We are complicated people, for we have four laws related to us. Above us is the law of God with its demands. In our mind is the law of good responding to the law of God. In our body is the law of sin which wars against the law of good. All of this is recorded in Romans 7. But Romans 8 tells us that in our spirit is the law of the Spirit of life. Hence we have four laws: one outside demanding, one in the mind responding, one in the body warring, and one in our spirit supplying, empowering, and overcoming.
Why are we so complicated? We are complicated because we have passed through three stations—the creation, the fall, and God’s salvation. We were created, we were fallen, and we were saved. This is our history, our biography. Our biography is simply that we were created, that we fell, and that we were saved by God. In God’s creation we received a human life, the life that makes us a human being. In the fall another life was injected into us, the evil life of Satan which came into our body. After we were saved, the processed God as the Spirit of life came into our spirit. Hence, three persons are in us: ourselves in our souls, Satan in our body, and the processed God as the Spirit of life in our spirit. We have three parts to our being, and each part has a person: in our body, sin, that is, Satan dwells; in our soul, our self dwells; and in our spirit, the processed God as the Spirit of life dwells.
Each of these persons has a life with a law. Satan has his satanic life with its evil law, the law of sin. Our natural man has a created life with a good law. The processed God as the life-giving Spirit has the divine life with the law of the Spirit of life. Therefore, we have an evil law, a good law, and the law of the Spirit of life, in brief, the law of life. This law of life is opposed to both good and bad; it has nothing to do with good and bad, for both good and bad belong to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9, 17). The law of life certainly belongs to the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). Within us we have the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. Therefore, each one of us is a miniature garden of Eden. Man is here, Satan as the tree of knowledge is here, and God as the tree of life is also here. These three parties that once were in the garden of Eden are now all in us. The battle that was raging between Satan and God in the garden of Eden now rages within us. This battle involves three persons, three lives, and three laws.
As I have pointed out on other occasions, God is revealed progressively in the book of Romans. In Romans 1 He is God in creation, in Romans 3 God in redemption, in Romans 4 God in justification, in Romans 5 God in reconciliation, and in Romans 6 He is God in identification. We can see the process or the progress of God from creation to redemption, from redemption to justification, from justification to reconciliation, and from reconciliation to identification. God has advanced from creation to identification. In His creation God was outside of His creatures; in identification He has made us one with Himself by putting us into Himself. As many of us as have been baptized have been baptized into Christ (Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27). God has put us into Christ, thoroughly identifying us with Himself.
In Romans 8 God becomes the God in our spirit. He is not only the God in identification, but the God in our spirit. He has not only made us one with Him, but He has also made Himself one with us. Now our God is in our spirit. What kind of God is He? He is the processed God in our spirit. The God in creation has passed through redemption, justification, reconciliation, identification, and He is now in our spirit. The God in our spirit is not merely God; He has been processed into the Spirit of life, for the Spirit of life is the processed God. According to our experience, nothing is more pleasant than this. We may feast upon such a God.
To come to a dining table to enjoy God as food is not my concept. In the gospels the Lord Jesus said that the gospel was a feast. The Lord Jesus said that all things are ready and that we should come to the feast (Luke 14:16-17). He told us to come and dine. We even find this thought in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). When the son returned home, the father put the best robe on him, a robe signifying Christ as our righteousness for our justification. When the son returned, he was like a poor beggar standing before a rich father. There seemed to be no correspondence between them: the father was rich and the son was poor. Thus the father told the servants to take the best robe and to put it on the son. After this robe had been put on him, the son was justified before the father and corresponded to him. Now the son is like the father, justified and approved. Christ as righteousness covers the returned son. Although this satisfied the father the son might have said, “Father, I do not care as much about the robe as I care about my empty stomach. Father, I am hungry. You are satisfied, but I am not.” This was why the father told the servants to prepare the fatted calf, process it, and put it on the table. The father said, “Let us all eat and be merry.” Who is that fatted calf? The calf is Christ who was processed on the cross over nineteen hundred years ago. After He was processed on the cross, He became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45).
Where is Christ today? Where did He go after He was processed after His death and resurrection? Undoubtedly, He went into the heavens. However, if He were only in the heavens, it would be impossible for people to eat Him. The heavens are too far away. But Christ is not only in the heavens (8:34), but also in us (8:9), even in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). The dining table is our spirit. After being processed Christ became the life-giving Spirit. The processed Christ is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). He has come into our spirit as life and as the life supply for our enjoyment.
This is not my concept. Although Christ is life, it is difficult for Christ to give you life. Who gives life? It is the Spirit that gives life (John 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6). Christ is life, but it is the Spirit who gives us Christ as life. Without the Spirit Christ may be life, but Christ as life cannot be given to us. By being the Spirit Christ is imparted into us as life. Today, after being processed, the very Christ is the life-giving Spirit. Now in our spirit we may enjoy this wonderful Spirit. Never forget that Christ is the very God, Jehovah the Savior, God with us. Christ is God. This Christ, after being processed, is now the life-giving Spirit. We have to enjoy Him in His fullness as such a Spirit. Our regenerated spirit is the dining table, and the processed Christ is our food. He is not food in a physical form, but in the form of the Spirit. Our food is the Spirit. What a rich Spirit this is! Divinity, humanity, love, light, life, power, righteousness, holiness, grace—everything we need is in the Spirit. Romans 8 certainly is this dining table.