What Did Jesus Mean When He Said "Ye Are Gods"? (Psalm 82:6 / John 10:34)

Psalm 82 and the Meaning of “Ye Are Gods”

What does the Bible mean when it says ye are gods? Psalm 82 verse 6 says. I have said ye are gods and all of you are children of the Most High. This verse along with John 10 34 Which we will look at in a moment is used by modern prosperity preachers word-of-faith televangelists and even Mormons to promote this idea that Human beings are gods or as some of them put it Little gods.

Is this an accurate interpretation of what is being said? Let's look and see. Remember we always have to take scripture in its proper context. So if you read the entire chapter of psalm 82 it becomes clear that the Lord is not praising men as gods.

Psalm 82 in Context: Judgment on Unjust Rulers

Rather he is Condemning the unjust rulers of the land who show partiality to the wicked and oppress the poor and needy. Even just reading the next verse helps clear things up. Psalm 82 Verses 6 7 I have said 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. The one difficulty in dealing with this passage is the fact that the Lord does call human leaders gods. But before we explain that let's look at Jesus's quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 verses 30 through 36 Jesus says I and my father are one.

Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them many good works. I have shown you from my father for which of those works Do you stone me? The Jews answered him saying for a good work.

We do not stone you But for blasphemy and because you being a man make yourself God. Jesus answered them. Is it not written in your law? I said ye are gods and If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came and the scripture cannot be broken.

Do you say of him whom the father sanctified and sent him to the world? Ye are blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God. See here in John 10 the Jews clearly understand what Jesus is doing. He is making a claim to deity.

Jesus’ Claim to Deity and the Use of “Elohim”

Because the Jews don't believe they pick up stones to stone him because they think he is committing blasphemy. Jesus then brings up Psalm 82. Not to say that we are all gods rather to point out that the term gods Was in a narrow sense legitimately used in the law in scripture to refer to human beings.

So if the Jews accepted that How could they object to Jesus claiming to be the Son of God? Now some people might struggle with this that the word God or Elohim in Hebrew is used in reference to human rulers.

But there are those limited times when Elohim is in fact translated as judge or judges for example Exodus 21 verse 6 chapter 22 verse 8. In these cases men who were granted with divine authority were indeed called gods.

Because they ruled by divine appointment. Romans 13 verse 1 says let every soul be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority Except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

Rejecting the Idea That Humans Are Gods

So remember this term was used only a few times in a very narrow sense. And Jesus used it to confound the Jews who wanted to put him to death for supposedly committing the sin of blasphemy. There is no scriptural justification for the idea that we as human beings are gods.

We may have been made in the image of God, but we are not God only Jesus was the Incarnation of God as Colossians 2 9 says. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In conclusion these false teachings by the Mormons that man can become God must be rejected as should the heresy of the prosperity preachers on television men like Kenneth Copeland Creflo Dollar and Benny Hinn who along with Paul Crouch the founder of the Trinity Broadcast Network TBN all claim to be little gods.

Teaching that Christians are of the same divine nature as God himself. For example Kenneth Copeland once said You're all God. You don't have a God living in you you are one. When I read in the Bible where God tells Moses I am I say yeah, I am too.

When I read in the Bible where he says I am I just smile and say yes, I am too.