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Scripture Reading: John 3:15; Col. 3:4; Eph. 1:4; 2 Pet. 1:4; Eph. 4:23; Phil. 2:5; 2 Cor. 3:18b; Eph. 3:8; 2 Cor. 3:18a; Rom. 8:29-30; Heb. 2:10; Eph. 1:5; 19, Rom. 8:23; 1 John 3:2; John 1:12; Rom. 8:14, 16
I. To participate in God’s life — John 3:15; Col. 3:4.
II. To participate in God’s nature — Eph. 1:4; 2 Pet. 1:4.
III. To participate in God’s mind — Eph. 4:23; Phil. 2:5.
IV. To participate in God’s being — 2 Cor. 3:18b; Eph. 3:8.
V. To participate in God’s image — 2 Cor. 3:18a; Rom. 8:29.
VI. To participate in God’s glory — v. 30; Heb. 2:10.
VII. To participate in God’s sonship — Eph. 1:5; Rom. 8:23.
VIII. To participate in God’s manifestation — v. 19.
IX. To bear God’s likeness — 1 John 3:2.
X. To be Godkind — God’s species — John 1:12; Rom. 8:14, 16.
In these days I am burdened to release the high-level truths in the Word, and I welcome every opportunity to do this. One of these high truths is the matter of participating in God’s divinity. In this message I would like to give a brief word concerning the God-men’s right to participate in God’s divinity.
Hymns, #473 starts on a very basic level by encouraging us to be persons who are absolutely for God. This is good, but it is elementary. However, this hymn advances to a much higher level with a line in the third stanza that says, “He and you are one.” How marvelous that we, fallen human beings, can be one with the Lord! Such a thought is surely very high. Now we need to see something even higher — that as God-men we have the divine right to participate in God’s divinity.
The phrase participate in means not only to partake of but to partake of for enjoyment. It indicates that we possess something and that we enjoy what we possess. We, the God-men, have the divine right to participate not in heaven but in God’s divinity. We all need to realize that we can participate in God’s divinity, that is, participate in God.
We human beings were created by God for this purpose. Man was created in God’s image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26). We were created, not in man’s image and according to man’s likeness but in God’s image and according to God’s likeness. Thus, human beings have the image and likeness of God. However, at the time of creation, man did not have God’s life. But now as God-men, those who have been born of God to be children of God, we have the right to participate in what God is and even to become God in life, in nature, and in expression but not in the Godhead.
First, as the God-men, we have the divine right to participate in God’s life. John 3:15 tells us that everyone who believes into the Lord Jesus will have eternal life. Eternal life is the divine life, the life of God. We are human beings, but we can have God’s life. We were created in God’s image and God’s likeness but without God’s life. Through regeneration we have been graced by God with His divine life. Through regeneration He has put, has dispensed, His life into our being.
Colossians 3:4 speaks of “Christ our life.” Since Christ is the embodiment of God, for Christ to be our life means that God is our life.
As God-men, we also have the divine right to participate in God’s nature. Ephesians 1:4 says, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy.” Here we see that God chose us in Christ with a particular purpose — to make us holy. Holy means not only sanctified, separated unto God, but also different, distinct, from everything common. God is holy, but we are common. Only God is different, distinct, from all things. Hence, He is holy; holiness is His nature. God intends to make us holy even as He is holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16). To be holy is to participate in God’s holy nature. Having chosen us to be holy, God makes us holy by imparting Himself, the Holy One, into our being, so that our whole being may be saturated and permeated with His holy nature. For us, God’s chosen ones, to be holy is to partake of God’s divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). Thus, we may participate not only in God’s life but also in God’s nature.
Because we have become God-men through regeneration, we also have the right to participate in God’s mind. This means that we, who are human, can have a divine mind. Philippians 2:5 says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” We need to let Christ’s mind be our mind. In this way we may have Christ’s mind.
Ephesians 4:23 says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” The spirit here is the regenerated spirit of the believers, which is mingled with the indwelling Spirit of God. Such a mingled spirit spreads into our mind, thus becoming the spirit of our mind. The more the mingled spirit penetrates our mind, saturates our mind, and possesses our mind, the more our mind becomes like God’s mind. This is to make His mind our mind, and this is to participate in God’s mind.
