Theosis- Why does the Bible call man gods? Truth in Love Podcast #theosis

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Join Dan and Rob as we discuss theosis. A topic that is not discussed very often? How does it apply to our daily lives?

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Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast. Thank you for joining us tonight. Tonight we are going to tackle an interesting subject called theosis, and it has a few other names to go with it.
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Do we become gods? That's the question. Stick with us.
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Welcome back to the Truth in Love podcast. I'm Rob. I'm Dan. Dan, you think we should try to stick to around 30 minutes if we can tonight?
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Well, I don't know. This is one of those topics where we should say as much as we can, and when we realize that we are out of our league, we should probably just end it.
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Well, thank you for watching the Truth in Love podcast. We'll see you later. So Dan introduced me to this topic, and it's related to what we brought up actually in the last
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Laborer's podcast, because we were asking the question, who is the God of this world, looking at 2
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Corinthians, and the major consensus on Paul was referring to Satan as the
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God of this world, and so I wanted to help us understand this language, because most of us in the
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Western world, in modern Christianity, we're familiar with only using the word or term
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God with Yahweh, and it seems like through Sunday school, through Sunday sermons,
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Bible studies, this part of Scripture is skipped over.
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We don't understand why Scripture, why God in the Bible uses this terminology and calls other beings besides Himself gods.
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Yeah, actually the whole topic's brought up in different ways all throughout
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Scripture. It's really fascinating. Well, if you listen to Michael Heiser, who recently passed away, he did a lot of work on angels, and he talks about the word
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Elohim, which I think listening to him, he would concur and agree that in Genesis, it was beginning of the
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Trinity, but in other places where you have Elohim, it was probably referring to a heavenly council, a group of people in heaven, because Elohim is plural.
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Yeah, yeah, the I am, at the end of him, is the Hebrew way of saying something's plural.
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So yeah, an L meaning God, so Elohim would be gods. Yeah, and so when we were discussing this on Labor's Podcast, and we were talking about who is the
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God of this world, and why the Lord would use that term for other beings,
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I went, I took us to Psalm 82, and that's where a lot of people go when they begin to start this discussion on Theosis.
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They go to Psalm 82, and you share with me 2 Peter, but Psalm 82, 4,
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I think that's where it was. Yeah, 82, I think it's in verse 6.
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82, 6, yeah, I said, you are gods, and all of you are sons of the
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Most High, nevertheless you will die like men, and fall like any one of the princes.
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So, and then he uses this, Jesus uses this with the Pharisees, and he says, haven't you heard, or you know, haven't you read that you are gods?
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You know, he's speaking to the Pharisees, and so we talked about how the
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Lord uses this term for other beings besides himself. Yeah, in fact, he's rebuking the
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Pharisees, saying, you know, why is it, you know, if the Scripture cannot be broken, and he calls them who are not, you know, the divine being, you know,
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Yahweh, if you're not calling, you're calling them gods, but it's not Yahweh, then why are you getting on me, saying
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I'm the Son of God? You're not making any sense here. Right, and so this, out of this, trying to tackle this idea, and this is not a new concept from the things that I've listened to and read recently since you brought this to my attention, this is terminology, like this word theosis, this is terminology and language and subjects that our
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Christian fathers, the early church fathers, wrote and talked and studied.
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In fact, it's been throughout most of history that it's been a big part of the
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Christian faith. One of the reasons I think we don't talk about it in the West too much is because of how
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Protestants got to to where they are today. The sort of issues we dealt with with Rome, the fight battles, the theological discussions we're having were over justification, the inerrancy of Scripture, the sufficiency of Scripture, you know, other things of that nature.
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So we focused in on that aspect of our faith and we, not ignored, but we sort of neglected other doctrines because we were focused in on upholding the truth of these certain things.
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Now the Eastern Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, didn't skip a beat.
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That's one of their big main things is theosis. You also may have heard it other words, deification or divinization.
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Not divination, that's different. Divination is talking to dead spirits. Divinization is,
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I wouldn't say gaining, but like 2nd
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Peter says, partaking in the divine. Or the
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Reformed were fond, especially the early Reformers, were fond of talking about it as union with Christ.
