Does God Want Man to be God?

[oikonomia]

Does God want man to be God?

My answer is yes but not in His Godhead. I mean there are attributes which God will not bestow upon His creatures.

He alone is an object of worship.
He alone is the Creator of universes.
Other noncommunicable attributes would probably be:

His omniscience.
His omnipotence.
His omipresents.
His alone becomming the Redeemer and Source of eternal redemption and eternal life.

There may be some more non-communicable attributes that someone else could mention.
But He created us in His image.
He created us according to His likeness.
He became a man.
And He became a life giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45 ) to impart Himself into us to conform us to His image (Romans 8:28,29).

Athanasius was on to something saying God became man so that man might become God.
That is, I believe he meant life, nature, expression, glory but not in the incommunicalbe attributes that are soley those of His Godhead.

Am I right?
" . . . we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him even as He is." (1 John 3:2).
It is not a power grab on our part. Rather it is something according to His purpose, His desire, His hearts pleasure and intention. (Eph. 1:5; Rom. 8:29)

 

[Lost Witness]

Psalms 82:6 // Of course that's being we have a true relationship with him, deny ourselves pick up our crosses daily and Obey not only his will (scripture) but his still small voice.

 

[oikonomia]

I mentioned four matters in which God that the redeemed be God but not in his Godhead.

In life.
In nature.
In expression.
In glory.

Christ is God-man. And He came that we might have the divine life and have it abundantely (John 10:10).
Christ the divine seed, the none sinning seed whose nature being imparted into us, if we learn to abide in Him, grants us victory over sinning (1 John 3:9). And we are partakers, not just obeservers or admirers or worshippers of "the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).
That is participants in, subjectively "the divine nature" implanted with the "seed" of God's life.

Of course the seed must grow and the nature must cause us as the corporate Body of Christ to "grows with the growth of God" (Col. 2:19) and to "grow up into Him in all things." (Eph. 4:15)

It follows that to grow up into Him in all things with the growth of God within will culminate in our expressing Him.
And in expressing Him it follows that we express His glory.

The New Jerusalem, the corporate city, expresses God by having the glory of God as Christ bride. (Rev. 21:11)
Indeed we have been called to His eternal glory in Christ.

"But the God of all grace, He who has called you into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus. . . " (1 Peter 5:10a).

It is fitting that the entire thought of the Apostle Peter be seen there.

"But the God of all grace, He who has called you into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself perfect, establish, strengthend. and ground you. To Him be the glory and the might forever and ever. Amen" (1 Peter 5:10,11).

 

[oikonomia]

Psalms 82:6

Thankyou Mick.

I think no individual man or woman will express God to the fullest. But the corporate entity as a great collective, all together, as the New Jerusalem all the sons of God will be made God in life and nature but not in His Godhead.

There is a Body of Christ God seeks to develop.
Individually, the Christ conformed members, as sons of God, are her the consituents of the collective Body.

The Body must eentually MATCH Christ to be His Wife and His counterpart.
If you will, a kind of Mrs. Christ.

This counterpart is also the living house of God and temple of God and "habitation of God in spirit" (Eph. 2:22).
I try to emphasize that individually we are sons of God. Collectively buided up together in eternity we are the Bride and Wife to match
the God-man, our Bridegroom. If God intends that we match Him then He intends we be a collective expression of the nature, life, glory of THE God-man the Lord Jesus.

How it would mold and shaopre our daily lives as CHristians to walk with such a vision as a governing one.
Without a vision the people run without restraint.

You think so too?

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Does God want man to be God?

My answer is yes but not in His Godhead. I mean there are attributes which God will not bestow upon His creatures.

He alone is an object of worship.
He alone is the Creator of universes.
Other noncommunicable attributes would probably be:

His omniscience.
His omnipotence.
His omipresents.
His alone becomming the Redeemer and Source of eternal redemption and eternal life.

There may be some more non-communicable attributes that someone else could mention.
But He created us in His image.
He created us according to His likeness.
He became a man.
And He became a life giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45 )to impart Himself into us to conform us to His image (Romans 8:28,29).

Athanasius was on to something saying God became man so that man might become God.
That is, I believe he meant life, nature, expression, glory but not in the incommunicalbe attributes that are soley those of His Godhead.

Am I right?
" . . . we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him even as He is." (1 John 3:2).
It is not a power grab on our part. Rather it is something according to His purpose, His desire, His hearts pleasure and intention. (Eph. 1:5; Rom. 8:29)

I would say no. God does not want us to be Him for the simple reason that it is unattainable . Only Jesus Christ of Nazareth is God who came in the flesh. That being said, He does want to make His Home in us through his Holy Spirit if we are willing to repent from unbelief to belief. Blessings.

