Now we come to the law of life. The focus of the heavenly tabernacle, the heavenly Minister, the more excellent ministry, the better covenant, and the better promises is on the law of life. What is the origin of the law of life? The origin of the law of life is life. Then what is life? Life is just God Himself. When God is expressed, He is the Son (1:3a, 8a). When the Son, who is God Himself, is realized as the Spirit, He is life to us (2 Cor. 3:17a; 1 Cor. 15:45b). Life is God in Christ as the Spirit coming into our being. Thus, the Spirit is called the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), which is the eternal and divine life. Out of this life, the law of life comes through the regeneration of the Spirit of life (John 3:5-6). When we were regenerated by the Spirit of life, the eternal and divine life was imparted into us, out of which the law of life comes to exist in our inward being.
What is the law of life? A law is a natural regulation, a constant and unchanging rule. A law of life is the natural characteristic, the innate, automatic function of a certain kind of life, and the higher a life is, the higher is its law. The law of the divine life is then the natural characteristic, the innate, automatic function of the life of God, and since the life of God is the highest, its law is the highest. This highest law of life is the function, the working, of the divine life. This function and working are innate, spontaneous, natural, and automatic.
With any kind of life, whether it be vegetable, animal, human, or divine, there is a function. Anything that does not have a function must not be life. Consider the example of a peach tree: its function is to blossom and to bring forth peaches. Likewise, a dog has the function of barking, and a cat has the function of catching mice. Every life has an automatic and innate function, and this innate function is the law of that life. As long as a peach tree is functioning, it will bring forth peaches; it will never bring forth anything else. Bringing forth peaches is the law of the peach tree. There is no need for a farmer to teach a peach tree, saying, “Little peach tree, you must know my desire is that you produce peaches. I don’t want anything else.” If that peach tree could talk, it would say, “Sir, go home and rest. You don’t need to teach me. Don’t you know that in my peach-tree life there is the peach-bearing law? There is a law in my peach-tree life that keeps me from bringing forth any other kind of fruit. It causes me to bring forth peaches, just the fruit that you desire.” In like manner, a cat catches mice because in its life is the mouse-catching law, and a dog barks because in its life is the barking law. What is the law of life? It is the innate, automatic function of the divine life. The divine life is living, active, and aggressive. This life is always acting, and whenever it acts it functions according to the automatic law of life.
God’s intention is to dispense Himself into us as our life. He has done this and right now He is in us as our life. This life, the life on the highest plane, is the most active life. When this life functions, it regulates. In a good and positive sense, His working is His regulating, for the working of the divine life within us is its regulating. This is the law of life.
According to verse 10 of this chapter, the law of life has been imparted into our inward being. Jeremiah 31:33, from which this verse is quoted, says that the law of life is put into our inward parts and written in our hearts. Hebrews 8:10 says that the law of life is put into our mind, proving that the mind is one of our inward parts. Our inward parts include not only the mind but also the emotions and the will, which, along with the conscience, are the composition of our heart mentioned in the following clause in this verse. Hence, the law of life is located in our inward parts, the parts of our heart—conscience, mind, will, and emotion—that is, in our heart, the composition and the totality of our inward parts.
The life of God has been imparted into our spirit. Based upon this fact, the law of this life must firstly be in our spirit as one law. Then from our spirit it spreads into the inward parts of our heart and becomes many laws. It is one law in being in our spirit and it becomes many laws in function in the many parts of our heart. This is why in Jeremiah 31:33 it is “law” and in verse 10 here it becomes “laws.”
The function of the law of life is to take away, to kill, the old element of Adam and to add in, to supply, the new element of Christ. While the law of the divine life works and regulates in our inward parts, it kills and takes away the old things of our natural being. It does have the power to reduce all the negative things in our natural man. At the same time, it adds in and supplies the divine element of the new creation, bringing the riches of Christ into our being. While it reduces the old element of Adam from us, it adds in the new element of Christ to us. While it takes away the old, it replaces it with the new. It performs a kind of metabolism in the Christian life and accomplishes the transformation of life for us.