Message Five

The Law of Life

Scripture Reading: Rom. 8:2, 29; Heb. 8:10

1. The law of the divine life is the spontaneous power of the divine life; it is the natural characteristic and the innate, automatic function of divine life:
   1. Every life has a law and even is a law—Prov. 30:19a.
   2. God’s life is the highest life, and the law of this life is the highest law—Isa. 40:30-31.
   3. The Triune God has been processed through incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to become the law of the Spirit of life installed in our spirit—Rom. 8:3, 11, 34, 16.
   4. There are three different laws in the three different parts of our being:
      1. The law of sin and death is the person of Satan residing in our flesh—Rom. 7:18, 23.
      2. The law of good in our mind, that is, in our soul, derives from our natural human life— Rom. 7:23.
      3. The law of the Spirit of life is the person of the Triune God installed in our spirit—Rom. 8:2, 16:
         1. The divine birth has transferred us into a new realm, the realm of the divine life with its law, a realm in which there is no sin, world, or flesh.
         2. In this realm, all victories are unconscious and effortless because the law of the Spirit of life is upholding us, not our own will.
2. We need to cooperate with the installed and operating law of the Spirit of life for our organic salvation by “switching on” this law in the following ways—Phil. 2:12-13; Rom. 8:2:
   1. By walking according to the spirit—Rom. 8:4.
   2. By minding the things of the Spirit, setting our mind on the spirit—vv. 5-6.
   3. By putting to death by the Spirit the practices of our body—v. 13.
   4. By being led by the Spirit of God to be sons of God—v. 14.
   5. By crying “Abba, Father” in the spirit of sonship—v. 15.
   6. By the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are God’s children—v. 16.
   7. By groaning for the full sonship, the redemption of our body—v. 23.
3. God accomplishes His economy by dispensing Himself into us as the law of life:
   1. God’s economy is to dispense Himself into our being that our being might be constituted with His being to be one constitution with His being; this can be accomplished only by God imparting Himself into us as the divine life.
   2. The law of the divine life “sonizes” us for the building up of the Body of Christ:
      1. When the law of life, which is in our spirit, spreads into our inward parts—our mind, emotion, and will—it becomes several laws— Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10:
         1. This spreading is the imparting, and the imparting is the inscribing.
         2. By the working, the spreading, of the law of life within us, God makes us the same as He is in life, nature, and expression.
         3. We are conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God by the working of the law of life.
      2. The firstborn Son is the prototype, the standard model, for the mass reproduction of the many sons of God, who are His many brothers to constitute His Body for God’s corporate expression—Rom. 8:29:
         1. God’s way to mass reproduce this prototype is to work His living prototype, the firstborn Son, into our entire being.
         2. If we cooperate with and open up to this wonderful prototype, He will spread outward from our spirit into our soul.
         3. The indwelling prototype, the firstborn Son of God, automatically works in us as the law of life to conform us to His image, to “sonize” us.
         4. In His recovery, God is working desperately among us to make every one of us the same as the firstborn Son.
         5. The Body of Christ as the new man is the corporate reproduction of the standard model, the firstborn Son of God.
   3. The law, the divine capacity, of life constitutes us to be the members of the Body of Christ, including all kinds of functions—the joints of the rich supply and every part of the Body that functions in its measure—Eph. 4:11, 16.
4. The function of the law of life requires the growth in life, for the law of life functions only as it grows:
   1. If a certain life does not grow, the law of that life cannot function.
   2. The law of life operates only as life grows— Mark 4:3, 14, 26-29:
      1. Christ’s intercession on the throne motivates the life-seed that He sowed into us at the time of resurrection—Heb. 7:25; Rom. 8:34.
      2. The firstborn Son is interceding for us so that the life which He has sown into our spirit may be motivated to grow, develop, and saturate all our inward parts until we are completely permeated with His glorified and uplifted being:
         1. Many times our utterances in prayer are quotations of the heavenly intercession; whatever happens to us in our spiritual life is either a quotation of the heavenly intercession or a reaction to it.
         2. On the one hand, He is in our spirit as life growing; on the other hand, He is on the throne in the heavens interceding for the growth and development of the seed He has sown within us.
   3. While the divine life grows in us, the law of life functions to shape us, to conform us, to the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God:
      1. The law of life does not regulate us from doing wrong; it regulates the shape of life.
      2. The law of life does not primarily function in the negative sense of telling us what not to do; rather, while life grows, the law of life functions in the positive sense of shaping us, that is, conforming us to the image of Christ.
      3. Through the function of the law of life, we all shall become the mature sons of God, and God will have His universal, corporate expression.