PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE

By Akin Ojumu

Unlike pagan religions which are all based on subjective, uncorroborated, unsubstantiated, and unverifiable ecstatic and enthusiastic mystical experiences, Christianity is based on objective, historical, rational, revealed truth from God intended to be understood, comprehended, and believed. This revealed truth is contained in His written Word, the Holy Scriptures.

2 Peter 1:2

“May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”

By studying the Scripture, our knowledge of God gets deeper, our love for God grows higher, and our intimacy with God becomes closer. The deeper, higher, and wider our knowledge of God gets, the more His grace and peace become abundantly multiplied in our lives.

2 Peter 1:3

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”

And that’s not all. As we know God more fully, thoroughly, and intimately, the divine power of God energizes in us the desire to live godly lives. The deeper, more thorough and intimate our knowledge of God gets, living reverently, loyally, and obediently towards God becomes progressively easier for us to do.

Now, it’s important to understand that what we are saying is not that we are supposed to pray for this energizing and enabling divine power for godly living. No, not all. Those who are saved, i.e., genuinely saved, and who are Christ followers indeed, do not ask God for power that would make them more godly. They do not pray as though they are lacking the divine power that would sustain their spiritual growth, strength, and perseverance.

Far be from it. Our Lord and Savior has established His standard for goodness and moral excellence, He called us to follow His examples, and He has already empowered us to be able to walk uprightly before Him.

The more we study the Word of God, and the more our knowledge of God increases, the more we come to the realization that God has already given us everything we need to live godly before Him. We are already equipped and empowered to live a glorious life characterized by goodness and moral excellence. We achieve this through our knowing God. This knowledge does not come by mystical experience or mythical occurrences. The knowledge of God comes by diligently, consistently, and persistently studying the Word of God.

2 Peter 1:4

“By which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

Along with the effectual call of God, i.e., when God saved and redeemed us from our deadness to sin and we became born again, we also received the very precious and magnificent promises of abundant and eternal life. Because God does not and cannot lie, His promises are as good as done. God’s promises are a declaration of certainty. His promise is eternal currency and a tangible gift.

2 Corinthians 5:17

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

By virtue of His precious and great promises of salvation, we became children of God. As God’s children, a measure of God’s divine nature is deposited inside of us. This divine nature deposit in us includes God’s eternal life and His pure, holy, and righteous attributes.  

Now, it’s not that we suddenly become divine beings or little gods, rather, we become new creatures by the work and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. Our rambunctious appetite for sin is gradually quenched and our voracity for iniquity is progressively abated.

1 Corinthians 15:53

“For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”

Because we are still in this world corrupted by sin and clothed in the weakness of the flesh, we would not fully partake in this divine nature until such a time when we shed our mortal bodies and we put on our glorified bodies.

2 Peter 1:4

“…Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

At the time of our salvation, we break free from the power which the rottenness in the world has over us through our fallen human nature.

Show me a Christian living in ungodliness, and I’ll show you a Christian who does not have the knowledge of God in him or whose knowledge of God is shallow and superficial at best.

Show me a Christian living sinfully, and I’ll show you a Christian who has not immersed himself in the Word of God.

Show me a Christian living as a captive to his fallen human nature, and I’ll show you a Christian who doesn’t understand that he has been set free from the corruption of sin by the divine power of the Almighty God which is at work in him.