II Corinthians 3:18
Philippians 3:21
"We are being transformed into the same likeness as himself [God]" (Moffatt translation). Christ will change our present vile bodies "and give it a form like that of his own resplendent [God-Family] body" (The New English Bible). Direct and to the point.
Ephesians 4:13
Revelation 1:13-17
Ephesians 4:13 gives us the life-goal for every human being: to attain "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
What is "the stature of the fullness of Christ"? Revelation 1:13-17 tells us — it describes Christ as He is today. Read it — it is a vividly personal picture of God. And that is precisely what human beings were created to attain.
Philippians 2:5-6
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God."
Christ was equal with God — Christ's mind was God's mind. And we human beings are implored to allow that very same mind — the mental capacity of God — to become our minds. When this fully occurs, when we have the full range of God's mental capacity in our minds, we must at that point be in God's Family ourselves.
I Peter 1:23
"For you are sons of God now [in the process of being born again]: the live, permanent Word of the living God has given you his own indestructible HEREDITY" (Phillips translation]. Heredity! That's the key word. We are promised God's heredity.
To begin to appreciate the concept of God's heredity, we must first understand human heredity. The fundamental differences between the DNA (heredity) molecules of animals and humans exemplify the far-reaching realities and implications of heredity. The heredity of a human being is distinctly of the human kind. Likewise the heredity of God is distinctly of the God-kind.
And that indestructible and distinct heredity of God is His Holy Spirit — which is given to every true Christian (Acts 2:38; Eph. 1:13-14).
II Peter 1:4
"We have exceedingly great and precious promises — that we may be partakers of, and share, the essential Divine Nature" (King James Version and Phillips). How can it be possible to partake of, and share, the essential divine nature and yet not be God? It can't.
I John 2:24-25
"You will be living in fellowship with both the Father and the Son. And that means sharing his [God's] own life forever, as he has promised" (Phillips). Again, how can it be possible to share God's own life forever and still not be God? It can't.
I John 3:1-2
And now two remarkable verses. They do not need any explanation. They can't be "interpreted"!
"Consider the incredible love that the Father has shown us in allowing us to be called 'children of God' — and that is not just what we are called, but what we are. Our heredity on the Godward side is no mere figure of speech. . . . Here and now we are God's children. We don't know what we shall become [we cannot yet comprehend how we shall appear] in the future. We only know that, if reality were to break through, we should reflect his likeness ["we shall be like him" — King James Version], for we should see him as he really is" (Phillips).
Just read these words. Each one. And one following another. Literally. We can't make any comment to strengthen them. They plainly say what they say: Christians — humans — will become members of the God Family.
Revelation 3:9
Revelation 19:10; 22:8-9
Revelation 3:9 states that physical human beings in Tomorrow's World — living under the soon-coming Government of God — will worship before the feet of God's present-day human servants.
But Revelation 19:10 and 22:8-9 state that human beings must not worship before the feet of even the greatest angelic beings (and certainly not before other human beings). We are commanded to worship God alone.
Now there is only one logical way for these two statements not to be in diametric contradiction of one another — there is only one way to make sense out of these scriptures — that is if God's human servants of today will literally be changed into individual members of the God Family in the World Tomorrow.
Revelation 3:12
Revelation 21:22
Revelation 3:12 shows that when converted Christians are changed into Spirit Beings at the resurrection they will be pillars in the temple of God and shall "go no more out."
Yet, in the light of this fact, Revelation 21:22 seems contradictory: "And I saw no temple therein [in the New Jerusalem]: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."
How can Christians become "pillars in the temple" if God the Father and Jesus Christ are the temple? And the only temple! Is this a contradiction? Of course not. These verses are in perfect harmony — but only when we come to realize that the God Family (God the Father and Jesus Christ up to now) IS the "temple" — and that converted Christians will be resurrected into the "temple of the God Family" as "pillars." Which means that converted Christians will be resurrected into the God Family as literally God, just like God the Father and Jesus Christ are literally God already in the "God-Family temple." (See also I Cor. 3:16-17 and Rev. 7:15)
Revelation 21:7
"He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God and he shall be MY SON."
How could one "get around" this verse? How does one try to "prove" that human beings will not become God? Only by making the assumption that God's Son does not really mean God's literal Son.
But by making such an assumption, the careless "assumer" accuses God of not being able to generate as close a family relationship between Himself and His Sons as exists between a physical human father and his sons.
Genesis 3:5
Finally, we go back to the beginning. To Genesis. To the crucial third chapter. We do this for two reasons:
1) Some have tried to use Genesis 3:5 to refute the Biblical doctrine that man was created to enter the God Family — and we must now expose the fallacies in their logic.
