What is the law of God? Through the Life-studies on Exodus and other messages I believe you realize that the law of God is a testimony or a picture. The law of God is not God Himself. It is just a picture. The law of God given on Mount Sinai was just a picture, a portrait, of God.
What then is the law within us in our mind that tries all the time to do good? Have you ever thought about it? I would encourage all of you to learn to think about the Bible in this way. Think about Romans 6. Think about Romans 7. Think about Romans 8. I don’t mean you have to meditate; I mean you need to think about it. What is the law of doing good? I must tell you that that is the created man. Any living being created by God is a law. A dog is a law. A cat is a law. You are a law. An apple tree is a law. A peach tree is a law. Although you may rebuke an apple tree for not bringing forth bananas, it will not cause the apple tree to bring forth bananas. Its law is to bring forth apples. Why don’t you bark like a dog? Why don’t you catch mice like a cat? Why don’t you fly like a bird? With these creatures there is a kind of law. You don’t need to teach a living creature to do something; he will do it according to his law. No farmer would be so foolish as to try to teach a plant to bring forth something, yet many Christians are foolish in this way. Many Christians are trying to teach apple trees to produce bananas. Many sermons are telling the apple trees that they have to improve themselves. They shouldn’t bring forth apples anymore, but rather bring forth bananas. This is foolish, and this is religion. The law of good in man is simply the man created by God.
What then is the law of evil? It is also called sin. This is Satan. The law of God is not God Himself, but a picture of God. The law of good is you, the created being. And the law of evil is Satan who is one with you now. With these points in mind, we can come to chapter eight, and we can know what is the law of the Spirit of life.
The law of the Spirit of life in chapter eight is nothing less than our God. But God is not so simple. God in Genesis 1 was in one stage under a certain kind of condition. And the God in Matthew 1 became in another stage. The God who is the law of the Spirit of life is not merely the God in Genesis 1, nor merely the God in Matthew 1. God in Romans 8 is the processed Triune God. In Genesis 1 God was not processed. But in Matthew 1 God entered into one process, incarnation.
Have you noticed that the incarnation is also included in Romans 8? Verse 3 reads, “For, the law being impossible in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” In this one verse the incarnation is described in a very wonderful way. This one verse covers a number of points concerning the incarnation. First, it indicates that the first law, the law of God, didn’t work. It was too weak; it was just in letters. What can a picture, a photo, do? It can only give you an idea of that person; that is all. It has no life. It has no power. The law of God was just a picture. It was surely weak through the fallen created human being. It was weak because of the flesh. The flesh is the created human being that became fallen. The verse goes on to tell us that God sent His Son. This indicates that the Son of God came to do what the law of God cannot do. The Son of God came to replace the law of God. In other words, because the photo didn’t work so well, the person came by way of incarnation. You have to realize that the Word became flesh (John 1:14). The Son of God came in the form of the flesh of sin. This is incarnation.
In Genesis 1 you have God merely as God; there was no process. But in Matthew 1 you have God in the first step of His process, incarnation. Incarnation indicates clearly that the law of God as a photo didn’t work, that man was fallen and became flesh, and that the Son of God came to replace that weak law of God and to become in the form of the flesh of sin. Then at the end of this verse there is another point, that is, He condemned sin in the flesh. This last portion of the verse is very difficult to translate and also hard to understand. What does it mean to condemn sin? What does it mean that He came concerning sin? You have to realize that sin in this verse refers to that evil in chapter seven which is the satanic law, the law of sin (v. 25). And that sin, that law of sin, is just Satan himself. All these points are included in this one matter of incarnation. In His flesh, through the death on the cross, He condemned sin. He destroyed the power of death. He destroyed the Devil. All these matters are involved in the incarnation.