The law of letters is of impossibility, perfecting nothing (Rom. 8:3, Heb. 7:19), but the law of life is of “the power of an indestructible life,” perfecting everything for us in fulfilling God’s purpose (Heb. 7:16). In the old covenant, the law of letters was weak and could not possibly perfect anything. It was merely a type of the law of life. Like a lifeless photograph of a lively person, it had the form but not the life. It showed people something, but it could do nothing for them. But in the new covenant, the law of life is powerful; it is of the power of an indestructible life that is able to perfect everything for us in God’s economy. It is no longer merely a form; it has the divine life as its essence for reality. It not only shows us the things but also accomplishes them for us. Whatever it requires it can fulfill.
As the function of the law of life accomplishes metabolically the transformation of life for us, so the issue of the law of life is that we are transformed and conformed to the image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 8:29) and that Christ is formed in us. The transformation in life and the conformation to Christ depend upon the function of the law of life and are the issue of the work of the law of life. Christ can only be formed in us by the regulating of the law of life. The regulating of the law of the divine life brings the riches of Christ into our life and forms Christ in our being.
God is not only our God but also our Father. Hence, He desires to be our God in the law of life. We are not only God’s creatures but also His children. Hence, He desires us to be His people in the law of life. God does not desire only to be our God according to the outward law of letter; He desires to be our Father according to the inward law of life. Nothing of the keeping of the outward law of letter can satisfy God’s desire. He can only be pleased by our living according to the inward law of life. And He does not desire to have us only as His creatures without His life but also as His children with His life. Hence, He wants us to be His people in the law of life, living not according to the outward law of letter but according to the inward law of life. Both His relationship to us and ours to Him should be a relationship maintained in the law of life. With the law of letter there was nothing but death. With the law of life there is no death but life. Only life can satisfy the divine desire.
We have seen that the divine priesthood is the presence of life and the absence of death and that it saves us from all of the by-products of death and brings us into glory. The divine priesthood saves us to the uttermost, meaning that it brings us into complete perfection, into glorification. But this saving, this working, is not objective; it is absolutely subjective. Yes, Christ is the divine High Priest on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty on high. But we must remember that when He was resurrected from the dead nineteen and a half centuries ago, being born as the Firstborn Son of God, He imparted His life into all of God’s chosen and marked-out people. Although at that time we had not yet decided to believe in the Lord, we had already been marked out by God in eternity past before the foundation of the world. If you do not believe this word now, you will believe it when you come into the New Jerusalem. God marked us out, and Christ imparted His life into us. God and Christ can never be wrong; they can never make a mistake. To say that God made a mistake in selecting us is an insult to God. How could God make a mistake? Although we are unworthy and do not deserve anything, God selected us and premarked us, and Christ, the Firstborn Son, imparted Himself into us as life. We must have this vision to see God’s economy so clearly. Forget about your feelings, understanding, and realization and come back to the pure Word and receive the clear vision. Whatever God does is eternal and has no element of time or space. God’s choosing of us was eternal; there is no time element involved here. None of us is here by accident. It was prearranged by our Father. He made that decision before the earth was made.
After Christ imparted Himself into us, He went to sit on the throne in the heavens. In some of our past ministry we said that after Christ went into the heavens, He came down into us. Although this is right in a sense, it is only right according to our point of view. Looking at this matter from a higher point of view, we can see that Christ did not first ascend into the heavens and then come down to get into us but that before He ascended to the heavens, at the time of His resurrection, He imparted Himself into us as life already. Once He entered into the heavens, He had nothing left to do because He had already accomplished everything. Everything was finished. He had made purification of sins and had imparted Himself into all of God’s marked-out people.