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And I heard one Lutheran, he used the term, I think he titled a book that he wrote, I think he pronounced it
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Christification. Is it
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Jordan Cooper? Yes, yes, yeah. And if you're looking for a solid
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Lutheran dude, go find Jordan Cooper. We like him as far as Lutherans go. Well, you were talking about one of the reasons maybe why the
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Western Church has dropped the ball on this subject. And maybe,
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I think this may be a legitimate reason why they have, because you were talking about the doctrines that were being corrected and defended against.
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You know, that's why we had the councils to defend against these false teachings and stuff. And so we had to focus on those powerful things in the
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Reformation, such as justification by faith alone, you know, scripture alone, Christ alone, and defend all these things.
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But when you get, when you're over here in the Eastern world, Eastern part, and you're with the
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Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and these Eastern churches, and you have all these mysteries and mystical things happening, that doesn't translate so well over to the
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West. We seem to run into the other ditch, just so that we make sure that we're nowhere near touching the waters.
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We're not even putting our toes in the water of mystery and mystical things, because those things were popular in the
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Catholic Church, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and still are. And we just won't, we don't even want to touch our toes in that water, just to be on the safe side.
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And I think you're right. We ran from one ditch to the other. We ran from, you know, well, they're clearly going off the rails this way, so let's go so far to where we don't let mystery have any place.
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But that's kind of silly, because if you don't have any mystery about the thrice holy
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Creator of the universe that is higher than us, whose ways we can't even comprehend, then
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I mean, you've reduced him down to something that he's just not. If there's no mystery left in the
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Christian faith, then you have greatly missed what the Christian faith is all about. He is so much greater, higher, bigger, and far beyond our capabilities of understanding.
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If we think we've got it nailed down, we have missed the point. Yeah, I just,
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I want to, I don't want to come down too hard on the Western Church. Sure. We had our reasons.
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Yeah, we had our reasons. We've had theologians throughout all time.
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I'm thinking about those years, those centuries where things are just hard.
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And you have people traveling from Europe over here to the New World, and you had to worry about surviving the night, surviving the winter.
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So there wasn't a whole lot of theological depth going into, you know, a lot of thinking.
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But despite that, during that time, there were still theologians, you know, active, studying, writing.
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So I don't want to be too hard on the Western Church. Well, and the things that they were able to, that we're greatly indebted to.
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So it's almost like, you know, because they had to focus on certain things, we get to read and enjoy the fruits of those labors.
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They have their blind spots. But then again, you think, who's going to think about what we're doing now, years and years to come?
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No, we've got our blind spots too. They're like, why were they thinking that? That was just ridiculous. You're right.
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And they're going to be indebted to us for the good work that we have done. You're right.
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Praise the Lord for them, because we're able to live more comfortably now, and we're able to have theological discussions instead of having to worry about keeping our family warm and not freeze through the night, during the winter.
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You know, praise the Lord where we are. But we do, we brought up the topic, so I guess we do want to touch our toes in this water of mystery and maybe some mystical.
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Dan, if we talk about this theosis thing, are we admitting that the
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Mormons got it right? Do we become gods? Oh, I wish you hadn't phrased it like that.
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I'll answer it in two parts. There is a sense in which we are, as scripture says, that we can be called gods.
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Now, big stop. Not like the Mormons say, not like the little
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God's doctrine coming out of the crazy charismatic movement. But in the way that scripture talks, we can affirm those things.
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So what does that mean? And I don't, we'll put it this way.
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The early church, Irenaeus, Athanasius, both of them, they were fond of this saying.
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It was something like this. God became man, talking about the incarnation,
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Christ taking on human flesh, being a part of his creation as a man.
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God became man so that men may become gods. And you have to be careful there because, and you were probably going to say this, but one of the guys
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I was listening to, he's like, back when he was using that phrase, they understood what he was talking about.
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It's more accurate to say he was meaning we will become like God.
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And that's scripture. Scripture, the Holy Spirit, process of sanctification, leads us to becoming more like Christ.
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That's the calling for a Christian, to be more like Christ. But it's slightly more than that.
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It's not like we'll be similar to, but we will be like God.
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Again, got to back up. Augustine said it like this. If you are adopted as a child into a family, like say that there's a child.
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You love this child. This child is great. You adopt them. You treat them as your own.
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They have all the rights, responsibilities. They're heir to your fortune.
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You truly call them your son. You love them. They can call you father. They have all the rights, responsibilities as an actual son that's born through that bloodline.
