The first item of the new covenant is found in Jeremiah 31:33a. "This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares Jehovah: I will put My law within them and write it upon their hearts." What kind of law can be put into people and be written upon their hearts? Such a law must be a law of life, and this law itself must be a life. Otherwise, it could not be put into us. Furthermore, this law will be written upon our hearts, indicating that it will spread from the center of our being, our spirit, to the circumference, our heart. Thus, this law must be God's life, the divine life, and God's life is God Himself. In the new covenant God will put Himself into His chosen people as their life, and this life is a law.
Every life is a law. For example, the dog life is the dog law, and the bird life is the bird law. Likewise, the life of the peach tree is the law of the peach tree. The principle is the same with human beings. As human beings we have a human life, and this human life is a law that regulates us in every way. In particular, the law of the human life regulates the growth and development of a human being and causes all the parts of one's body to be in the right place and to function in the right way.
God's life is the highest life, and the law of this life is the highest law. The New Testament calls this life eternal life, a life that is divine, uncreated, and indestructible. This eternal life is embodied in Christ (1 John 5:11), and it is actually Christ Himself (John 14:6). The law of this life is wrapped up with the life-giving Spirit, who in Romans 8:2 is called "the Spirit of life." Hence, God, Christ, and the Spirit are this life, and through our regeneration this life is now within us to function as a law to us. This law is righteous and holy, and it is a law of love and of light. Because the eternal life within us is a law, it controls, governs, regulates, and restricts us in everything. What a marvelous law we have within us!
The law of life within us is for God's economy. Without giving us His life as the inner law, God has no way to accomplish His economy. God's economy is to dispense Himself into our being that our being may be constituted with His being to be one constitution with His being. This can be accomplished only by God putting Himself into us as the divine life.
Today hardly any Christians pay attention to the divine life as the inner law. Where can you hear a word about this in the Catholic Church, in the Orthodox Church, or in the Protestant denominations? Even the Brethren speak of this only in a very limited way. In Pentecostalism there is much interest in outward things but not in the inner law of life. In the Lord's recovery, however, we place great emphasis on eternal life and on the inner law as the function of this life.
The divine life has a function, and with this function there is a capacity, an ability. We can be holy because we have the capacity of holiness. We can be righteous because we have the capacity of righteousness. We can love others, even our enemies, because the divine life within us has the capacity to love.
The teachings in the New Testament are just to develop this capacity, to encourage this capacity to grow. Likewise, all the messages given by this ministry are to strengthen and develop the divine life in its capacity for its function. The goal of this function is for God to dispense Himself into us to accomplish His economy, that is, to produce the increase of God for His expression, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem.