Now we must go on to consider the three lives. As with the four laws, each of these three lives is related to us. God created us to be human beings. First, because we are humans, we have the human life, which is the created life. This is on our side. On God’s side, He has the uncreated, eternal, divine life. Because we have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God, we now have the divine, eternal life. The third life is that of the devil. This life is also very much related to us, for through the fall, the devil himself has become related to us. We cannot say that just because we are creatures of God, we do not have anything to do with the life of the devil. On the contrary, we must admit that because of the fall, the life of Satan is related to us.
Because we are regenerated believers, three tremendous things have happened to us. First, we have been created. Second, we have fallen. Third, we have been regenerated. Because these three things have happened to us, there are three lives in us. When we were created by God, we received the created life, the human life. Then when we fell, we received the life of the devil. Whether we realize this or not, it is a fact. When we partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, something of Satan came into our being; it was not Adam alone who ate of that tree—we were included in Adam (Rom. 5:12; cf. Heb. 7:9-10). When Adam ate of that tree, he not only committed an act of sin; he also received the life of Satan into his being. We can see this in a simple illustration. Let us say that there is a bottle of poison, which a mother warns her child not to touch. One day when the mother goes out, the little child takes the bottle and drinks the poison. In doing so, he disobeys his mother’s command. However, disobedience is a small concern compared to a much greater problem which has arisen—the deadly poison is now inside the child. When the mother discovers that her child has drunk the poison, she is concerned not mainly with his disobedience but with getting the poison out of him. On the day that Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he did not merely do something that was contrary to God’s command; something of Satan came into his being. From that day onward there has been something evil in our flesh. First John 3:10 says that we are “children of the devil.” In the very same way that we are the children of Adam because we have Adam’s life, the human life, we are the children of the devil because we have Satan’s life. However, we have not only been created and have not only become fallen; we have also been regenerated. Praise the Lord that when we received the Lord Jesus as our life, the Holy Spirit came into our spirit, bringing the divine life into us! At that point, we became the children of God possessing the life of God (5:12; John 1:12-13).
We must realize that as created, fallen, and regenerated men, we have three fathers. Our first father is the first man, Adam. Our second father is the devil, Satan. Our third father is God the Father. The Lord Jesus told the Pharisees, who represent us, that they were the children of their father, the devil (8:44). This verse clearly tells us that Satan is our evil father. But praise the Lord, we have been regenerated by God! We have become His children, and He has become our Father (20:17; 1 John 3:1; 5:18). Our being the children of Satan is a thing of the past. We are now the children of God. We must realize that these three lives—the human life, the satanic life, and the divine life—are all related to us.
We must see the principle that with every kind of life there is a corresponding law. We may illustrate this with the example of a bird. Inherent in the bird life is the law of flight. As long as a bird is a bird, it will naturally fly. Although we can confine a bird to a cage and thereby keep it from flying, the moment we set the bird free, it will fly. That birds fly is a law of the bird life. Similarly, the law of the fish life says that in order for a fish to live, it must remain in the water. Because the bird life and the fish life have certain laws, if we were to put a bird under water or take a fish out of the water, both the bird and the fish would die. Even the vegetable life has a law. Hence, we can see that with every kind of life there is certain kind of law. This is also true related to us. With the human life there is a law, with the satanic life there is a law, and with the divine life there is a law. The law of the created human life, since that life is good, is the law of good. This law of good is in our soul. The law of the satanic life, since that life is evil, is the law of sin. This law of sin is in the members of the body. The law of the Spirit of life is the life of God, and it is in our spirit.