 

[public hermit]

As so many ancient Christians said: He became like us so that we might become like him. I agree with the OP that it must be properly qualified, but yes-we are created in the image to be transformed into the likeness.

 

[chilehed]

Does God want man to be God?

Of course not, that's a logical impossibility. What he wants is for us to be united to him.

 

[oikonomia]

I would say no. God does not want us to be Him for the simple reason that it is unattainable . Only Jesus Christ of Nazareth is God who came in the flesh. That being said, He does want to make His Home in us through his Holy Spirit if we are willing to repent from unbelief to belief. Blessings.

Only Jesus Christ is God. Doesn't Jesus the Son of God to forgive us that He could become our life?
He who is God come as a man also wants to be our life. That would be "the life of God."

You know the life of someone is very subjective to that one who has and lives that life.
As sinners we were not only alienated from God. We were alienated and estranged from "the life of God."

"Being darkened in their understand, estranged from the life of God because of the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their heart."

Our brother Paul pioneered in this salvation to the point that for him to live was Christ. The estrangement came to virtually a near complete end and rather than being alienated from God's life in Christ, Paul lived Christ as life.

"For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Phil. 1;21).

Paul matured in the growth of God's life within him to the point that his longing was in the inward parts of Christ.

"For God is my witness how I long after you all in the inward parts of Christ Jesus." (Phil. 1:8)

God witnesses that Paul's inward parts have become the inward parts of Christ Jesus.
Truly, for him to live . . . IS Christ.

Does Paul hope this for himself alone or for all the normally maturing members of Christ's Body?
He teaches that to live Christ is the common portion of ALL the saved, if they be normal.

"When Christ who is our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory." (Col. 3:4)

What Paul himself experienced was definitely his pattern and teaching for all of us who are saved - that Christ would be our life.

We see the life of God planted in man.
We see the life of God growing in man.
We see the life of God building these saved up together in love.
And we see even the life of God SWALLOWING us up.

" . . . in that we do not desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by [divine] life." (2 Cor. 5:4)

This groqing of God's life from within and the swallowing up from without is garuanteed all the saved by God giving us the Spirit as a pledge.

" . . . that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has wrought us for this very thing is God, who has given to us the Spirit as a pledge." (See 2 Cor. 5:4,5)

So I might ask, for Him to make His home in us through His Spirit, as you agreed, isn't that that God's life become in us to be our life ?

"Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer. but you behold Me; because I live, you also also shall live.
In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." (John 14:19,20)

 

[oikonomia]

As so many ancient Christians said: He became like us so that we might become like him. I agree with the OP that it must be properly qualified, but yes-we are created in the image to be transformed into the likeness.

Well we do see Jesus Christ dying to accomplish redemption.
And we see Him dying to accomplish some other things too, like breaking down the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentles.
And we see Him dying to terminate the old man such we can say we were crucified with Christ.

But we should include that He also died to REPRODUCE what He was in many others.

"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." (John 12:24)

Jesus Christ is God-man. But He would not "abide alone." Another purpose for His dying is to reproduce Himself, duplicate Himself, and multiply Himself. Then the grain would not "abide alone." But dying that life which was concealed in the shell of humanity would be released into others to produce many grains.

This duplicating aspect of His death should be regarded with the same reverance as His dying to shed His blood for our redemption.
Why do we not also revere to the uttermost that He died that He would not "abide alone" but also to release that divine life for His multiplication?

We cannot share in His work of redemption.
But what He is in His communicable are to be enlarged and encreased into many like Him - "much fruit."
Then He would not "abide alone."

 

[oikonomia]

As so many ancient Christians said: He became like us so that we might become like him. I agree with the OP that it must be properly qualified, but yes-we are created in the image to be transformed into the likeness.

I think of God creating us in His image to be like a human glove is in the image of a human hand.
The shape of the vessel, the glove, is fashioned just right for a human hand to slip comfortably INTO the glove.

God creating man in the image of God, is for God to come INTO this "God shaped" (if you will) vessel.

What does it look like that the man made in the image of God is filled with God as life?
We look at Jesus Christ the Lord.

And He in this regard is the standard model.
In this way Christ is the prototype of the vessel of humanity in the image of God filled with the life of God.

In Genesis 1:26,27 we get a window into why God created man. He created man in His image and according to His likeness like a glove is made in the image of a hand. We were not created with God within. But we were created so that we might be vessels in His image containing Him.

That is to express Him and reign for Him as ones having dominion of His creation.

