RESPONSE TO A

“DEIFICATION”ARTICLE
CHOICE QUOTE FROM THIS LETTER: “What makes God the Father
"God" are all the qualities he possesses, including the incommunicable and
communicable features. For anyone to be of the same "species of being" of the
Godhead they will have to NATURALLY possess ALL those communicable and
incommunicable qualities. So the very moment there are certain qualities that are
incommunicable from God to man (since "species of being" is a taxonomic term that
predicates natural communicability of the all the features in a group) then the gulf
remains simply that...an unbridgeable gulf!! Man will never be able to share in God's
eternality, self existence, his Creator-ship of the universe, his condition of being an
"uncreated" being, his right to supreme level of honor as Creator and Redeemer, his
right to forgive sins, et al, and hence these incommunicable qualities creates the
boundary that sets his "species of being" of Deity apart from all his creatures for all
eternity!! Jesus, is the only "son of God" who can bear this title of "Deity" in name
and nature in the natural sense as belonging to the SAME "species of being" as a
"Son". Jesus naturally possesses all of the incommunicable and
communicable qualities of the Father, by natural inheritance from all
eternity (except being un-begotten as the Father is). ALL the qualities of what
makes God, "God", naturally inheres in Jesus. The moment man cannot inherit all
these qualities then, tadaa...MAN CAN NEVER BECOME PART OF THE "SAME SPECIES
OF BEING". Man can certainly become "God-like", but nothing more. Man can (as far
as adopted "sonship" allows) even be "glorified" far above his present state of
existence with unspeakable glories associated with Jesus (our Elder Brother) in His
Heavenly magnificence, and yet the gulf between Creator and creature will forever
remain. I am yet to see anything you can ever say to defeat this painfully obvious
truth bro “B”.

Dear brother “B”,

Before delving into the texts you adduced, and into your
interpretation placed upon them regarding “human
deification” (‘”man destined to become God”), let me start
by pointing out one or two critical things I observed about
your doctrinal paper entitled “Why Will Man Become God?”:

1. Your take on the human deification issue is somewhat

a contradiction of what H.W. Armstrong earlier taught. He
(your founder) distinctly declared that:

“The PURPOSE of your being alive is that finally you will be BORN into
the Kingdom of God, when you will actually BE GOD, even as Jesus was
and is God, and His Father, a different Person, also is God! ... You are
setting out on a training to become CREATOR — to become GOD.”

Armstrong was clear that he expected humans to become

“God” in the supreme sense, that is, we will become
“Creator” and be God “even as” the Father and Son are.
 To become “Creator” is unqualified divinity, and hence
Armstrong probably expected humans to be future active
agents in creating the new heavens and the new earth (I
really wonder!!), since obviously man could not become
“CREATOR” unless he creates just as Father and Son did.
You, on the other hand, strove to qualify the nature of this
“Godhood”, and declared it will not be “as God [the Father]
is God”, but that man will only become “God” in “nature”
and “power”. Yet the Armstrong expression “even as”
obviously means ‘in equal measure’, and ‘identical with’ in
essence. Yet you tell me H.W. Armstrong expressed the
“PLAIN TRUTH”? So if it was the “PLAIN TRUTH” why change
it, or qualify it?

2. I also recognized your struggle to excuse H.W.

Armstrong as “not a trained theologian”, and so you
urged that we “cannot hold it against him” if he
expressed things badly or without “theological precision”
(and you pointed to Paul as an example of expressing
things badly, despite he was trained in theology). If that
were the only problem, then I could probably overlook
your difficulty in that regard, but you went further to
declare that H.W. Armstrong “was *WRONG on *SEVERAL
COUNTS” yet he was (in your book) still a “divinely
commissioned messenger of God”? I am left to wonder
what criteria you use to determine this “divine
commission”, and how many “counts” a “messenger of
God” must first be “wrong on” before his credibility and
genuineness is called into question. Could he be “wrong”
on “several” doctrines- like he saying the Holy Spirit is
just a force used by God, or he saying the lost tribes of
Israel are today America and Britain, et al- and still be
deemed God’s “divinely commissioned messenger”? Your
attempt, bro “B”, at excusing him is understandable
because of your in-house respect for the founder of the
‘Armstrongism’ you espouse, but I am sure you don’t
expect that same kindness from me at all. As you have
pointed out to me recently, we are expected to test any
and all ideas put out into the public by anyone, even by
those purporting to be a “messenger of God”, and of
course “IF THEY SPEAK NOT ACCORDING TO THE LAW
AND THE TESTIMONY IT IS BECAUSE THERE IS NO LIGHT
IN THEM” (Is. 8:20). By your own admission H.W.
Armstrong did not, “on several counts”, speak what could
 be deemed as right (that is, that which is Biblical), so you
yourself labeled him as “WRONG on several counts”. That
therefore leaves me to wonder, how do you really expect
me to become and “Armstrongite”, if the founder of the
Armstrongism you espouse you yourself have to be
searching through his teachings for a “core” of beliefs he
was not “WRONG” on, while rejecting others he was
incorrect on? Is that how God operates with his “divinely
commissioned messengers”? I am left to wonder about so
many things about the Armstrong culture. I just can’t help
it.