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However, if you go and test their DNA, their DNA is not from that bloodline.
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They are not ontologically a part of that family, even though they are treated as though they're a part of that family, which would mean this.
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We are given through Christ and his work on the cross and his incarnation in his becoming man, we are given the status of family in Christ so that we are said to be heirs with Christ.
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We're going to sit on the throne judging angels with Christ. We have been given all sorts of incredible blessings.
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We've been granted access to fellowship with the Trinity that other parts of creation don't have.
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Now, that does not mean that we become a fourth member of the Trinity, far from it.
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We don't gain divinity in that way. We are still only human, but we are human, redeemed, bought, and unified with our
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God because he has condescended and become like us and then brought us with him where he is going.
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That's incredible to think that the righteousness that is his becomes ours.
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The eternal life that he has becomes ours.
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His holiness is the holiness that we receive.
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2 Peter 1, which I just preached on yesterday, it was nerve -wracking to try to walk that line and encourage the saints all at the same time.
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Is it on YouTube yet? I believe so. But to say that we were partakers of the divine nature, that we were given so many good gifts from God because of what
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Christ has done and brought us into union with him. That's really what this is all about.
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The whole doctrine of deification or theosis or union with Christ, that's what it's getting at.
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So how are we called gods? Well, because the image of God that was marred and scarred in the fall is being restored so that we truly do.
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When creation looks at us, they see
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God. Not because we ourselves are God, but because we are made as image bearers of God.
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The carved images that we're not allowed to make in the second commandment were them.
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We are the icons, the true icons of Christ, to borrow from our
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Eastern Orthodox friends. You don't need to draw a picture of a saint.
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The saint themselves is the image bearer, is the icon of God. And that doesn't happen because of who we are.
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It happens because of what we've been made through Christ, that we have had our sins forgiven, adopted into the family of God.
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And yeah, Jordan Cooper's take on theosis, it's very helpful for understanding all of this.
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And I'll take a break right here and say this to everybody that's listening, if this is falling hard on your ears, it's falling hard on my ears.
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This is a deep philosophical area in Christianity that many people don't dive into.
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So it's hard for me to digest, to comprehend, and understand. It's hard to explain.
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And if my understanding is correct, listening and reading the guides that I have that you sent me, they're saying that if you go back and read on this subject, it's mostly talking about what the doctrine's not.
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The mystery comes into what it really is. That's where the mystery is.
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We can thoroughly define what it's not, kind of like what we've been doing here. We don't become a
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God. We don't become God and become part of the Trinity. You talk about union with Christ.
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We don't have a hypostatic union like Jesus has the hypostatic union. But we are linked with him in a way that we're called his bride.
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Correct. So there's part of the mystery right there. It says mystery in the Bible, how we are linked with Christ as a husband and wife.
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Yeah. And so it's one of those difficult doctrines.
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We're just saying, hey, we're taking a few minutes to dip our toes in these waters and trying to hear what
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Scripture has to say, what history has had to say, and make sure we're staying in the boundaries of Scripture.
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And you say, well, where is this in Scripture? Here's several verses. Galatians 2 .20,
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it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Philippians 1 .21, for me to live is
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Christ. Colossians 3 .3, we have died and our lives are hidden with Christ in God.
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1 Thessalonians 5 .23, may God sanctify you completely. 2 Thessalonians 2 .14,
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we are called by God for the obtaining of the glory, for the obtaining of the glory of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. How do you explain that? Yes, a glory that God doesn't share with anyone, and yet we've been called to the attaining of it.
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1 John 4 .17, because as he is, so are we in this world.
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Wow. I mean, how do you explain that? Yeah, Colossians 2 .9
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-10, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.
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Crazy. Yeah, and there's other passages, we could keep going on and on with passages, and we may get to that some other time.
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Hold on, Elias has been blowing us up here. Let's see what he says. Yeah, what is appreciated about reading the church fathers and modern scholars is that we just don't simply know
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Christ, but we participate in that. We're continually growing in participation, and I only scratch the surface of this doctrine.
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Absolutely. Yeah. This is one of those doctrines where you could major on it for a lifetime and scratch the surface of it.
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That's right. What was I going to say?
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I saw Elias commenting, and I lost my train of thought there.
