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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26; 2:9; 3:1, 18a; 1 John 3:9-10a; John 8:44; Matt. 23:33; 12:34; 3:7, 9; 7:16; 5:9, 45a, 48, 13a, 14a, 16; Rev. 22:1-2
In Genesis 1:26 we are told that God created man with two main aspects. First, man was created in God’s image. This word image is an important word in the Bible. To say that man was created in the image of God means that man was created according to God. The image of God is Christ (2 Cor. 4:4). Therefore, man was created according to Christ. Second, God committed His dominion to man. God gave man dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of heaven, and over all the earth. Dominion refers to the kingdom. It is the divine kingdom. Image and dominion are the two main aspects of God’s creation of man. Image is for the expression of God, and dominion is for the authority of God. Man was created to express and to represent God. To express God requires God’s image; to represent God requires God’s authority.
We must realize that these matters of image and dominion can never be accomplished without God’s life. Simply to have the outward form of God’s image and authority is insufficient. If man is to express God and represent God, he needs God’s life. Without God’s life we are utterly unable and unqualified to express Him and represent Him. We need the life of God. Therefore, immediately Genesis 2:9 mentions the matter of life. After God had created man in His image and had committed to him His authority, He placed man before the tree of life, indicating that man must receive God as life in the form of food. God presented Himself to man in the form of food. After creating man, God presented Himself to man as food so that man could take Him in. Eating is the best way, even the unique way, of taking something into us. At the beginning, God wanted man to take Him in. If God could get into man and become man’s life, man could spontaneously express God. As a result of expressing God, man would also be qualified to represent God. If we are able to express someone, we are also able to represent him. Representation comes from expression. The man who expresses God is qualified to represent God. This was God’s intention for man from the beginning.
However, Genesis 2:9 also reveals a source other than God — the evil one, Satan, the adversary of God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil has its source in Satan. In Genesis 1 the significant words are image and dominion. In Genesis 2 the significant word is life, the tree of life. God’s image and dominion require God’s life. These three — image, dominion, and life — are very positive. In Genesis 3 there is another important but very negative word — the serpent. After two positive chapters, suddenly the serpent comes in.
When the Lord Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and scribes, calling them serpents and a brood of vipers (Matt. 23:33; 12:34), He did not speak in a light way. He was saying that Satan was a serpent, and they were all the offspring of the serpent; Satan was the father, and they were all his children. Their father was the serpent; therefore, they belonged to the serpent family. In John 8:44 the Lord Jesus also told the Pharisees that their father was the devil. The Pharisees claimed that Abraham was their father, but the Lord Jesus said that if Abraham were their father, they would have done the works of Abraham. He told them that their father was not Abraham but the serpent, the devil, the father of lies.
The serpent came into man first by tempting him to take his thought. God had told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest they die (Gen. 2:17). But the serpent came in to raise a question: “Did God really say?” If you look at a question mark, you will see that it resembles a serpent. When that little serpent rears up his head and questions you, he looks like a question mark. The satanic, serpentine thought first entered the human mind. Second, the man stretched forth his hand and ate of the tree of knowledge. In this way the serpent, the evil one, entered the human race. First, Satan entered man’s mind; second, he came into man’s physical body. Because of this, the human mentality is awful. Man’s mind is evil and terrible because it has been fully occupied by the evil serpent. Also, the human body has been corrupted with all kinds of lusts. The Bible tells us that the lusts are in man’s physical body (Gal. 5:24; James 4:1). Man’s body has become flesh. It was created by God as a body, but after it was poisoned and corrupted by Satan, it became flesh. The created body was good, clean, and pure; the flesh is evil, dirty, corrupt, and full of lusts. Satan came into man. Therefore, man now has a defiled body and a corrupted mind.
When Satan came into man, man not only became sinful, but his inward constitution was also corrupted with the satanic element. Both the outward conduct and the inward nature were defiled. We need many negative words to describe this corrupted man. All that man is and does is corrupt. Whether he loves or hates, man is full of the poisonous element of Satan. Man has been inwardly constituted with Satan and has become a satanic thing. Man has been mixed with Satan. He is still man, but man mixed with Satan. Man was mixed with Satan to such an extent that the Lord Jesus called the Pharisees serpents (Matt. 23:33). Apparently, human beings are still men. They appear to be ladies and gentlemen as they walk down the street. Actually, in the eyes of God, they are serpents. This is not a matter of outward conduct; it is absolutely a matter of the inward element, the inward nature.
John 3:14 shows us that the bronze serpent in the wilderness was a type of Christ. Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it on a pole so that the people who were poisoned by the fiery serpents might be saved (Num. 21:9). The bronze serpent on the pole typified the Lord Jesus on the cross. When He was on the cross, He was in the form of a serpent. In like manner, the bronze serpent had only the form of a serpent; it did not have the nature or the poison of a serpent. On the cross the Lord Jesus took the form of the serpent because He died for man who had become a serpent in his inward nature. In the eyes of God, mankind had become serpents. Apparently, man was still man; actually, he was a serpent. Therefore, when the Lord Jesus died as the substitute for all the serpentine people, He was in the form of the serpent.