The unfolding of this eternal purpose requires the rest of the Bible to see.
Paul says he and his co-workers and indeed all the saved - have this TREASURE in EARTHEN vessels.
That is the life of God blending into us, mingling with us, indwelling us, being manifested through us.

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us." (2 Cor. 4:7)

We are "vessels prepared unto glory."

"In order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory." (Rom. 9:23)



"

 

[bling]

God is Love.
We are to obtain this Love and grow this Love with use, so in that way we become like God.

 

[oikonomia]

Of course not, that's a logical impossibility. What he wants is for us to be united to him.

Don't you think we may need to apply a higher logic of what is impossible to us is possible to God?

Logically, we cannot be three-one as the Triune God is three-one.
Yet we believe, we should, that He is a Trinity.

There is this ability of God which transcends our typical limited and created logical mind.
And I think according to this God's salvation in the highest sense is that He becomes us and we become Him.

That is only in those communicable attributes all the composition of His SEED, His divine nature.

"Everyone who has been begotten of God does not practice sin, because His SEED abides in him; and he cannot sin,because he has been begotten of God." (1 John 3:9)

This is not a statment from me about sinless perfection to all who are born again.
But it is acknowledgement that "His seed" is now part of our being through His begetting us.
The nature of that sinless life embodied in His seed is implanted livingly into our being.

The SEED lives a certain way because it is of the life of God.
And that SEED now is implanted in the believers to grow, develop, and saturate its influence over our lives becoming us.

It makes a difference to believe and stand upon these truths, proclaiming them, and insisting that we not be robbed of them.

Along with the life SEED of God being implanted in those who the Father has begotten, they also become partakers of the divine nature.

"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 that is in the world through lust." (2 Peter 1:4)

The seed of divine life is planted in the believers.
The divine nature of God is our means of escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.
We are much more saved in the whole realm of His life becoming our life.

 

[oikonomia]

God is Love.
We are to obtain this Love and grow this Love with use, so in that way we become like God.

Amen.

This is the mingling of God and man.
This is God wroughting Himself into man and building man into God.

How else can Paul say the church is the Body of Christ.
You know if I hit you on the arm, you might scold me saying "Hey, do not hit me."

Suppose I reply - "But bing, I did not his you. I just his your arm. I just hit your body."

You then might say - "When you hit my body you hit ME. My arm is part of ME. Do not hit ME then."

We should not dumb down the New Testament to accomodate the low estate of the church.
Rather we should lift up our vision to the high peak of the revelation of the New Testament.

The Body of Christ is Christ. It is Christ imparted into many that the many corporately express Him by means of them living Him out.

Notice the Apostle Paul's high vision that the Body of Christ, the church, was CHRIST. The Body was "the Christ."

"For even as the body is one and has manu members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ." (1 Cor. 12:12)

I think these words we should not take for granted - "so also is the Christ."
"The Christ" is not only the head. The Christ is also the many members of the body of Christ.

He becomes us and we His body, the church, become Him - "the Christ."

This vision, I think, was burned into Paul's being in his conversion. He never forgot that for him to persecute the Lord's people, the Lord's church was for him to persecute Christ, the Me of the Lord Jesus Himself.

"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? And he said, Who are You, Lord? And He said, I am Jesus, whom you persecute." (Acts 9:4,5)

Jesus did not say here - "You are persecuting my people" or "You are persecuting my body" or even "you are persecuting my church" although all these would be true. The Lord Jesus told Saul it was He, Jesus, whom he was persecuting harassing, arresting, jailing the believers.

"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? . . . I am Jesus, whom you persecute."

" . . . yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, SO ALSO IS THE CHRIST."

What do you think it would do to our lives of all Christians believed that we are the corporate Christ?

 

[chilehed]

Don't you think we may need to apply a higher logic of what is impossible to us is possible to God?

What you propose is not a "higher logic", it's totally irrational. It's self-contradictory for something to have a beginning and to also have no beginning, to be both created and uncreated.

 

[oikonomia]

What you propose is not a "higher logic", it's totally irrational. It's self-contradictory for something to have a beginning and to also have no beginning, to be both created and uncreated.

What you propose is not a "higher logic", it's totally irrational. It's self-contradictory for something to have a beginning and to also have no beginning, to be both created and uncreated.

Well, the Gospel of John demands that we believe what is certainly paradoxical or impossible by comparison to any other relationship we see in the universe.

"In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

We believe that the Word was God, the God with Whom the Word was with.
Unless we revert to polytheism, we are compelled to trust God's speaking that this "impossible" thing logically is true.