With the foregoing now said, let me look more closely at

what you are TODAY espousing about man becoming God (of
course the reformed version).

MY MAIN PROBLEM WITH YOUR

DOCTRINE:
Jesus did NOT, as a man, “BECOME” God, thus
foreshadowing what his brothers (saved Christians) will also
“become” when they later share his “glory”- as the here and
there teachers of “theosis”, or “divinization” or “human
deification” espouse- but rather Jesus has always been
God, and he was simply restored to the full prerogatives of
Deity when he returned to Heaven!! This is what Philippians
2 teaches. It is patently false, if not absurd, to teach
Jesus “BECOMING” God, or even “becoming” the Son
of God at His resurrection, since to “become”
something presupposes you were not that thing
before you “became” that thing. Proverbs 30:4 shows
clearly Jesus was the Son of God before the incarnation, and
was he was always “God” (in fullest and highest nature) as
John 1:1 show. But his miraculous resurrection from the dead
(Rom. 1:4) “declared” or PROVED his divine Sonship “with
power”, or in POWERFUL and miraculous tones. He did not
become the Son of God then, but was proven irrefutably to
be such by him conquering death after declaring earlier:
“I have power to lay down my life and power to take it up
again”. No other human could, and will never be able to
speak in such terms!!

You asked the question in your paper, “ Didn’t Jesus change

from humanity- full humanity- to being fully God?” as if to
suggest that since Jesus, as a man, became fully God, then
what’s to hinder man also becoming fully God. But that’s
simply shortsighted, if not more so using ‘sleight of hand’ in
polemics. Jesus did not cease to be God, and he did not
change back to being God, nor did he “become” God.
Jesus simply laid aside the glorious externals or
outward forms of being God (though he retained his
prerogative to forgive sins on earth as God, and
proving he remained God while on earth; a sin-
forgiving prerogative no other man can share in), and
so at his resurrection he simply was RESTORED to his
full glorious nature of being God, except that he
retained in his being enough humanity to be termed
“one like the Son of man” (Dan. 7:13, 14). And this also
shows CLEARLY that when he returned to heaven Jesus was
not fully restored to the exact spirit nature he had before, or
he could not be “one like the son of man”, as contrasted with
His Father (the “Ancient of Days”) as well as the angels who
(of course) are all of pure spirit to this day. This I already
proved to you when I stated:

“Armstrongites never stop to recognize that if Jesus was raised a literal spirit
being then they would have difficulty explaining the following inescapable
realities:

[a] If Jesus is now spirit how could he NOW be our High Priest after He
ascended’ since a priest has to be in all things like whom he represents,
and He must be taken from among “men” (Heb. 5:1)? Are they accusing
Jesus of lying when he distinctly said a spirit does not have “flesh and
bones” as he did when he was seen after his resurrection (compare Luke
24:39 with Eph. 5:30)? And why would Paul use the analogy of the church
being members of Jesus’ “BODY” of his “flesh and of his bones” if he was
no longer human with a body like us?

[b] How do they account for Jesus being pictured in the future as “one like
the son of man” appearing before the Father to receive the earthly kingdom
on our behalf (Dan. 7:13, 14)?

