FAMOUS LAST WORDS
THE DIVINE NATURE
DR. JIM DIXON
2 PETER 1:1-4
JUNE 6, 2010
Through the years—particularly a number of years ago, but over a period of many years—I have taught classes on the subject of Mormonism. I’ve taught classes on the subject of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I’ve done this to warn people about the theological and doctrinal dangers that exist within the religion of Mormonism. I never sought to do this in an unloving way. I know that Christ wants us to love everybody. Certainly, I seek to love Mormons as well. But I did want people (and I do want people) to be warned about the dangers, theologically and doctrinally, that exist within Mormon theology.
I have studied, in some measure, the Book of Mormon. I’ve studied, in some measure, the doctrines and covenants. I’ve studied the Pearl of Great Price. I’ve studied the life of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I can honestly say that one of the gravest dangers within the thought of Mormonism is their concept of the divine nature. Their concept of the divine nature is this: that there are many gods in the universe. Their religion is polytheistic, so Mormonism teaches that there are many gods in the universe and that all of these gods once existed on planets as men, including the God we call God the Father, and this is an example for us because we who are now men, as in male and female, may progress to godhood. “The gods were once as we are now. We shall one day be as the gods now are.” Something like that is really the slogan of Mormonism and that message is antithetical to the teaching of Holy Scripture and contrary to the Bible.
But I had a strange and fascinating meeting a couple of years ago at Denver Theological Seminary. The meeting took place in the office of the president, who was then Dr. Craig Williford. Craig is a friend and he has now gone to be president of Trinity Theological Divinity School outside of Chicago in Deerfield. Craig invited me to the meeting that day in his office. He also invited Ted Haggard, who was at that time pastor of New Life. Ted was unable to come that day; I don’t know why. He invited others, including Dr. Craig Blomberg, who is the professor of New Testament studies at Denver Theological Seminary and a great friend to our church. We were invited to the president’s office to meet with two Mormon leaders who had come to us from Salt Lake City. They had met first with a group in Los Angeles. Now they were meeting with us and they were going to leave us and go meet with a group in Washington, DC.
As they met with us, they said that their purpose was that we would embrace them as Christians and that we would give them the right hand of fellowship. They wanted to discuss with us changes that were taking place in Salt Lake City within the hierarchy of the Mormon Church. They wanted to discuss with us changes that were taking place in terms of their view of the divine nature. Of the two that came, one was a professor of theology at BYU, Brigham Young University, and the other was a member of the Council of the Seventy and was in charge of the Mormon Church on the continent of Europe. They brought with them papers signed by the twelve apostles, so called, of the Mormon Church, all relating to the subject of the divine nature. They said this to us, “We no longer believe that there are many gods. We believe that God exists only as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We believe that God never existed as a man and then progressed to godhood; we believe that God is immutable, that God has never changed, that God is always the same. What’s more, we believe that man can never become gods.”
We asked them, “Have you told your congregations this?” They admitted that they had not and they said that it would be a difficult and dangerous process, and I am doubtful that they will ever get this done. But there was some hope in the discussion, frankly, and it was a fascinating discussion. They said to us that the only sense in which men could progress to godhood is in the sense of 2 Peter chapter one, where the Apostle Peter says that we can become partakers of the divine nature. Certainly, Peter does say that and that is what we are going to focus on today in Peter’s famous last words: that we can become partakers of the divine nature.
What does that mean? It doesn’t mean that we are going to become gods, but what does it mean? What does it mean to believe that we can become partakers of the divine nature? To understand this, we need to take a look at two concepts in these first four verses of 2 Peter, chapter one, and the first concept has to do with the great escape. You cannot partake of the divine nature unless you join in the great escape.
Now, The Great Escape happens to be the title of a classic movie. I must tell you that when I entered high school in 1961, I had never seen a movie. I had never seen a movie because my parents discouraged our going to the movies and they felt like movies were kind of dangerous and reflected the indoctrination of the culture. So, my parents did not want us to go to movies and I had never gone to a single movie. When I started high school, my mom and dad said to me, “You know, you are old enough now. You can start making your own decisions. You know how we feel, but we want you to do what you feel is right before God.”
So, I chose to go to my first movie, and I went to see Swiss Family Robinson. I came out of there and I thought, wow, were my parents ever right! I mean, what a dangerous movie! Of course, I didn’t really think that. After that, from time to time, I would go to a move, but the one that really hit me was in 1963 when I went to see The Great Escape. That movie was just so awesome. I knew that I would always enjoy movies, hopefully selectively.
