This installment brings chapter 1 to its end. Chapter 2 will begin to be posted on Monday. I hope you are enjoying this and finding it edifying!
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CHAPTER 1: SONS OF GOD (part 4)
If this is so it is important that we should try and get as clear an idea as possible of what this deification means. It is clear that it does not mean that we are made gods in any absolute sense, such as idea is contradicted by experience and common sense. Certainly rather extravagant language has sometimes been used in this connection, particularly in commenting on such passages of Scripture as “I have said, Ye are gods” (Ps 82. 6), but the essential truth is clear enough. God gives us participation in His nature, not in His being. A child is the son of his father, but he is not the father; equally we are the sons of God, but we are not God. He is the eternal, infinite God; we are temporal, finite creatures and ever remain so, and it is this truth which the conception of adoption guards. But God deifies us by communicating His nature to us in such a way as it can be assimilated by our humanity; the human element is always there but it is perfected and raised above itself by the divine.
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