Some kind of reasoning according to what God is capable of is required.

The same applies to the two nature of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He is the Creator as well as the creature.

"All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not one thing came into being which has come into being." (John 1:3)

Yet we trust God that this one became flesh.
"And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us . . . " (John 1:14a)

Along with all the other things which came into being from the uncreated One is humanity, man, flesh.
If the Word became flesh than this One is both Creator and the creature.
If I say He is not a man than I deny the incarnation.

I don't want to believe in more than one God.
And I don't want to deny that God was incarnated as a man.
So I have to apply logic which includes the ability of God.
For Him what is logically impossible to us is possible with God.

 

[oikonomia]

What you propose is not a "higher logic", it's totally irrational. It's self-contradictory for something to have a beginning and to also have no beginning, to be both created and uncreated.

The main goal is God's life dispensed into us.
I am not proposeing a power grab of any kind to a "higher logic" for its own sake.

But let me ask you this. What do think the Apostle Paul meant when he says that he speaks "according to man" in some instances?

Ie. "Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous? I speak according to man." (Romans 3:5)

Do you see in this that Paul is aware that there is a kind of human logic which he occasionally speaks of and a divine
logic which is higher than our thoughts; higher than our ways?

See also Galatians 3:15

"Brothers, I speak according to man, even though it be a man's covenant, . . . etc." (Gal. 3:15)

Paul says in effect, "I am employing typical human reasoning. There are those reasonings which transcend our way of thinking."

I think that as we are to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the Firstborn among may brothers , we also will see more things through the eyes of the Son of God. A renewing of the mind to have "the mind of Christ" is part of our development in salvation.

 

[chilehed]

Well, the Gospel of John demands that we believe what is certainly paradoxical or impossible by comparison to any other relationship we see in the universe.

Nothing in John's work, or in any of the deposit of the faith, indicates in any way that God intends for us to  be him, or that such a thing is even remotely possible.

Paradoxical doesn't mean irrational, nor does impossible by comparison to any other relationship. The idea that we can be God is not paradoxical, it's irrational, and you draw a false equivalence by bringing up the Trinity.

The main goal is God's life dispensed into us.

Which is a completely different thing.

 

[oikonomia]

I have been contemplating some respectible pushback here on "Does God want Man to be God."

Someone said in essence - He wants man to be like God.

Okay, I certainly agree. But now I would ask:

Gos has millions of angels that are like God.
Michael the archangle's name means "who is like God".

Instead of just creating more angels like Michael who are "like God" why did He do something extra?
That is create a creature within whom He could live, with whom He could unite in a living "organic" union?

If God only want more creatues "like God" He simply could have added to the number of angels like Michael, who is like God.

Along with this, is there ANY passage in the Bible saying that God will abide within angels or does so?
Yet we have God living in man in His full salvation.

"Whoever confesses that Jesusis the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God." (1 John 4:15)

Do anyone see a being like God (as say, Michael the archangel) and having God within as the life of man?
It seems that the latter being like God is because of God living within in an "organic" union of God's life with man's redeemed life.

 

[oikonomia]

Nothing in John's work, or in any of the deposit of the faith, indicates in any way that God intends for us to  be him, or that such a thing is even remotely possible.

Paradoxical doesn't mean irrational, nor does impossible by comparison to any other relationship. The idea that we can be God is not paradoxical, it's irrational, and you draw a false equivalence by bringing up the Trinity.


Which is a completely different thing.

So it is not remotely possible that for Paul to live is Christ?

 

[Clare73]

Does God want man to be God?

My answer is yes but not in His Godhead. I mean there are attributes which God will not bestow upon His creatures.

He alone is an object of worship.
He alone is the Creator of universes.
Other noncommunicable attributes would probably be:

His omniscience.
His omnipotence.
His omipresents.
His alone becomming the Redeemer and Source of eternal redemption and eternal life.

There may be some more non-communicable attributes that someone else could mention.
But He created us in His image.
He created us according to His likeness.
He became a man.
And He became a life giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45 )to impart Himself into us to conform us to His image (Romans 8:28,29).

Athanasius was on to something saying God became man so that man might become God.Tr
That is, I believe he meant life, nature, expression, glory but not in the incommunicalbe attributes that are soley those of His Godhead.

Am I right?
" . . . we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him even as He is." (1 John 3:2).
It is not a power grab on our part. Rather it is something according to His purpose, His desire, His hearts pleasure and intention. (Eph. 1:5; Rom. 8:29)

Try this on for size. . .

We share in Christ's own inheritance. . .in his glory and all of it, we are one with him and in him, which is in the Godhead.