Of course, The Great Escape was a movie about World War II. It was a movie about a Nazi prisoner of war camp. It was a movie about American and Allied soldiers and the life that they had in that Nazi POW camp. It was a movie about their attempt to escape, their digging a tunnel, their effort to flee over the European countryside. The movie had a brilliant musical score by Elmer Bernstein and that musical score has become classic and it reflects perfectly the pace and intention of the movie itself. The movie was based on historical fact and events that took place in 1942. Sometimes escape fails. Sometimes people fail to escape. They escape, but only to die. They escape, only to be incarcerated again. This was true of many who attempted to escape the nightmare that was Nazi Germany.
We live in a world where there is a lot of evil. We live in a fallen world. Jesus tells us that the Archon, the Prince of this Earth, is the Devil. He is a usurper. He has usurped the power and glory of God, but he is the ruler of this world and has indoctrinated this world so that the world is now filled with and characterized by corruption, corruption and sin. You must escape. You must join in the great escape. If you have any hope of partaking in the divine nature, you must join in the great escape and you cannot fail. Of course, the only way to not fail is to come to Christ.
It says in this passage in 2 Peter chapter one that we must escape the corruption that is in the world. The word for escape is “ekpheugo.” Ekpheugo literally means to flee away. You must flee away from the corruption that is in the world. This is the great escape, says Peter. The word for corruption is “phthora,” related to “aphtharsia.” Aphtharsia is the word in the Bible that is used to describe our resurrection bodies. They will be aphtharsia, which means without corruption. The prefix “a” means without. Without corruption, without decay. Our resurrection bodies will be without corruption, without decay, but these bodies are corrupted; these souls are corrupted; these minds are corrupted. My body is corrupted, and it is decaying; my soul and my mind are corrupted. I am a sinner in need of grace and somehow I have to escape the corruption that is in this world.
It’s in this world, Peter says, because of passions. The Greek word there is epithumia. Epithumia means excessive desires or improper desires, desires that are excessive or improper. You see, this is the nature of man in this fallen world, that we have desires that are excessive and we have desires that are improper. That’s true of all of us. We all are so much in need of grace. Jesus is the one who offers the great escape.
Now, in the movie The Great Escape, there were many fine actors, including two of my favorites, James Garner and Steve McQueen. James Garner is still alive. I don’t know whether he is a Christian. I do know that Roy and Martha Lynn Woods are friends of ours. Barb and I have for years counted them as friends and Roy passed away a few years ago. Martha Lynn is still our friend. Roy has gone to be with Jesus. Roy was a great racecar driver. He took second at the Daytona 500 and I think third at the Indianapolis 500 years ago. Roy was a great racecar driver and born into significant wealth. He lived a wild life until one day he found Christ and gave his heart to Jesus. One of Roy Woods’ best friends was James Garner, the movie actor. Roy told me that James Garner was just that close to accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and becoming a Christian. I hope it has happened.
I know it did for Steve McQueen. Before Steve McQueen died, he accepted Christ, and it was Billy Graham who told the story because Billy Graham was invited by Steve McQueen to come and talk to him. Billy Graham met with Steve McQueen. They took a ride in his limo, in Steve McQueen’s limo. In the back seat, they prayed together, and Steve McQueen asked Jesus to come into his heart as Lord and Savior. I’ll tell you this: For Steve McQueen that was the great escape. That day, that moment in the back seat, that was the great escape! When Steve McQueen thanked Jesus Christ for dying on the cross for him and invited Christ to come and save him from his sin and be his Savior, when Steve McQueen invited Christ to come and sit on the throne of his soul and be his Lord…that was the great escape.
But you see, in a sense, it was just the beginning. When we come to Christ and we accept him, our sin is forgiven and the righteousness of Jesus, his holiness, is vested upon us, imputed to us, but we’re still sinners. We’re still sinners in need of mercy. I am forgiven by the blood of Jesus. He is my Savior and my Lord and it’s all by grace through faith, but I am still a sinner and there is a sense in which I still need to participate in the great escape because I love him and because I long for holiness. I need to engage in escape from the corruption that is not only in the world, but also in me. I need to long for Christ likeness if I would partake of the divine nature. The great escape.
