1 John
1Jo 3:1-2 - Sons of God, Not Gods
by Joe Holder
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1Jo 3:1-2)
Does your view of God have any impact on the way you live and think? It certainly should. Too often we've packaged our views of God and of how we should live into neat little boxes, compartmentalizing and isolating each from the other. We view eternal doctrines as something precious and of great value, but often we cannot identify how they have any impact whatever on the way we will live and face our difficulties next week. This view of our theology, our concept of God, is faulty to the core. In our study passage and throughout Scripture we learn that we should integrate our view of God with our most mundane activities and decisions. Our view of God should directly impact every thought, word and deed in our lives.
The Docetic gnostic philosophers whom John opposed in this letter taught that the supreme deity was unknowable and unapproachable. They could realize their divinity and become a lesser god, but even these lesser gods could not know or approach the supreme god. Their god had no interest in this life or in this material world. In fact they held that he actually was infuriated at a lower "demiurge" who misunderstood his wishes and created the material universe. They identified this bumbling demiurge with the Jehovah of the Old Testament! John considered this teaching in all its parts as blasphemous error. Early Christians took John as their example and equally opposed this teaching. Distinct from any number of errors that arose within Christianity, this error originated outside the faith and attempted to legitimize itself by attaching itself to Christianity. John opposed them and their teachings as fiercely as a Roman emperor would oppose invading pagan hoards from the north. They and their teachings were altogether foreign to anything John could classify as orthodox or acceptable to the faith.
According to this incredible error, anything material was inherently inferior and marred in the eyes of their unknowable supreme deity. They could not fathom a knowable and approachable supreme God who created this material universe and takes pleasure in its existence. That the heavens would declare His glory and the atmospheric envelope around the earth, including the earth itself, shows His intimate and detailed handiwork. It is as if the heavens reveal His glory and the globe we know as earth, our home in that universe, reveals His needlework. We live in the midst of His fine artistic and orderly creation.
They tried to embrace Jesus as one of their own. According to their teaching, he was to be honored as a great teacher, one of few men who realized and grew into his potential deity. He started his existence on earth as a man, and nothing but a man. Then through gnostic secrets he realized his potential deity and eventually became one of the many underling gods. Therefore they encouraged others to follow His example and become a god like Him!
That background gives special weight to John's comments in this lesson. We do not need to grow or realize our deity. We are not gods, and we are not to become gods. But now, not a future potential, we are God's children, beloved children of a personal and knowable God. Everything John writes in these verses stands in amazing contrast to the Docetic gnostic error John opposed here.
Our being called the sons of God does not evolve from our personal attainments or from our gaining access to secret knowledge. Our position as sons of God stands firmly on God's personal and intimate love for us! What kind of love would prompt any being truly deserving of the title God to reach out and embrace fallen creatures in His creation as His own children? There is only one such being in John's concept, and He so loved His children that He entered their world. He actually took on Himself their nature, even a human body like theirs. But He did not cease being God during this time. He remained as fully God as at any time in His eternal existence. He did not enter this world to give undeserving mortals an opportunity to follow His example and become a lesser god. He entered it to manifest His profound love for us and to do what we could not do for ourselves, to suffer what we could not suffer and survive. He willingly and knowingly submitted to suffering and to death, an ignominious death, on our behalf. He did not die for crimes He committed, but for our sins. His death was vicarious, on behalf of others, not for Himself. It was in the form of a substitution for the penalty we deserved. And the righteousness we receive from Him is not acquired or infused but imputed. He took upon Himself the just penalty for our sins and imputed to us His spotless righteousness. Herein is the full measure of His love manifested. What manner of love is this!
The godless unbelieving world cannot comprehend this kind of love or this kind of God. Such a concept seemed incredible to them when He came, and it continues to seem incredible to unbelievers when we speak of it.
Now are we the sons of God. No, we are not striving to become gods. We are right now, even in our current mortality, the sons of God. For the gnostic teachers the future was supposedly knowable through their secret and supposedly superior knowledge. But John tells us that the future state of God's family is so transcendent that we cannot fully know it or comprehend it at this time. We presently know God and we celebrate the knowledge of His transcendent love for us. Our grasp of His love enables us to anticipate a future state with Him so far outside our present knowledge or ability that we cannot imagine what it will be.
Study the language carefully. John does not disagree with the gnostics simply in terms of timing, as if they taught that we become gods now, and he taught that we become gods later. At no point does John say we will ever become gods, but that we will be so changed into an image compatible with Him that we will be able to fully comprehend Him as He is. In that way only will we be "like Him." We will participate vicariously, not inherently, in His nature. We will not become little gods, but we will be like Him in terms of His righteous nature. We will then see Him as He is because of the kinship He imputes to us. Gods don't evolve or grow. Gods don't receive their deity from another, at least any being worthy of the title. And there is only one such being in the entire universe! God is the same today as He was prior to His creating the universe. He is the same as He was prior to the incarnation. In the incarnation His deity didn't change, but He added humanity to His nature. That addition did not in any way alter His deity. It simply added humanity to His being in the body Christ indwelled during His incarnation.
Today because of our sinful and temporal state we cannot fully grasp the being of God, but He has condescended to us in our temporal humanity through Jesus and the incarnation. Thus He took such painstaking steps to put Himself in an accessible and knowable posture for us. Eventually John celebrates that we will be taken into His presence and see Him as He is.
The idea that mortals will eventually become gods, regardless of the means, is not a historic Christian view, but a gnostic/New Age non-Christian view. In fact according to John's language in this letter, it is antichristian! The whole idea of reducing Jesus to a man who by some mystical means became a god also elevates man to the same level. This reveals the insidious quality of the error John exposes and opposes in this letter. Worship of God is corrupted into worship of man, particularly of self. Incredible gratitude for everything He accomplished through the incarnation becomes a self-absorbed challenge for you to become a god in your own right.
The direct impact of the truth John presents here is overwhelming. The incarnation becomes the greatest evidence imaginable of God's transcendent love for us. Nothing in us earns or deserves that love. It floods upon us freely and wondrously through God's grace. Despite the wonder of what we now have as children, amazingly loved of God, our future so transcends our present state that we cannot fathom it or put words to its description. Despite what we now know of God, primarily through the incarnation and all its implications to us through Scriptural revelation, there is yet more to know of God than we can imagine or comprehend at this time. But God intends that we know Him in such amazing intimacy. Celebrate Him in every detail of life!