Well I find it disturbing and a call to check ourselves. I think that would have been his intent. It certainly isn’t a celebration of anything.
Why did he say that do you think. Oh, he did not want to blaspheme and say that we would be equal to God.
Bizarre. You cannot see anything metaphorical, figurative or rhetorical in your citations. And the earth was created on 22 Oct 4004 BC.
We will all be Fathers, Sons and Spirits in one, Trinities, too. How does that work again, please? (Don’t answer that – it was rhetorical, speaking of rhetorical, and I really do not need to hear any more.)
(There is another little problem, namely that God is spirit, and we will have resurrected bodies, like our Lord’s.)
Oopsie!
Another oopsie–how do we square that with the vision of elders in Revelation worshipping God? Will God be worshipping us?
2 Likes
Since you have already contributed a guest post to BioLogos, are you going to contribute another one where you develop these new ideas?
In 1 Corinthians 15: 42-44 you find the solution to “the little problem” you address:
42 It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. 43 Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. 44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.
You have to keep in mind that God assumes a body in and through Jesus Christ, in order we can become deified also in our body. And this is the reason why we are in the image of God, because we share a body like the body of Jesus Christ. Our true common ancestor is Jesus Christ, not genetically but theologically.
Adam (in the sense of the first sinner) is our common ancestor, not genetically but according to the lineage of sin: We all are “bound over to disobedience”, the state the first sin produced (the so called “state of original sin”) and, paradoxically, thanks God’s mercy (Romans 11:32)!
That is only a partial answer to the several issues raised.
This is a very good remark!
I dare to answer as follows:
-
The event of the 24 elders worshiping God in Revelation 4:10-11 takes place before the Day of (the last) Judgement, i.e.: when there are still people on earth rejecting God. So it is fitting to assume that these elders in representation of all righteous in heaven want to expiate for this, and “fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say…”
-
After the Day of Judgement, it is stated in 1 Corinthians 15: 28:
“When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”
This means that within God’s Trinitarian life the Son (who is entirely God) can be considered submitted to the Father (who is entirely God). Accordingly, we (who through and in the Son will be entirely God) will be subjected to God the Father as well, and God will be all in all. -
The principal act of worship consists in revering God with filial affection, and the saints will fulfill this act above all after the Day of Judgement, and they will also mutually honor one another.
God’s love for us makes him mad to the extreme of revering us with paternal affection:
John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Revelation 21:3-4
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.”
John 13: 3-5:
To explain what means for God to be omnipotent!
“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”
None of those arguments(?) turn us into equivalents of God.
2 Likes
I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.
-Isaiah 42:8
2 Likes
It’s a little difficult for us born types to become self-existent! XD
2 Likes
As long as we live on earth, to be “equivalents of God” does not mean to be omnipotent or omnipresent, but rather having “the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!”
(Philippians 2:5-8).
The devil was tantalized by God’s power and glory and wanted to grasp them “to his own advantage”. Since the beginning of humankind the devil and his angels try to delude us humans the same way. The first human sinners fell into the temptation, and we (their posterity) fall again and again. We tend to identify God with power and glory, because we covet these attributes. In the cross God hides His power and glory so that we can only see what He actually is: Love, and as sinners are moved to freely love God.
After the last Judgement, we will be a unity of love with Jesus Christ and, with him and through him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And thereby we will become what God actually is: Love. This is what I mean when I state (following the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church) that “God became human, so that we might become God”.
I apologize for insisting once again:
Categories like “being omnipotent or omnipresent” apply to God before the last Judgement.
After the last Judgment the proper way to define God is stating that God is love!
I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.
-Isaiah 42:8
Do you see an expiration date on this verse?
Well, that’s somewhat of an improvement – we’re not becoming God here, anyway.
You still have a problem with the language, the meaning of words. God is still actually and will be omnipotent and omnipresent and self-existent, we will not. “The sky is clear.” Does that mean that is all the sky actually is?
1 Like
YES, the Day of the Last Judgement, according to Scripture:
Isaiah 42:17
The expiration date will be the Day when:
“those who trust in idols, who say to images, ‘You are our gods,’
will be turned back in utter shame.”
Revelation 21:3-4
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
1 Corinthians 15:28
When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
After the Day of Judgement delusion is no longer possible,
and none will say to images “You are our gods”.
Happy New Year to all of you!
Excellent comment!
As long as we live on earth, and before the Day of the last Judgement, we can be considered creatures and as such we are not self-existent, as you very well remark.
After the Day of the last Judgment, “God will be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15: 28). And to the saints in heaven God will then say: “I will be their God and they will be my children.” (Revelation 21:7).
This means that the status of the saints after the Day of Judgement is no longer that of “being made” by Got, but that of “being begotten” by God as children of God in Jesus Christ. There will be what one could call an ontological leap from “creature of God” to “children of God”, self-existent in and through Jesus-Christ.
This is what is announced in Ephesians 1: 4-6
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will — to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
In summary, after the Resurrection of the Dead and the Day of Judgement the status of “creature” disappears, and God will be all in all.
Not one of your verses says that God is going to give his glory to another. Try again.
I already say that I am God’s child. Do children ever become their fathers?
We’ve already talked about that. It does not mean we will be God. That would be an unreal stretch.
We know who is making unjustified leaps.
You remain mistaken.
1 Like
Here quite explicit:
John 17: 22-24
I have given them the glory that you gave me , that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me— so that they may be brought to complete unity. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
Romans 8:17
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
The Father gives his glory to his Son, Jesus-Christ, and Jesus-Christ gives the Father’s glory to those who believe in him.
If (as you interpret) “God is not going to give his glory to another”, then we are led to conclude that:
by receiving the Father’s glory from the Son “those who believe in Jesus-Christ” become necessarily God himself!
It doesn’t in Christianity. It refers to a single substance.
And all others are subdivisions of God’s glory.
1 Like