More Misapplied Texts

2 Peter 1:4

Another passage often seized upon by "little god" proponents, 2 Peter 1:4, reads:

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises:  that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust (KJV).

The first word, "partaker," is interpreted by faith teachers to mean that man actually takes the divine nature for himself, that he actually participates in the divine nature or essence.  It could be pointed out that on my last birthday, I partook of my birthday cake but I did not become part of the cake.  Similarly, Peter is certainly not teaching, in violation of all divine revelation, that man -- a finite being -- actually becomes one with the substance of deity.  Let us find out what he was saying.

Hebrews 1:3 in the original Greek reminds us that Jesus Christ is the incarnate "character" of God, and herein lies the answer.  Because of Christ's death in our place, we have figuratively "died" to sin (Romans 6:2) and are to live in the glory and power of His resurrection (Romans 6:5).  We are to seek those things that are above where Christ dwells at the right hand of God, since we are "seated. . . in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians. 2:6).  We, like Jesus before us, are to reflect the character of God in our lives.  We have been redeemed.  God has recorded to our account the righteousness of His Son and has charged His Son with our guilt (Romans 4:4-8).  The Christian, therefore, is justified by faith in Jesus Christ because he has become a partaker of the divine nature and character of God.

The image of God in man, which was shattered, marred, and defaced by sin, due to the first Adam, is restored in the last Adam, the Lord from heaven.  We have become recipients of a new set of attributes patterned after the last Adam, motives and affections that are constantly at war with our fallen nature (Rom. 7; Gal. 5:17).

We partake of the divine nature in the sense that we imitate, not duplicate, His character in our own lives.  We were "predestined to be conformed to the likeness of [God's] Son" (Rom.8:29).  As we were partakers of the fallen, Adamic nature, so now we are partakers of the resurrected Christ's character -- not partakers of His divinity but of His sanctifying grace.  We are being conformed to Christ's moral image (likeness), not to His essential deity.  We are called to resemble Him in our lifestyle, but we cannot become Him (deity) in any way, shape, or form.

John 1:12-13

"Yet to all who received Him" says the gospel, "to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God -- children not born of natural descent nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God."

This text is usually offered, along with other passages referring to man as "begotten" by God, to erroneously prove that the believer, through a direct creative act of the Holy Spirit, becomes a god-bearing person, as Christ Himself was. (This is known in church history as the Apollinarian heresy.)  But do such texts really teach that, as "born again" children of God we ourselves share God's divinity?

In the same text cited by the faith teachers (John 1:12-13), John is urging for the uniqueness of Christ's relationship to the Trinity as "the only begotten Son of God."  As believers, we are adopted children (Romans 8:15, 23; 2 Corinthians 5:20; Ephesians 1:5).  When, for instance, Kenneth Copeland states "God begets gods,"  He is ignoring the meaning of the term begotten and therefore falsely concludes, "You are all little gods."

Jesus Christ is the unique, one-of-a-kind, incarnate Son of God and is, therefore, different from believers.  "In the beginning was the Word," says John.  "And the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).  John the Baptist, our Lord's elder in age, nevertheless said of Christ, "He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me." (v. 15).  The Baptist recognized that Jesus' origin was eternal. "No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side has made him known" (v. 18).  We are adopted in time; Jesus is God's eternally-begotten Son, whose origin and deity never began but have always been.

Kenneth Hagin, therefore, is gravely mistaken when he asserts that the Christian "is as much an incarnation [of God] as is Jesus of Nazareth."  And Kenneth Copeland is wrong when he insists "Jesus is no longer the only begotten Son of God."  When the Word became flesh, God the Son remained what He always was -- the second Person of the Trinity.  Man is not an incarnation.  He is never spoken of as such in scripture -- limited as he is to finite humanity.

None of these texts in any way suggest that redeemed men are or ever will be gods.  As we have noted, Scripture forbids this as idolatry and blasphemy, in both testaments.  We can see, then, that from their very language those who maintain the "little gods" doctrine are affirming a type of pagan polytheism over against classic monotheism.  This constitutes, by any measurement, heretical doctrine.


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