You are gods?
Books like The Secret become popular because they tell mankind that they are their own god. This sounds very similar to a promise made by a serpent in the Garden of Eden: “For God knows that from the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Gen 3:5 Well, Mormons have their own version of this in their theology as well. The difficult thing is, however, that they claim to be Christians. They claim that we will be gods one day in our own universe and the God we serve now was once a human just like we are. They claim to believe that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the word of God. Mormons have used verses out of the Bible to justify their beliefs. The Scriptures used to justify the belief that we will become gods one day come from John 10:34 and Psalm 82:6. Your mission is to find the real meaning of these verses and explain to our Mormon friend how they should be read. Go for it!
July 12, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Jesus, in the John verse, is using that quote of the OT to prove that he is the Son of God. “gods”, in this verse is in fact, elohim, which is plural. in a commentary on Psalms, it says that God is talking to “judges” or human leaders. Now, to quote my daddy’s MacArthur Bible,
“Jesus’ argument is that this psalm proves that the word “god” can be legitimately used to refer to others than God Himself.”
Thus, Jesus is saying that if there are people that God can Himself call gods, why should the Jews object to Jesus being called the Son of God. The verse in Psalms can be explained through what Jesus says.
Ok, that’s all i could think of! Enjoy!
July 15, 2007 at 8:42 pm
What Kt wrote is very good. In Psalms, He said a few verses before that, “Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” I think that He was saying that we were put on this earth to take care of it to the glory of God. As Genesis 1:22 says, “And He blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue and have dominion over the fish of the seaand over the birds of the Heavens and every other living thing that moves on the earth.” SO God was saying that we are put here to guide and to rule others. But to do it as God does it, just and fai and right. So He was saying, the writer of Psalms, that we are to be, like, gods. Notice that the writer puts gods in the lower case, not the upper case, capitalized. Now in John, Jesus was saying that why couldn’t
July 15, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Whoops, it submitted it when I didn’t mean to . So as I was saying…- He call himself the son of God, when God called the Pharisses “gods”? Well as Katie said above elohim, means gods, plural, not capitalized like GOd is written.
July 19, 2007 at 5:25 pm
ok, somebody! please comment! this is such a fascinating topic!!!
July 31, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I have read both passages. I see where this Mormon friend is coming from. However, if he wants to take every little thing literally, what about when it is said that we are the tempels of God. I don’t know about most people, but I’m not made of any natural substances besides flesh and bone. But it implies that we are the dwelling place of God. That’s what I think these verses mean. That because we are the dwelling places of God, that through him, we are godly not gods.
August 4, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Well uh, the verse right after Psalm 82:6 says “Nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” If the Mormons are going to use one verse, they need to understand the context. Just looking at something and saying, “Oh, well I need it to mean this, so that’s what I want it to mean,” won’t work. And half-understanding it won’t work either. When dinosaur fossils were first discovered, people thought that they were the bones of giants, ogres, cyclops, and dragons. The only bones they unearthed though were the great big leg bones and rib-cages, not the little head of the Brachiosaurus or the tiny arms of the T-rex. They didn’t bother to unearth the rest of the animal. It’s pretty much the same thing: if you only look at the big sections of the Bible that stand out, and don’t go very far into it, you won’t unearth the staggering truths.
“Now eventually you might have dinosaurs on your, on your dinosaur tour, yes?”
August 16, 2007 at 9:39 am
Who’s Nephets?