Message Four—Partaking of the Divine Nature
2 Pet. 1:4 Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.
Partaking of the Divine Nature Being a Continual Matter
God has given us these promises so that through them we may become partakers of the divine nature. He has called us to His glory and virtue and He has given us the promises for the purpose that we may enjoy the divine nature. To have eternal life is a matter once for all, but to partake of the divine nature is a continual matter. Although we have the divine life once for all, we cannot enjoy the divine nature once for all. During the entire course of our Christian life on earth and even in eternity, we shall still be partaking of the divine nature.
The divine nature denotes all that God is. We may use eating food as an illustration of partaking of the divine nature. When you eat chicken, you partake of the chicken nature. What the chicken is becomes your nourishment. When you eat chicken, you are actually eating the chicken nature, which includes various nourishing elements. These elements or ingredients are the constituents of the nature. The principle is the same with the divine nature. Through God’s promises, we are partaking of God’s nature with all the divine ingredients. Just as we do not eat food once for all, so we do not partake of the divine nature once for all. We eat food daily, and for eternity we shall be partaking of the divine nature. This is portrayed by the tree of life and the river of water of life in Revelation 22. To eat the fruit of the tree of life is to partake of God’s nature. God’s nature is holy, loving, righteous, kind, and pure. Actually God’s nature is all-inclusive. The more we partake of the divine nature, the more we have holiness, love, righteousness, kindness, and all manner of divine attributes. These attributes then become our virtues, which eventually will consummate in God’s glory.
Our Cooperation with God’s Operation
Becoming a partaker of the divine nature has a condition, and this condition is that we escape the corruption which is in the world by lust. Lust is a barrier that keeps us from enjoying the divine nature. Christ died to redeem us from the vain manner of life (1 Pet. 1:18-19), and now we should abstain from fleshly lusts (1 Pet. 2:11) and no longer live in the flesh in the lusts of men (1 Pet. 4:2). As redeemed ones, we should abstain from lusts. This is to escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.
God has given us promises that He will work out the virtue and glory so that we may partake of the divine nature. This is God’s operation. But God’s operation requires our cooperation, and our cooperation is to abstain from a lustful life and thereby escape the corruption which is in the world by lust. Then having escaped this corruption, we are ready to become partakers of the divine nature. By this we see that escaping the corruption in the world qualifies us to partake of the divine nature.
God has allotted to us a portion that includes the divine life and all things pertaining to life and godliness. Based upon the fact that God has called us to His own glory and virtue, He has given us promises. He has promised to operate within us in order to carry out His virtue and glory. But God’s operation needs our cooperation. We cooperate with God’s operation by abstaining from fleshly lusts. For example, in the matter of shopping we need to escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. When we need a particular thing, we should go to the store and buy it. But there is no need for us to spend time in the store looking around at other things. That would be to live according to our lusts. If we live according to the lusts of the flesh, we cannot become those who enjoy the divine nature. We cannot enjoy the divine nature if we indulge in certain worldly entertainments. In order to become partakers, enjoyers, of the divine nature we need to fulfill the condition of escaping the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Having the Life and Nature but Not the Godhead of God
We have seen that the divine nature denotes what God is, that it includes the ingredients, the constituents, of God’s being. Because we are children of God born of Him, we possess God’s life and also His nature for our enjoyment. Because I have proclaimed this truth according to the Bible, some have condemned me and falsely accused me of teaching deification. They say that I am deifying myself and teaching that the church is God and should be worshipped as a part of God. We utterly repudiate this false accusation! A child born of Chinese parents will certainly be Chinese. Then what about us who have been born of God? Through our new birth, regeneration, we have been born of God, and we are God’s children. Because we have been born of God, in life and nature we are the same as God. In this sense, those who are born of God are divine. But we definitely do not participate in the Godhead, and we definitely do not become an object of worship. We have God’s life and nature, but we do not become part of the Godhead.
Certain early church fathers taught concerning the deification of the believers. But they did not teach that the believers attained to the Godhead or that they would ever be worshipped as God. Rather, they meant that Christians, those who have been regenerated of God, have God’s life and nature. We, the regenerated ones, are the same as God in life and nature, but we are not the same as God in position in the Godhead. Concerning this, we need to be very careful. Actually, I do not use the word deification. It would be heretical to teach deification in the sense of claiming that believers attain to the Godhead. But it is according to the Scriptures to teach that because we have been born of God, we possess the divine life and the divine nature and that, in these two aspects, we have become the same as God. We definitely cannot participate in the Godhead or have the position to be worshipped by others as God; nevertheless, through regeneration we have God’s life and nature.
Expressing God as Our Godliness and Having All the Excellent Virtues
Daily we should partake of the divine nature and enjoy what God is, the contents, the ingredients, of His being. By what way do we enjoy the divine nature? First, we enjoy the divine nature by the full knowledge of the One who has called us by His glory and virtue and to His glory and virtue. Because of this, He has given us many precious and exceedingly great promises. Second, we need to escape the corruption that is in the world by lust; that is, we need to abstain from lustful living. Indulging the lusts of the flesh annuls our right to enjoy God’s nature. But if we escape the corruption that is in the world by lust, we shall cooperate with the God who is now operating in us according to His promises to carry out His virtue and glory. If we cooperate with God’s operation, we shall become those who enjoy the divine nature.
We have the position, the ability, and the provision to become partakers of the divine nature. As we enjoy God’s nature, a part of this nature becomes our holiness, and other parts become our humility, love, kindness, and other virtues. These excellent virtues will eventually consummate in glory. What a marvelous privilege this is! We do not have the language adequate to describe it. Praise the Lord that we human beings can have God’s life, enjoy God’s nature, live as God lives, express Him as our godliness, and have all the excellent virtues that will consummate in glory! (Life-study of 2 Peter, msg. 3)
