says that the law of the Spirit of life has freed us in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death; this is the freedom of Christ as the jubilee.
What is this law of the Spirit of life, what is the law of sin, and how do we experience these laws?
Paul made a great discovery in receiving the revelation of the Triune God being processed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to become the law of the Spirit of life installed in our spirit (see Rom. 8:3, 11, 34, 16).
First of all, by our birth from our human parents we have the flesh of sin, and in our members there’s a law – the law of sin and of death, which operates in us automatically, spontaneously, and by default.
We all have experienced that, whenever we want to do the good, evil is present with us, and evil is stronger than us and defeats us. The law of sin is Satan, who dwells in the members of our fallen body (Rom. 7:23, 17), and this law is stronger than our will or our will power.
However, Christ has also come into us as the life-giving Spirit, and He is in our spirit; the divine life in our spirit also has a law, which is the law of the Spirit of life, and this law is stronger than the law of sin and of death.
Life is the content and issue of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the ultimate and consummate manifestation of the Triune God after His being processed through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection and becoming the indwelling, life-giving Spirit, who is life to all the believers in Christ.
The law of the Spirit of life is the automatic principle and spontaneous power of the divine life; it is the natural characteristic and the innate, automatic function of the divine life.
We can liken the law of sin and of death to the law of gravity, which works to pull us down; no matter how high we jump physically, we will be pulled back down to the earth by the law of gravity.
But praise the Lord, in our spirit there’s another law, the law of the Spirit of life, and this law is much stronger than the law of sin; this law can be likened to the law of aerodynamics – when we get in an airplane or a rocket, we spontaneously overcome the law of gravity.
In our Christian life we need to realize that God was processed to become not just the life-giving Spirit but the law of the Spirit of life to deliver us from the law of sin and of death!
Therefore, we should NOT live by the power of our will, deciding and making up our mind to do this or that for God or according to the Bible; rather, we should simply switch on the law of the Spirit of life day by day and moment by moment, and we will spontaneously be delivered from the law of sin and of death.
We should live not by the power of our will but by the power of the inner law of the Spirit of resurrection life in our spirit, for this law possesses the greatest power – it overcomes death, it transcends death, and it is not bound by death (Rom. 7:19).
Thank You Lord for being processed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to become the law of the Spirit of life installed in our spirit! Hallelujah, in our spirit there’s the divine Spirit which has an automatic principle and a spontaneous power of the divine life, and this power overcomes sin and death! Lord, we want to live not by the power of our will but by the power of the inner law of the Spirit of resurrection life in our spirit! We want to learn to activate the law of the Spirit of life so that we may be delivered from the law of sin and of death!
Discovering the Law of the Spirit of Life and being Spontaneously Delivered from the Law of Sin
In Rom. 7:7-25 Paul spoke of his own experience which he had before he believed into the Lord, and he illustrated the wretchedness of trying to do good under the law in order to please God.
However, for many believers this kind of experience happens after they are saved; in them their mind wants to fulfill God’s law, they decide to do it, and the law of sin overcomes them.
We all need to realize that the power of sin is strong – and our own power is weak. The power of sin always prevails, and our own will fails, our methods do not work, and our determination is useless.
When we realize this, we will give up – we will give up trying, and we will just turn to the Lord.
We need to make the same discovery that Paul made, which is that in ourselves we can do nothing, for our will is so weak, but in our spirit we have the law of the Spirit of life, which can spontaneously and automatically deliver us from the law of sin and of death.
When we have the knowledge of Romans 7 we can have the experience of chapter 8. Chapter 8 in Romans is not to be understood mentally but to be experienced by us.
Many are still trying to deal with sin in their will, but one day they will realize that in their will they cannot overcome this law – all their willing and struggling is in vain.
When we realize that the Spirit with our spirit has a law called the law of the Spirit of life, we make a great discovery. This discovery will revolutionize our Christian life and experience, for we will realize that our victory over sin and fulfilling God’s will is NOT deliberate or because of our efforts and struggling, but it is something spontaneous from the Spirit dwelling in us.
When we switch on the law of the Spirit of life, we are spontaneously delivered from the law of sin and of death, and we spontaneously are free – without us doing anything about it.
As long as we don’t rely on our own effort and will but turn to our spirit, the Spirit will bring us into victory.
First, we need to see that sin and death are a law in us, and that our willpower cannot overcome this law; then, we need to realize that God’s life is the highest life, and the law of the Spirit of life is the highest law (see Prov. 30:19a; Deut. 32:11-12; Isa. 40:30-31).
When we switch on the law of the Spirit of life, in an inexplicable way we are victorious over sin, and we are free from any bondage.
Praise the Lord, the divine birth has transferred us into a new realm, the realm of the divine life with its law in our spirit, a realm in which there’s no sin, no world, and no flesh.
In this realm, the realm of the Spirit of life, all victories are spontaneous, unconscious, and effortless, because it is the law of the Spirit of life who is upholding us, and not our own will.
We have the law of the Spirit of life indwelling our spirit as the presence of God, the speaking of God, the meeting with God, and the dispensing of God (see Heb. 8:10; Rom. 3:25; Exo. 25:22).
Thank You Lord for transferring us into the realm of the divine life with its law in our spirit, a realm in which there’s no sin, world, or flesh. Hallelujah, in our mingled spirit all victories are spontaneous, automatic, unconscious, and effortless because the law of the Spirit of life is upholding us, and not our own will! Lord, we want to switch on the law of the Spirit of life by setting our mind on the spirit through the exercise of our spirit, and we want to live one spirit with You all the time!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 49, ch. 25, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 11, The Jubilee (2).
- Hymns on this topic:
# Thy law of life in heart and mind / My conduct regulates; / The wealth of Thy reality / My being saturates. (Hymns #539)
# Made free! Made free in Jesus: / Joined to the Risen One, / By conflict prayer you triumph, / And claim His victory won. / Freed with His glorious freedom, / Above the darkness rife; / For now the law of sin and death / Is conquered by His life. (Hymns #508)
# For that which the law could not do, being weak, / In the flesh, God sending His Son, / In the likeness of flesh, and concerning sin, / He condemned sin in the flesh. / That the righteous requirement of the law / Might be fulfilled in us, / Who do not walk according to the flesh of sin / But who walk according to the spirit. (Song on, The Law of the Spirit of Life)
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