WEDNESDAY 16th
2 Peter 1:4
‘so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
As we look at the verse before us today, there would seem to be both a present and a future application.
For, as a result of the precious and great promises we have become partakers of the divine nature and because of the power of God at work in our lives we have escaped the corruption that is in the world. We are in this world but not of it. God gives us the power to be able to overcome sin. Yet, in the future, following on from the precious and great promises we looked at yesterday, we will eternally share in the divine nature and will eternally escape from or be delivered from the corruption that is in the world.
It is important to understand what it means to be sharing in the divine nature, it certainly does not mean that we become God, or as many of the prosperity teachers claim that we become ‘little gods’. One of the ways to understand perhaps what Peter is meaning is that we can begin as believers to take on some of the characteristics of God, as an example, because God is holy, we too are called to be holy. There is also the work of sanctification that is taking place in the believers life that enables he or she to become more Christlike, this is seen in Ephesians 4:24 where we are told to ‘put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness’. Hebrews 12:10 also indicates that through the process of being spiritually disciplined we can share in God’s holiness, ‘For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.’
We then have a verse that reminds us ‘Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.’ 1 John 3:2-3
When the moment of the promised resurrection / rapture comes, when we have been raised and transformed we shall be made incorruptible, immortal, imperishable and glorified, we will be eternal (1 Corinthians 15) We will share so much in what God is like, after all in man’s original state in the garden of Eden he was made in the image of God, what was lost because of sin and corruption will in heaven be restored, but what is important is this we will never become God not even ‘little gods’. For from eternity past there has only ever been the One true and living God, and in eternity future there will still only forever be One true and living God. The ‘great I am’