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You were reading Bible verses, and I cut you off, then he cut you off. You were up into the
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Thessalonians. Yeah, we could continue to look at all these Bible verses that talk about this mystery.
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I remember what I was going to say now. When I began to dive into this, my whole
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Christian life, once I heard of the Wesleyan movement, and once I heard of the
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Wesleyan movement, and then I began to hear about Wesleyan perfectionism, I cringed at that, because to me, that seems like a really prideful way to live, that you could become perfect.
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In a sense, on one side of this, which some scholars on this subject are going to say it's not about morals, but to a degree, on one side of this, it's about becoming more like Christ.
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If you're becoming more like Christ, you're becoming more obedient. You're obeying
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God's law. You're a new creature in Christ. You're a new creature in Christ. There is a change to be more like God.
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That's right. Then on the far other side of this, I've already touched on it, you're looking at the mystery and mystical things that go on in the
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Eastern and Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church back in the day. You have stories like we were just reading before we went on air, where you have some, they call them
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Abba's fathers, and they were encouraging their disciples that it's more than just that, but there's a story of somebody melting snow and a story of someone's fingers glowing.
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There's that mystery and mystical side of this whole thing. I'm not ready to go there yet, but what do you have in Moses when he's up on the mountain and he participates in the divine nature and his face shines?
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He changes. His nature changes and he shines. What do you do with that?
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Think of the resurrected Christ as he appeared places and moved.
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Think of Christ as he walked on water while he was before his death. There's a sense in which it is going to be a little bit funky.
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We're not going to understand it. The incarnation is huge in this.
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That's where the linkage starts, that Christ is condescended to become man.
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That's why I remember when we were wrestling back and forth on Hebrews 2, where, let's go there real quick so I don't butcher it.
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Hebrews 2, it quotes one of the Psalms. One of the words says, what is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him?
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You made him a little while lower than the angels. You've crowned him with honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.
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Parts of that Psalm sound like they're talking about mankind, but this is clearly saying that this part of the
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Psalm is about Christ. The whole point is that that Psalm is talking about the union of Christ and his church,
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Christ and his people, that mankind has been linked together with Christ in a way that when he was made a little while lower than angels, he entered into humanity, and now we see him high and lifted up.
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That high and lifted upness of Christ is us going and sitting with him.
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It's the only way that I can see that we are heirs with him, judging the angels, the bride of Christ.
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It's all linked together. There's like nine doctrines that you could throw together in here and make a wonderful theosis stew.
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Tom Bilyeu Well, we're over 26 minutes in. How would you like to do a part two? Darrell Bock Yeah, let's do maybe some more specifics.
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Tom Bilyeu Okay. Darrell Bock We'll determine that off air because we don't bore people now. Tom Bilyeu Well, in summation of what we've talked, because tonight was a pretty good introduction, so in summation, and then we'll share the gospel, and next
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Monday we have scheduled another pastoral ordination interview, and then we'll come back to this the
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Monday after that. So in summation of what we talked about tonight, what can we leave ourselves with?
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Darrell Bock Oh, I'll tell you what. I will give you a what we can leave yourself with and a gospel presentation all in one.
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Because like I said, this is still fresh. I just preached on a passage related to this yesterday.
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2 Peter 1 verses 3 and 4 says,
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His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
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So what has the divine power of the Almighty God granted to us?
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Everything we need to be alive, truly alive, and to be godly.
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And how does that come to us? It through the knowledge of Him who called us, so by knowing
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God, who called us to His own glory and excellence.
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Or some versions may say, by the virtue of His own glory and excellence. So what was it that called us to God?
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It was the divine power of God, His glory and excellence that grasped the dead and sinner and pulled him toward God, him or her.
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We believe in females being saved as well. And it's through the knowledge of Him by which, by the divine power that gives us everything for life and godliness, the knowing
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Him by which He's granted to us His precious and very great promises, the covenant that He has entered into with mankind to save them from their sins.
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So what does everything lead to that comes from those things?
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So that through them, we become partakers of the divine nature, to be linked with Christ in such a way that you can partake of the divine, eternal life,
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His godliness, His righteousness becoming yours, as your sins are taken from you and thrown away, as you're granted to sit with Christ and to commune with the
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Father and the Spirit, as you are granted life eternal.
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And it says this, having escaped the corruption that is in this world because of sinful desire.
