The God-Makers

According to the

Holy Bible
John 10:31-33 Jesus was persecuted for being a godmaker John 10:34-36 Jesus quoted Psalm 82.6 I said: You are gods, all of you sons of the Most High. Let Eunomius hear this, let Arius, who say that the Son of God is son in the same way we are. That we are gods is not so by nature but by grace. But to as many as receive him he gave power of becoming sons of God. I made man for that purpose, that from men they may become gods. I said: You are gods, all of you sons of the Most High. Imagine the grandeur of our dignity; we are called gods and sons! I have made you gods just as I made Moses a god to Pharaoh, so that after you are gods, you may be made worthy to be made sons of God. Reflect upon the divine words: With God there is no respector of persons. God did not say: I say You are gods, you kings and princes [and judges!]; but all to whom I have given equally a body, a soul, a spirit, I have given equally divinity and adoption. We are all born equals. Our humanity is one of equality.

Yet like men you shall die. You see, therefore, that man will die. God does not die. Adam, too, as long as he obeyed the precepts and was a god, did not die. After he tasted of the forbidden tree, however, he died immediately. In fact, God says to him: The day you eat of it, you must die. The Hebrew has a better way of expressing this: But you like Adam shall die. Just as Adam was cast out of the Garden of Eden, so, likewise, we were. And shall fall like one of the princes. Since the Lord had said: all of you sons of the Most High, it is not possible to be sons of the Most High, unless He Himself is the Most High. I said that all of you would be exalted as I am exalted. But, you shall fall like one of the princes, it is precisely because we have been so elevated that we are said to have fallen. (Jerome: Homilies of St Jerome, Catholic University of America Press, 1964, Washington DC, pp. 106-1077) --Give thanks to the God of Gods. The prophet is referring to those gods of whom it is written: I said: You are gods; and again: God arises in the divine assembly. They who cease to be mere men, abandon the ways of vice and are become perfect, are gods and the sons of the Most High. ( Jerome:: Homilies of

St Jerome, Catholic University of America Press, 1964, Washington DC, p. 353) If, indeed, you follow those who at the time did not endure the lord when showing Himself to be the Son of God, because they would not believe him to be Lord, then call to mind along with them the passage where it is written, I have said, Ye are gods, and ye are children of the Most High; and again, God standeth in the congregation of gods; in order that, if the Scripture has not been afraid to designate gods as human beings, who have become sons of God by faith, you may be sure that the same Scripture has with greater propriety conferred the name of Lord on the true and one-only Son of God. (Tertullian: The AnteNicene Fathers, Grand Rapids MI, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1885, vol. 3, p.608) --. . . While man gradually advances and mounts towards perfection; that is, he approaches the eternal. The eternal is perfect, and this is God. Man has first to come into being, then to progress, and by progressing come to manhood, and having reached manhood to increase, and thus increasing to persevere and persevering be glorified, and thus see his Lord. (Irenaeus: in Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, London, Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 94)

We were not made gods at our beginning, but first we were made men, then, in the end, gods. (Irenaeus: in Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, London, Oxford University Press, 1956, p.94) How then will any be a god, if he has not first been made a man? How can any be perfect when he has only lately been made man? How immortal, if he has not in his mortal state obeyed his maker? For ones duty is first to observe the discipline of man and thereafter to share in the glory of God. (Irenaeus: in Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, London, Oxford University Press, 1956, p.95-96) Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, of his boundless love, became what we are that he might make us what he is himself. (Irenaeus: in Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, London, Oxford University Press, 1956, p.106) To him who has shall be added; knowledge to faith, love to knowledge, and love to inheritance. And this happens when a man depends on the Lord through faith, through knowledge, and through love, and ascends with

him to the place where God is, the God and guardian of our faith and love, from whom knowledge is delivered to those who are fit for this privilege and who are selected because of their desire for fuller preparation and training; who are prepared to listen to what is told them, to discipline their lives, to make progress by careful observance of the law of righteousness. This knowledge leads them to the end, the endless final end; teaching of the life that is to be ours, a life of conformity to God, with gods, when we have been freed from all punishment, which we undergo as a result of our wrong-doings for our saving discipline. After thus being set free, those who have been perfected are given their reward and their honours. They have done with purification, they have done with the rest of their service, though it be a holy service, with the holy; now they become pure in heart, and because of their close intimacy with the Lord there awaits them a restoration to eternal contemplation; and they have received a title of gods, since they are destined to be enthroned with other gods who are ranked next below the Saviour. (Clement of Alexandria: in Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, London, Oxford University Press, 1956, pp. 243-244) Everything, which without being God-in-himself, is deified by participation in his godhead, should strictly be called God not the God. The firstborn of all creation since by being with God first gathered godhood to himself, is therefore in every way more honoured than others besides himself, who are gods of whom

God is the God, as it is said God the Lord of gods spake and called the world [into being]. For it was through his ministry that they became gods, since he drew his divinity from God for them to be deified, and of his kindness generously shared it with them. God, then, is the true God, and those who through him are fashioned into gods are copies of the prototype. (Origen, in Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, London, Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 324) The Father, then, is proclaimed as the one true God; but besides the true God are many who become gods by participating in God. (Origen, in Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, London, Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 324) What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the gods, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast out all things under his feet. (Psalm 8:4-6) God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods . . . Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High. (Psalm 82:1, 6) Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:49) The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:16-17) Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Galatians 4:7) To him that overcometh I will grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Revelation 3:21)
The heavens are telling the glory of God and so is the Holy Bible!