Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
"Theosis" or "Divination", like any doctrine or teaching, is only an orthodox doctrine if it is taught and believed within the confines of the Word of God. The Word of God does NOT teach or even imply that we are BECOMING GOD IN LIFE AND NATURE. It simply does not. To quote a real apostle and the greatest theologian to ever live..."But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8) So if we are not to listen to an angel from heaven, what shall we say about Anthanasius, or any of the church Fathers or any mere man? Take care, lest you find yourself in the realm of the accursed.
Psalm 82 does not say that WE ARE BECOMING GOD IN LIFE AND NATURE. It says no such thing. You can quote church fathers, commentators, Nee, Lee, Martin Luther or Martin Luther King...is says no such things.
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I am talking about the exegesis. I said that's how the early church interpreted it. The early church interpreted this passage in terms of us becoming gods or sons of God.
To support this, here are quotes from the Blackwell article I gave in an earlier post:
the idea arose from early Christian readings of the Bible. Our earliest evidence of believers being called gods actually goes back to the lips of Jesus in John 10:34 when he quotes from Psalm 82:6, which reads: “I said, ‘You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.’” The church has followed Jesus in this interpretive stream, although they have spent more time exploring this passage in view of wider biblical contexts than focusing on Jesus’ use of it in the Gospel of John. With this, two primary exegetical themes come out of their readings of Psalm 82: (1) gods are immortals and (2) sons of God are gods.
two primary exegetical themes come out of their readings of Psalm 82: (1) gods are immortals and (2) sons of God are gods.
To be a son of God, then, means being a god, in some sense.
So according to the theologian Blackwell, the early church Christians referred to themselves as gods. This would explain why so many early church fathers talk about "becoming God" and early church Christians would not had a problem with it unlike so many evangelicals today have.
He does say that becoming God is metaphorical, but explains his meaning of the term "become God" as to become part of God himself, the Trinity. Of course, Lee would agree with this as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
Wow, this is getting old. John Piper does not teach that WE ARE BECOMING GOD IN LIFE AND NATURE. He teaches no such thing. If he did, he would be the laughing stock of the Christian community. (Like Witness Lee already is to a great extant.)
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I never said he did teach that. Rather, I said that he does not say Athanasius is a heretic or his doctrine. Instead, he praises him. In fact, Piper tries to bridge the doctrine with evangelicalism by comparing it to the doctrine of "glorification".
Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
Many? What many? I've never heard anyone teach that John 3:16 is the goal of salvation, and neither have you. There is no such teaching in evangelical/orthodox Christianity.The rest of your post is simply an argument from silence at best, and really is nothing more that flat out circular reasoning, and I don't have the time or patients for such nonsense tonight.
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I can quote numerous Christian websites that state eternal life is the goal of salvation. This is from bible study.org and note the part I highlighted in bold.
http://www.biblestudy.org/bible-stud...salvation.html
Each believer is promised that he or she, after living a faithful life to the Father, will be resurrected from dead and given an eternal life full of love and purpose. God personally promises that those who overcome shall be given ALL things. Even more amazing is that God will consider those who are saved as part of his family (Revelation 21:7)! This is the ultimate goal of salvation (Revelation 20:6).