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The thing about union with Christ or theosis or deification or whatever you want to call it is this.
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The salvation is much bigger than just having your sins forgiven, but that is the first step.
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The gospel is that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried and He rose again the third day according to the
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Scriptures. He made that first step, not only the first step, He made all the necessary steps for our salvation in that He took upon Himself our sins, took them to the cross, killed them, laid in the grave for three days, arose again, granting to us
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His righteousness, calling us to Himself, giving us good gifts, sharing with us reconciliation with the
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Father, adoption of sons, so that what we have is everything that we need for life and godliness found in Christ.
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What is salvation then? Salvation isn't just having your sins forgiven.
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Salvation is gaining Christ Himself, is truly having a relationship with God, and having
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Him know you as well. And so in all of that, it says this, and it goes on talking about how you should add to faith virtue, and it goes on and it says this, for in this way
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His divine power, giving us everything that we need for life and godliness, for in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All of that to say this,
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Jesus Christ has died for sins, and He calls to each and every one of us to repent of our sins, to turn to Him, to look to Him, to find
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Him, to gain Him because of His good and gracious love to us.
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So I'm calling out to each one that hears my voice today to repent of your sins, to turn to Christ, to find
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Him to be that perfect Savior, not only for the forgiveness of your sins, but an incredible union with Christ to where you are able to have things that you couldn't even imagine.
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Not for your own benefit, even though we do benefit greatly, but for the glory of God in heaven that we can show through what
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He's made us into, partly now and then fully later on after we pass, that God is worthy of all worship and glory.
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That is an incredible, wonderful thing. That's what this is all about, is glorifying
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God by showing Him to the rest of creation. That's the whole reason why we would even be considered in the same realm as God, because He has done for us to show
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His own glory, to show His own goodness, His own mercy and compassion, and His love towards His own creation.
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Amen. Let me close this up here. Father, in our mere mortal minds, our sin -depraved, fallen minds, we can't fully comprehend any of your doctrines that are in Scripture.
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But to us, these huge ones like Theosis remind us of how huge and beyond comprehension you really are.
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Father, help us to glory in these truths, to glory in these mysteries that you are above us, you are beyond us, but you have so graciously given us your word that we may know you more so that we may know how to live the godly life that you've called us to.
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Thank you for the conversation we had tonight. We desire that you be glorified, and Jesus be exalted, and thank you for the gospel, and thank you for the salvation that you offer to us.
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In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. One more thing, Robert. I'm sorry,
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I have more coming out of my preacher mouth, but here we go. If you are struggling with, as a believer, if you're struggling with a sin, if you don't know if you can break free from it or not, back up a second.
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If you're tempted in the moment, I want you to remember this verse. His divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
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1 Corinthians tells us that there is no temptation that has come upon you except what is common to man.
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Look to Christ in everything to be that freedom from sin. If you're a drinker and you want to take that next drink, think of Christ, and if you fail, know that he has.
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Repent of your sin and turn to him and know that if you're not finding the relief that you seek now, that there's no other way to find life and godliness than to find it in Christ.
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If you have to keep battling until you finally reach glory, then keep on battling. Don't jump off the ship because the only way that you're going to find life and godliness is in Christ.
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If you're struggling with anything, look to him. Never turn away.
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What is it that Jesus said? He asked Peter. John 6, he just told a whole bunch of people were ticked off of Jesus and leaving.
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He said, Peter, are you going to go away? Peter said, no. Where would I go? You have the words of life.
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Remember that. The only power you have to break free from sin to find the forgiveness of sin and to make it in this life is to do so through the power of God.
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So take that with you. Remember that the next time you're about to fight with your wife and don't do it.
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Trust in God and remember that that power for godliness is given freely by the one who sent his son to die on the cross for your sins.
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There you go. I'll save something for next time. But you just remind me of that old camp song.
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Let others see Jesus in me. I don't know.
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I don't know if you're familiar with that old hymn, but let others see Jesus in you. Yeah. All right.
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Praise the Lord. Thank you for that, Dan. What an encouragement. I hope you were edified and encouraged and we thank you for watching.
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Thank you for your support and we'd appreciate all the shares and likes that you would offer.
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We just want to join with you in learning God's word and getting that message out. But in the meantime, remember that Jesus is king.
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Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ and go share the gospel of Christ.