Are we under the influence of this law? Too many of us in the Lord’s recovery still live according to ethics, morality, piety, religion, or “spirituality.”
Many people are still trying to keep the Mosaic law. The children of Israel have tried in vain to live by it. The Catholic Church charges its members to keep the Ten Commandments. They practice reciting them, as do some Protestant denominations.
The New Testament teachings are often neglected or misapplied. In Romans 8, verse 2 is neglected and verse 39 about God’s inseparable love is picked up. Verse 28, about all things working together for good, is another favorite.
“The law of the Spirit of life”—this is a strange language! Your vocabulary does not have the Spirit. If it does, you think it refers to tongues-speaking or other miraculous things. When I was in Waco, Texas, some twenty years ago, a friend told me he had seen heavenly gold descending to fill his tooth; he could even smell the metal. I said what he was saying was a lie; I did not believe him. “If God can fill your tooth with heavenly gold,” I asked him, “why wouldn’t He just restore the tooth?” Many Pentecostal testimonies are lies. The Bible does record miracles, but not one case of leg lengthening is mentioned. Tongues-speaking in the Bible refers to speaking another language; it is not the three or four syllables of today’s speakers in tongues. No language is made up of that limited number of sounds. The understanding of the Spirit among today’s Christians is too poor. Nor do they know what life is. If there is excitement, shouting, or jumping, they think the meeting is full of life. How full of life a ball game is then!
May the Lord have mercy upon us. I am not speaking critically. I beg all of you who read this message: unload. Unload yourselves of all your old appreciations and old understandings. As the Lord Jesus said, “…Turn and become as little children” (Matt. 18:3).
Now that we are saved and regenerated, the Triune God is dwelling in our spirit. There is no need for us to determine to be loving or kind or humble. We need not resolve to be the best husband or wife. These are ethical, religious, even “scriptural” aspirations. Listen to Romans 8:2-4: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and of death. 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, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh, but according to spirit.”
God condemned sin, verse 3 says. Condemned means overcame, subdued, conquered, deprived of its power. This is what God did concerning sin. Sin includes Satan and the law of sin. God sent His own Son “concerning sin”; this was because of His enemy Satan getting into man. The word “that” at the beginning of verse 4 is a strong word; what follows is the consequence or issue of God’s condemning sin in the flesh. Because God has deprived sin of its power, the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us. God has not asked us to keep the law; we cannot keep it. The airline does not ask us to fly to New York; it would be beyond our power to do so. What we do is buy our ticket, get the boarding pass, get on the plane, and sit in our seat. Then the flight is fulfilled in us. After five hours’ rest .we shall be in New York. Just as the airline does not expect us to fly, so God does not expect us to keep the law. The righteous requirement will be fulfilled, not kept, “in us.” Who is the us? It is those who do not walk according to flesh, but according to spirit. What does it mean to walk according to spirit? It means that, instead of trying to love others or be humble or be “spiritual,” we have regard only for the indwelling Spirit. The Triune God has been processed through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Today He is the life-giving Spirit within my spirit. I am one spirit with Him, and He is one spirit with me (1 Cor. 6:17). This is my only concern. Whatever I am doing or saying, I have my being according to this Spirit. If we walk this way, the righteous requirement of the law will be fulfilled in us. This is not to say that we will keep the law. How will this righteous requirement be fulfilled? It will be fulfilled not by us, but in us, by the law of the Spirit of life.
(God's Eternal Intention and Satan's Counterplot, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)