In the past four chapters we have dealt with some basic matters concerning the divine life, the inner life. In this chapter we will consider two more basic items that we should know in order to help us to experience life.
How many different lives are related to the regenerated children of God? We must know this in order to learn how to have the real experience of the divine life. It is easy to realize that there are at least two different lives related to us. We are created human beings, so undoubtedly we have the human life. Following this, we are regenerated. Regeneration is something more than re-creation because the word generation indicates life. Creation may not include something of life, but with generation there must be life. God may create some rocks, for example, but this is not a regeneration. Regeneration is a re-creation, but re-creation by itself may not involve regeneration.
That God regenerates us means that we have been reborn, born anew. By being born anew we have another life, the divine life. By creation we have the human life, and by re-creation, that is, regeneration, we have the divine life. The human life is the first life, and the divine life is another life. Some of the better writers use the phrases created life and uncreated life. The first life, the human life, is a created life, and the other life, the divine life, which is God Himself, is the uncreated life. Therefore, with us, the reborn people, there are at least two different kinds of lives. We have the human life as the created life, and we have the divine life as the uncreated life.
Although it may sound strange, we Christians as reborn people also have a third kind of life because three basic things have happened to us. First, we were created. We are created persons, persons who took part in God’s creation. After creation and before regeneration, however, something else happened to the human race, to our human being. This was the fall of the human race. Therefore, before we were regenerated, we were not only the created people but also the fallen people. Praise the Lord, after the fall, a third thing happened to us, which is regeneration in God’s redemption! These three main things-creation, the fall, and regeneration-have happened to us as Christians. We were created persons and fallen persons, and we are also regenerated persons.
A certain life is related to each thing that happened to us. In creation we received the human life. Then in the fall the devilish life, the satanic life, the evil life of Satan, the life with the satanic nature, was injected into the human race. Finally, in regeneration we received the divine life, the life of God, which is God Himself. By creation we have the human life, by the fall we have the satanic life, and by regeneration we have the divine life.
We are also three kinds of children. First, we are the human children, the children of our human parents in Adam. The Scriptures tell us also that we are the children of the devil. First John 3:10 says that the children of the devil are manifest, and in John 8:44 the Lord said, “You are of your father the devil.” The devil, Satan, is a father of the fallen human race, and all fallen human beings are his children. Praise the Lord that we are also a third kind of children! We are the children of God. A number of passages in the New Testament tell us that we are the children of God, such as Romans 8:16, which says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” John 1:12 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name.”
We have three lives-the human life, the devilish life, and the divine life-because three things happened to us-creation, the fall, and regeneration. Therefore, we are three kinds of children, and we have three fathers: a human father, a devilish father, and a divine Father. We are the children of the human race because we have the human life, the children of the devil because we have the life of the devil, and the children of God because we have the life of God.
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