Questions for Deification Deniers

Several sloppy typos I made are corrected below.

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Quotations from Affirmation and Critique magazine published by Living Stream Ministry. Vol XV No. 2 Fall of 2010.

Article by Ron Kangus entitled New Jerusalem - the Consummation of the Divine Economy according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelaton

Selected quotes copied by hand carefully -

"This means that the New Jerusalem, as the ultimate and eternal corporate expression of the Triune God, is the consummation of God becomming a man and man becoming God in life, in nature, and in expression but not in the Godhead."
- pg 23.

"The high peak of ther divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures is that God became man so that, in Christ, redeemed man may become God in life, nature, constitution, and expression but not in the Godhead nor as an object of worship"
- pg. 23

"This corporate expression is the consummation of the divine economy, the goal of God's plan and arrangement to dispesne Himself in Christ as the Spirit into our being to be our life, our life supply, and our everything so that we may expressed Him. This, in and with the New Jerusalem the high peak of the divine revelation . . . "
- pg. 23,24

" If we consider certain crucial and intrinsic aspects of the New Jerusalem as the corporate, yet personal, expression of the Triune God , we may be confirmed in the realization that the existence of the New Jerusalem is predicated upon God becoming man and man becoming God in life and nature but not in the Godhead."
- pg. 24

@sonship said
About the punishment matter: I'll tell you the brute truth of my personal experience. You may not believe it. But here it is in all honesty. The pleasure of sinning can be so great that the thought of punishment in the future simply takes a back seat.

@fmf said
Please describe what "punishment" you will receive "in the future" for "sinning".

@pb1022 said
The punishment is likely consequences on earth, not in the afterlife.

"The high peak of ther divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures is that God became man so that, in Christ, redeemed man may become God in life, nature, constitution, and expression but not in the Godhead nor as an object of worship"
- pg. 23

Like Christ his Lord, Stephen was filled, saturated, permeated in his mind emotion and will by the Holy Spirit. They could not withstand the wisdom or power with which he spoke, like Jesus his Lord and life.

As Jesus said "Father into your hands I commit My spirit" (Luke 23:46) so examplary Stephen said "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" (Acts 7:59)

Jesus died praying "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34)

Stephen died praying "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." (Acts 7:60)

It is not that every Christian will be martyred as Stephen was. But every Christian will eventually partake of Christ's life saturating, permeating, filling up his soul as the first to lay down everything of the old man to be filled with Christ.

Christ is said to be sitting at the right hand of God. But when the first Christian died so permeated and filled with the Son's life the Son of God STOOD UP to honor him.

"And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." (Acts 7:56)

Jesus the Son honored the first human to be so "Son-ized" even before resurrection. Stephen had passed through the process completely in his life time. All that awaited him was transfiguration and glorification from resurrection.

@sonship

“If you talk about the deification of someone or something, you mean that they are regarded with very great respect and are not criticised at all.”
Collins English Dictionary

This explains a lot about your attitude here sonship.

@divegeester

No it doesn't.

Rather wth Paul in Philippians neither do I consider that I have already attained or am already perfected. But one thing I do, with brother Paul, we forget the things which are behind and stretch forweard to the things which are before.

I recognize we Christians are in the process of God working Himself into us for this tranformation; for this conformation; for this transfuguration and this deification (as understood not according to demi-god making of Greek mythology but according to New Testament full salvation).

Up to the moment Stephen was stoned, I am sure he would have admitted that he still had much more of Christ to gain.

As long as I require the blood of Jesus to cleanse me, which I expect until tranfiguration, I am pursuing, and forgiving that I too may obtain mercy.

“If you talk about the deification of someone or something, you mean that they are regarded with very great respect and are not criticised at all.”
Collins English Dictionary

This explains a lot about your attitude here sonship.

“If you talk about the deification of someone or something, you mean that they are regarded with very great respect and are not criticised at all.”
Collins English Dictionary

Rather the prayer of Jesus was that the process of perfecting would continue until the believers were one in the Triune God to be with Him where He is.

This is the salvation of Jesus Christ deification which is the bequested inheritance of the church universal and every human who receives the life of God dispensed into them.

"And I do not ask concerning these only, but concerning those also who believe into Me through their word. That they all may be one; even as You Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, that the world may believe that You have sent Me.

And the glory which You have given to Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one.

I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected [ . . . PERFECTED . . . PERFECTED] into one, that the world may know that You have loved them even as You have loved Me." (See John 17:20-23)

The ultamate answer to this mighty petition of the Son of God is the New Jerusalem which John was carried away to see. He was carried away to a great and high peak. That means he was carried away in spirit to see this consummate revelation of ALL God's operation in history.

Christians you should be able to detect the stradegy of the Slanderer to maligh God's full salvation. It is to link New Testament deification to instances of demi-god making by political emperors, dictators, mythological heroes of Egyptian, Roman, and Greek pantheons.

Our battle however is not against flesh and blood.

@sonship said
@divegeester

No it doesn't.

@sonship said

“If you talk about the deification of someone or something, you mean that they are regarded with very great respect and are not criticised at all.”
Collins English Dictionary

The Roman emporers made themselves into gods. This is referred to as deification in many history books. But this is not the deification of God's salvation.

The dictators ...[text shortened]... elves to be totally above criticism.

This is not the deification of the New Testament salvation.