Becoming One With God (Part 1)

Saint Athanasius the fourth century church father and ardent defender of the trinity once said that Christ "was made man that we might be made God." Its a rather shocking statement to modern evangelical ears but Athanasius was by no means alone in this opinion among the early church. Hilary of Poitiers (c 315-367), for example, held that "the assumption of our nature was no advancement for God, but His willingness to lower Himself is our promotion, for He did not resign His divinity but conferred divinity on man." The object of Christ's incarnation, according to Hilary was that, "that man might become God."


Five years ago I would have shuned such a notion. The fall of man, I was taught, was predicated on his desire to become "like God" (Genesis 3) and is therefore a sinful desire. Only heretics like the mormons teach that man can become God. It is a perspective that true Christians should immediatly reject as was done in the creation-science seminar I watched last night.

But even the New Testament seems to express at times directly something of this idea. For instance Peter writes in his second letter, "For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature... (2 Peter 1:4)" And Jesus in John's gospels prays, "that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may beleive that You sent Me. (John 17:21)"

Today I agree with Athanasius and Hilary of Poitiers. In the following series of posts I would like to tell you how I came to this perspective through realizing the significance of John 19:34.