Crackpot Bwana Bob must have been smoking some of his herbs peddles in the back stockroom of his profoundly superfantabulous world headquarters in Central CA yesterday. In his weekly letter to his small flock of faithful who might actually care what he writes, he said this:
Now Jesus was not only the first of the firstfruits, He was also the firstborn among many brethren:
29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).5 Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead (Revelation 1:5).
Since Jesus is the firstborn, this certainly implies that there will become others who are to be like Him. Thus, becoming like Jesus Christ is also part of the message of Pentecost. Of course the idea of becoming like Christ is taught throughout the Bible and is not limited to Pentecost. Notice what John wrote:
2 …we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2).
This is one of the many lies of Armstrongism and dates back to the time the church sees sin entering the world when the serpent enticed Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit.
The false promise that man can become God goes as far back as the first man, Adam. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden the only negative commandment God gave them was not to eat of fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent appeared to them and disputed God:
For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:5).
When they ate of the fruit they did not become as God as the serpent promised. Rather they brought sin into the world and were banished from God's presence. Satan, however, has been telling people that lie ever since. And, unfortunately, people still believe it. This Is A False Promise
The Nature Of God Prohibits It
The reason humankind cannot become God is because of the nature of God. God did not become God at some certain point. He has been, is, and always will be God. He is the eternal infinite God. There is nothing lacking in His character and He needs nothing to exist. He is adequate in and by Himself.
Moreover He is the only God who now exists or ever will exist:
Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts; I am the First and I am the Last; besides me there is no God (Isaiah 44:6).
Isaiah also wrote.
You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after me (Isaiah 43:10).
Elsewhere:
But to believe that we shall “become God” contradicts the Bible’s teaching about the nature of God. God is one being, not many separate beings. God is eternal and uncreated. But we do not have a past eternity, and we were created by God. Therefore, we are less than God, and can never be all that God is, and we can never be God, for that word implies being eternal, being uncreated, and being all-powerful. We do not have life within ourselves, as does God. We must be given life by God. He will give us eternal life, but that life is not inherent in us, and we cannot give it to others, as God can.
Some people use John 10:34— “you are gods”—in support of the idea that we shall become God. But Jesus was not commenting on the question of what we will be in the resurrection. In this passage, Jesus is quoting from Psalm 82:6, in which the Hebrew word translated “gods” is elohim. In context, it refers to unjust human judges (Psalm 82:1-2, 7). Jesus says the following in John 10:34-36:
Is it not written in your Law, “I have said you are gods.” If he called them “gods” to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, “I am God’s Son”?
In John 10, the Jewish leaders were accusing Jesus of blasphemy because he had claimed “to be God” (verse 33). Jesus was saying, in effect, the following: “If Scripture can call unjust human judges “gods,” how much more can the name ‘Son of God’ refer to me?” Jesus was not telling the Jews that these unjust judges were Gods. As the psalm says, they were mortal. Rather, Jesus was cautioning his hearers about their own unjust condemnation of his use of the term “Son of God.” Both the psalm and Jesus were talking about mortal human beings. The question of what we will be like after the resurrection has nothing to do with John 10:34.
In the resurrection, we will be like Jesus Christ, and that will be wonderful. We will be God’s children forever, living in perfect joy and happiness, and we thank God that we can become his children even in this life, through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. BIBLE PROPHECY: WILL HUMANS BECOME GODS?
28 comments:
I would have thought the three people Jesus raised from the dead, who were the widow’s son of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Jairus’ daughter (8:40-56), and Lazarus (John 11:1-44) would have preceded Jeus as "the first born of the dead"?
The "saints" who came out of their graves in Jerusalem, at the same time as of the earthquake, but then an editor saw the problem, so added "after his resurrection" would also qualify as having been born from the dead before Jesus. A doctrinal problem probably... solved by an edit? :)
Matthew 27:51-53 tells us what happened right after Jesus Christ died: "Then, behold, 1-the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and 2- the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and 3- the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many."
Of course, the names of these "saints" were withheld and whatever happened to them a secret. Only Matthew hears of this and no one esle ever brings it up ever, which one might expect was pretty darn impressive not to.
John 10:34
Jesus said you ARE gods.
Why do armstrongites wish to have more than what they already have been given, and are currently squandering? You're already a god, now go do some god-things in the world! Feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, visit those in prison, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked!
Who will have the intellectual honesty to admit that BOTH the Armstrongist and Trinitarian positions are blasphemous offenses against monotheism and logic?
This is the worst of the misunderstandings leftover from HWA. I believe he borrowed this doozy of a heresy from the Mormons. To claim that someday people will actually be God as God is God is an outrage and clearly, by definition, blasphemous.
