In this chapter we are once again on Romans 8. After being on this chapter for so long, I would ask a few questions. First, what is the actual, main topic that this chapter talks about? Most Christian teachers say that this chapter is on the Spirit. Yes, it is somewhat on the Spirit, but I do not believe that the main topic of this chapter is the Spirit. We have mentioned quite a number of times that this chapter also talks about sonship. Yes, it talks about sonship, but I still could not believe that sonship is the main subject of this chapter.
In verse 2 there is the phrase the law of the Spirit of life. Three things are used to compose this phrase: law and Spirit and life. Which of the three is most important?
If you answer that life is the most important one, why did Paul not say, “The life of the Spirit of the law”? For example, if I use a phrase the gold of the mountains of California, am I talking about California or the mountains or the gold? Surely I am talking about the gold. If I am talking about California, I should say, “California of the mountains of gold.” Because the phrase uses the word gold first, it indicates strongly that I am talking about gold. In like manner, for Romans 8 to speak of the law of the Spirit of life indicates that this chapter is on the law. This chapter speaks about the law. You may not see this because you are distracted by other things. You have some concept concerning life, and you also have some idea concerning the Spirit, so it is easy for you to pick up these matters. But you do not have any concept, any idea, concerning the law. Not many Christian readers of Romans 8 would pick up the word law. Most of them have already picked up the Spirit. Fewer have picked up life.
In the past we picked up the word life, but we did not spend too much time to emphasize the word law. This chapter actually talks about the law. Do not forget that Romans 8 is a continuation of Romans 7. Romans 7 talks about the law. Actually, it talks about at least three laws: First, there is God’s law given through Moses. Second, there is a kind of law trying to do good in our mind. Then there is another law, an evil, bad law in our members. So Romans 7 shows our problem. We have the law of God given outwardly, and surely as a human being created by God, we would like to keep the law of God. We have such a law in our created nature of trying, even endeavoring, to keep the law of God. But between these two laws—the law given by God and the law created in us in our natural life—there is another evil law, which is also called the evil (v. 21). When we try to do good, to keep the law of God, we find that the evil is present. This causes the trouble. There is no way for a fallen person with such an evil law inside him to keep the law of God. This is clearly described in Romans 7.
Then Romans 8 says that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, because there is another law, the law of the Spirit of life. It is not the law of good, nor the law of evil. It is not even the law of God. It is another law. The law of the Spirit of life has freed me from that evil law of sin and of death. By this, you can see that the topic of chapter 8 is the law of the Spirit of life. Although it has more than thirty verses, you have to realize that all the verses in chapter 8 are just a full definition of this fourth law, the law of the Spirit of life. This fourth law is absolutely different from the other three laws—from God’s law, from the law of good, and from the law of sin. In the book The Knowledge of Life there is a chapter on three lives and four laws. That chapter defines clearly these four laws, but it does not stress what the subject of Romans 8 is. In this chapter I must stress this one thing; that is, Romans 8 talks about a law. It is not the law of God, nor the law of good, nor the law of evil, but the law of the Spirit of life.
Now we need to ask some further and harder questions. First, what is this law? Second, how does this law work? Third, what is the issue of this law? These three questions are not so easy for anyone to answer. You must not take these three questions in such an easy or a light way.
What is the law of God? Through the Life-studies on Exodus and other messages, I believe you realize that the law of God is a testimony, or a picture. The law of God is not God Himself. It is just a picture. The law of God given on Mount Sinai was just a picture, a portrait, of God.
What then is the law of our mind that tries all the time to do good? Have you ever thought about it? I would encourage all of you to learn to think about the Bible in this way. Think about Romans 6. Think about Romans 7. Think about Romans 8. I do not mean that you have to meditate; I mean that you need to think about it. What is the law of doing good? I must tell you that that is the created man. Any living being created by God is a law. A dog is a law. A cat is a law. You are a law. An apple tree is a law. A peach tree is a law. Although you may rebuke an apple tree for not bringing forth bananas, that will not cause the apple tree to bring forth bananas. Its law is to bring forth apples. Why do you not bark like a dog? Why do you not catch mice like a cat? Why do you not fly like a bird? With these creatures there is a kind of law. You do not need to teach a living creature to do something; he will do it according to his law. No farmer would be so foolish as to try to teach a plant to bring forth something, yet many Christians are foolish in this way. Many Christians are trying to teach apple trees to produce bananas. Many sermons are telling the apple trees that they have to improve themselves. They should not bring forth apples anymore but rather should bring forth bananas. This is foolish, and this is religion. The law of good in man is simply the man created by God.
