Let us now go on to consider the believers’ life in the second stage—in the stage of the fall.
The Bible reveals that due to the fall of man, besides the human life, there is also in man the life of Satan. Therefore, Romans 7:18, 20 says that in man, that is, in the flesh of man, sin also dwells. Sin here refers to the life of Satan. This flesh, which contains the life of Satan, according to Galatians 5:17, continues to remain within man after he is saved, and often lusts against the Spirit. Therefore, after a person is saved, he still has Satan’s life in him.
In Adam we all became fallen. The fall caused a great change in our life, for in the fall our life was mingled with the devilish life. When Eve accepted the satanic proposal to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Satan’s element entered her soul and polluted it. Thus, the first result of the fall was that the soul of man was contaminated through Eve’s receiving the Devil’s thought and word. Eve should not have spoken to the evil one. While she was talking with him, his evil thought entered her mind and corrupted it. This means that even before she partook of the tree of knowledge, her mind had been polluted by the enemy’s concept. The satanic proposal poisoned man’s soul, causing it to be mingled with the life of the Devil.
Furthermore, when Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, his body, as well as his soul, was poisoned by Satan. Then his spirit was deadened in the sense of being cut off from contact with God. Due to the fall, man’s mind and body were poisoned, and his spirit, the organ created for the purpose of contacting God and receiving Him, was deadened. This is the real picture of man’s life in the fall.
Both God and Satan want man. God desires man for the accomplishment of His will, and Satan wants man for the fulfillment of his evil desire. The method of both Satan and God in gaining man is through life. God’s intention was for man to eat the fruit of the tree of life and thus obtain His uncreated life and be one with Him. However, Satan enticed man to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thus causing man to obtain his fallen life and be mingled with him. When Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Satan’s life entered into him, causing him to become corrupted. As a result, besides his own original created life, man also obtained the fallen life of Satan.
After Adam sinned and fell, man not only offended God in behavior, which resulted in a sinful situation, but, worse still, he was poisoned by Satan in life, which caused his life to become defiled and corrupted. Adam had not only disobeyed God’s prohibition but also had taken Satan’s life into himself. Henceforth, man has become inwardly complicated. He has the original upright and good life of man and also the evil and corrupted life of Satan.
Satan’s life, filled as it is with all kinds of sins, contains the seed of all corruption and factors of evil. Satan lives within man and causes him to have lusts (John 8:44) and commit sins (1 John 3:8). Therefore, his life is the root of sins, which causes man to live out sin. The various sins committed by man are derived from the life of Satan within him. Ever since this devilish life entered into man, though at times he is still able to live out a little human goodness according to his human life, he lives out the devilish evils most of the time according to the devilish life.
First John 3:8 says, “He who practices sin is of the Devil, because the Devil sins from the beginning.” Man’s fallen life is of the Devil, whose life is one of sin and who sins habitually from the beginning. Sin is his nature, and sinning is his character.
First John 3:10a goes on to say, “In this the children of God and the children of the Devil are manifest.” To practice sin or not, that is, to live in sin or not, is not a matter of behavior. It is a matter of whose children we are—the children of God or the children of the Devil. This is a matter of life. Men, as fallen descendants of Adam, are born children of the Devil, the evil one, possessing his life and living in sin automatically and habitually. Practicing sin is their life.
John 8:44 says, “You are of your father the Devil, and it is your will to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks out of his own self; for he is a liar and the father of it.” Because the Devil is the father of sinners, the sinners are children of the Devil. The Devil is the old serpent (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), and the sinners are also the “serpents, the brood of vipers” (Matt. 23:33; 3:7). Hence, they need the Lord Jesus to be lifted up for them in the form of the serpent on the cross (John 3:14). The Devil is the evil father who has brought forth sinful children. These sinful children are all followers of the Devil. The evil life of the Devil, working as sin within man, enslaves man to sin.