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Jeremiah 31:33 is a most basic verse in the Scriptures: “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares Jehovah: I will put My law in their inward parts and write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.” In order to have God as our God and to be a people to God, we must realize and understand the matter of law, because it is based on law that God is God to us and we are a people to God. If we are not clear about this matter, the relationship between us and God cannot be right as God requires. Therefore, we must understand the law that God puts in our inward parts and writes in our hearts.
Jeremiah 31:33 is quoted twice in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 8:10 says, “For 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.” In Jeremiah’s prophecy law is singular, but here in the quotation it becomes laws. In other words, when this law was prophesied in the Old Testament time, it was one law, but when this law is applied in the New Testament time, it becomes a number of laws. This is because although the law is one, when we apply it to our experience, it becomes several laws by spreading into our various inward parts. Also, in the quotation here the word mind is used instead of inward parts in Jeremiah’s prophecy, proving that the mind is one of the inward parts. This quotation in Hebrews also says that first God will impart His laws into our mind, and then He will inscribe them upon our hearts. Hebrews 10:16, a second quotation of Jeremiah’s prophecy, says, “This is the covenant which I will covenant with them after those days, says the Lord: I will impart My laws upon their hearts, and upon their mind I will inscribe them.” In this verse the heart is mentioned first and the mind second. Therefore, by comparing the one prophecy in Jeremiah 31:33 and the two quotations in Hebrews 8:10 and 10:16, we can see at least three changes. First, law is changed to laws; second, inward parts is changed to mind; and third, in 8:10 the mind is first and the heart is second, but in 10:16 the heart is first and the mind is second. Moreover, both the prophecy and the two quotations indicate that first the law must be put into us, and then it must be written on us.
These three verses tell us that the relationship between God and us is based on the matter of law. For us, the New Testament believers, the law is not the law of letters written outside of us on stone tablets; rather, it is a law that is put into us and written on our hearts. Since this law is something put into our inward parts and written on our hearts, this law must be something of life and in the Spirit. If not, how could this law be put into our inward parts and written on our hearts? Hence, this law must be the law of life. Today the relationship between God and us is based on this inward law of life in the Spirit.
In Romans 8:2 this law is clearly mentioned as “the law of the Spirit of life.” The law, the Spirit, and life, composed together, are the law of the Spirit of life. This is the law prophesied by Jeremiah and referred to by the apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews. This law is the law of the Spirit of life so that it can be put into our inward parts and written on our hearts. Furthermore, this law is also “in Christ Jesus.”
The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is not simple, for it involves five items: the law, the Spirit, life, Christ, and Jesus. These five items are very profound. In order to understand them and then to minister them, we must spend much time to look into the relevant passages in the Scriptures. The first question we need to ask is, What is Christ Jesus? When the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, says, “The law of the Spirit of life...in Christ Jesus,” his emphasis is on what Christ Jesus is, that is, on His person, rather than on what He does. Therefore, we need to know what Christ Jesus is.
Christ Jesus is the God-man; He is the Triune God mingled with man. We know that Christ is the Son of God (John 20:31). However, in Isaiah 9:6 we are clearly told that the Son is called Eternal Father. Thus, the Son is the Father. Then in 2 Corinthians 3:17 we are also clearly told that the Lord (4:5), who is the Son of God, is the Spirit. From these verses we see that the Son is called the Father and that the Son, who is the Lord, is the Spirit. These are the three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—of the one God. Furthermore, God is Spirit (John 4:24). Hence, the Spirit is the substance, the essence, of God, and the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are the persons of this one God.
One day the Son was incarnated to be a man, and He lived and walked on this earth for thirty-three and a half years. Eventually, He was crucified on the cross, and after three days He was raised from the dead both spiritually and physically. He showed His disciples His hands and feet, indicating that after His resurrection He still bears a physical body with flesh and bones (Luke 24:39). Forty days later He was taken up; He ascended to the third heaven before the eyes of the disciples, and from that time until He comes back, He is in heaven with the human nature and the human body (Acts 1:9-11). We can be certain of this because Stephen saw Him as the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God in the heavens (7:56), indicating that He is still there as a man. Moreover, the Scriptures tell us clearly that when He comes back, He will still be the Son of Man (Matt. 26:64). This shows clearly that the Triune God was incarnated as a man and mingled with man, and He will remain a God-man forever. Therefore, today He is different from what He was before the incarnation. Before the incarnation He was merely the Triune God in His divinity, but after the incarnation He is the Triune God mingled with man. From the time of His incarnation He has never been separated from man. Now He is the Triune God-man.
After the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the Triune God-man came down on the day of Pentecost to present Himself to us that we may receive and accept Him as our Savior, our Lord, our God, our life, and our everything. However, although we may have received Him years ago, we may not have realized that this One who is the Savior, the Lord, and God, and who is life and everything to us, is not only the Triune God but also a man. He still has the experiences of man, the nature of man, and the body of man. The teachings of the modernists, who say that Christ never resurrected, are devilish, and we must have nothing to do with them. The Bible tells us clearly that Christ died, and three days later He resurrected from the dead, both spiritually and physically (1 Cor. 15:3-4). Today He is still a man. He is the Triune God as well as a man, and He will be such for eternity. This is the very Savior in whom we believe and whom we have received.
