JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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By their actions these judges have proven themselves to be only human after all. The
rebuke they receive is well founded: "I said, 'You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.'
But you will die like mere men; you will fall like any other ruler" (vv. 6-7).
Instead of classifying Himself among men, Jesus calls Himself "Him, whom the Father
set apart as His very own [sanctified] and sent into the world" (v. 36). By so doing He was
separating and distinguishing Himself from men. He uses comparative logic: "How much more."
This is the first time in the New Testament that Jesus identifies Himself as "the Son of
God". Previously He has spoken of Himself as "the Son" and referred to God as His Father in
such a way as to leave no doubt that He claims a special and unique relationship. This is His way
of accepting the charge made against Him previously:
"We are not stoning You for any of these, but for blasphemy, because You, a
mere man, claim to be God" (v. 33).
While He does not deny the charge, He denies that the Jews are right in their understanding
of the situation. They thought He was making Himself God. He was saying that He was
not making Himself anything. He was what He was, and it was the Father, who in the first place,
sent Him into the world, and secondly, who testified of Him (5:37).
In what sense then can we speak of human beings as being "gods". Certainly not in the
sense that Jesus is—coequality, cosubstantiality—but only in the sense that man is a "partaker of
the divine nature" (2 Pe 1:4). He is a "participant" of God's divine nature only as he is indwelt by
the Spirit of God. And this indwelling is possible only because he was made in God's image
and because he acknowledges by faith God's saving work in the Person of Jesus Christ on the
cross.
When we become partakers of His divine nature we become "sons" or "children" of God.
This is the sense in which Martin Luther and C. S. Lewis spoke of Christians as "little christs."
After all, the word "Christian" means "Christ one" or "one of Christ's." But while we are "sons of
God" Jesus, and He alone, is "the Son of God."
Several leaders in the faith movement (the Gospel of Health, Wealth and Prosperity) have
gone beyond the scriptural teaching and in the process demoted God the Father and Jesus Christ.
In his book, Christianity in Crisis, Hank Hanegraaff lists the following stupendous statements
which show the deification of man and the demotion of God:
"Man . . . was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God's
presence without any consciousness of inferiority. . . . God has made us as much
like Himself as possible. . . . He made us the same class of being that he is
Himself. . . . Man lived in the realm of God. He lived on terms equal with God. . . .
The believer is called Christ. . . . That's who we are; we're Christ!"2
--Kenneth Hagin