What is Christ doing as He sits in the heavens? He is interceding. Perhaps Christ would say of a certain premarked one, “Father, look at that one. He has been marked out by You and I have imparted My life into him, but he is still wandering. Father, bring him home.” Soon afterward, some Christian friends invite him to a meeting of the church and he is captured. After that, the interceding Christ on the throne might say, “It is good that this dear one has come home, but, Father, You must do something further in him. The life in him has not been developed. It needs to develop, function, and work.” Then in the next meeting this dear one stands up and says, “Lord Jesus, I love You. I consecrate myself to You.” The life functions because of Christ’s invisible intercession. As Romans 8:34 makes clear, after ascending to the heavens, Christ is there interceding for us. Such a perfected, qualified, equipped, and Almighty One is interceding for us. After a few days, the interceding Christ may say of this dear one, “Father, he is functioning now, but he is not mature. He is still so young.” Suddenly in a meeting this brother stands up and prays, “Lord, You know that I am still so young. I am not yet mature. Lord, I want to mature.” His prayer corresponds to the heavenly intercession. It seems that the prayer originated with him, but actually it was a quotation of the heavenly intercession. Many times our utterances in prayer or praise are quotations of the heavenly intercession. Such utterances are not originated or initiated by us but by Christ’s intercession. Perhaps this same brother is touched one morning concerning his selfishness, having the deep conviction that he is full of self. He may think that this is the reaction to a certain message, not realizing that this also is a reaction to the heavenly intercession. Whatever happens to us in our spiritual life is either a quotation of the heavenly intercession or a reaction to it.
Christ is in heaven interceding for us all. The purpose of His intercession is that the divine life within us, which is just Himself, may develop in our whole being and that its law of life may spread into our inward parts and become many laws regulating us in every aspect. One of these laws must get into our mind to regulate it and to renew it completely. You may think that the renewing of the mind is due to the teachings and messages that you hear in the church life. Actually this is not so; the renewing of the mind does not come from without but from one of the many laws of the divine life within you. When your mind is renewed by the law of life, it will be revolutionized, and you will never think the way you did before. All of your considerations will be fully renewed by the regulating law of the working life within you. This simply means that the divine life has grown from your spirit into your mind.
Another of these many laws will get into our emotion and saturate it. Whether our emotion is cold or hot, one of the laws will penetrate our emotion and regulate it with the nature of Christ’s emotion, bringing the element of the emotion of Christ into our emotion. In a sense, our emotion will be remade, having been saturated with the element of Christ’s emotion. We shall never love or hate as we did before. Everything that we do out of our emotion will be absolutely revolutionized. In particular, our love will be regulated, permeated, transformed, and remade. This is the growth of the life of Christ into our emotion.
In the same principle, one of these working laws will permeate our will. Whether our will is naturally stubborn or submissive makes no difference, for neither is useful for the life of Christ. In the past I have seen some very stubborn wills and some submissive wills. While most of the elders in the churches love the submissive wills, I am just as bothered by the submissive wills as by the stubborn wills. According to our human feeling, we all love a submissive will, but as long as a submissive will is a natural will, it is not adequate. It does not matter whether our will is stubborn, submissive, or neutral. As long as it is our will, it is useless for the life of Christ. The working of the law of the divine life must permeate our will. Although I have heard many people say, “I hate my stubborn will,” I have never heard anyone say, “I hate my submissive will.” We all must learn to say, “I hate my stubborn will, my submissive will, and my neutral will. I just hate my will. I don’t care whether my will is stubborn, submissive, or neutral. As long as it is my will, I hate it because it is natural.” As the law of the divine life works in us, one of its functions will saturate our will with the will of Christ, making His will ours. In this way our will is remade with the very element of Christ’s will. This means that Christ’s life will grow into our will. Eventually, in our mind, emotion, and will there will be the growth of the life of Christ.
This permeation, this saturation, is what it means to be saved into perfection. Christ’s saving us to the uttermost does not mean that we are on earth, having nothing of Him, and that He is far away in the heavens unrelated to us, interceding for us until we pray and He answers our prayer by stretching out His hand to save us. That is a religious concept. We need to see that on the cross Christ put away our sins, that in His resurrection He imparted Himself as life into all of us, and that now He is sitting on the throne of God in the heavens interceding for us. On the one hand, He is in our spirit as our life growing; on the other hand, He is on the throne in the heavens interceding for the growth and development of the seed that He has sown within us. This is the subjectively objective Christ for our experience. It is in this way that His divine life functions within us. Every bit of the function of His life is a regulation of its law. Some of these life functions will spread into our mind and others will permeate our emotion and will. This is the work of the law of life.