little gods: part 2

Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? 
  — Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing*

There is none other called God by the Scriptures except the Father of all, and the Son, and those who possess the adoption.
  — Iraeneus, Against Heresies IV*

Back to the "little gods" topic on whether it is sacrilegious/blasphemous/bad to think that human beings are in any sense beings that are similar to The Being, i.e. God.

While I try to make sure that quotes aren't being given different meanings outside their contexts, I am obviously not attempting to address every point brought up in each source.  What is often the case is that many people come to the same orthodox conclusion in contradictory ways, and if you believe something considered heterodox, you'll find that many critics agree with you on several key points.  What would you think if you wrote a mathematical proof and the only thing mathematicians agreed was wrong with it was your conclusion?  If the lemmas of your argument were not universally objectionable, maybe it's not the math that's wrong.

Why was it important for Jesus to show the idea of men being called God wasn’t new… ?  Why was Jesus arguing from that point of view?

So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.* 

For which of his works did they mean to attack him? For the work that challenged their authority. For which of his words, but the words that challenged their authority. Pilate knew that it was for envy that they sought to destroy him.


In what ways are sons on a level with their father?



At the end of the previous post on this topic, I discussed how John 5:18 indicates that it was the Judaeans' interpretation that

If it was only the Jews who thought that Jesus was making Himself equal to God, then can the Jehovah's Witness point out in the context of what Jesus said and did that would cause the Jews to think this? If he cannot find the place in scripture, then the only thing left to conclude is that the comment is John's and not that of the Jews.He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.*

 The answer is right in the text:

. . . he not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

According to this verse, the Judaeans interpreted his healing as work that desecrated the Sabbath, and they interpreted his Sonship as making himself equal to God in a forbidden way.  

So, the problem is in understanding what the phrase Son of God means. Apparently, in the biblical culture it means to be equal with God--as John the Apostle stated. But, again, the Jehovah's Witnesses will say that the term Son of God means that Jesus is not God. Okay, if that is so, then does the term Son of Man mean that Jesus is not a man? Of course not. If the term Son of Man means that Jesus is a man, then what does the term Son of God mean?

But Jesus didn't use the phrase "Son of God", he said, “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working.”  Jesus claims to be a son, about his father's business.  If I say with the apostle Paul, "It is no longer I that live but Jesus living in me," am I claiming to be equal with Jesus, or with the Father?  And when Jesus told the crowd that they would be children of God their Father as they emulated his patience?  Later in the 4th Gospel (10th chapter), and this same subject comes up in the Temple, Jesus expounds on Psalm 82 and then offers, "If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me."  Is Jesus only talking of miracles, or is he talking of the character of his mission and career?  He has preached to the Israelites, "You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

But if I am a son of God, and if God is in me doing his works, and if I honestly claim like Jesus that the Father is greater than I, in what way do these things make myself out to be equal with God?  Either the Judaeans are putting words into Jesus' mouth, or the "equality" refers to the standing that a son has in his father's house being his heir and in some sense sharing in the authority of his father's household.

Why was it important for Jesus to show the idea of God communicating his Divine Majesty to human beings wasn't new?  Is he playing a game with them, since he can't yet reveal his full Divinity (something not made very explicit in the Acts)?  

Ps 82:6 does not touch the substance of the claims made in 10:28-30 [about "eternal life"] which precipitated the forensic process [i.e. Jesus offering a legal defense] in 10:31-39. It functions as an adequate refutation of the erroneous judgment of Jesus’ judges, who charged that he, “a man, makes himself equal to God,” This judgment is false because God makes him “Son of God.*  

Like God considered the chastised judges to be elohiym in some sense (Jesus quoting the prophetic voice of God as saying "I said, 'You are gods...').  But doesn't God make me a son of God?  And being atoned ("at one") and joined unto the Lord as one spirit with him, and the Father being in Jesus and Jesus in me, and being spiritually resurrected so as to become a "new creature" in Christ, am I not a child of the most High in an even deeper sense that the judges of Israel?

And if God called them gods to whom was revealed the glory that was passing away, how do you say of the one who has sanctified me and made fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the holy, of the one who Jesus is not ashamed to recognize as a sibling, "You blaspheme," because I say I am His child.  Several of the "early church fathers" (see here and here and here) whose writings have been used to justify orthodoxy and scriptural authority (vis-a-vis the N.T.) believed that the epistles were describing our "sonship" as a taking on divine attributes and wrote about sanctification as theosis or "divinization" in the strongest of terms:

For we shall be even gods, if we shall deserve to be among those of whom He declared, 'I have said, Ye are gods,' and, 'God standeth in the congregation of the gods.'  But this comes of His own grace, not from any property in us, because it is He alone who can make gods.
- Tertullian, Against Hermogenes, Chapter 6.

Agree with Tertullian or not, but he is not generally thought of as a heretic, as are Marcion and Arius.  But lest we accuse him of suggesting a pantheon, he has made clear that participation in the Divine nature is by the grace of God alone.

Why was it important to show the idea wasn’t new… ?

So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.* 

Even I call God my Father.  Is that blasphemy?  Jesus implies some beyond the Judaeans' own mental rationalizations for killing him: "Which of my Father's good works is your reason for stoning me?"  For which of his works did they mean to execute him?  For the work that challenged their authority. For which of his words, but the words that challenged their authority.  Pilate knew that it was for envy that they sought to destroy him.  Many instances in the Acts of the Apostles mention envy as the motive for Judaism's attacks on the Church.  The charismata at work in Jesus by the Holy Spirit undermined their religious authority.   Claiming to be a Son who is about his Father's business undermined their authority.   

Is a son greater than his father?   Jesus said "The Father is greater than I."  How could the Father be  greater than Jesus if Jesus is equal to the Father? if a son in general is his father's equal?  A son is comparable to his father in comparison to a servant.  A son bears his father's name in a deeper way than a servant who is invested with power of attorney.  A servant may be entrusted with the master's present, but it is the master's son who is invested with his future.  The son may be under the care and authority of a paidogogos for a time, but in time he will be about his Father's business.