Human potential is higher than most people think.
God created man to enter His divine Family!
Read this article and see the PROOF!
THE FACT that the express purpose of every human life is literally to become a full-fledged member of the God Family astounds many readers. Why?
Because the idea doesn't agree with long-cherished beliefs!
But it shouldn't be surprising. Most "long-cherished beliefs" of churchianity have little or nothing to do with the Bible. Most "traditional" doctrines cannot be found in God's Word, but are far more likely to be ancient pagan myths. (And all the while "theologians" and philosophers have been meticulously popularizing these heathen holdovers, the Bible has utterly condemned them)
Whatever the Bible does teach, people ignore. Or ridicule. Or change. Perhaps the very "best" example of this travesty may be seen from what follows.
Put Every Doctrine to the Test!
The Bible plainly states that God created every human being to join Him eventually in the "very family circle of God" (Rom. 8:15, Phillips translation). This is the great mystery alluded to in the New Testament (I Corinthians 2:7). And this is precisely what we intend to prove: that your destiny IS the God Family. That individual human beings can and will become members of the actual Family of Almighty God!
But don't just "believe" what you have just read. We haven't yet proven this is true. Make us prove it. Open your Bible. Pore over each scripture. Check up on us. Read. Think. Reason. Put us to the test. Prove that your Bible teaches that your destiny is the God Family.
A God Family into which each individual human being who qualifies will have been instantaneously resurrected (if then dead) or changed (if still alive) into a literal God Being himself, as much God as God the Father and Jesus Christ are God, in the broad, rich, full, expansive meaning of this overused and most-misunderstood word.
A point of clarification here: We are not saying that human beings will become God the Father or become Jesus Christ. That would be utterly ridiculous. God the Father is God the Father and Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ. And nobody else can "become" them. Furthermore, we are also not saying that those who will be born into God's Family will ever have the same power or authority as the Father or Christ does. Of course not. What we are saying, indeed what the Bible is saying, is that human beings will become members of the same God Family — composed of the same Spirit, doing the same Work and living the same life as are God the Father and Jesus Christ. We will all exist on the same supreme God level.
Individuality Not Lost
Yet, with all this "sameness" we will assuredly not be "assembly-line robots" or "diffused love essence in a universal spiritual cloud." Far from it. We will be individuals — as individually distinct from one another as God the Father is individually distinct from Jesus Christ.
We will have our own particular personalities, maintain our own special characteristics, generate our own unique ideas, create our own original thoughts, enjoy our own preferential activities, fulfill our own personal responsibilities, and on and on. And we will always be tightly united in the God Family. We will always be ruled by the Father and by Christ, fulfilling God's overall purpose, spreading the love of God throughout the universe, united in the Family of God.
And this may make some people angry. Why? Simply because self-appointed philosophers and self-ordained theologians have long ago replaced the true God of the Bible with an incomprehensible "God image" — a mythical Fuzzy Being who is "too perfect," "too righteous," "too pious," "too holy" and "too downright religious" to be approached by human beings.
Bible Proof
The Bible itself, for those who are interested, tells a different story. God is not unapproachable. His easy approachability is inherent in the very reason why He created human beings in the first place — so that all mankind could be able to grow up spiritually into His Family.
Now let's irrefutably prove this fundamental doctrine directly from the Bible.
Many Biblical sections are relevant. But we want to be quite specific. We want scriptures which directly demonstrate and prove that man's ultimate goal — his only reason for being created as a species and his only reason for being born as an individual — is to become a full-fledged member of the Family of Almighty God.
Now these Biblical sections themselves are not "lost verses" recently discovered in some archaeological investigation. Nor are they part of some esoteric "forgotten book" recently rescued from some dusty museum warehouse by a muttering graduate student. These verses have been in the Bible all the while. They are not even the difficult scriptures. They are remarkably straightforward.
As a matter of fact, for the most part, the scriptures which prove the point are the "old favorites." And that's been the problem: They are "old" and "favorite" — but therefore much misunderstood.
So as you read the rest of this article, simply read also the words of the following verses from your own Bible — with an open mind and a fresh outlook — and watch the Bible clearly state in plain English that man's purpose in life is literally to become God!
