Ye are gods...

This post is about the divine potential in all of us.  

Some criticize me for believing that this life is a time to prepare to meet God and become gods.  I find it interesting that the idea of becoming a (little g) god is in the Old and New Testament.

Jesus, the Son of God, in the flesh was about to be stoned for saying that he was (big G) God.  In a conversation with his accusers we learn:

“The Jews answered him, saying, ‘For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.’

“Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?  If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?’”  John 10:34-36

So where is it written that “Ye are (little g) gods?” 

The process began in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve tasted the fruit.  In Gen 3:22, the Lord God said, “man is become as one of us.”  If their action was bad, which I don’t think it was, that action changed them into god-like creatures.

One difference between us and God is that we are mortal.  

Psalms 82 says, “Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.  But ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princes.”

Jesus quotes part of this verse and says that the scriptures cannot be broken.  To me this means, that this is a promise and God will not break this promise if we keep our end of the deal.

Jesus, as the Son of God, would logically be an heir — the only heir.  But Paul says that we are all heirs.  No one but a legitimate child is an heir.  By this, I mean that we mortals are not just God’s creation but his offspring and heirs. 

“And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together…which glory shall be revealed in us.”

Romans 8:17-18

There is no doubt that we don’t look or act like gods in our fallen, mortal state.  However, our glorified state is being created as we speak and live here.  In other words, our matter is being refined.

In 1 John 3:2 it says, “when he shall appear, we shall be like him.”  I don’t think this is a fantasy.  I really think this is what we are about.  

My faith is big on agency.  So when we say that we can become gods — we are saying that we can choose to receive this gift or choose not to.  And the choice to receive is a summation of all choices.  Here’s a verse in D&C 93:20 which says, “For if you receive my commandments, you shall be receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace.” 

So the gift isn’t bestowed as much as it is received which connotes a different action altogether on the part of the recipient.  And it is received incrementally which kind of goes with Paul’s idea that the glory is revealed.  The agency of the recipient is always respected and at any time the recipient of glory can withdraw.  And we all know how easy it is to withdraw from God’s glory in this fallen world.  We are absolutely as close or as far away as we want to be.  Jesus said, “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30)  He’s so close that there is no distance separating him from his Father.  When we are one, like that, with Him, we will be gods.

Image courtesy Wikipedia:  Universum by C Flammarion