2) This verse reveals the truth about what is perhaps the most pivotal and crucial period of human history — and is thereby appropriate to complete this entire presentation.
First of all, let's summarize the critic's argument. It goes something like this: "In Genesis 3:5 Satan is quoted as saying 'ye shall be as gods' — and since Satan is a liar, this statement cannot be correct. Therefore, because Satan asserted it, God could not possibly have created human beings to be 'as Gods.' "
Now let's analyze the "reasoning" employed. To begin with, the "logic" is either absent or incredibly naive. True, Satan is a liar, but to assume that every statement he makes is a lie is a false and dangerous premise. Satan makes many true statements, his facts are often correct — it's his intent, motivation, aims and goals which are diabolical.
Notice in Genesis 3:5 that Satan also said, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof {of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), then your eyes shall be opened." And that remark was 100 percent true. You can prove it by Genesis 3:6-7. Adam and Eve did eat of the forbidden tree (verse 6) and indeed "the eyes of them both were opened" (verse 7) — precisely as Satan had stated. So just because Satan states something in no way means that "that something" must be 100 percent wrong.
Satan is clever. If he made statements which were obviously wrong, nobody would ever believe him. Or look at it this way: If Satan always tells a lie, then the listener could always be sure of at least one aspect of the truth (what the truth is not).
Consequently, in order to destroy as many human beings — as many potential God Beings — as possible, most of Satan's words are correct — he just adds a perverted twist to them, just enough to fool the individual and send him on his "merry" way to eternal death.
Now, let's evaluate Genesis 3:5 in its proper perspective. We are going to discover that the very verse which supposedly disproves the fact that man was designed to become God could well be one of its strongest proofs! Because we will see that the very fact that Satan mentioned to Eve "ye shall be as gods" in his first "sermon" suggests that God had already told Adam and Eve precisely that same truth sometime before.
Because this is the overall purpose of human life — to become a member of the God Family. This was the only reason why God started the human race through Adam and Eve in the first place — to begin to reproduce Himself. So it is wholly logical that God immediately instructed our first parents about this most basic, trunk-of-the-tree doctrine when He taught them all the fundamentals of human life on the first Sabbath, the day after they were created. For God to have commanded Adam and Eve to blindly obey His Law without having first explained to them why they should do so — in other words, what the ultimate goal of their law-abiding lives would be — would have degraded the human mind to the level of a mere robot. Sure, God desires obedience. But He also wants us to know why. Because God is creating Sons, not robots.
So the Creator God spoke face-to-face with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Most likely, God (the Person who became Jesus Christ) made it abundantly clear to them that they were created to eventually become exactly like He Himself was — a full-fledged member of the eternally ruling God Family. Indeed, only this would explain why neither Adam nor Eve expressed any surprise when Satan stated later they could immediately become "as God." Most of what Satan said was nothing new — God Himself had already told them almost exactly that.
However, God had also revealed how Adam and Eve were to become members of His God Family. It was going to be a long haul — it was going to be a struggle. They would have to live hundreds of years — rising early, working late, rearing children, fighting sin, continuously obeying God.
Sure, God was offering His personal help. Adam and Eve could have received the gift of God's Holy Spirit, but it would still require a long life of hard work and struggle.
And so it was in this context — the context of hard work and struggle — that Satan came along and offered Adam and Eve "the easy way out."
Satan was going to appeal to their human vanity.
Of course, Satan had to entice them with exactly the same reward that God had offered. Because nothing else could possibly compare with such a prize. Satan had to offer Adam and Eve the prospect of literally becoming God — as mentioned in Genesis 3:5. Only Satan added a "new twist."
In Satan's way there was no wait, no work, no struggling against sin, and, of course, no obedience to God. They could use their own powers of intellect and reasoning. They could conduct their own "scientific" experiments. They could determine for themselves what was right and what was wrong. They could start producing knowledge by themselves. They could aggrandize themselves with all of God's prerogatives. They had allowed their minds to think that since they already possessed such great intellectual powers, they would therefore assume for themselves anything that God bad reserved for Himself.
Adam and Eve could become God immediately — without any strain. Or so they were told. All that was required was one quick bite of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or so Satan said. Adam and Eve wanted to become God — just as God Himself had promised. Only they wanted to become God the "easy way" — Satan's way.
What better proof than Genesis 3:5 that God Himself taught Adam and Eve — our progenitors — that the very purpose of human life was literally to become born again into God's Family!
What better proof than the entire Bible that your personal destiny is in the God Family!