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Hebrews 8:10-11 says, “This is the covenant which I will covenant with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will impart My laws into their mind, and on their hearts I will inscribe them; and I will be God to them, and they will be a people to Me. And they shall by no means each teach his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all will know Me from the little one to the great one among them.” Notice in verse 10 that laws in the plural number is used. But in the original passage in Jeremiah law is used. Jeremiah 31:33 says, “I will put My law in their inward parts.” Later, we will see why “law” eventually becomes “laws.”
Romans 8:2 speaks of “the law of the Spirit of life.” Three things are composed together here: the law, the Spirit, and life. The law is of the Spirit, the Spirit is of life, and this life is Christ Himself, who is God. This verse goes on to tell us that the law of the Spirit of life is in Christ Jesus and has freed us “from the law of sin and of death.”
Verse 9 says, “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” We have previously pointed out that the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ in this one verse are not two Spirits. They are just one Spirit. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is simply Christ Himself, because verse 10 says, “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.”
In the previous chapter, we saw what a wonderful, all-inclusive Spirit we have within us today. In this chapter we will see that this Spirit within us is a law. When I say “the law of the Spirit of life,” please do not think of it as three things, the law, the Spirit, and the life. Actually, the life is the Spirit and the Spirit is the law.
Suppose you had a hamburger for lunch today. The hamburger was made up of different ingredients such as bread, beef, lettuce, onion, pickles, and mustard. Therefore, the lunch, the hamburger, and all the ingredients were not many different things. They were just one thing. Similarly, when we speak of the law of the Spirit of life, we should realize that the law, the Spirit, and the life are not three things but just one thing.
In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life...the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” First, the Lord indicated that for giving life He would become the Spirit. Then He said that the words He speaks are spirit and life. We know the word is the Lord Himself, and the Lord Himself is life. So the Lord, the Spirit, the word, and the life are just one thing.
Now how can we say that the law is the Spirit and that the law is the life? Let me illustrate in this way. In the Old Testament, God gave His people the Ten Commandments as the law. This law is a description, a definition, and an explanation of what God is. The Ten Commandments can be summarized into four main points. They reveal to us that God is holiness, righteousness, love, and light. The complete law reveals to us the nature and character of God, showing us what kind of God He is.
People in the Old Testament had to deal with all the items of the law. If they were wrong with any item of the law, it meant that they were wrong with God. They had to get right with God according to the Ten Commandments. They had to do everything according to the holiness, righteousness, love, and light of God. Then they would be right with God.
Today, however, it is different. God Himself comes into us in the Son as the Spirit to be the living law within us. Suppose your father wrote you a lot of regulations when he was away from you. But now he comes to stay with you. He himself becomes the living regulation to you. Even more so, in the New Testament under the new covenant, God puts Himself into us as the living law. When God comes into us, He is the living law within us.
We have seen that Christ in us is our life and the light of life. We have something shining within us, enlightening us. This life is also the law, so we have something regulating within us. When we have Christ, we have something living, shining, and regulating within us. This is the acting, working, and moving of the Lord Jesus as life within us. I am burdened for the children of God to have a clear vision about this matter. The Lord has to take away all the veils and open this mystery to us that we may see this wonderful One.
I am concerned that many of you may be very good, yet you are wrong with the Spirit. You may work for God today, preach the gospel, do a lot of things to build up the churches, and even give what you have to help others. But I would ask you, “Are you right with the Spirit in you?” One day when the Lord comes back, He will not ask you about so many things. He is concerned about only one thing, that is, whether or not you are right with Him according to the inner law of life.
Today it is not a matter of work or doing. It is a matter of how you deal with the living One who dwells in you. Are you right with Him? I say again, you may be very good, very religious, and seemingly very spiritual, but I am afraid that you are not in the Spirit. According to your actions, your expressions, your doings, and your speaking, you are altogether outside of the Spirit. You are not right with the Spirit. You are not right with the inner law. You do not take care of the inner regulating but neglect it all the time.
In Revelation 2 the Lord told the church in Ephesus, “I know your works and your labor and your endurance and that you cannot bear evil men; and you have tried those who call themselves apostles and are not, and have found them to be false; and you have endurance and have borne all things because of My name and have not grown weary. But I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love” (vv. 2-4). As a wife, you may do many good things for your husband, but are you right with your husband? Do you have a genuine love for him? This is the problem.
