Every kind of life has a law. A law denotes a natural power with a certain tendency and activity. For example, we breathe because we are alive. As long as we have life, the law of this life causes us to breathe. We may use digestion as another example. After we eat a meal, there is no need for us to try to digest our food. Digestion is a matter of law. Whenever we eat, the law of our physical life functions to digest the food.
The same is true of animal life. Birds fly because it is the law of the life of a bird to fly. A bird is not taught to fly; it is born with the life to fly. Hence, it is natural for a bird to fly. You may frustrate the function of this law by putting a bird in a cage. But once the door of the cage is open, the bird will fly away. On the contrary, a cat can never fly. No matter how much you command a cat to fly, even threatening to punish it, it will still not be able to fly because it does not have a life with a law of flying. However, because a cat has a mouse-catching life, it naturally chases mice. Dogs bark because they have a barking life with a barking law. There is no need to teach a dog to bark; a dog barks naturally and spontaneously because its life is filled with the tendency and activity of barking.
Turning from animal life to plant life, we may take fruit trees as another illustration of the fact that every life has a law. I am not very good at distinguishing one kind of fruit tree from another. However, it is easy to discern a tree by its fruit. An apple tree will, of course, bear apples, and an orange tree will bear oranges. What nonsense it would be to command the apple tree to bear oranges and the orange tree to bear apples! No one would ever be foolish enough to do this. An orange tree bears oranges, and an apple tree bears apples. An orange tree has the life of an orange tree, in which there is the law that functions in the bearing of oranges.
In like manner, there is no need to teach a carnation to bear carnation blossoms instead of cherry blossoms. In fact, there is no need even to teach it to blossom. If someone tried to teach a carnation to blossom and a carnation could speak, it would say, “Don’t waste your time teaching me to blossom. Simply leave me alone and let me grow. Eventually, I will blossom.” Blossoming comes from the law of the carnation life. All these examples show that every life has a law.
Because we Christians have three lives, we also have three laws. We have the human life, which is good. With this good life we have the law of good. Because of this law, everyone naturally desires to do good; there is no need for anyone to be taught. We were born with the desire to do good, and every child has a human life with its law of good. However, as we have seen, man has not only the human life, but also the satanic life with its law of evil. Because of this satanic life in man, a child tells lies spontaneously, without being taught. In fact, Christian parents always teach their children not to lie. I taught my children not to lie, but they lied anyway. For example, I instructed my children not to play with the water that was used for washing. One day I came in and found one of the children playing with the water. Immediately he put his hands behind his back. Instead of rebuking him or punishing him, I said to myself, “This is fallen man. What good does it do to rebuke him?” You may command a bush not to produce thorns, but it will bear thorns nonetheless. This is the law of the life of a thorn bush. In like manner, children lie without being taught to lie because the life of Satan with its law of lying is in them. When they tell lies, children are simply living according to this law of lying. We may need to be taught how to read but not how to lie. In principle, for fallen people to lie is the same as for cats to chase mice. Both are the activity of the law of the life that is in them. Now we can understand why we do the opposite when we will to do good. We have two lives in us, the human life and the satanic life, and each life has its law. But the law of the satanic life is stronger than the law of the human life.
Praise the Lord that we also have the divine life! Of the three lives in us, the divine life is the strongest, and the human life is the weakest.