In the last two chapters, we have seen what the divine nature is and we have also seen how to partake of this divine nature. The way to enjoy the divine nature is to remain in the divine fellowship and to cooperate with the development of the divine nature. In this chapter we want to see the issue of our partaking of and enjoying the divine nature.
We have mentioned that Paul’s writings in the New Testament do not touch the divine nature that much. His writings imply the divine nature, but they are mainly concentrated on the law of life. In Romans 8:2 Paul refers emphatically to “the law of the Spirit of life” which has set us free from the law of sin and of death. Paul also stressed the inner law of life in Hebrews 8:10 and 10:16. Paul stressed this inner law because he was an apostle through whom God’s dispensation, God’s economy, was unveiled to the uttermost. God’s dispensation or economy depends upon two laws—the law of letters and the law of life. The New Testament is altogether dependent on the law of life, while the entire Old Testament economy depended upon the law of letters.
Without the law of letters, there would be no Old Testament. The law of letters is a description of what God is. We can compare the law of letters to a photograph of a real person. The law of letters is a photograph of God, which gives us the image of God. Genesis 1:26 tells us that God made man in His image, and God’s image is the expression of four items: love, light, holiness, and righteousness. The ten commandments were established and given based upon these four divine attributes, which are a description of what God is. The ten commandments testify and show forth that God is love, light, holy, and righteous. This is the image of God, the description of God, the photograph of God.
The New Testament is the new economy or new dispensation, and this dispensation depends upon the law of life. The law of life is actually God Himself. In the Old Testament we see a photograph of God, but in the New Testament we see the actual Person of God. The Old Testament was a photograph, a description of God, not the real Person. The law, the photograph, was given in the Old Testament, but the real Person, as embodied in Jesus came in the New Testament (John 1:17). This Person came to be life, the life supply, and the law of life to His people. The law of the Spirit of life is the Triune God working in us. The law of life in the New Testament is a living Person, of whom a photograph was given in the Old Testament, which was the law of letters. Paul’s line was to unveil the new dispensational working of God as the law of life. Paul was occupied with this and would not be distracted from this. His writings imply the divine nature, but in Peter’s writings the divine nature is clearly mentioned, and we are shown how we can become the partakers of the divine nature.
God is surely sovereign in His choice of the writers of the New Testament. Both Peter and John were uneducated and unlearned fishermen. If God had charged them to write about the law of life in the New Testament economy, they probably would not have been able to do it since they did not have an adequate education. This is why I encourage all the young ones to get a better education. If you are a fisherman like John and Peter, you can be used by the Lord only according to that particular measure. You could never be used like the Apostle Paul. Paul was educated as a young boy in Tarsus, celebrated for its learning, and brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel with the highest education (Acts 22:3). His writings, therefore, are the writings of a scholar. He wrote his Epistles not only according to his own experiences, but also according to the divine revelation. To unveil the divine revelation in the way Paul did there is the need of a higher education. To write what Peter and John wrote, however, there is no need of a higher education. John’s writings, for example, are quite simple—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). Paul’s writings, however, were the writings of a “top professor.” To write something concerning God’s eternal plan, His eternal economy, needs a higher education. To merely tell your experience, however, does not need that much education. Even Peter told us that in Paul’s letters “some things are hard to understand, which the unlearned and unstable twist, as also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3:16). John and Peter wrote things mainly according to their experiences. This matter of enjoying the divine nature and remaining in the divine fellowship to cooperate with the development of the divine nature is the highest experience of both Peter and John. Only in these two apostles’ writings can we see clearly and emphatically the enjoyment and partaking of the divine nature.