We are talking about the Christian life and the church life. What is the Christian life? What is the church life? The Christian life is not a religious life; it is a life that is Christ Himself lived out through us. We must take Christ as life and live by Him day by day. We need to love Him and be willing to be regulated, governed, and ruled by Him. Then we will be walking in this living One, and we will be in the reality of the Christian life. The church life is not something organized or something regulated by teaching. The church life is Christ lived out through us in a corporate way. You live Christ and I live Christ, and this very Christ unites us together in oneness. Then together we have the corporate life of Christ expressed.
The church life is not produced by much discussion. This is the way of the United Nations in New York or of the United States Congress. This is not the church life. Strictly speaking, in the church there is no need of discussion. If we need much discussion, it means that we are fallen; we are wrong. If you take Christ as everything, all the problems will be solved, settled, through the cross.
Brothers and sisters, I am very much concerned about this matter. We may know how to be religious, but we do not know adequately how to take Christ as our life so that Christ Himself may be lived out through us. We may know the forms and the teachings, but do we know the real church life, which is Christ Himself lived out through us in a corporate way? We need to be definite and subjective. This wonderful Christ is living, acting, and moving within us. He is shining on us and regulating us all the time. The only need is for us to take care of this inner regulating.
Sometimes brothers or sisters would come to me and ask me about certain things, but I had something within holding me back from speaking. According to the inner regulating, I could not say anything. If we learn to forget about all the outward things and simply take care of the inner regulating, we will have a wonderful church life. The church life is Christ Himself.
Even though we love the Lord, we still act apart from Him most of the time. In our daily living and walk, we are like Peter before the Lord’s resurrection. Before the Lord’s resurrection, Peter was one who loved the Lord. Yet he acted on his own all the time. He was a good brother, but he acted by himself. At that time he did not live by Christ, walk in the Spirit, and take Christ as life, strength, and power for his service to God. Like Peter, we may seem to love the Lord so much, but we do not take Him as our life in our daily living. Most of the time we walk and act either according to our own opinions, thoughts, and ideas or according to religious doctrines or church concepts. What the Lord wants is that we take Him as our life and walk in oneness with Him by fellowshipping with Him all day long.
Sometimes after I finished reading the Holy Bible, I had to confess to the Lord and ask for His forgiveness. This is because while I was reading it, the Lord was demanding that I pray. But I was not willing to pray at that moment because what I was reading was really interesting. Therefore, I would go on with my reading and ignore the inner regulating. Outwardly, it seemed that I was nicely reading the Word, but inwardly I was disobedient to the Lord. Hence, the Christian life is not an outward matter but an inward matter. This is why in the New Testament we are taught not to judge people according to their outward actions. A person may be very good, right, and religious, yet he may be very disobedient to the Lord within. He does things always according to his own taste and preference. He has his desire, his intention, and his motives, but he does not know the meaning of the cross.
We have to humble ourselves before the Lord, confessing to Him, “Lord, maybe I am not sinful or worldly, but I am disobedient to You. Maybe people would appreciate and applaud me, thinking that I am religious, right, and good, yet they don’t know that I disobey You all the time. I don’t take You as my life. I don’t walk in You or live by You. I don’t know the meaning of the cross and the meaning of walking in the Spirit. I don’t know the law of the Spirit of life in me.” Then we need to go further and pray, “Lord, I need Your deliverance. Deliver me from things other than Yourself. You are the living One. You are the only One who is living, acting, moving, working, shining, and regulating within me all the time. Lord, help me to take care of You and to go along with You. Help me to forget about all the outward things.” We need to humble ourselves before the Lord in this way.
The life for the practice of the church life is Christ Himself experienced by us through the cross. We must be put to death by the cross. This should not be merely a doctrine. It must be our experience. In our daily life we should always deny ourselves and take Christ as our life. Then we will have the church life.
Without the cross on the negative side and the living Christ on the positive side, we will have many problems whenever we come together. Each one of us is a problem. If we are not willing to be put away by the cross and to take Christ as our life, we will be a problem. Do not listen to this message for others. Do not nod your head, saying, “This message is good for Brother So-and-so. I am glad he is here.” If you say this, this simply shows that you are in yourself and out of Christ. If you are in Christ, you will say, “Lord, this is what I need. I need this for Your Body, the church. I need this for the practice of the church life. I need the cross. I need You as the living Christ. I need to know You as the living One within me. I need to know how You regulate me and shine in me. I need to go along with You in me.”
Brothers and sisters, when we learn the lesson of the cross and experience Christ as the living One and the law of the Spirit of life in us, we have the church life. The church life is nothing less than Christ Himself lived out through us in a corporate way.
