Just as we are constituted physically of the food we eat, so we, believers in Christ, should be constituted of the God of which we partake. This should be our experience day by day. If we enjoy God and partake of Him, we shall be constituted of Him. We shall be thoroughly constituted of God’s nature.
We all are constituted physically of the food we eat. For example, someone may eat so much fish and be constituted of fish to such an extent that he even smells of fish. In like manner, we may become so constituted of God that we express God in all that we are and do. We may even give off a divine “fragrance.” If we partake of God day by day, eventually we shall partake of Him unconsciously. When others contact us, they will see in us the expression of the Triune God. All the saints need to be saturated with the nature of God. The more we are saturated with God, the more we shall express Him.
To be a partaker of the divine nature is to be a partaker of the elements, the ingredients, of God’s being. When we partake of God, the aspects of what God is become our enjoyment. This is to enjoy the constituents of the divine nature.
In 2 Peter 1:4 there is a condition for becoming partakers of the divine nature: It is “having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.” The more we escape this corruption, the more we shall enjoy the nature of God. Likewise, the more we partake of the divine nature, the more we shall escape the corruption that is in the world by lust. This is a cycle, a cycle of escaping and partaking and of partaking and escaping. If this cycle of partaking and escaping works within us in a strong, rapid way, it will be difficult for us to take in any of the corruption of the world. The divine nature will strengthen us to stay away from corruption. Then the more we stay away from the corruption of the world, the more we shall enjoy the riches of the divine nature. This is the experience of God’s economy.
To have eternal life is a matter once for all, but to partake of the divine nature is a continual matter. Although we have the divine life once for all, we cannot enjoy the divine nature once for all. During the course of our Christian life on earth, and even in eternity, we shall still be partaking of the divine nature.
The divine nature denotes what God is. We may again use eating food as an illustration of partaking of the divine nature. When we eat chicken, for example, we partake of the chicken nature. What the chicken is becomes our nourishment. When we eat chicken, we are actually eating the chicken nature, which includes various nourishing elements. These elements, or ingredients, are the constituents of the chicken nature. The principle is the same with the divine nature. Through God’s promises we are partaking of God’s nature with all the divine ingredients. Just as we do not eat food once for all, so we do not partake of the divine nature once for all. For eternity, as portrayed by the tree of life and the river of water of life in Revelation 22, we shall be partaking of the divine nature.
We have seen that the divine nature denotes what God is, that is, the constituents of God’s being. Because we are children of God born of Him, we possess God’s life and also His nature for our enjoyment. Because I have proclaimed this truth according to the Bible, some have condemned me and falsely accused me of teaching deification. They say that I am deifying myself and teaching that the church is God and should be worshipped as a part of God. We utterly repudiate this false accusation! A child born of American parents will certainly be American. Then what about those who have been born of God? Through our new birth, regeneration, we have been born of God, and we are God’s children. Because we have been born of God, in life and in nature we are the same as God. In this sense, those who are born of God are divine. But we definitely do not participate in the Godhead, and we certainly do not become an object of worship. We have God’s life and nature, but we do not become part of the Godhead.
Certain early church fathers taught concerning the deification of the believers. But they did not teach that the believers attained to the Godhead, or that they would ever be worshipped as God. Rather, they meant that Christians, those who have been regenerated of God, have God’s life and nature. We, the regenerated ones, are the same as God in life and nature, but we are not the same as God in position in the Godhead. Concerning this, we need to be very careful. It would be heretical to teach deification in the sense of claiming that believers attain to the Godhead. But it is according to the Scriptures to teach that because we have been born of God, we possess the divine life and the divine nature and that, in these aspects, we have become the same as God. We definitely cannot participate in the Godhead, or have the position to be worshipped by others as God. Nevertheless, through regeneration we have God’s life and nature.
We need to come back to the pure Word of God and to tell others that whoever believes in the Son of God is born of God and has the right, the authority, to become a child of God (John 1:12-13). As such, he has the right to partake of, to enjoy, the nature of God. Therefore, we have God’s life, we are enjoying God’s nature, and we have the position of God’s children. But we definitely do not have the position of the Godhead, the position to be worshipped by others as God. Praise the Lord that we have the position, the ability, and the provision to become partakers of the divine nature! Day by day we should partake of God’s nature and enjoy what He is, that is, enjoy the constituents of God’s rich being.
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