Genesis 3:18 mentions two other negative words — thorns and thistles. The Lord Jesus asked, “Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?” (Matt. 7:16). Thorns and thistles came from the fall. They did not exist before the fall. In God’s creation there were no thorns and thistles. For the ground to grow thorns and thistles after the fall indicates that in the eyes of God all the children of Adam have become thorns and thistles. Whether you are the manager of a bank or the robber of a bank, a gambler in a casino or a preacher in a cathedral, your nature in the eyes of God consists of thorns and thistles. Just as the Lord Jesus did not call the Pharisees serpents in a light way, He also did not use the words thorns and thistles in a meaningless way. When Jesus used the term serpent, He certainly had the serpent of Genesis 3 in mind. Likewise, when He used the words thorns and thistles, He was also referring to Genesis 3.
The Bible tells us that the grape tree, the vine tree, is the Lord Jesus (John 15). When we were regenerated, we became the branches of this vine tree. In Adam we were thorns and thistles; in Christ we are branches of the real vine.
God created man in His image and gave him His authority so that man could express Him and represent Him. Instead, however, Satan entered into man, usurped him, and possessed man’s life. Satan even saturated man’s body with his poisonous element, making it the flesh. Although the Lord drew a line to preserve man’s spirit, Satan has corrupted man’s mind and possessed man’s body. The result is that man has become a serpentine being and also thorns and thistles.
A kingdom is the totality of a certain life. If there is no life, there is no kingdom. For example, without the vegetable life it is impossible to have the vegetable kingdom. We do not speak of the chair kingdom, the stone kingdom, or the brick kingdom, because these things have no life. If a certain life exists, that life with its activities constitutes a kingdom. The human life constitutes the human kingdom, the vegetable life constitutes the vegetable kingdom, and the animal life, the animal kingdom. If there is life, there is a kingdom. Satan has the satanic life. When this satanic life comes into man, it becomes the satanic kingdom.
The kingdom is an outgrowth of the family. There must be plant and animal families before there can be plant and animal kingdoms. There cannot be a kingdom without families. First, there are individuals; then the individuals are formed into families. When the families are put together collectively, they become a kingdom.
After Satan came into man, man became Satan’s family with Satan as the father. In John 8:44 the Lord Jesus told the religious leaders that Satan was their father. First John 3:10 says that some people are the children of the devil. Satan is the father, and these people are his children. The family begins with the father. When the family is enlarged, it becomes a kingdom. The satanic kingdom comes from the satanic family, and the satanic family comes from the satanic life. Have you ever considered that the fallen human race has become Satan’s family? Satan is a father, and all the fallen human beings are his children. Satan generated a family, and this family has been formed into a kingdom.
This is altogether a matter of life. To be a part of the kingdom of Satan requires the life of Satan. If you did not have the devil’s life, you could never be a child of the devil. Do not think it is easy to be a child of the devil. Most Christians today simply neglect the matter of life. If you rob a bank, you need a bank robber’s life. If you do not have the robbing life, you can never rob. Can you teach or force a bird to bark? Regardless of how much a bird may try to bark, it cannot because it does not have the barking life. The same is true about lying. To lie you need the lying life. It is impossible to lie without the lying life. Chairs cannot lie, because they have no life. However, it is easy for human beings to lie because they have the lying life. Parents do not teach their children to lie. On the contrary, they charge them not to tell lies. Nevertheless, they still lie. They do not have to be taught to lie, because they have the lying life. Where did this lying life come from? It came from Satan, the father of lies. All men speak lies because they have Satan’s life.
We were initially Satan’s family, and eventually we became his kingdom. I have used this illustration to convince you further that the kingdom is not merely a dispensation or a sphere. It is the totality of a certain life. The kingdom of God is simply the totality of God’s life.
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.” Do you not think the 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. Have you not 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 its 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.
In the last chapter of the Bible there is a throne (Rev. 22:1). This throne is for the kingdom. Out of the throne proceeds the water of life, and in the water of life grows the tree of life with fruit to feed and leaves to heal. This is a matter of the kingdom. The kingdom is altogether a matter of life. In Genesis 1 and 2 the image of God and the dominion of God required the life of God. In Revelation 22 life proceeds out of the throne of God to produce the kingdom, which expresses God and represents Him. Look at the New Jerusalem. God’s image and dominion can be seen there. Revelation 21 and 22 are the fulfillment of God’s intention shown in Genesis 1 and 2. The kingdom is a totality of life, and life comes out of the throne to produce the kingdom. The essential matter is this — the kingdom is altogether a matter of life. Without life there is no kingdom. If there is life, there will surely be the kingdom.
We are the children of God because we have the life of God. To God we are children. To the earth we are the salt (Matt. 5:13). To the world we are the light (v. 14). Salt kills germs and removes all the corruption. Light swallows up darkness. As God’s kingdom and God’s children, we are the salt that kills the corruption of the earth, and we are the light that swallows up the darkness of the world. This is the function of the kingdom of God. As salt, we will eventually heal the earth. The tree of life produces leaves, and these leaves heal the nations (Rev. 22:2). This is salting. We are the salt to the earth, and we are the light that swallows up all the darkness. Wherever the kingdom of God goes today, corruption will be killed, and darkness will be swallowed up. However, this is a corporate, not an individual, matter. Together, we are salt, and we are light.