There are no other gods, Bob is not going to become God and this blasphemy should be repented of. Utter heresy from a Biblical midget. This is the danger of proof texting. Error begets more error.
How did those hundreds of resurrected saints go on with their lives? Rome and Jerusalem had elaborate and firm laws around inheritance. You would think that these many resurrections would have posed such an interesting challenge for the lawyers that someone, somewhere, would have written about how these people resumed their lives
IMO Jesus is resurrected as the firstborn to spirit life. The others as Dennis mentions to physical life and then died, now waiting for the resurrection to eternal spirit life.
The added edit (?) "after his resurrection" is confusing. The Greek allows for "their" instead of "his"? Coming out of the graves after their resurrection makes more sense. Jesus was dead 3 days and 3 nights, full or part, before His resurrection and I don't think the saints were in their graves after being "raised" for 3 days/nights until Jesus' resurrection.
As if to illustrate my comment on another post, here is another very poignant example of how the logic and research methods of Alexander Hislop influenced Herbert Armstrong, and infected his church! Ignorance of the nuances of the Hebrew and Greek languages was also one of the hallmarks of Armstrongism. Strange that they were always so definitive when expressing things which were often a matter of opinion or conjecture, and we allowed them to get away with it, because that was what was required in order to avoid being labeled as being in the dreaded "bad attitude."
But, you know, one of my hobbies is collecting DVDs of TV series. Most of them are fairly contemporary from the cable networks. The big three network ones I've acquired from the '60s and '70s are amazingly simplistic, and I wonder how we ever even found them to be entertaining! These have served one good purpose in that they provided a retroactive insight into the average intelligence level of TV viewers. No wonder Armstrongism was so successful during that era! If juxtaposed with what else was on radio and TV during that era, it almost seems intellectual! As I've remarked elsewhare, HWA's religion was most definitely time and date stamped, and has expired.
Spirit beings, then yes. Children of God, then yes. Above the Angels, yes. God, as God is God, is going a bridge too far.
Who will have the intellectual honesty to admit that BOTH the Armstrongist and Trinitarian positions are blasphemous offenses against monotheism and logic?
Well, I would, except that perhaps monotheism itself is yet another blaphemy against truth (and evidence-based logic).
TV was and remains dumb. It's not smarter now, just more degenerate and more clever in its manipulations.
DW says, "I believe HWA borrowed this heresy from the Mormons".
If you don't mind my asking DW, why do you believe that? What evidence do you have for that assertion?
Armstrong borrowed it from the Mormons who borrowed it from Satan in the Garden of Eden that they could become like God.
DEFENDING THE TRINITY - another place Holy Spirit (as a third separate being) is found is in the rainbow. 1,3,7
1- white light reflects and becomes the
7 colors of the rainbow 🌈
3 - 3 primary colors of the rainbow
♥️, 🟡, 🔵 HOLY SPIRIT
7 - number of completion
(More insight 7 mountains of society are in the 7 colors of the 🌈)
Red - Media
Orange - Family
Yellow - Arts & Entertainment
Green - Economy
Blue - Religion
Indigo - Education
Violet - Government
The people who Jesus raised from the dead died twice which it reads on Lazarus' tombstone or in his buriel chamber. "Friend of Jesus. Died Twice.". Jesus, has an empty grave. They don't.
Imagine being raised from the dead not at the rez, but to a physical life after perhaps having been martyred. I'm afraid my reaction would have been "Oh, shit! Now I'm even more of a target! I wonder how they're going to kill me this time!"
I also have to chuckle! If it happened to an Armstrongite today, he'd probably be thinking, "Damn it! My salvation was sure! Now every day when I wake up, it's possible that I might lose my salvation! Why is this happening to me???"
If you study human psychology which is a study of God's mind, and examine the design of the human and God's body with its many Fibonacci ratos, it's obvious that God designed and created Himself.
A trait of nature is that there is no waste, so why didn't God create the universe and man billions of years ago? This points to God not always existing. Rather He has spent the past upgrading Himself, much like humans are expected to do by over coming and growing. The bible using the expression "in the beginning" implies that the past is not infinite. That God has spent the past 14 billion years designing the present post dinosaur era vegetation and creatures proves that God doesn't exist outside of time either.
Many people have watched too many Doctor Who TV programs and have as a result come up with this God is not bound by anything nonsense.
My understanding is that the "resurrections" that Jesus performed were not resurrections per se, but resuscitations. They were raised to back to life, but they still died. Jesus was the uniquely first born. Also, first born can mean first in importance.
No Dennis, we have no doctrinal problem here! It's obvious that Christ's resurrection is different from the others you mentioned.
