That We Might Be Made God

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 2 PETER 1:4

Near the end of On the Incarnation, having laid out his whole argument, Athanasius gathers it into three short clauses. It is the most famous sentence he ever wrote, and it has been quoted in the Eastern church for sixteen centuries: “For He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”

Many Western Christians, meeting the first clause for the first time, are startled or even alarmed. Made God? It sounds like the serpent’s promise in the garden, ye shall be as gods. It sounds like the claims of cults and mystics who say that human beings can become divine. It must therefore be read with great care. But read carefully, in its setting, it is not a boast about human nature at all. It is a hymn to the humility of God.

What he does not mean

Let us first be clear about what Athanasius does not mean. He does not mean that human beings become additional gods, or that the line between Creator and creature is erased. His whole life was spent defending that line. He fought the Arians precisely because they blurred it, making the Son a creature and yet worshipping Him. For Athanasius there is one God, eternal and uncreated, and everything else is made out of nothing. No creature ever becomes the Creator.

I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me. ISAIAH 45:5

Nor does he mean that we lose ourselves in God like a drop in the ocean. We remain creatures, persons, ourselves. What he means must be learned from the rest of the book.

What he does mean

Recall the argument. God made human beings out of nothing and gave them the grace of His image, a share in His Word, so that they might live in incorruption. By nature we were mortal; by grace we were meant to share the life of God. Earlier in the treatise Athanasius says that if man had kept that likeness, “being incorrupt, he would live henceforth as God”, and he cites the psalm that Jesus Himself quoted.

I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. PSALM 82:6

When he says that we are made God, then, he means that we are brought back into that shared life — freed from corruption, clothed with immortality, brought to know the Father, made partakers, as Peter says, of the divine nature. It is the gift of life, not a change of rank. The sentence’s other two clauses explain the first: He manifested Himself so that we might know the unseen Father; He endured insult so that we might inherit immortality. To be made God, in Athanasius’s language, is to know God and to live with the undying life that is His.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1 JOHN 3:2

The Life of Antony puts the same truth in plainer words. Speaking to the philosophers, Antony says that the Word, unchanged, took a human body for our salvation, “that having shared in human birth He might make man partake in the divine and spiritual nature.” That is the heart of it. He shared what is ours so that we might share what is His.

The great exchange

The pattern of the sentence is an exchange, and the exchange is all on God’s side. He was made man; we are made to share His life. He came into the body; we come to know the Father. He took insult; we receive immortality. Every movement downward is His, and every gift upward is ours.

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. 2 CORINTHIANS 8:9

This is not a new idea in Athanasius. It is Paul’s idea, and John’s, and Peter’s. The Reformers expressed it in their own way when they spoke of the wonderful exchange in which Christ takes our sin and gives us His righteousness. The Eastern church has tended to stress our share in God’s life; the Western church has tended to stress our share in Christ’s righteousness. Both are true, and both come from the same Scriptures.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. JOHN 1:12

Why he held it so fiercely

This sentence explains why Athanasius would not bend on the full divinity of the Son. If Christ were only a creature, then what we receive in Him would be only a creature’s life. A creature cannot make us sharers in God, because a creature does not have God’s life to give. Only if the One who took our flesh is truly God can our union with Him be union with God. The great doctrine of Nicaea, that the Son is of one substance with the Father, is not a piece of hair-splitting. It is the guarantee that the gift is real.

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. JOHN 17:21

Reading it with care

Because the language is easily misread, a Christian reader should use it thoughtfully. It is safest, in most settings, to say what Athanasius meant in the words of Scripture: that we are made partakers of the divine nature, that we are made sons of God, that we shall be like Him. Where the older phrase is used, it should always be explained, and never be allowed to suggest that human beings can become what God is by nature. The Creator remains the Creator; the creature remains the creature, and is raised to share His life only by grace.

But we should not be so afraid of the phrase that we lose the glory behind it. The gospel does not only forgive us and leave us as we were. It brings us into fellowship with the living God, now in part and one day fully. That is what Athanasius wanted his reader to marvel at. And that is why, having written the sentence, he says that to count all the achievements of the Word made man would be like gazing at the sea and trying to count its waves.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read 2 Peter 1:3–4 slowly and ask what it would mean for you to live today as a partaker of the divine nature.

2. If Athanasius’s sentence troubled you, write down exactly what troubled you, and then read this chapter again and see whether the trouble is with him or with a misreading.

3. Trace the three exchanges in his sentence and thank God for each: His becoming man, His making the Father known, His enduring insult.

4. Consider whether your view of salvation stops at being forgiven. Ask God to show you the fuller gift of sharing His life.

5. Read section 54 of On the Incarnation in full, and pray it back to God as a hymn.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You became what we are, so that we might share what You are by Your grace.

You showed us the Father, You took our insults, and You clothed us with Your undying life.

Keep me from pride that would make myself great, and from fear that would make Your gift small.

Draw me into Your life, until I see You as You are and am made like You. Amen.