2 Peter 1:2-4. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. These verses describe unique blessings bestowed by Almighty God upon those who have come to Jesus in repentance and faith. Yet the high point of ‘His precious and magnificent promises’ is surely ‘that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature’. Jesus partook of human flesh for us so that He might procure for us the right to become sons of God. He as Son of God made Son of man that we as sons of men might be made sons of God.
John 14:16-17. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. NKJV. We partook of the divine nature when the Holy Spirit came into us at our new birth. The Spirit, who is one and co-equal with the Father and the Son, will abide with us forever.
Genesis 1:26-27. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Adam was far more than just another creature. He bore the image of God’s one and only Son Jesus. When God created man on the sixth day He ‘saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good’. After that God rested,
Genesis 2:21-23. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, ” This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” We must ask if Adam was simply an individual or whether he was more than one. Eve was no separate creation. God literally ‘builded’ the woman from the very substance of Adam’s flesh and bone. In one sense Eve was a separate being. In another sense she was of one flesh, one substance with her husband.
Acts 17:26. ….and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth…. More even than one with his wife, Adam’s substance became multiplied through Eve to every human being who has ever lived. All who read these words are individuals yet we are also part of a vast multitude of parts of Adam.
John 17:22-23. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” The prayer of the Lord Jesus from which these verses are quoted expresses His desire to His Father that the unity which is the very essence of the Godhead shall embrace together all His own. In other words just as the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are three Persons yet one indivisible God so all believers as individuals shall also possess forever the same indivisible unity as does the Godhead. This is a moment to pause and reflect what it really means to ‘partake of the divine nature’.
Ephesians 1:9-10. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. Whilst everything that has existence will come to be ‘in Christ’, the destiny of the believer will, as we shall see, be far above that of all other created beings or things.
Revelation 19:7-9. Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!'” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” NKJV. She who is here referred to as His wife is surely an individual. We may indeed say that she is an individual extraordinary. We are told that she has made herself ready for this event, an event which is far beyond our human imagination. The word continues that His wife is to be ‘arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints’. These precious deeds performed in the Spirit are those of ‘the saints’. Surely then ‘His wife’ is composed of many saints. On the one hand she is the Lamb’s one wife and on the other hand she is composed of many saints. Her constitution is indeed of the divine nature, being both one wife yet composed of many individuals.
Revelation 19:11-14. And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. Following the marriage of the Lamb the scene changes and the Lamb, astride a white horse, descends out of heaven. Following Him are a host of riders also on white horses who are surely those who before had constituted His wife. Each individual rider is now individually ‘clothed in fine linen, white and clean’.
Revelation 21:9-11, 14. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, ” Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper….And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. We may well wonder whether the New Jerusalem is a city or a person. These verses describe the New Jerusalem as being both. One of the seven angels unveiled to the apostle John a city constituted of countless precious stones, the foundation stones of which bear the names of the twelve apostles. Thus it seems that the composition of the city is of a vast number of the saints of God. The New Jerusalem is one city which is one ‘bride, the wife of the Lamb’. Dare we venture in humble simplicity that what God desires for His Son is a wife who is the ultimate expression of a housewife?
At the dawn of eternity future God’s divine nature which He has bestowed upon all His own will exhibit the indivisible oneness of the Triune God among this great multitude of perfected believers who will forever compose ‘the bride, the wife of the Lamb’.
Isaiah 9:6. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Surely this is one of the most amazing verses in the whole Bible. This child whose birth is foretold by the prophet Isaiah is said to be three persons; the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son all in one. Each member of the Trinity knows that they are God. Each knows that they also are a distinct entity. In the same manner every individual who will comprise ‘the bride, the wife of the Lamb’ will be conscious of being the bride, the wife of the Lamb. Yet each will also know that they are the specific individual they happen to be. This will be the glorious and blessed outcome of being ‘partakers of the divine nature’.
It seems to be fitting to close with some words from a psalm of David, ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it’. Psalm 139:6.
Please feel free to share your thoughts below. When you have finished with this post you may return to the main Posts page. https://hisupwardcall.com/posts/