Now, some of you may have heard of the Jerusalem Syndrome. Most of you probably haven’t. It’s a psychological malady that Dr. Gregory Cox of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has written about. The malady has been known about for years but only recently labeled the Jerusalem Syndrome. What happens to some people when they arrive in Jerusalem as tourists (and this happens to about sixty to seventy men and women a year) is they experience a psychological malady where they kind of flip out and they leave the real world and they no longer know who they are. They believe they are some famous character from the Bible and the friends and loved ones who have traveled with them are unable to bring them back to reality. They are afflicted with this syndrome called the Jerusalem Syndrome. They might suddenly, as they are traveling around the Holy Land, begin to think they are Moses or they’re David or they’re Mary or they’re Jesus or they’re Sarah, etc., etc.
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, well, that’s wacko (to use a psychological term). Or you are thinking, well, these must be people who, at their core, have great ego needs and so they just want to enter an imaginary world where they are great. But psychologists say it’s not that simple. I mean, if these people journeyed to Rome, they would not suddenly believe they were Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus. If they journeyed to London, they wouldn’t think they were King Henry VIII. No, psychologists tell us that people afflicted by Jerusalem Syndrome are more selective than that. Now, if they traveled to Calcutta, they might suddenly believe they were Mother Theresa. If they travel to Iona, off the coast of Scotland, they might suddenly believe they are St. Columba. But these are people, psychologists tell us, who long for holiness. These are people, psychologists tell us, who are desperate to be set free from the sin nature and from their own sin. These are people, psychologists tell us, who want to be pleasing to God and even to have some significance in the sight of God. That’s in their heart.
My guess is it’s in our hearts in some measure, to some degree. There’s some desire for sainthood. It’s an impossible task, an impossible goal, but I think in most people there’s at least this corner of the heart and mind that longs for sainthood. You can look in the Oxford Dictionary of Saints and only 1,100 people are so identified. You look in the Bibliotheca Sanctorum and you will find a few thousand more. But there are only a few thousand individuals in the course of human history who have attained in the sight of the church sainthood. And yet, it is an obtainable goal. It’s obtainable for everyone in this room because the Bible says in Romans 1:7 that every Christian is a saint. The Bible says in a variety of passages through the pages of Scripture that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ is already a saint You are a saint because you have the imputed holiness of Christ vested upon you. You are a saint because your sins are forgiven.
Yet, in the Bible, sometimes the word “hagiasmos,” the word for sanctification, is present continuous and it indicates a process. There is this process. We’re already sanctified, already forgiven, already holy, and yet other passages tell us no, we’re in process. There is this process that you have to long for, you have to strive for. You have to engage in a battle with sin. You have to long for the purity of Christ and the holiness of Christ, not in order to earn your salvation—you can’t do that—but because you love him, because you want to be like him. This is what Peter has been telling us in his famous last words.
Of course, the Bible also tells us that if we don’t struggle for sanctification, if we don’t seek to join the great escape, it will affect heavenly rewards. Believing in Jesus Christ we are saved, but our rewards in heaven will vary based on whether we really loved him and whether we really struggled against sin. So, Peter wants us to understand this as part of what he is going to be saying to us over the next seven weeks. Peter is going to be taking a look at what it means to partake of the divine nature, what these attributes look like and how it is that we are to strive for them.
Now, I want to take one more look at something Peter says with regard to the divine nature and the subject of great expectations. We talked about the great escape but Peter also talks about great expectations. Peter says, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and to godliness through the knowledge of him who has called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great,” (“megistos,” from “megos,” which means great), “great promises and expectations.” So, this is what Peter is telling us, that God has great expectations and great promises for each of you, each of us. In his famous last words, Peter wants to encourage us to enter into the great escape with the knowledge that God has these great expectations for us.
Now, in 1861, Charles Dickens wrote his classic book Great Expectations, and that book reflects the genre of literature that has to do with the process of maturity over the course of an individual’s life. The main character of Great Expectations was an orphan named Pip. It was made into a Hollywood movie in 1946 and nominated for the Academy Award Best Picture, Best Director and won many Academy Awards. There was a remake in 1998 starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Ethan Hawke, and Robert De Niro. A great story!
I think there is a sense in which every human being, at least at some point in their life, has great expectations. Some people have great expectations laid upon them. Some are rich at birth and, by virtue of their wealth, are expected to accomplish great things. Some people are in some sense born of privilege—loving parents and fine education—with great expectations. Some people in their heart, in their mind, from their earliest years, have great expectations for themselves for a variety of reasons. But it is in the human spirit, I think, to have great expectations.
