According to 2 Peter 1:4, God has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises for a specific purpose. His purpose is that through these promises we may become partakers of the divine nature. Through the precious and exceedingly great promises, we, the believers in Christ, have become partakers of His divine nature in an organic union with Him. In Acts 2 and 3 Peter and the other disciples surely were partaking of the divine nature. It is no wonder then that when others looked at the disciples, they saw the expression of God. Because the disciples enjoyed God and partook of God, they were constituted of God.
Just as we are constituted physically of the food we eat, so the disciples were constituted of the God of which they partook. This should also be our experience today. If we enjoy God and partake of Him, we shall be constituted of Him. Of course, we shall never become God in the sense of attaining to the Godhead or becoming an object of worship. However, we may 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.
My desire is that all the saints in the Lord’s recovery would be fully 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. We partake of His righteousness, holiness, kindness, love, compassion. This is to enjoy the constituents of the divine nature. God’s purpose in giving us the precious and exceedingly great promises is that we may become partakers of the divine nature.
In 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. I can testify that because this cycle of partaking and escaping works within me in a strong, rapid way, it is difficult for me to take in any of the corruption of the world. I partake of the divine nature, and this divine nature strengthens me to stay away from corruption. Then the more I stay away from the corruption of the world, the more I enjoy the riches of the divine nature. This is the experience of God’s economy. What we have in 1:1-4 is actually a full picture of our enjoyment of God’s economy.