[c] How do they account for Jesus returning with a “body” as “one like
the son of man” (Philippians 3:20-21) and he changing our “bodies” to
be like his “glorious body”, and this “change” Job the patriarch
expected to be his very same body of “flesh”, i.e. it will be resurrected
and glorified at the last day when the Redeemer restores Paradise on
earth (Job 19:25, 26 with Job. 14:14)?
[d] How do they account for the fact that humans who have become
Christians, and who are deemed to be “born again” or “begotten again”
still remain literally humans with flesh and blood and tangible bodies,
and yet the Bible says such persons PRESENTLY “are NOT in the
flesh, but in the spirit” (Rom. 8:8,9) since “whatever is born of the Spirit
is spirit” (John 3:6); not that they will become spirit in the future, but
they already are in the metaphorical sense. Obviously this means that the
use of the expressions “in the spirit” or ‘is spirit” are used metaphorically to
refer to our ‘heavenly’ or transformed/transforming spiritual natures that
reflect Jesus’ pure nature, and this stands in stark contrast to our ‘earthly’
sinful natures being represented by the expression being “in the flesh”. Thus
it can be seen clearly why the Bible makes it plain that “flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God” and yet all it meant was that our
earthly sinful nature cannot be saved, but we indeed will have glorified
human bodies (that will all be changed to exist in an elevated state of
existence) in the earth made new (as points a-c above shows)!!
Remember the Pauline (1 Cor. 15) analogy of the seed sown; which
thereafter changes into a plant, yet the substance of the seed remains
tangible in the plant, even as it exists in a different state as a changed
body of matter? Telling isn’t it?”

Now moving on. The supporting paper you linked me to

online, written by John Pester (while admittedly written by a
fellow Trinitarian) is off the mark too in espousing the view
that Jesus, as human, became God!! In that paper he
distinctly declared:

“Phillipians 2 reveals that Jesus in His humanity

*BECAME God, not only in life and nature but also in
the Godhead, by living a life of obedience…Romans 8 then
reveals that the believers will become God in life and
nature but not in the Godhead…”

– John Pester, The Gospel of the Promised Seed:

Deification According to the Organic Pattern in
Romans 8 and Phillipians 2, Oct. 2002, pg. 65

This is quite similar to you saying in your paper that man

cannot become God in the highest sense (i.e. share in the
“incommunicable” eternal and self-existent nature of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, or share in the same
degree of honor they deserve) but man will become God (to
an equal degree) in “nature”, and “power”, even while
sharing the full degree of Jesus’ “glory” as “God beings” who
will then become of the same “species of being”!! But that
kind of reasoning is inherently flawed, in my humble opinion.
Let me point out why:

Man cannot become the same “species of being” of God if

you are not naturally a part of that specie. Adoptees can
never be true members of that “species of being”. Man will
never cease to be creatures, contrary to you saying "we
would no longer be creatures" after God "shares His glory
with mankind". That can never be!! It's like saying we can
become unborn!! That's just ludicrous. Jesus can never be a
creature even though he took on flesh and became a
member of the human family, as it were. Eternality, self-
existence, creatorship of the universe, the ability and right to
forgive sins, etc, are the elements of what makes one
logically considered to be of the “species of the being” of the
Godhead, as Jesus is, by natural transmission from all
eternity. That is why Jesus is the only true Son of God. None
other can ever be in that sense. But the depths of God’s love
(John 3:16) is proved by Him giving up Jesus to us forever,
and in Him showering so much love on us, along with the
promise of so much future glory to be bestowed on ones so
undeserving as us; not in Him promising to make us God!!

The biggest mistake of the deification doctrine is to

look to the future for man to become God. What the
Bible is clear on saying is that all created sons of God,
(angels and humans alike) who serve Jehovah, he
ALREADY sees them as “gods” in the metaphorical
sense, and “sons of God” in the spiritual sense; not
that they will become God in the Godhead sense, or true
sons of God like only Jesus is, and can be. And all of your
efforts to show that man cannot become God in the
incommunicable sense of eternality, self-existence,
creatorship, or in the forgiving-sins sense all serve to show
why the Creator and his creatures will remain distinct for all
eternity, despite they are indeed a family!! I will enter into
no debate about the exact nature of the “glory” we will
share with Jesus as “joint heirs” with him, since that is to be
revealed in due course. If all the glories of Jesus’ divinity
MUST extend to his eternality, his self-existence, his
creatorship, etc, and man cannot share in that, then
obviously WE WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SHARE EXACTLY IN
ALL THE “GLORY” JESUS HAS AS GOD, but we will certainly,
as “joint heirs” with him our Messiah and Elder Brother,
share (in our sphere, as his creatures) glories beyond our
wildest dreams in the earth made new. What is clear is that
the saved will “inherit the earth”, and live in bliss as “gods”
in the metaphorical sense, and as sons of God in the
adopted and spiritually begotten sense; not in the literal
sense. Thus monotheism will still be preserved. Let me
refer back to what I earlier said about this
issue:

“WHO ARE MEMBERS OF THE FAMILY

OF GOD?
Armstrogites get hung upon what it means to be members of the “family
of God”, and yet they forget that God considers even angels to be
members of the “family” of God “in heaven” (see Eph. 3:15), and angels
are spiritually adopted or created “sons” of God (Job 2:1), while saved
humans are “sons” spiritually “begotten” “AGAIN” (1 Peter 1:3), because
we had lost that initial “sonship” (Lk. 3:38) in the spiritual sense when we
were first spiritually “begotten” or created in Genesis. Thus to God all
personal beings he created are his “sons” and are members of his
“family” (angels and humans alike). But man was simply meant to
represent God’s government on the earth, and pattern his nature on earth
as a family (for more on this contact me for my article on “The Godhead
Imaged in the Family”). And it is easy to see that all of the biblical language
of man’s “sonship” with the Father, his “brotherhood” with Jesus, and his
“begetting” in relation to the Father is all spiritualistic; not literalistic, since,
man will ever remain simply a creation!!

The sad mistake that Armstrongites make is in thinking that because man
will be restored to his initial heritage through Jesus becoming human like
us, and in Him calling us “brothers” and making us ONCE AGAIN “sons”
of God in the sense that Adam was initially created to be (Lk. 3:38), i.e.
having God’s pure character, and having dominion over “all things” on the
earth on God’s behalf, then we will actually become God simply because
Jesus is not just human (as our brother), but he is also God!! This theory
they build around the view that if we are to be “joint heirs” and “rulers” with
him and will be “like him” then this automatically translates into human
Deification!! How sad it is that the Bible is wrested from its intended
meaning, which portrays the beautiful truth that man lost his status of
spiritual “sonship” with God when he sinned, but Jesus, becoming like us,
and calling us “brothers” who are “begotten again” means we will be fully
restored to our lost spiritual “sonship” (lost through the ‘first Adam’), and
thus through Jesus (the ‘second Adam’ as it were) we will actually re-
inherit what we lost in the first place, in terms of our pure nature and sinless
 character (just like what Jesus has), as well as our natural right to have
dominion over all the earth on God’s behalf. The saved will indeed live in
an elevated state of existence, and will “inherit the earth”; not the
universe of stars, galaxies and the farthest reaches of outer space as the
misguided Armstrongites would have us believe!!”

Now back to my point. I say Christians and God’s true

servants (just like angels) are ALREADY deemed as “gods” in
the spiritual sense because:

(a) Psalm 82:1,2,6,7 and John 10:33-36 shows that the

people of Israel God already called them “gods”. Jesus
showed that if God’s spirtual human sons are called “gods”,
then why should anyone have a problem with the real and
literal Son of God being called truly God (i.e. in the highest
sense):

God standeth in the

congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.

How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the
wicked? I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children
of the most High.

But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone

thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a
man, makest thyself God.

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye

are gods?

If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and
the scripture cannot be broken;

Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into
the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of
God?
(b) Psalm 45 shows that even the king of Israel (David or
Solomon), who was a type of Christ, or forerunner of the
Messianic King, was referred to as a “god” or a “mighty
one”, even before this Psalm, which was addressed initially
to the earthly king in the restricted sense, was then later
applied in the highest sense to Jesus to show his Deity (Heb.
1:8, 9). This again proves that God already sees his true
followers as “gods” in the figurative sense.

