In recent studies we have learned that the rain which comes down from heaven and waters the earth is the life of God. (See the article "Rain and Righteousness" in The Everlasting Gospel book) "You visit the earth, and water it. You greatly enrich it with the river of God, which is full of water." (Psalm 65:9)
How greatly, beyond our utmost thought, God enriches the earth in thus visiting it, we do not know, but we are told of some things that He does for it by means of the rain, and these we should believe and receive as from Him.
God's life poured out upon us in the form of rain is not different from His life, as it is revealed in Christ, or as the angels behold it in heaven. It is not strained off before it is poured from heaven, therefore all the righteousness and power that is comprised in the Divine life, indeed "all things that pertain to life and godliness," (2 Peter 1:3) are shed freely upon the earth in the rain. "Drop down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness." (Isaiah 45:8)
The earth, being without power of choice, has to receive the rain as what it is, and consequently, that which springs from the earth as the result of the rain, is identical with it in quality and virtue. "Let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together: I the Lord have created it." (Isaiah 45:8)
If a man will recognize the fruit of the earth as the life of God he will know in eating food that he is a partaker of the Divine life and nature. Such a one will grow strong on the nurture of the Lord. It is a well-known fact that to be strong and well a man must eat strength-giving food, and the measure of his strength will be determined by the quality of his nutriment. Whosoever eats of the Lord will be "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." (Ephesians 6:10)
Israel had a great work to do when they came out of Egypt. It was no less than is committed to the church of Christ today,--to be co-workers with God. But God does not ask men to do anything in their own strength, and so He fed Israel with food that was able to impart abundant strength, sufficient for the easy and successful accomplishment of every duty that lay in their path. They had "the corn of harvest; Man did eat angels' food." (Psalm 78:24-25)
But Israel did not receive the wonderful strength that there was in the manna. They even despised it, and in so doing, "They believed not in God, and trusted not in His salvation." (Psalm 78:22)
They were eating and drinking of Christ, but they did not believe it, and so they only ate and drank condemnation to themselves. (1 Corinthians 11:29,34) Still the earth brings forth salvation and righteousness. "[Christ] is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." (John 6:50)
He says: "As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eats me, even he shall live by me." (John 6:57)
Israel failed to discern the Lord's body in the food that was given them, and so, not receiving Christ in it, their diet was too poor for the task before them. It overtaxed their strength, and they fell by the way. Christ had an infinitely more trying journey before Him, but He received so much strength in living by the Father that, all the way, He was more than conqueror. (Romans 8:37)
In the same way, if we eat His flesh and drink His blood, (John 6:54) where He has put these for our use, we will triumph always. (2 Corinthians 2:14) If we do not, we will fail like Israel to enter in, and the simple and only cause of our failure will be unbelief, (Hebrews 3:19) that is, refusing to admit that God speaks the truth.
It was literally true that Christ lived by the Father. (John 6:57) He had meat to eat that His disciples knew not of. (John 4:32) Yet He was "made ... in all things ... like unto His brethren," (Hebrews 2:17) and had no secret channel of communication with the Father that was denied to them. He said, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." (John 4:34)
He ate and drank what they did, but not as they did. The will of God was perfectly assimilated into Christ's life, just as every one is made of what he eats and drinks. His testimony was, "I delight to do your will, O my God, yea, your law is within my heart." (Psalm 40:8)
Since He lived by the will of God, as His meat and drink, it must be that this was conveyed to Him in the partaking of material food. There was so high a quality of nourishment in His diet, as He took it, recognizing God's life, or will in it, that it could sustain Him when others, who had last eaten at the same time as himself, were quite exhausted. At one time, He went in the strength of it, forty days and nights, and it was only afterwards that He was hungry.
It is evident that there is more strength in receiving the will, or word, of God without bread, than there is in eating bread without receiving in it the life of God. The Lord "suffered Israel to hunger, and fed them with manna,...that He might make them know that man does not live by bread alone." (Deuteronomy 8:3)
Christ could say, "I know that His commandment is life." (John 12:50)
Just as the Divine life does not deteriorate when it comes down from heaven and comes forth in vegetable life with unimpaired vitality, nor when taken into the body of man does it change for the worse. It remains in every stage the life of God, and while the observer of nature sees in its different manifestations what he calls, at one stage, the law of plant life, and at another, the law of human development, it remains, all through, the law of the Divine life.
In thus imparting His life, God communicates in it the law of His own being, His own personal character and attributes. Thus the man who acknowledges that His whole life is derived from God, will also know that in his heart, in his very being, is the law of the Divine life, the instincts of the Divine nature. This is what God promises in the new covenant: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. ... And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me." (Hebrews 8:10-11)
This covenant is fulfilled to every one who recognizes God's life in his food, and receives it with thankfulness. It was to fulfill the everlasting covenant, made with Abraham and his seed, that God gave the Israelites manna in the wilderness. "[He] satisfied them with the bread of heaven. He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out. ... For He remembered His holy promise, and Abraham His servant." (Psalm 105:40-42)
Christ, giving His disciples the juice of the grape, said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." (1 Corinthians 11:25)
Through Isaiah, God calls us to "Eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. ... And I will make an everlasting covenant with you." (Isaiah 55:2-3)
Thus we see how it is that when we acknowledge God in all our ways, He will direct our paths. He writes His law in our hearts, putting it into us as the law of our being, just as it is the law of His own existence. "And the Lord shall guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your bones." (Isaiah 58:11)
God declared His covenant of life and peace to Israel on Sinai, but the people did not see the grace that was abounding there, flowing from Sinai to them in living streams of water. We are come unto Mount Zion, to the city of the living God. "The Lord's throne is in heaven." (Psalm 11:4) "Clouds and darkness are round about Him." (Psalm 97:2)
But always from the cloud comes the stream of the water of life, in the form of rain, dropping down righteousness on the earth, that the earth may bring forth salvation for the service of man. God speaks His living law from the midst of the cloud, and those who receive it in the water of life and the bread from heaven, live by it, and find it life everlasting.
To such the law is not a code of regulations, which one man can teach to another, but the life of Christ, His flesh and blood, which He gives for the life of the world. All who partake of this wonderful nutriment are "strengthened with might by God's Spirit in the inner man, [And] Christ dwells in their hearts by faith," (Ephesians 3:16-17) so that they, in Him, are "filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:19)
No work is too difficult for them, for "[They] can do all things through Christ who strengthens [them];" (Philippians 4:13) and God has no secrets from them, for the Spirit, which is their life, the Divine law of their being, "searches all things, yea, the deep things of God." (1 Corinthians 2:10)--Present Truth, September 15, 1898--Psalm 65:9.