On the day of Pentecost the Triune God-man poured Himself out as the Holy Spirit. Today in the Holy Spirit there is not only the divine nature but also the human nature. Andrew Murray’s book The Spirit of Christ refers to the Spirit of the glorified Jesus. This book says that Jesus was a man and still is a man in His glorification, that is, in His resurrection (Luke 24:26, 46). After this man ascended to the heavens, the Spirit of this man came down with the nature of this man. Andrew Murray writes, “When poured out at Pentecost, He came as the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, the Spirit of the Incarnate, crucified, and exalted Christ, the bearer and communicator to us, not of the life of God as such, but of that life as it had been interwoven into human nature in the person of Christ Jesus.” Therefore, the Holy Spirit who came down from the heavens on the day of Pentecost is not only the Holy Spirit with the divine nature but also the Holy Spirit with the human nature interwoven with the divine nature, that is, with the human nature mingled with the divine nature. Now the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of the divine nature mingled with the human nature. Moreover, the human nature in the Holy Spirit was redeemed, sanctified, and uplifted through the death and resurrection of Christ (Rom. 1:3-4). Thus, the Holy Spirit today, who works with us and in us, is a Spirit of the divine nature interwoven with the redeemed, sanctified, and uplifted human nature. The Holy Spirit has come down to present such a wonderful One, the Triune God-man, to us as our Savior, our Lord, our God, our life, and our everything for us to receive. Now such a One is within us.
We are men who are contained in a body as a vessel, with a receiving organ, a spirit, as the center of our being. By means of the receiving organ within us, we can receive God. God comes into our spirit to dwell in our spirit as the very center of our being. However, we need to know what kind of God we have received. The God whom we have received is the Triune God-man, who has become our Savior, our Lord, and our God. Furthermore, He is all these things to us not in an objective way but in a very subjective way. He has entered into us and is now in us subjectively. Christianity today emphasizes that we must worship a God who is far away in the third heaven, but we must realize that today our God is not far away from us. In fact, He is within us and He is one with us. When I was young, I was taught that the Savior Jesus Christ is now in the heavens. Although this is right, it is not the full picture. He is in the heavens, but He is here also. When I prayed, I had the thought that the Lord was in the heavens, far away from me, but the more I prayed, the more I felt that He was within me.
Today this wonderful Savior, who is the Lord and God, is within us. But if He is merely the Savior, the Lord, and God to us, there is no need for Him to come into us. For example, a cow may help me by pulling a cart for me or by carrying me. To render such help, there is no need for the cow to be in me. However, if I am very hungry and need the cow to be my life supply, the cow must come into me. Now we can understand why this wonderful Savior God must come into us. He must come into us not only to be our Savior, our Lord, and our God, but even more to be our life. There is no other way for Him to be life to us. Moreover, for me to take in a large cow, the cow must first be slaughtered, sent to the supermarket, brought into the kitchen, and put into an oven to be cooked. This is a picture of what the wonderful Savior did in order that we might receive Him as our life. He was slaughtered on Mount Calvary, and then He was brought to the “supermarket,” that is, to the church, for us to gain Him as “groceries” and then bring Him home and take Him in as life. Now He is within us. How wonderful this is!
Furthermore, when He enters into us, He does it in a quiet way. When a cow is eaten by us, it enters into us not in a noisy way but in a quiet way. Then, after we have digested it, the cow becomes even more quiet. We must be impressed that the way of life is the quiet way. Life is ordinary, normal, and apparently not at all special. After we have eaten our breakfast, the breakfast remains within us, and we live by this breakfast, not in a peculiar, strange, excited way, nor in a noisy way, but in a quiet and ordinary way. Although we are living by the breakfast within us, we do not feel it, for there is nothing special or particular about it. Many Christians today are looking for something special and peculiar, not realizing that they have the Lord as the quiet One within them. This indwelling Lord is the all-inclusive Christ, who is infinite, unlimited, and unsearchable, yet He is so quiet and normal that some people do not believe that He is within us.
Many Christians today do not know the normal way to enjoy Christ as their life and as their food. They have forgotten that they already have Christ within them, who is wonderful yet very quiet. They neglect the indwelling Christ and look outside for something peculiar, strange, and extraordinary. This is not the proper way. We must be clear that since we have received Christ as our Savior, He, the wonderful One, is now within us in a very quiet and normal way. Breathing, which is essential to our physical life, is very quiet and very ordinary. The normal experience of Christ as life may be likened to breathing. The most normal Christian life is one in which Christ is experienced by us as life in a quiet and ordinary way.
The very Christ who is life to us is also the light shining within us (John 1:4-5; 8:12). Christ shines within us not in a peculiar way but in a very ordinary way. Day by day we have something within us giving us a little light. If we declare that we have received a great light, greater than the light of the sun, this may not be the genuine experience of Christ as the divine light. When Christ shines in us, the light within us is normally small. The greater the light we think we receive, the more likely it is to be false, but the smaller the light we receive, the more genuine it is likely to be. When it seems that something within us is shining as a little light that, to our consideration, may or may not be of the Lord, this is genuine light. We need to trust in this light. It may be perceived by us as just a little feeling, sense, or registration, and we may have some doubt that it is from the Lord, but this kind of light is genuine. The best experience for a Christian is to have some light within, but not to be absolutely sure that it is of the Lord (1 Cor. 7:40).
As we have seen in this chapter, in order to experience Christ in a proper and normal way, we need to know what kind of Savior, Lord, and God He is, and we also need to know that He is within us. Then we need to know the right way to experience Him, that is, the normal, quiet, and ordinary way, which is the inner way of life.