(c) Dan. 11:36-39 calls Jehovah the “God of gods”, and

shows him being overshadowed by the Roman system
introducing a “strange god”. This prophecy was taken up by
Paul in the New Testament (2 Thess. 2:3, 4) and applied to
the “man of sin” or the Roman Papal system that strove to
have the Pope taking on the prerogatives of the “God of
gods”, and trying to show himself as God (in the
blasphemous sense), while “sitting in” or residing in the
temple or the Church in the New Testament age. Obviously
the Papacy, by striving to give itself the power to forgive
sins, and to change God’s laws (Dan. 7:25), and by
overshadowing Jesus’ priesthood with Mary as Mediatrix, and
by the Pope exalting himself above every “son of God” (the
saints), who obviously are the “every god” the “man of sin”
“exalted itself” above, even while forgetting all Christians
are equally “kings” and “priests” before God, then the
Papacy introduced the “strange god” of Dan. 11:36-39. I
wrote a paper on this matter entitled “The Strange God in
Apostate Christianity”; a matter some falsely claim is the
Trinity, and yet Ian, Bible prophecy shows COMPELLINGLY
otherwise. You may find this paper fascinating, and I will
send it to you upon your request of course (not before). But
the point I am making here in all of this is that God
recognizes only the “gods” who are his created and adopted
“sons”, and whom he calls such in the metaphorical and
spiritual sense. And hence we can see why Jehovah is called
the “God of gods” (since all other man-made gods are false),
and why Jehovah is indeed the God who stands up in the
“Council” of the “mighty” or of “the gods” (Psalm 82:1);
“gods” whom he deems as his followers and his “children”
(Ps.82:1, 6).
(d) Angels are also called “elohim” in Hebrew or “gods”
(Ps. 8:5), obviously by being “sons of God” (Job 2:1), and so
it becomes clear that not only humans, but even angels God
deems as “gods”.

CONCLUSION

All of the foregoing makes it clear why historically the

Christian church, from time to time, has had various writers
and teachers teaching on human “deification”, or
“divinization” (as you did indeed EVENTUALLY prove to me
about the Greek patristic fathers, the Eastern Orthodox
Church, and even certain Trinitarians of the West, like
Athanasius). The Bible does present various texts to suggest
humans can be considered “gods”. Today we have the
Mormons and the Armstrongites carrying on the tradition,
but are, in my view, somewhat misguided as to the nature of
this ‘godhood’. But what has become MOST STRIKINGLY
CLEAR to me is that ALL SONS OF GOD (ANGELS AND
CHRISTIANS ALIKE) YAHWEH DEEMS AS HAVING THE
“DIVINE NATURE” (i.e. HIS PURITY AND
RIGHTEOUSNESS), AND INDEED THEY ARE DEEMED AS
“GODS” IN A CERTAIN SENSE. BUT MAN WILL NEVER
BECOME GOD IN THE TRUEST SENSE OF THE WORD,
EVEN AFTER HE IS “GLORIFIED” WITH JESUS AND HE
“INHERITS ALL THINGS” ON “THE EARTH”, OR EVEN
WHEN HE BECOMES “LIKE HIM”!! MAN WILL SIMPLY
BECOME “GOD-LIKE”, BUT NEVER BECOMING PART OF
THE GODHEAD, AS GOD IS GOD. NEVER!!

So, in closing, I repeat what I said earlier:

“Armstrongites insist that man will become God with the Father and Son,
and yet the very last book of the Bible (Revelation) maintains the
CONTRAST and DISTINCTION between God and man even in
Paradise, and shows us that we will remain God’s “servants” (Rev. 21:
3; 22:3, 4) and he will remain our God, despite we will inherit “all things”
(obviously “all things” only on the earth), and despite we will be His
“sons”(i.e. fully restored “sons” who will live forever as originally
intended). Jesus PRESENTLY and HEREAFTER having the Father as His
“God” is simply incidental, as part of the plan of salvation, since he was
made in all things like us, in order to save us ‘by proxy ‘(see Heb. 2:10-14).
Nowhere in Scripture is it taught that the Father was Jesus’ “God”
before he became man at his condescension (Phill. 2:5-11). Jesus became
man, and will remain our brother as part of the sacrifice he made as a
consequence of sin. God did not initially INTEND for man to sin, or for
Jesus to be sacrificed, but he foresaw our demise and lovingly gave up
Jesus to the human race forever (John 3:16). But notice that Jesus was
restored to his glory and Godhead prerogatives (Phill. 2:5-11), despite
he remains human forever (Daniel 7:13,14), and thus he is and will be
the only being in the universe with this union of divine and human
nature in one being. Man too will be restored to his original heritage on
earth through Jesus, but does the Bible really reveal that the distinction
between the Godhead and man (in terms of the Creator vs. his creatures or
“servants”) will be eroded? Absolutely not!!”

