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THE LAW OF LIFE

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 9, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 23.

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THE LAW OF LIFE.

God is the source of all life for all His creatures. As He is “the eternal God,” therefore His life is eternal life, flowing out from the great central Fount to all parts of His universe. As God is infinite, so the aura, or sphere in which His life operates, is also infinite, and His life bears to every part of that sphere the power, the presence, the personality of the Infinite One.
But God is everywhere present by His Holy Spirit, that Spirit bearing with it the power, the presence, the personality of God. It has the power of creating for itself various forms according to the will of God, as the dove, the tongue of fire, etc. Filling the same sphere as the life, doing the same work, filled with the same power, the conclusion is inevitable that God’s Spirit and Life are identical.
But how is God’s life manifest? how does it operate?—According to God’s law. In God’s creatures it operates according to the law of each which God implanted with the life. Before sin marred God’s handiwork, eternal life flowed from Him into each of His creatures, and was received as such. Each one, living in perfect harmony with the divine law of its being, would have lived forever. Rock and plant, fish and fowl and beast, would have existed forever without decay or degeneration.
Man, God’s highest creature of earth, was given dominion over all the earth, and the creatures within the earth. Gen. 1:28; Ps. 8:6–8. Man was king. The welfare, yea, the very existence, of all below him depended upon him.
But man was subject to God, from whom he received his being and life. His existence and life were given him of God, that God might be glorified thereby. He declares, “I have created him for My glory.” But God’s glory is man’s highest good.
The law of man’s conduct, therefore, was the law of God’s life. Just as long as man walked in willing submission to God’s law, just so long the eternal life of God flowed uninterruptedly into his being. Submission to, unity with, the perfect law meant a perfect life, with neither flaw nor break. And as man received God’s life in God’s way, man’s life was God’s eternal life; and the life of all the creatures below was the same life. All were destined to live forever. Nothing that God made and called good did He design should perish.
That God’s law now summarily comprehended in the Decalogue, is the law of life, the Scriptures abundantly prove. It will be necessary to quote but a few passages.
“Thou wilt show me the path of life.” Ps. 16:11.
“The commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” Prov. 6:23.
“He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction.” Prov. 10:17.
“In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” Prov. 12:28.
“The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.” Prov. 14:27.
“If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.” Eze. 33:15.
“See I have set before thee this day life and good; . . . in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that thou mayest live. . . . Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live; that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him; for He is thy life.” Deut. 30:15–20.
“Command your children to observe to do all the words of this law. For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life.” Deut. 32:46, 47.
“The commandment, which was ordained to life.” Rom. 7:10.
“The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 8:2.
“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” John 17:3.
These and many other texts reveal to us the blessed truth that God’s ways, God’s fear, His commandments, statutes, words, etc., are His holy law, and His holy law is the law of His life. It is the Spirit’s way of acting. It is the channel in which the life of God flows free, and pure, and strong, untainted, uncorrupted, bearing in itself the power and personality of God. It is a divine operative force, because of the life within it. Man’s laws are dry, dead forms; God’s laws are living ministers to accomplish His will. His representative, speaking for Him, declares, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63.
How that law became perverted, and how death came, will be reserved for our next.