What then is the law of evil? It is also called sin. This is Satan. The law of God is not God Himself but a picture of God. The law of good is you, the created being. And the law of evil is Satan, who is one with you now. With these points in mind, we can come to chapter 8, and we can know what the law of the Spirit of life is.
The law of the Spirit of life in chapter 8 is nothing less than our God. But God is not so simple. The God in Genesis 1 was in one stage under a certain kind of condition. And the God in Matthew 1 entered into another stage. The God who is the law of the Spirit of life is not merely the God in Genesis 1, nor merely the God in Matthew 1. The God in Romans 8 is the processed Triune God. In Genesis 1 God was not processed. But in Matthew 1 God entered into one process, incarnation.
Have you noticed that the incarnation is also included in Romans 8? Verse 3 says, “That which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” In this one verse the incarnation is described in a very wonderful way. This one verse covers a number of points concerning the incarnation. First, it indicates that the first law, the law of God, did not work. It was too weak; it was just in letters. What can a picture, a photo, do? It can only give you an idea of that person; that is all. It has no life. It has no power. The law of God was just a picture. It was surely weak through the fallen created human being. It was weak because of the flesh. The flesh is the created human being that became fallen. The verse goes on to tell us that God sent His Son. This indicates that the Son of God came to do what the law of God cannot do. The Son of God came to replace the law of God. In other words, because the photo did not work so well, the person came by way of incarnation. You have to realize that the Word became flesh (John 1:14). The Son of God came in the form of the flesh of sin. This is incarnation.
In Genesis 1 you have God merely as God; there was no process. But in Matthew 1 you have God in the first step of His process, incarnation. Incarnation indicates clearly that the law of God as a photo did not work, that man was fallen and became flesh, and that the Son of God came to replace that weak law of God and to become in the form of the flesh of sin. Then at the end of this verse there is another point; that is, He condemned sin in the flesh. This last portion of the verse is very difficult to translate and also hard to understand. What does it mean to condemn sin? What does it mean that He came concerning sin? You have to realize that sin in this verse refers to the evil in chapter 7, which is the satanic law, the law of sin (v. 25). And that sin, that law of sin, is just Satan himself. All these points are included in this one matter of incarnation. In His flesh, through the death on the cross, He condemned sin. He destroyed the power of death. He destroyed the devil. All these matters are involved in the incarnation.
One of the biggest steps of the divine process is resurrection. Romans 8 stresses resurrection very much. Let us read verse 11: “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” Here it mentions the Spirit of the Resurrector, not the Spirit of the Creator. In Genesis 1 the Spirit was the Spirit of the Creator, but in Romans 8 the Spirit is the Spirit of the Resurrector. He resurrected Jesus, the One who became flesh and who died on the cross. He was resurrected from the dead by the very God who is now the Resurrector. He is not merely the creating One but the resurrecting One. And His Spirit, the Spirit of this resurrecting One, dwells in you. If He dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal body through His Spirit who indwells you. This verse stresses the resurrecting God, not the creating God. So resurrection is here, and no doubt between incarnation and resurrection, crucifixion is also included. Since Jesus was resurrected from the dead, it means that crucifixion was there. The Lord Jesus entered into crucifixion, yet He came out of that not by Himself but by the resurrecting God. God raised Him from the dead. So there is incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.
If you go on to the end of chapter 8, you have the ascension. This resurrected One today is at the right hand of God in the heavens (v. 34). Why did Paul write chapter 8 in this way? It is because he liked to bring in all these aspects to let us know that in Romans 8 God is not so simple. He is no longer merely God without being processed. No, He is now rather the very God processed through incarnation, through crucifixion, through resurrection, and now into ascension.
Not only can you see the steps of this process; you can also see the different persons in this process. First, the chapter says, “the Spirit of God”; then it says, “the Spirit of Christ”; then it says, “Christ in you.” Finally, it also says that the Spirit who is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ and Christ Himself now indwells you. You have to see all these complications. Romans 8 is altogether not a simple chapter. It is a compound chapter. It is not easy to read this chapter with a proper understanding because you need more spiritual vocabulary, and you need more spiritual experiences. If you do not have the experiences, you do not have the new words. You do not have the vocabulary. So when you read, you cannot get into this chapter. This is why this chapter has remained somewhat closed for centuries. Christians could touch it only a little bit because they had a limited vocabulary. They could understand it only to a certain extent.
