Ⅳ
“I will be God to them, and they will be a people to Me”—Heb. 8:10; Jer. 31:33b:
Ａ
For God to be our God means that He is our inheritance—Eph. 1:14:
１
God created man as a vessel to contain Him (Gen. 1:26-27; Rom. 9:23-24); therefore, God is man’s possession, just as the content of a vessel is its possession.
２
God is not only our inheritance but also the portion of our cup (Psa. 16:5) for our enjoyment; to be saved is to come back to God and enjoy Him anew as our possession, as signified by a man’s returning to his possession in the jubilee (Lev. 25:10; Luke 4:18-19; 15:17-24; Acts 26:18; Col. 1:12).
３
God gives us the Spirit not only as a guarantee of our inheritance but also as a foretaste of what we will inherit of God (2 Cor. 1:22); the Spirit’s pledging adds more of God into us little by little until we enter into eternity and have God as our full enjoyment.
Ｂ
For us to be God’s people means that we are His inheritance—Eph. 1:11, 14, 18; 3:21:
１
We not only inherit God as our inheritance (1:14) for our enjoyment but also become God’s inheritance (v. 11) for His enjoyment.
２
It is by having God wrought into us that we are being constituted into God’s inheritance; this is transformation, and it is also subjective sanctification.
３
God put His Holy Spirit into us as a seal (v. 13) to mark us out, indicating that we belong to God; this seal is living, and it works within us to permeate and transform us with God’s divine element until the redemption of our body.
４
Consummately, the mutual inheritance of God and man becomes God’s inheritance in the saints for eternity (v. 18); this will be His eternal expression to the uttermost universally and eternally (Rev. 21:11).
Ⅴ
“They shall by no means each teach his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all will know Me from the little one to the great one among them”—Heb. 8:11; Jer. 31:34a:
Ａ
The function of life enables us to know God in the inward way of life; we can know God subjectively from within by the sense of life, which is the feeling, the consciousness, of the divine life within us—Rom. 8:6; Eph. 4:18-19; Phil. 3:10a:
１
The sense of life comes from the divine life (Eph. 4:18), the law of life (Rom. 8:2; Heb. 8:10), and the anointing of the Spirit (1 John 2:27).
２
The sense of life on the negative side is the feeling of death, and on the positive side it is the feeling of life and peace—Rom. 8:6; Isa. 26:3.
３
We should live according to the sense of life in the principle of life, not according to the principle of right and wrong, the principle of death.
４
This is to live according to the principle of the tree of life, not according to the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—Gen. 2:9.
５
The sense of life makes us know whether we are living in the natural life or in the divine life and whether we are living in the flesh or in the spirit.
Ｂ
“In order to serve God and work for Him, a Christian must learn to stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... Only those who touch the tree of life will see their life and work remaining in the New Jerusalem” (Messages Given during the Resumption of Watchman Nee’s Ministry, vol. 1, pp. 94-95).
Ⅵ
Ultimately, our enjoyment of the indwelling Spirit as the automatic law of the divine life, the law of the Spirit of life, is in the Body of Christ and for the Body of Christ with the goal of making us God in life, nature, and expression but not in the Godhead to accomplish the goal of His eternal economy—the New Jerusalem—Rom. 8:2,28-29; 12:1-2; 11:36; 16:27; Phil. 1:19; cf. Gal. 4:26-28, 31.
Morning Nourishment
Heb. 8:10-11 For this is the covenant which I will covenant,…says the Lord: I will impart My laws into their mind, and on their hearts I will inscribe them; and I will be God to them, and they will be a people to Me. And they shall by no means each teach his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all will know Me…Romans 8:17 says that as children of God, we are also heirs of God to inherit God as our everything….Many times the Old Testament, especially the book of Jeremiah, says that Israel will be God’s people and He will be their God….For us to be God’s people means that we are God’s inheritance, and for God to be our God means that He is our inheritance. Before this mutual inheritance existed, both God and we, we and God, were poor. Before we had God, we had nothing, and before God had us, He was childless. That was the reason that He desired to dispense Himself into us, to make us all His children; and all His children are now His inheritance. Now God is rich. By this we can understand the significance of this simple word: “I will be your God, and you will be My people.” Today, as the children of God, we have Christ, and Christ is the embodiment of God. This God who is embodied in Christ is our life, our person, and our inheritance. Likewise, God also has an inheritance. We are His inheritance. (Life-study of Isaiah, pp. 347-348)
Today’s Reading
The last part of Hebrews 8:10 says, “I will be God to them, and they will be a people to Me.” In the new covenant we have the privilege of having God as our God and of being His people—the enabling of life for us to participate in the enjoyment of God in fellowship with Him. The people under the old covenant had God according to the Ten Commandments. God was God to them according to the old law of letters, and they were His people also according to the law of letters. But today our God is God to us not according to letters but according to the inward life, and we are His people not according to any written regulations but also according to the inner life. It is according to the law of life that God is God to us and we are a people to Him. God’s relationship with us today is fully based upon the law of life; it is a relationship in life. So today we do not need to walk according to the knowledge of the law of letters but according to the consciousness of the law of life.It is very difficult, for example, to find a verse in the New Testament which tells us what time God wants us to get up in the morning….We shall not know it by any regulation of letters outwardly but according to the inner life. When tomorrow morning comes, the inner life will tell us what time God wants us to get up. If we do not rise up at that time, we shall miss God’s presence.
In the new covenant there is also the function of the law of life by which we know God in the inward way of life. Verse 11 [indicates that] …there is no need for the outward teachings, because we know the Lord by…the inner sense of life. (Life-study of Hebrews, pp. 412-413)
In chapter 31 Jeremiah laid the foundation of the new covenant, prophesying that God will put His law within us; that He will write His law into our mind that we may know God; that God will be our God and we will be His people; that we will not need anyone to teach us, because we will all have a teaching life within us; and that God will forgive our iniquity and remember our sins no longer. In the new covenant we enjoy the inner law of life. This law of life brings us God’s person and also the divine capacity of the divine life, which can accomplish everything for God to fulfill His economy. By the inner law of life we have the capacity to know God, to live God, and even to be constituted with God in His life and nature so that we may be His corporate expression. (Life-study of Jeremiah, pp. 257-258)
Further Reading: Life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 11, 13, 15; Messages Given during the Resumption of Watchman Nee’s Ministry, vol. 1, msgs. 9, 11, 16, 19