1 John 3.2-3.
Elsewhere in the New Testament, Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote that we’re gonna get raptured
These sinful sacks of meat we currently carry around: They get swapped for something eternal, to match the eternal life God always meant for us to have. They no longer have the same self-preservation instincts we currently do, ’cause they last forever… and therefore these instincts won’t go overboard and
Plus we can finally see Jesus as he really is. Without freaking out,
This is what John refers to in today’s 1 John snippet:
1 John 3.2-3 KWL - 2 Beloved, we’re now God’s children—and God’s not yet revealed what we will be.
- We’ve known once he reveals it, we will be like God: We will see him as he is.
- 3 Everyone who has this hope in God, he cleans them like he is clean.
Now the bit about becoming like God: This tends to weird out certain Christians. Partly ’cause a number of us misinterpret it and think we’re gonna become gods. Lowercase-G gods; we certainly won’t be the God, like Jesus is. But uppercase or lowercase, the idea of us having any form of divinity strikes em as disturbing.
Lesser gods.
Humans define God in two ways:
- As the Almighty, the mightiest being in the cosmos.
- As the Creator, the first cause, the origin of the cosmos.
If you’re those two things, you’re God. If you’re not, you’re not. The pagan gods, which claimed to rule the universe but never created it, aren’t really gods; either they’re mythical people which never really existed, or powerful spirits which appropriated the titles (and myths), and got worshiped as gods, but were frauds.
But that’s actually a western idea of God, developed under centuries of Christian philosophy. Other cultures define a
And if we’re in charge of the earth, doesn’t that kinda make us humans lowercase-G gods? I would argue that’s exactly what Jesus meant when he said so.
John 10.34-36 KWL - 34 Jesus answered them, “Isn’t this written in your Law, ‘I say you’re gods’?
- 35 If God’s word came to the one who said those people are gods
- (and the scripture can’t be dismissed),
- 36 now for the one the Father sanctified and sent to the world:
- Do you say, ‘You slander God!’ because I say I’m God’s son?”
Then again, the psalmist says God made us humans lower than the
But yep, there are such beings as lowercase-G lesser gods. These’d be the “sons of God”
The idea of other gods or multiple gods, tends to weird out western Christians: If there are multiple gods, doesn’t this diminish the One God? Absolutely not. There might be other mighty beings, but none of ’em are all-mighty. It’s the difference between a Matchbox car and a monster truck: Yeah, we call ’em both cars, but they’re way different from one another. The L
So if God’s goal is to make us Christians into lowercase-G gods, no it doesn’t make us equal to him. Not in power, not in rank. Jesus is still the uppercase-G God; he’s still king.
Ancient Christians recognized this. They were familiar with pagan ideas about the gods, and whenever they talked about “how God became human so that humans could become gods,” that’s the idea they had in mind. Not that we were evolving into cosmic beings, not that we were gonna eventually become the divinity over a new planet, like Mormons believe. We were gonna become mighty, like Apollo or Athena; not almighty.
And, unlike Apollo or Athena, good. ’Cause pagan gods were awful. They sinned as much as humans!—and got away with it most of the time. Whereas we Christians are gonna be like Jesus: We’re not gonna sin any longer. We’ll have a good nature, a godly nature, instead of a corrupt one. We’ll be led by the Spirit, ruled by Jesus. We’ll continue to rule the world—but Jesus will rule us, and that’s as it should be.
Western culture has conditioned a lot of us Christians to be extremely uncomfortable with this talk about becoming lowercase-G gods. Feels like blasphemy, doesn’t it? Relax; it’s not. God’ll make us ready for it. We’re so not ready yet. But he’ll get us there.
God’s goal is to make us like Jesus. Not in rank, ’cause he’ll still be our king, but in species. We’ll have a perfect human body like his. As to what “perfect human body” means, we first need to get out of our heads this idea of bodybuilders or fitness instructors; or even perfect skin, ’cause Jesus has scars.
We’ll be clean, as John said. God’ll cleanse us.
