Stated succinctly, J. S. charges Brother Lee with espousing and propagating “the greatest and worst blasphemous heresy,” “the devilish heresy that man will become god (or God).” As quoted in the foregoing section, Brother Lee clearly and emphatically teaches that “the Godhead is unique” and that “He is the only One who should be worshipped.” Recall Brother Lee’s balanced word that, on the one hand, the New Testament reveals that “the Godhead is unique and that only God, who alone has the Godhead, should be worshipped” and that, on the other hand, the New Testament reveals that we, the believers in Christ, have God’s life and nature and that “we are becoming God in life and in nature but will never have the Godhead” (emphasis added). In speaking of deification—the process through which the believers are constituted with the Triune God to be made God in life and in nature—Brother Lee says that man becomes “God in life and in nature but not, of course, in the Godhead” (emphasis added). Of course, the Godhead is unique. Of course, we will never have the Godhead. Of course, God alone is worthy of worship. Of course, the believers will never become an object of worship. Of course, the believers will never be made God in the sense of having the Godhead. “Never have the Godhead”—this crucial phrase deserves the attention of every honest reader of Brother Lee’s materials.
The J. S. of “The Worst Blasphemous Words...” is neither an honest reader nor a trustworthy reporter. Instead of recognizing and acknowledging Brother Lee’s clear and emphatic distinction between man becoming God in life and in nature and man becoming God in having the Godhead or as an object of worship, J. S. uses (or misuses) Brother Lee’s words to create the impression that Brother Lee teaches that in being made God in life and in nature the believers also become God in the sense of having the unique Godhead and of being an object of worship.
To further J. S.’s plan, on each of the first four pages of “The Worst Blasphemous Words...” the expression “GOD BECAME MAN—MAN BECAME GOD” is printed in huge, bold letters. J. S.’s obvious intention is to create and then reinforce the impression that, supposedly according to Brother Lee, it is an accomplished fact that God became man and that man has become God, not merely in life and in nature but also in the Godhead and as an object of worship. However, Andrew Yu points out (see the following section) that the original Chinese wording for the expression rendered “GOD BECAME MAN—MAN BECAME GOD” is “God becoming man, man becoming God.” Andrew Yu goes on to say that although the original expression in Chinese bears no reference to time and tense, the context of the book (The Dispensing, Transformation, and Building of the Processed Divine Trinity in the Believers [Chinese], pp. 38-39), together with the new hymn quoted on page 4 of “The Worst Blasphemous Words...” clearly indicate that Brother Lee means God becoming man so that man may become God, and that, to be sure, God only in life and in nature, not God in the Godhead nor as an object of worship.
A close, objective, fair-minded reading of the material J. S. quotes in the first two pages reveals that Brother Lee indicates that the believers’ becoming God is a matter of becoming God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. Brother Lee says that God took human nature upon Himself in order to make the men He had chosen exactly like Him in life and in nature: “In order that these men, although they are [and remain] human beings, could have His divine life and His divine nature [but not His Godhead or His unique standing as an object of worship].” From this Brother Lee concludes, “In life and nature [not in the Godhead nor as an object of worship], man and God belong to the same kind.” God, through incarnation, took on human nature; we, through regeneration, partake of the divine nature. “He is God, but with the human nature, we are men, but with the divine nature. By means of these two natures and lives, God has mingled Himself with man together....This is ultimately to make these two, namely God and man the same.” Whereas God and man may be the same in life and in nature, they are not, and never will be, the same in the Godhead or as an object of worship. Therefore, the believers’ in Christ becoming God is limited to their becoming God in the divine life and in the divine nature and always and forever excludes any participation in the unique Godhead and any assuming of a position as an object of worship.
J. S. (or another translator) repeats the same egregious error by his English rendering (with certain words highlighted in boldface) of a new hymn written by Brother Lee. As shown below, Andrew Yu notes that the version given in “The Worst Blasphemous Words...” is a very poor and flawed translation. “Having no share in His Godhead” is rendered “only His deity I have no part.” “Coordinated with the saints in God to be built up as the universal house of the divine Trinity” is rendered “I also coordinate with all the holy Gods to build up the triune universal family.” Through a glaringly mistaken translation, J. S. presents a perversion and a caricature of Brother Lee’s teaching, depicting him as one who believes that the saints are “holy Gods” the same as God in every way and that the believers enter the Godhead as members of a family of Gods, the so-called “triune universal family.” What distortion! What deception!
In contrast, consider Brother Lee’s clear word in the Life-study of 1 and 2 Samuel (p. 182): “God’s intention from eternity to eternity is to make Himself us, that we might become Him in life, in nature, and in constitution (but not in the Godhead).” Further clarification is provided in the Life-study of Job (p. 157): “Seeing God equals gaining God (Matt. 5:8). To gain God is to receive God in His element, in His life, and in His nature. Eventually, this not only makes us one with God—it even makes us a part of God....To be made a part of God, to be constituted with God in His life and nature, is more than being one with God. We see God that we may be constituted with God, yet we do not have any share in the Godhead.” Having God’s life and nature but not having any share in the Godhead, we surely are not “holy Gods” participating in the Godhead to receive the worship of God’s creatures. As quoted earlier, Brother Lee has taken the lead to declare that “it is a great heresy to say that we are made like God in His Godhead.” As he emphatically explains, “None of us are or can be God in His Godhead as an object of worship.”