In this chapter we want to fellowship about the God-ordained principles in the Scriptures and the instant leading of the indwelling Spirit.
God created an orderly universe. This order is maintained by certain governing principles. The first category of principles is physical. Science is mainly a study of these principles. Scientists have discovered many of the governing principles which maintain the physical order in the universe. Our own solar system is governed by these physical principles. If one of these principles were violated, our solar system would be damaged or destroyed. The whole universe is preserved and kept in order by God-ordained principles in the physical universe.
The second category of principles is ethical. Within the universe created by God, certain ethical principles exist among mankind in order to preserve mankind on the earth. For six thousand years, mankind has been preserved by both physical and ethical principles. History shows that the situation of mankind is always deteriorating. When I came to the United States thirty years ago, the ethical and moral standard here was much better than it is today. The trend of mankind is downward. Yet due to the ethical principles which exist among human beings, some amount of order is being kept so that mankind can continue to exist.
The third category of principles is spiritual. As believers, we are a particular people. We are not merely involved with physical and ethical principles, we are also involved with the spiritual principles which exist in the universe. We are not only physical and ethical, we are also spiritual. We are God's new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) because God has been wrought into our being. The physical and ethical principles which govern the physical and ethical realms are needed for man's existence, but man's existence alone is not God's eternal goal. God's final goal according to His eternal economy is to have a spiritual realm, a realm in which His believers are His new creation.
God's eternal purpose is to have the new creation. The difference between the old creation and the new creation is the element of God Himself. In the old creation, nothing of God Himself was wrought into man. Man was made by God, but nothing of God Himself entered into man. Man without God is what the Bible calls the old man (Rom. 6:6). The new creation, however, is the old creation with God Himself wrought into it. In the new creation, God worked Himself into man in order to make man a partner with Himself and to make Himself a partner with man. Now as Christians, we and God are partners (Heb. 3:14). We are in a divine partnership because He is one with us and we are one with Him. He is in us, and we are in Him.