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.
Number 473 in Hymns 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 which 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 after His likeness (Gen. 1:26). We were created not in man's image and after man's likeness but in God's image and after 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.