Next, the God-men have the divine right to participate in God’s being. Our basis for saying this is Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians 3:18 about our being transformed into the Lord’s image “even as from the Lord Spirit.” This indicates that the work of transformation is done not by something of the Lord Spirit but by the Lord Spirit Himself. Hence, we are being transformed with God’s very being.
In Ephesians 3:8 Paul speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ, indicating that these riches have been dispensed into us. The unsearchable riches of Christ are the riches of Christ’s being, the riches of what Christ is. For the unsearchable riches of Christ to be dispensed into us means that we participate not only in God’s life, nature, and mind but also in His being.
As God-men, we also have the divine right to participate in God’s image. Second Corinthians 3:18 says that we are being “transformed into the same image.” This is the image of the resurrected and glorified Christ. In God’s creation man was made in God’s image in an outward way, but the image into which we are being transformed is something inward. To be transformed into the same image is to be conformed to the resurrected and glorified Christ, as the firstborn Son of God, to be made the same as He is (Rom. 8:29).
Transformation is a kind of metabolism. The metabolism involved in transformation is comparable to that which takes place in our physical body after we eat, digest, and assimilate food. Transformation is the metabolic function of the divine life in the believers. We Christians, who are God-men, all have the Lord Spirit within us, and the Lord Spirit is in the process of carrying out a metabolic change in our being, transforming us into the image of Christ. To be metabolically transformed into the image of the resurrected and glorified Christ is to participate in God’s image.
Eventually, we will be brought into God’s glory to participate in His glory. Hebrews 2:10 says that God is leading many sons into glory. Paul refers to this in Romans 8:30: “Those whom He predestinated, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Glorification is the step in God’s complete salvation in which God will completely saturate our body with the glory of His life and nature. In this way He will transfigure our body, conforming it to the resurrected, glorious body of His Son (Phil. 3:21). This is the ultimate step in God’s organic salvation, wherein God obtains a full expression, which will be manifested ultimately in the New Jerusalem.
Another aspect of the God-men’s divine right to participate in God’s divinity is the right to participate in God’s sonship (Eph. 1:5; Rom. 8:23). We can have God’s life, God’s nature, God’s mind, God’s being, God’s image, and God’s glory because we are God’s sons. Just as a human son has the life, nature, mind, being, and image of his human father, so the sons of God have the life, nature, mind, being, and image of their divine Father. Furthermore, as a human son shares the glory or prestige of his human father, the sons of God share in the glory of their divine Father.
Ephesians 1:5 tells us that God has predestinated us “unto sonship.” The Greek word for predestinating in this verse may also be translated “marking out beforehand.” Before the foundation of the world, that is, in eternity past, God predestinated us, marked us out, unto sonship. Before time began, God intended and determined that we would participate in His sonship.
As God-men, we will participate also in God’s manifestation (Rom. 8:19). When Christ our life is manifested, we will be manifested with Him in glory (Col. 3:4.) Today God is hiding, but one day He will be manifested to the whole universe. Romans 8:19 indicates that when God is manifested, revealed, we, the sons of God, will participate in that revelation, in that manifestation. God will be manifested with His sons, who will be the same as He in life, in nature, in mind, in being, in image, and in glory.
The God-men’s divine right to participate in God’s divinity includes the right to bear God’s likeness. First John 3:2 says, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.” This clearly reveals that we will bear God’s likeness. We will not only participate in God’s life and nature but will also bear God’s likeness. To bear God’s likeness will be a great blessing and enjoyment.
Finally, the God-men have the divine right to be Godkind — God’s species (John 1:12; Rom. 8:14, 16). We have been regenerated to be Godkind. As God’s sons, we are God’s kind, God’s species.
John 1:12 says, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God.” We have received the Lord Jesus by believing into Him, and God has given us the authority, the right, to be God’s children. “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). Such a witnessing testifies to us and assures us that we are children of God, who possess His life. We need to realize this and remember it. Wherever we may be, we need to remember that we are God-men with the divine right to participate in God’s divinity.