But by the Lord’s mercy, in these meetings many things have been dug out of Romans. We see that the law of the Spirit of life is just God Himself and not merely God without a process but God who has gone through a complicated process. Now He is not merely God, and neither is He merely the Spirit. He is no more merely the Son of God. Today He is the Spirit of God, He is the Spirit of Christ, and He is Christ. Furthermore, He is the indwelling Christ. You need to see this. Such a God, a processed God, a processed Triune God being God Himself, being the Spirit, being Christ, being the One indwelling you, is the law. He Himself is the law. Such a One in Romans 8 is no more a photo, a picture. He is a living person. He is not just the living God in Genesis 1 but the living God in Romans 8 after being processed. All the Trinity is here. Such a One is this law. The first law is a picture of God, but the fourth law is not a picture but His very being. It is not His original being but His processed being. What is the difference between the original God in Genesis and the processed God in Romans 8? The difference is too big! In the original God there was no human nature, no crucifixion, no victory, no condemnation on the devil. But in this processed God a lot of things are included that were not in the original God. Now all the ingredients are in the processed God, and such a God is the very law within us.
The law is such a God. Such a God has entered us and has become not only our life but our law. An apple tree has a life, and the life is the law of the apple tree. We have this processed God in us as our life, and this life is the law. The law of the Spirit of life is the Spirit and is life. It does not mean that the law is one thing and that the Spirit is another thing and that the life is still another thing. Many times we have illustrated with the current of electricity. The current of electricity is just electricity itself. You cannot have something as the current and another thing as the electricity. No. These two are one thing. In like manner, the law is the Spirit, and the law is life. And the law is God, the processed God. Have you ever considered who the Spirit who indwells you is? The Spirit who indwells you is just the processed Triune God. Some have opposed our saying that Christ is the Spirit, saying that this messes up the glorified person of the Lord Jesus who is the Son of God. But I would say, even in a stronger way, that Christ is not only the Spirit, but He is the Spirit as the Triune God. This Spirit is indwelling you. He is God. He is man. He is the Father. He is the Son. He is the Spirit. He has within Him the human nature and crucifixion and resurrection and ascension and the defeat of Satan and the condemnation of sin. Such a One is now indwelling you. This is the law that is right in you. But today the poor Christians do not apply this law. They have this law within them, but they do not realize it, and they do not apply it. They do not use it. Instead, they are praying for other things. This is foolish. Now you can see why, in Romans 8, Paul’s writing is altogether not simple. It is compound and complicated. In a sense Paul covered nearly all the crucial matters in the whole Bible in this one chapter. This is wonderful! How then can this chapter be simple? It is impossible. I believe now you can see that the law in Romans 8 is just God Himself, and this God is no longer merely the creating God. He is now the all-inclusive processed God.
The next question is this: How does this law work? This is a harder question. You must realize that it is altogether inexhaustible. We cannot tell to the uttermost how this law works. We can only say that according to our experiences we realize how this law works. It works through divinity, the divine nature. It works through humanity, the human nature. It works through incarnation. Incarnation must be repeated again and again daily in your experience. And it works through crucifixion, through the wonderful all-inclusive death. It works through the defeat of Satan and the destruction of the devil. It works through resurrection. It works through ascension. It works through all these ingredients of today’s processed God who is the indwelling Spirit. When the indwelling Spirit works in us, He works through all these things. When this law works in you, it spontaneously brings you the divine nature and the human nature. It spontaneously functions to do the killing, the defeating, and the destroying. In the next chapter we have to find out the scientific knowledge of the way that this law works in us. It is somewhat like modern medicine, like an antibiotic. It works through many different ways to heal you. Romans 8 gives us an all-inclusive scientific dose. It works within us in a scientific way.
Christians today are far off although they teach many things. Few have touched the very focus of the Bible. This is why Romans 8 remains nearly untouched. But today I believe that the Lord would unveil and uncover this chapter to show us the depths of His economy in very much detail. We have to spend the time to consider how the law works through divinity and through humanity and through the crucifixion and through the defeating of Satan. Due to the ignorance and blindness of the Christians throughout the centuries, this chapter has remained closed. For this reason there has been very little Body life. We all have to admit that through the centuries there has been very little Body life. Even up to this day there is little Body life because the secret of how to have the Body life has not been unveiled. It has been under the cover here in Romans 8. We must see how this law is just the processed all-inclusive God as the all-inclusive Spirit indwelling us. This is the law. We also must see how this law works scientifically through all the ingredients that are incorporated in this wonderful being. As long as this wonderful being exists in us, He Himself as a law works through all that He has and all that He is.
Many of us can testify that our prayer to overcome sin was seldom answered. Our prayer not to lose our temper was seldom answered. This is why among Christians there is little victory. Although the Christians who have received mercy of God try their best to love the Lord, actually not much really works within them in an effective way. Why? Because Romans 8 has still been shut up. It has not been opened up. I hope we can all see that there is a living person who is the law. And this law as a living person works through whatever He is and whatever He has.
