Misapplied Texts and Terms

John 10:34-35, With Psalm 82:6

Those who embrace the "little gods" doctrine almost universally cite these verses, wrested from their contexts.  In Mark 12:28, Christ was asked the question, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"  To which Jesus replied, "Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."  And yet, Jesus claimed deity, union with the Godhead, on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, the faith teachers appeal to Christ's remark in John 12:48-50:  "Is is not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'?. . . and the Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:34-35).

In the beginning of this story in John 10, Jesus states, "I and the Father are one" (v. 30).  Furious, the Jews picked up stones.  Jesus asked them, "For which of these [good works] do you stone me?"  To which the Jews responded, "We are not stoning you for any of these . . . but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God" (v. 32-33).  His citation of the eighty-second Psalm perplexed them.  "Is is not written in your law, 'I have said you are gods'?. . . and the Scripture cannot be broken" -- why on earth did He quote  that one? they wondered.  Was Christ, in fact, teaching that man was a god?  And if so, how can this be reconciled with the extreme monotheism (one-God-ism) of Judaism, which He both believed and taught as a rabbi.

There can be no doubt from the history and theology of the Old Testament that the judges of Israel and rulers of the people were representatives, or mouthpieces, for God. Such individuals were accorded great respect and assumed in the eyes of the people the outward appearance of  "mighty ones" (in Hebrew, Elohim, "gods").

This should not come as a surprise to us when we remember Exodus 7:1, where God, speaking to Moses, says, "I have made thee a god to Pharaoh" (KJV).  Now, there can be no doubt that Moses was no more than a mortal man -- in no sense divine, by nature or in essence.  Nevertheless, since Pharaoh was a pagan and God was addressing him in that context, He was, in effect, saying, "When I finish with Pharaoh, through the power that will be revealed in you, Moses, My representative, he (Pharaoh) will think you are a god."  The plagues of Egypt were evidence to Pharaoh and to the occultic priests who surrounded him that this was indeed the "finger of God" (Exodus 8:19).

Moses did not lay claim to being a deity.  Instead, he manifested the power of  deity as a gift from the only Deity -- God the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Similarly, the judges of Israel fulfilled the same role and so appeared to be gods.  But in reality, they were sinful men who abused their office, and as a result God mocked them, saying, "I have said, Ye are gods. . . . Ye shall die like men" (Psalm 82:6-7).  Here were men who were supposed to emulate God's own character but who had become corrupt rulers.  They were supposed to be defenders of "the poor and fatherless . . . the afflicted and needy" (v3, KJV), but instead they were proud men, who -- though they looked like gods in the eyes of the people -- would nevertheless demonstrate their frail mortality in the judgment of death.

In Genesis 3:5, we can clearly see the teaching that man is a "god" or can become "like God" in relation to the divine essence originates not with God, but with Satan, who brought about the fall of man by deceiving Eve and then Adam into believing they would be like "gods."

Bible scholars have pointed out that Christ's statement, then, in John 10, is in the form of irony.  God, they say, was stating something that would be recognized by anyone as an absurdity.  Paul did the same with the Corinthians, mockingly referring to them as "kings," when both he and they knew they had not become kings at all.  Instead, they were abusing their spiritual gifts.  Similarly, in John 10, Jesus mocked the people as if to say, "You all think you're gods yourselves.  What's one more god among you?"  Irony is used to provoke us, not to inform us.  It is not a basis for building a theology.  

It is also pertinent to an understanding of John 10 that we remember that Satan is called "the ruler of this world" by no less an authority than the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:30, NASB).  And Paul reinforces this by calling him "the god of this age" (II Corinthians 4:4).  We can make a "god" out of anything -- money, power,  status, position, sex, patriotism, family, or, as in Lucifer's case, an angel.  We can be our own "god."  But to call something deity or to worship it or treat it as divine is quite another thing than its being by nature and in essence deity.

The Bible insists that there is but one Creator:  "Besides Me there is no god" (Isaiah 45:5, NASB).  We need only compare Deuteromony 32:21, where God charged the Israelites with provoking Him to anger by the worship of  "what is not God" (NASB), with Galations 4:8, where Paul reminds the church that they served pagan deities before their conversion to Christ and "were slaves to those which by nature are no gods" (v. 8, NASB; italics added).

There is, therefore, only one God by nature, one God who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, one God who possess characteristics and attributes that may be imitated but never duplicated in finite creations.  When it is said, then, that man is or can be a "god," we must remember that Christ is stating (John 10, with Psalm 82) that only He, the incarnate Word, has the right to the title of deity among men, since He alone is designated "the only begotten God" (John 1:18, Greek text).  What we worship then may become "a god" to us, but it is not deity, as it is written, "'You are my witnesses,' declares the Lord, 'and my servant who I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He.  Before Me no god was formed, nor will there be one after Me.'" (Isaiah 43:10).

If this were not enough, such passages as Isaiah 44:6, 45:22, and Deuteronomy 6:4 would close the issue forever.


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