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Christ Himself is the new covenant, the new testament, of life given to us by God—Isa. 42:6; 49:8; Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12:
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In Greek the same word is used for both covenant and testament:
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A covenant and a testament are the same, but when the maker of the covenant is living, it is a covenant, and when he has died, it is a testament; a testament in today’s terms is a will.
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A covenant is an agreement containing some promises to accomplish certain things for the covenanted people, while a testament is a will containing certain accomplished things that are bequeathed to the inheritor—9:16-17; cf. Deut. 11:29; 28:1, 15; Jer. 31:31-32.
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The old covenant of the law is a portrait of God, but the new covenant of grace is the person of God—John 1:16-17:
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When we believe into Christ, the person of this portrait comes into us, and He fulfills in us the righteous requirements of the law as we walk according to the spirit and set our mind on the spirit—Ezek. 36:26-27; Rom. 8:2, 4, 6, 10.
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Through His death Christ fulfilled the demands of God’s righteousness according to His law and enacted the new covenant (6:23; 3:21; 10:3-4; Luke 22:20; Heb. 9:16-17), and in His resurrection He became the new covenant with all its bequests (1 Cor. 15:45b; Isa. 42:6; Phil. 1:19).
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In His ascension Christ opened the scroll of the new covenant concerning God’s economy, and in His heavenly ministry as the Mediator, the Executor, He is carrying out its contents—Rev. 5:1-5; Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24.
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As the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Christ overcame and defeated Satan, as the redeeming Lamb, Christ took away the sin and sins of fallen man, and as the seven Spirits, Christ infuses us with Himself as the contents of the scroll of the new covenant—Rev. 5:5-6; John 1:29.
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God’s salvation, God’s blessings, and all of God’s riches have been covenanted to us, and this covenant is Christ; the reality of all the hundreds of bequests in the New Testament is Christ; God has willed Himself in Christ as the Spirit to us—Gen. 22:18a; Gal. 3:14; 1 Cor. 1:30; 15:45b; Eph. 1:3; 3:8; John 20:22.
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Our spirit is the “bank account” of all the bequests of the new covenant; by the law of the Spirit of life, all these bequests are dispensed into us and made real to us—Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11, 16; Heb. 8:10; John 16:13.
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The center, the content, and the reality of the new covenant is the inner law of life (Rom. 8:2); in its essence this law refers to the divine life, and the divine life is the Triune God, who is embodied in the all-inclusive Christ and realized as the life-giving Spirit (Col. 2:9; 1 Cor. 15:45); He is the One who has been processed and consummated to be everything to His chosen people:
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In the new covenant God puts Himself into His chosen people as their life, and this life is a law, a spontaneous power and an automatic principle—Heb. 8:10; Rom. 8:2.
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According to its life, the law of the new covenant is the processed Triune God, and according to its function, it is the almighty divine capacity; this capacity can do everything in us for the carrying out of God’s economy.
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In essence this law is God in Christ as the Spirit, and in function it has the capacity to deify us (vv. 2, 10, 6, 11, 28-29); furthermore, the capacity of the inner law of life constitutes us the members of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 5:30) with all kinds of functions (Rom. 12:3-8; Eph. 4:11, 16).
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The writing of the law of life on our heart corresponds to the New Testament teaching concerning the spreading of the divine life from the center of our being, which is our spirit, to the circumference, which is our heart (Heb. 8:10; Rom. 8:9; Eph. 3:17); God writes His law on our heart by moving from our spirit into our heart to inscribe what He is into our being (2 Cor. 3:3).
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Through the spontaneous, automatic function of the divine life within us, we have the capacity to know God, to live God, and even to become God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead so that we may become His increase, His enlargement, to be His fullness for His eternal expression—Eph. 3:16-21.
Morning Nourishment
Jer. 31:31 …I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.33-34 …I will put My law in their inward parts and write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. And…all of them will know Me…, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.
In Greek the word for covenant is also the word for testament. Every proper covenant eventually becomes a testament. Before the person who enacted the covenant dies, it is the covenant. After he dies, that covenant becomes a testament. A testament in today’s terms is a will….We have the New Testament of the Bible in our hands, but this is not the reality. The reality of all the hundreds of bequests in the New Testament is Christ. Without Christ, the Bible is empty, so the real testament, the real will, is Christ. Christ is our title deed, and this title deed is in our spirit as the all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, consummated Spirit. (Life-study of Isaiah, p. 329)
Today’s Reading
The inner law of the divine life within us has the capacity to make us one with God. In this life with its law, God is our God, and we are His people. The way for God to be our God is His divine life, and the way for us to be His people is also the divine life. Eventually, in the divine life and by the working of the law of the divine life, God will be wrought into us, and we will live Him and be constituted with Him in His life and nature but not, of course, in His Godhead.God wants us to take Him as our source and to drink of Him every day so that He may become the river of the water of life within us. In our fallen condition we are hopeless, utterly corrupt, incurable, and unchangeable. But Christ has come to be our righteousness and our inner life. Outwardly, He is our righteousness for us to be justified by God. Inwardly, He is the divine life to fill us, to make us one with God, and even to constitute us with God that we may live God. Then we will be a corporate Body, the organism of the Triune God. This is the kernel of the book of Jeremiah.
The center, the centrality, of the new covenant is the inner law of life. Jeremiah 31:33a…[indicates that] this law is not an outward law but an inward law. In its essence, this law refers to the divine life, and the divine life is nothing less than the life-giving Spirit, the all-inclusive Christ, and the processed and consummated God.
This law functions….In this law there is the divine capacity, and the divine capacity is almighty. This divine capacity can do everything in us for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. There is not a positive thing concerning the carrying out of God’s economy that this divine capacity is unable to do.
The divine capacity of the inner law of life can live God [and] cause the believers…to be constituted with God,…made the same as God in life and in nature,…[to] become His increase, His enlargement, as His fullness to express Him. This is the highest aspect of the capacity of the inner law of life.
The capacity of the inner law constitutes us to be the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 5:30)…[and] has all the abilities of all the functions of the Body….This capacity can constitute us to be the members of the Body of Christ, including all kinds of functions: those of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers—the joints of the rich supply—and those of every part of the Body that functions in its measure (Eph. 4:11, 16). In essence the inner law of life is God in Christ as the Spirit, and in function this law has the capacity to constitute us with God and to constitute us the members of the Body of Christ with all kinds of functions, all kinds of abilities. I am happy, and even excited, to see this law operating in the saints in the Lord’s recovery. Hallelujah for this wonderful law of life! (Life-study of Jeremiah, pp. 262, 183-185)
Further Reading: Life-study of Jeremiah, msg. 26; Life-study of Isaiah, msg. 46