We had graduation ceremonies here recently in this Worship Center. Last month, our Cherry Hills Christian schools graduated, our wonderful schools, all three of them. And these students are moving on with great expectations. Of course, Valor, from across the street, our seniors, had their graduation ceremony here. And again, they are graduating, heading out into the world with great expectations. Colorado Christian University, where I am privileged to serve on the Board, had a graduation ceremony here in this Worship Center last month and our students, having graduated from college with varying degrees, are heading out into the world and life with great expectations.
Here you are, and you have varying ages. Some of you are in your twenties, some of you are in your teens, some thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, maybe even some nineties, but do you have great expectations? Have you given up hope? God has plans in this world and in the life to come. It doesn’t matter if you are seventy or eighty. God’s got great expectations and that’s what we are going to be looking at in these next seven weeks as we look at the final famous words of the Apostle Peter.
I want to tell you a story. The story is about a man named Stephen Palmer. The story took place in 1886. Stephen Palmer was 24 years old in 1886 and lived in Newberg, Oregon, which was a suburb of Portland. Stephen Palmer was 24 and good looking, very athletic, kind of studly, and he would walk into church on a Sunday morning by himself. Now, as he is walking into church by himself, he sees four kids playing off the streets in yards and sidewalks and they are not on their way to church. These kids are just goofing around and having some fun together on a Sunday morning. Stephen Palmer stops and he calls the kids. He says, “Hey, how would you like to go to church with me?” He could tell by looking at them that their answer was, “Not so much.” He didn’t give up. He said, “Hey, come on kids. We can have a lot of fun! What do you say we start a Sunday school class? You can be the students. I’ll be the teacher. We’ll kind of shape it together and have a lot of fun.”
Because the kids thought that this guy was young and good looking and athletic, they thought he was kind of cool. They said, “Okay, we’ll go with you.” So, they went with Stephen Palmer to church and Stephen Palmer went to the Sunday school superintendent and said, “You know, I just brought these four boys with me to church this morning and I have got a really kind of a strange and special request. I’d like to form my own Sunday school class and teach these four boys.” The Sunday school superintendent thought for a little while and said, “Okay, if you will let me train you and work with you and prep you.” So, Stephen Palmer said, “Sure.” He started the Sunday school class with just these four boys.
That was the beginning of Sunday school teaching for Stephen Palmer, who would teach Sunday school for most of his life, and his classes over the generations would involve hundreds of kids. He became a very excellent Sunday school teacher. He retired in 1942, 46 years later, at the age of 70. These four original boys contacted each other. Some of them had kept in touch with Stephen Palmer and they wanted to write letters in appreciation for what happened 46 years ago when he recruited them. So, these four boys wrote letters to Stephen Palmer and they were all now 58 years old, having been 12 years old when the class was first formed.
The first letter came from one of the four. This one was now a missionary in China, seeking to minister to the physical needs of some of the impoverished people and also telling these people about the love of the Savior, Jesus Christ. The second letter came from another of the four boys who, incredibly, was now the president of the Federal Reserve Bank. The third letter came from another of the four boys who was now, at age 58, the personal secretary of the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover. The fourth letter came from the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover himself.
Pretty amazing! I would say to you, you don’t know what is going to happen in a child’s life. You don’t know what they are going to grow up to be, don’t know what they are going to grow up to do. If you teach Sunday school, you have no clue what treasures you are enjoying and what great expectations God has for every child in that class, what they could become. We look around the room here. We are not 12 years old, most of us, but we look around the room and there is no telling what you could become, in this life and the life beyond, because God has great expectations.
This life is a classroom. I hope you all know that. This life is a classroom. Some of you are in class for 25 years and tragedy happens, and we graduate, we die. Death is graduation day. Some people are in class fifty years, sixty years, seventy years, eighty years, but life is a classroom. The Bible makes that clear. I hope you want to learn. I hope we want to grow together, and I hope that when death comes our way or when Christ comes again that we will be ready as we go into the real deal that this is preparing us for. Christ has an amazing plan and great expectations and He promises that you can partake in the divine nature as you grow in sanctification in this life. He promises that he will always be working for good through the events of your life. He promises to anoint you in your ministry and service of him and the kingdom of heaven while on earth. He promises to give you someday a resurrection body, no longer subject to decay. He promises to make you a steward with him over all the works of his hands as you reign and rule with him in the new creation. He has amazing expectations and amazing promises, but you must participate in the great escape and embrace the great expectations. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.