TWO KINDS OF CHILDREN
In this universe there are actually two fathers: God, the Holy Father and Satan, the evil father. Therefore, among the human race there are only two kinds of children, God the Father’s children and Satan’s children. First John 3:10 declares we are either children of God or children of Satan. In the past when I spoke on this matter—that fallen human beings possess the life of Satan—some said that I should not say this. I referred them to 1 John 3:10 where it says, "the children of the devil." Don’t you think these children of the Devil have the Devil’s life? How can you say that you are a child of your father and yet not have your father’s life? If that is the case, you must be an adopted son. Satan, however, has never adopted anyone. All the sons of Satan were born of him.
What kind of life do you have now? Today, you have three lives: the natural, created life, the satanic life, and the divine life. We cannot deny that we have Satan’s life. Haven’t you lost your temper recently? That was not an expression of the created life, but of the satanic life. I am sure the natural life created by God will never lose it’s temper. Although the created, human life has no temper, it is very easy for us to lose our temper. This comes from the life of Satan within us. It is difficult to be patient; we must work at it. On the contrary, it is easy to lose our temper; it is spontaneous, requiring no deliberate exercise. It is easy because we have the satanic life.
Because we have three lives, we are quite complicated. When we were created in Adam, we had only one life—the human life. We all were in the garden of Eden in Adam. At that time we had only the human life—a life that was innocent, pure, and simple. This life had no temper and no hatred. It was simply the human life, and God called it very good (Gen. 1:31). At the time of the fall in Genesis 3, we were injected with another life—Satan’s life. That life produced thorns and thistles. Therefore, after the fall, we have the human life and the satanic life. Every human being has these two lives. All the unbelievers have the human life and the satanic life. Sometimes you can see the human life in a person. At other times you can see the satanic life in that same person. Perhaps in the morning a husband is a gentleman. However, when he returns home from work in the evening he may have the face of a "devil-man."
We Christians are even more complicated than this, for when we received the Lord Jesus we received a third life—the divine life. We have the human life, the satanic life, and the divine life. Because we have the human life, we can be a man. Because we have the satanic life, we can be a devil-man. Because we have the divine life, we can be a God-man. The same person may be a gentleman in the morning, a devil-man in the evening, and a God-man in the meeting.
Since we have the human life, we are in the human kingdom. Since we have the satanic life, we are also in the satanic kingdom. Since we have the life of God, we are in the kingdom of God. Whenever I come to a church meeting I see the kingdom of God. We are in the kingdom of God because we have the life of God. A kingdom is the totality of a certain life.
(The Kingdom, Chapter 7, by Witness Lee)