Romans 6:9, Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead DIES NO MORE, death hath no more dominion over Him.
By virtue of His unique resurrection, as others here have pointed out, He is
The FIRST, (Acts 26:23)
The FIRSTBORN, (Romans 8:29, Colossians 1:18)
The FIRSTFRUIT, (1 Corinthians 15:20-23),
all of which "hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel", 2 Timothy 1:10. And since " only God has immortality "(1Timothy 6:16), and by resurrection we can gain immortality, (1Corinthians 15:53-54), that does put us in a special classification of being, whatever you want to call it!
I'm surprised that Dennis, with his scholarly background and training, can't see that!!
To BP8. It is well known that HWA borrowed doctrines from other groups, such as Seventh Day Adventists, JWs and Mormons. To the best of my knowledge, the Mormons are the only group that teach that men will become god.
When you look at all the doctrines Herbert taught, you can see bits from one and parts from others of the aforementioned groups that he put together to arrive at the teachings of Armstrongism.
Eh, we will be the same type of being as God. That does not mean we will be equal in authority, or outrank Him, but we will be eternal from that point forward.
I was somewhat amazed that you posted the scriptures, then denied them. That reveals who you are following.
What made the idea of God-as-God-is-God plausible to HWA is the fact that he misunderstood the nature of God. He believed in a much diminished God. This made the idea for us to be like God not such a stretch. He overlooked that God was an uncreated being and that we are created beings. But that is a mystery that we cannot much speak to.
Having a bodily existence is a much more comprehensible attribute than being uncreated or created. Having a body is a limitation. A body has interdependent parts and must receive inputs and produce outputs. God does not have a body. HWA did not understand that because he read the anthropomorphisms of the OT as literal statements. Hence, he believed that God has a body like we have and the Imago Dei was a matter of physical form - something that hardly anyone believes except Armstrongists. This error makes the God-as-God-is-God concept seem achievable.
The NT indicates that Christians will be resurrected bodily. Consult 1 Corinthians 15 and other places. Christians will one day have ever-enduring bodies that are nevertheless contingent on God. He brougt us into existence and he can always take us out. We will be partkers of the divine nature but we will have a body-based ontology. This means that we cannot be God-as-God-is-God. How much we can partake of the divine nature is restricted by our body-based existence. God cannot make us just like himself except for the uncreated part. We will always be limited body-based beings and he will always be unlimited and without a body.
This is why I have harped on the fact that God does not have a body on this blog for years. To believe he is body-based leads to such heresies as God-as-God-is-God. In short, if you diminish God enough in your theology, God-as-God-is-God becomes feasible. A corollary is that anyone who believes in God-as-God-is-God largely misunderstands God.
I cannot tell from the material quoted exactly what this Millerite preacher believes about God. Saying that we will be like Jesus is not defacto incorrect. To weigh this statement, one must unpack the meaning of "like" as this preacher uses it. Since he is an Armstrongist, a safe assumption is that he is talking about God-as-God-is-God though this is not nailed down.
The idea that one day we will be God-as-God-is-God is a hyper-liberal theology. It leaps over all the more conservative beliefs about God found in the Christian churches and lands with a splash in a puddle called blasphemy. But I do not think this was intended; I think it was just thoughtless.
DW
The Armstrong concept of the "God Family" and the Mormon's "Family of Gods" is comparing apples with oranges. Just because somebody out in left field says he borrowed that from them is pure human conjecture!
Christ was the first human who died and was then resurrected as a spirit being.
What's so hard to understand about this? The non-winners are grasping at straws.
As man is now, God once was. As God is now, man will be.
HWA of course claimed that God has a nose, ears, hair, etc. If you follow this to its logical conclusion, he also has a butthole.
The interesting thing is that God is omnipresent. He is everywhere simultaneously. Also, all-knowing. This is why Jesus said "I and the Father are one." It is a complete mind meld.
In WCG theology, they always treated Satan as if he were omnipresent. The examples in the Bible demonstrate that although Satan does have a relatively high amount of power, he is limited to being in one place at a time. This is true of all angelic beings. But, how could you scare the members with Satan as intensely as HWA and his lackeys always did if he were limited in this way
Kind of hard for Churchofgoddians to wrap their minds around concepts such as that.
" But, how could you scare the members with Satan as intensely as HWA and his lackeys always did if he were limited in this way"
I've always heard it explained that Satan is limited to being in one place at a time. He has never been presented as being omnipresent like God.
Apparently, we have here more false assertions about Church teaching.
Well 5:27, I'm glad to see you use the word "Apparently". Often it just depends on what era of the church you attended.
The only consistent fact is that Armstrongism in each of its eras was always toxic.
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