8
Mankind does not become God. If you're stating something else, then you'll need to clarify it because that's what it looks to me that you're asserting and it's a false assertion.
Scripture teaches that God the Holy Spirit fills people and spiritually regenerates them; however, this does not result in people becoming God.
I think what's going to be difficult for you is coming to accept the reality that scripture teaches that God transforms people and brings them into a new relationship and position with Himself without them becoming God.
For example, at the end of the apostle John's life he observed the early church and stated they had received as a gift the sense of such union to the Son of God that they become alive to the fact that they too are the offspring of God. God the Holy Spirit had passed into them, regenerating them, and they cried "Abba, Father" in response.
John affirms this in a very interesting way. For example in John 1, he repudiates any connection with mere hereditary privilege. No twice-born Brahmin, no dignified race, no descendant of Abraham, etc... Rather it is found in the full revelation of the name of the incarnate Logos who fashioned humanity in His image and regenerated those who would receive by his Holy Spirit without them becoming God.
The reason why your false assertion to the contrary is "hard to accept" is because it's in error.
Scripture teaches that God the Holy Spirit fills people and spiritually regenerates them; however, this does not result in people becoming God.
I think what's going to be difficult for you is coming to accept the reality that scripture teaches that God transforms people and brings them into a new relationship and position with Himself without them becoming God.
For example, at the end of the apostle John's life he observed the early church and stated they had received as a gift the sense of such union to the Son of God that they become alive to the fact that they too are the offspring of God. God the Holy Spirit had passed into them, regenerating them, and they cried "Abba, Father" in response.
John affirms this in a very interesting way. For example in John 1, he repudiates any connection with mere hereditary privilege. No twice-born Brahmin, no dignified race, no descendant of Abraham, etc... Rather it is found in the full revelation of the name of the incarnate Logos who fashioned humanity in His image and regenerated those who would receive by his Holy Spirit without them becoming God.
The reason why your false assertion to the contrary is "hard to accept" is because it's in error.
If God is regenerating something from His own divine Life (He is), and if God is producing new grains out of His own divine Life (He is), all for the purpose that man could express the divine Life, then how in the world can you say we are not at least on the path of becoming deified in His life? By the way, it is easy for me to say we are becoming God but not to be worshiped as in the Godhead itself. When I meet somebody and shake their hand, I don't speak to their hand, nor do I identify them or judge them by their "hand" or any other extended part of their body. All the members of their body are subjected to their head and are in complete harmony with the head and have no independent nature in themselves. Thus, the members of that persons body whether it be the hand the arm or the leg are there only to support the head and do the will of the head. If for some reason I felt that person to be worthy of worship, I wouldn't look upon his hand or his foot, I would address his head. We need to lay aside this notion that by me stating we can be deified demands that we become something to be worshipped. It does not. Does that make it more clear?
You also mentioned John 1. It's significant that John 1:12 states that we have been "begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God". So, what is this begetting? Is it not a divine begetting? If it is, then is it not a begetting of the divine life?
Remember that saying, "if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and is even begotten of a duck,...then it is a duck."
Last edited by a moderator: