Message Four—The Ultimate Goal of God’s Economy—Man Becoming God
John 12:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.
Becoming God in Life and in Nature but Not in the Godhead
God’s intention is to make the believers God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. Athanasius referred to deification when at the council of Nicea in A.D. 325 he said, “He [Christ] was made man that we might be made God.” Although the term deification is familiar to many theologians and Christian teachers, during the past sixteen centuries only a small number have dared to teach regarding the deification of the believers in Christ.
I have not been influenced by any teaching about deification, but I have learned from my study of the Bible that God does intend to make the believers God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. For instance, 1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.” This verse clearly reveals that we will be like God.
It was wonderful for David to be a man according to God’s heart, but it was not sufficient. God wants those who can say, “I am not just a person according to God’s heart. I am God in life and in nature but not in His Godhead.” On the one hand, the New Testament reveals that the Godhead is unique and that only God, who alone has the Godhead, should be worshipped. On the other hand, the New Testament reveals that we, the believers in Christ, have God’s life and nature and that we are becoming God in life and in nature but will never have His Godhead. (Life-study of Samuel, msg. 25)
The One Grain Producing Many Grains
One day the Lord Jesus, the God-man, said that He was a grain of wheat falling into the ground to die in order to become many grains (John 12:24). These many grains are actually many gods as the reproduction of God. The first grain—the first God-man—was a prototype, and the many grains—the many God-men—produced by this one grain through death and resurrection are the mass reproduction. This is the reproduction of God. When some hear that God has been reproduced, they may be shocked and say that such a word is nonsensical. Nevertheless, this is what is revealed in John 12:24.
God’s real hobby is to have His reproduction in many nations around the globe. Such a reproduction makes God happy because His reproduction looks like Him, speaks like Him, and lives like Him. God is in this reproduction, and His reproduction has His life, His nature, and His constitution. What a great matter this is! (Life-study of Chronicles, ch. 2)
Going Through Regeneration, Sanctification, Renewing,
Transformation, Conformation, and Glorification
Then how does God make man God? After God regenerates us with Himself as life, He continues to carry out the work of sanctification, renewing, and transformation in us by His Spirit of life. God became man through incarnation; man becomes God through transformation. When the Lord Jesus lived as a man on this earth, once He went up on the mountain and was transfigured. That transfiguration was a sudden occurrence. Our transformation into God, however, is not something that happens unexpectedly. Rather, it is a lifetime transformation until we are conformed to His image. Eventually, we will enter with Him into glory; that is, we will be redeemed in our body. That will be the final step of the redemption of our whole being that brings us into glory. Therefore, it is through regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification that we may become God. When we reach this point, 1 John 3:2 says that when “He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.”
The issue of this process is an organism. This organism is God joining and mingling Himself with man to make God man and also to make man God. Among the Divine Trinity, as far as the Father is concerned, this organism is the house of the Father, the house of God; as far as the Son is concerned, it is the Body of Christ. The house is for God to have a dwelling place, whereas the Body is for God to have an expression. The ultimate issue is the New Jerusalem. This shows us how God became man and how afterward He makes man God that man may live a God-man life. The God-man life that we live today is the model life that Jesus Christ lived on earth by going through death and resurrection. In the Gospel of John the human life of Jesus Christ on earth was a life before death and resurrection. In the Epistles the Christian life, the life of a God-man, that we live is a life after death and resurrection. In resurrection we are being transformed daily. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The High Peak of the Vision and the Reality of the Body of Christ,” msg. 2)
Early Church Fathers’ Teaching on Deification
The early church fathers used the term deification to describe the believers’ participation in the divine life and nature of God but not in the Godhead. We human beings need to be deified, to be made like God in life and in nature, but it is a great heresy to say that we are made like God in His Godhead. We are God, not in His Godhead but in His life, nature, element, essence, and image. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” msg. 12)
The Idea of Deification in Luther
Simo Peura, who has written a full-scale monograph on the idea of deification in Luther,41 shows that the idea of deification is an integral motif in Luther’s theology. The most explicit passage comes from Luther’s Sermon on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul (1519):
For it is true that a man helped by grace is more than a man; indeed, the grace of God gives him the form of God and deifies him, so that even the Scriptures call him “God” and “God’s son”.
Just as the word of God became flesh, so it is certainly also necessary that the flesh become word. For the word becomes flesh precisely so that the flesh may become word. In other words: God becomes man so that man may become God. Thus power becomes powerless so that weakness may become powerful. The logos puts on our form and manner. (Luther’s Christmas sermon of 1514) (One with God, by Veli-Matti Karkkainen, p.47)
