Have you ever boasted about the hope you have? Try it. People will think you’re crazy, but tell them that your Hope is to be resurrected, have a divine nature, and share in God’s glory.
… we boast in the Hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2).
What exactly is this Hope? Do we actually get the glory of God? Indeed we do. In the Resurrection we get the glory of a divine nature—intelligence, strength, beauty, authority, immortality, holiness, and perfect love. So, our Hope is the glory of God—not in the sense of seeing God’s glory by setting our eyes on him, but to possess glory for ourselves. This has always been God’s intention for us, to make us partakers of his nature!
… he [God] has bestowed on us his precious and very great promises, so that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4; LEB/NIV).
We repeat: As remarkable as it sounds, the Scriptures say what they say, and God’s intention for us is to be literal gods on the Earth. Too remarkable to believe? This is how Jesus addressed the issue:
[the Pharisees said to Jesus] ‘…you, although you are a man, make yourself to be God!’ Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? …he [God] called them ‘gods’ to whom the Word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken… (John 10:33-36; LEB)
In his great love, God wishes to share his divine nature with us. This shouldn’t sound strange to us since God is Love, and also since God has already demonstrated this same kind of love with Jesus when God gave glory to Jesus. When Jesus prayed to God, he recalled that God had loved him and had given him glory. Hear him out:
Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the Creation of the World (John 17:24).
So, the logic of the love of God is that if God gave Jesus glory, will he not give glory to us who follow Jesus as well? But many people in Christian churches will tell you that you should not aspire to divine glory. They say that’s selfishness. They say that you should be content simply to serve God, and that should be enough. Some might even say that aspiring to a divine nature is Satanic. That is, that you are seeking what the Devil sought when he committed that first sin of trying to overthrow God.
I will ascend to the Heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the Mount of Assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High (Isaiah 14:13-14).
But they’re wrong. The Devil’s sin was his insistence in doing his own will. Instead of doing God’s will, the will of the One who had given Lucifer so much glory, beauty, intelligence, and power, Lucifer repeated ‘I will’ again and again. The Devil’s big sin was not aspiring to more glory, but attempting to get glory on his own. In other words, his sin was not waiting upon the Lord to give him glory, but snatching it up impatiently.
If you boast about the kind of Hope Paul spoke of, the one he called in another passage ‘the Hope of glory’ (Colossians 1:27), people might also say that your desire is the same one Eve had in the Garden of Eden.
But they’d also be wrong because Eve’s sin was not her desire to be like God. God already offered Adam and Eve rule and authority over the Earth. Eve was already made in God’s image and likeness. Eve’s error was not to aspire to glory, but to think that God was unfair. That Satanic misconception of God is what caused Eve to sin.
The thought that God is unfair couldn’t be further from the truth. God was not and never has been unfair. The Devil found a way to make Eve doubt God’s fairness. Precisely, he caused her to doubt by persuading her to think that God didn’t want her to be like God. Be clear on this, that the Devil’s lie is based on a contradiction of God’s wanting us to be like him. The Devil wants us to think that God doesn’t want us to share in his divine nature, but God does want that. He wants it so much that he sent Jesus and the Holy Spirit to us so that it could be possible.
As human beings, descendants of Adam and Eve, we are made in God’s image and likeness. God wants us to share in his divine nature, his glory, and his authority and that’s what Jesus came to prove to us. As we gaze upon Jesus—the man who overcame all temptations to obtain the glory of God, we have concrete evidence that God ‘is a rewarder of those who seek him’ (Hebrews 11:6; LEB). Did not God reward Jesus for seeking him? Did not God give Jesus glory?
Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name… that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11; NKJV).
Unlike Lucifer, Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but rather, he humbled himself. So, for having that attitude, God demonstrated his great love to Jesus by making him Lord and Messiah. That is, God gave Jesus a divine nature and eternal glory.
… let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah (Acts 2:36).
Now, that’s something to brag about! And Jesus did, in fact, brag about the glory God was going to give him. Listen to what he told the Pharisees:
I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is One who seeks it, and he is the Judge… If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me’ (John 8:50, 54).
If Jesus can state with the utmost confidence that God both sought to glorify him and would do it, then so can we. God seeks to glorify us by giving us his divine nature, and he'll do it.
In conclusion, for those who haven't started yet, let's do some bragging. And for those who boast already, keep on boasting!
… we boast in the Hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2).
Great one sir