EPILOGUE:

Dear bro “B”,

In afterthought a few more salient and potent points came
to me after already dispatching my first e-mail response to
your paper entitled, "Why Will Man Become God?". Let me
share those thoughts briefly with you:

1. It is patently erroneous and absurd to teach that a certain

"species of being" can include another species of being that
is foreign to that group [UNLESS THE "FOREIGN" ENTITY
NATURALLY COME TO SHARE ALL THE TAXONOMIC
FEATURES OF THAT "SPECIES OF BEING"]. Humans can in
love adopt dogs or cats into their family, and yet no matter
how much that cat or dog is treated as part of the family
they can never be truly part of the SAME species of being of
humans. Why? To be part of that "species of being" the
outside entity has to have all of the qualities and features of
that group, and hence cats will never be humans since all of
what makes people humans in the first place a cat will never
be able to share (even if cats and humans do have certain
similar qualities biologically). I know the analogy may not
be perfect, but let me use this simple analogy to point out
how it explains that creatures can never become part of the
same species of being of the Creator God. Jesus, is an
exception to the rule, since as God (being able to do the
impossible) he became a man, and shared ALL the
taxonomic qualities of the human "species of being" (thus he
became fully man). That is irrefutable!! But can any human
become FULLY God? NO!!

What makes God the Father "God" are all the qualities he
possesses, including the incommunicable and communicable
features. For anyone to be of the same "species of being" of
the Godhead they will have to NATURALLY possess ALL
those communicable and incommunicable qualities. So the
very moment there are certain qualities that are
incommunicable from God to man (since "species of being"
is a taxonomic term that predicates natural communicability
of the all the features in a group) then the gulf remains
simply that...an unbridgeable gulf!! Man will never be able to
share in God's eternality, self existence, his Creator-ship of
the universe, his condition of being an "uncreated" being, his
right to supreme level of honor as Creator and Redeemer,
his right to forgive sins, et al, and hence these
incommunicable qualities creates the boundary that sets his
"species of being" of Deity apart from all his creatures for all
eternity!! Jesus, is the only "son of God" who can bear this
title of "Deity" in name and nature in the natural sense as
belonging to the SAME "species of being" as a "Son". Jesus
naturally possesses all of the incommunicable and
communicable qualities of the Father, by natural
inheritance from all eternity. ALL the qualities of what
makes God, "God", naturally inheres in Jesus. The moment
man cannot inherit all these qualities then, tadaa...MAN CAN
NEVER BECOME PART OF THE "SAME SPECIES OF BEING".
Man can certainly become "God-like", but nothing more. Man
can (as far as adopted "sonship" allows) even be "glorified"
far above his present state of existence with unspeakable
glories associated with Jesus (our Elder Brother) in His
Heavenly magnificence, and yet the gulf between Creator
and creature will forever remain. I am yet to see anything
you can ever say to defeat this painfully obvious truth bro B.
2. I see you challenging your opponents to show Bible texts
that suggest that Man cannot ever become omnipotent,
omniscient, or omnipresent as God is. But I challenge
YOU to show clear texts that these Godhead qualities will
be transmitted to saints as their reward. And don't use
eisogesis to read these into Scriptures about us in the future
sharing God's "glory" through Jesus our forerunner, and the
"first fruits" of the human harvest. Context is key in
properly understanding us sharing Jesus' "glory". If there is
any limit on the "glory" we can ever share with Jesus in his
divinity (and there certainly is), then obviously we will never
be of the same "species of being". What makes God "God" is
naturally having all the qualities of the Godhead (as
explained above), and any being who cannot share all those
qualities can only come close (by God's own act of charity)
by being "God-like" as adopted "sons”; NEVER CAN HE BE
GOD IN THE GODHEAD SENSE!! Period. Thus from beginning
to end man was made "in the image of God" (notice
"MADE") to be his son, and thus as a CREATURE "son" he
has many God-like features, and can even be endowed with
more of those God-like features!! But he will always be a
CREATURE; nothing more!! Thus all the rest of your
argumentation simply boils down to a serious "kicking
against the pricks", in a vain attempt to surmount the
insurmountable.

In the end I find your doctrine not only UNTENABLE, but

heretical and offensive. Forgive me for being so frank, but
you gave me license to so such when you urged me to be
free to take issue with all views put out into the public
domain, and indeed even with yours, without fear of you or
anyone taking it personal. I apologize if I have been in any
way abrasive, but my conscience is still held captive to the
Word of God in the way I understand it to be true (no matter
how many here or there, past or present, may teach human
deification). "Theosis" (man becoming God) is a doctrine I
will never be able to accept as the proof of the depths of
God's love; no matter how passionately you may state it to
be such. Here I stand, I can do no other!!
Yours in Christ
Derrick Gillespie