Genesis 1:1
"Elohim" — the Hebrew word that should be translated "the God Family" — is a uniplural word. This demonstrates that there are multiple members in the one God-Family unit. (For a more complete discussion of this fundamental point, see "The God Family" in last month's TOMORROW'S WORLD)
Genesis 1:26
In one short, most remarkable statement, the God Family sums up the whole purpose of human life — the primary, underlying reason which motivated the God Family to create all physical reality. This declaration gives the all-encompassing reason: "LET us MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE AND AFTER OUR LIKENESS." This is the very first Biblical reference to man — and with it the God Family announces the firm intention to begin to reproduce "after its kind."
Prior to this verse, the basic life-principle "after its kind" (literally from the Hebrew "to, or for, its appointed division") is repeatedly stressed as God's guiding design for the reproduction and purpose of all life. And so, just as God had created the plants and the animals "after their kind," He created man after His own kind — after the God kind.
Why is the phrase "after its kind" never applied to man — even though it is consistently applied to all other life? The answer is fundamental: Because the primary purpose of human life is not to physically reproduce after the human kind — but to be spiritually reproduced after the God kind!
In the same manner as a newborn spider, bird or whale was designed to grow up to become exactly like its family and parents, every human being was designed to grow up to become exactly like his Family and Parent — exactly like God, exactly like the Father and exactly like Christ. Because just as the animals had begun to reproduce themselves, God had begun to reproduce Himself.
Many have heard Genesis 1:26 recited often — and, as usual, familiarity has bred contempt. So, quite unintentionally, we water it down — so that "Let us make man in our image and after our likeness" is interpreted as "representational," or as poetry, or as a metaphor, or figure of speech, or some other literary device, or a simile, or an analogy, or a figure of anything — anything but the simple meaning of the words themselves.
Men have devoted multiple tens of thousands of volumes over the centuries in search of "the plan," "the purpose" and "the answer" to mankind's existence. To no avail. In striking contrast, God reveals all three — He spells out in precise detail the exact plan, the full purpose, and the ultimate answer for each human life — and He does it in just four original Hebrew words (11 in English): "Let us [the God Family] make man in our [the God Family's] image and after our [the God Family's] likeness."
How much clearer could one state that the God Family — comprising, at the present time, only two Persons, God the Father and God the Son — created man for the purpose of joining them IN the God Family, to become literal, additional God Persons, just as they themselves (God the Father and God the Son) are and always will be, literal members of that eternally ruling God Family.
Genesis 17:8
Leviticus 25:23
Romans 4:13, 17
Hebrews 11:13
Genesis 17:8 shows that Abraham was promised the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. Romans 4:13 extends this promise to the entire earth. Yet Abraham died not having received the promise (Hebrews 11:13). Is something wrong? No — Romans 4:17 proves that God calls things which have not yet happened as though they had already happened — and furthermore that He will resurrect the dead to bring His promises to pass: So we can be sure that Abraham will be resurrected.
Now, in this context, Leviticus 25:23 adds the critical complication: God states that "the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." This means that Canaan and the whole earth belong to the God Family — and only the God Family can permanently own any land at all. Consequently, in order for God to make good on His promise to give Abraham the possession of Canaan and the whole earth as an everlasting possession — and God must do this — simple logic dictates that Abraham must eventually become a co-member of the God Family. There is no other alternative.
Leviticus 11:44-45
"Ye shall be holy, for I am holy." God commands human beings to attain the same level of holiness that God Himself reflects. But obviously we can't.
Is God a sadist? No — He is trying to make us realize the crucial point: that we should be striving to become like God in holiness as in every other way, so that at some point in the future we can be given the full measure of God's holiness and be actually changed into Spirit Beings in God's Family.
Job 14:14
"If a man die shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come." Change? To what? To a GOD-LEVEL of existence.
Psalm 17:15
David looked forward to the time when he would awake from his death — and bear the likeness of God. (This will take place in the yet future resurrection — David is dead in his grave (Acts 2:29))
The Hebrew word here translated "likeness" — timoonah — is elsewhere used to directly represent God Himself (Num. 12:8; Deut. 4:12, 15, where "similitude" is the translation) but it is a completely different Hebrew word from the fleshly (Gen. 1:26) "likeness" of God in which human beings were created. How then can David bear the likeness (timoonah) of God without being in God's Family? The answer is, he can't.