Sons Who Serve

Where does all this growing end? Scripture answers without hesitation, and the answer is higher than most believers dare to say aloud.

Romans 8:29 Because those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.

“Conformed” is symmorphos, having the same form. “Firstborn” is prototokos. The Son is the first of a family, and the family is “many brothers” who share His form. Those whom God foreknew He predestined to this, and so His purpose was not only to forgive a people but to shape them into the image of His Son.

Sons by Placement

Paul names what the believers have already received, and what they still await.

Romans 8:15 For you did not receive a pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) of slavery leading back to fear, but you received a pneuma(spirit) of huiothesia(adoption, sonship) by which we cry out, "Abba, the Father."

Romans 8:23 And not only that, but also we ourselves, having the first-fruits of the pneuma(spirit), we also groan within ourselves, awaiting huiothesia(adoption, sonship) — the apolytrosis ἀπολύτρωσις ap-ol-oo'-tro-sis(redemption, ransom-release) of our body.

The word in both verses is huiothesia, literally “placing as a son,” the language of a father who sets a child in the full standing of a son. In the first verse believers already cry “Abba, the Father”; that is now. In the second they still groan, awaiting the redemption of the body; that is still to come. The sonship has begun in the spirit; it will be complete when the body itself is redeemed.

John says the same with a simple word.

1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is.

“Like Him” is homoioi. The likeness has not yet appeared, but it is sure. Paul names the body in which that likeness will show.

Philippians 3:20-21 For our politeuma πολίτευμα pol-it'-yoo-mah(commonwealth-citizenship) is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Yeshua Messiah; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the energeia(working) of His dynamai(being-able) to subject all things to Himself.

“Conformity” is symmorphos again, the very word of Romans 8:29. Our body will have the same form as “the body of His glory.” So the image of the Son is not only a matter of character or of a spiritual attitude. It reaches the body, and it is completed in the resurrection.

The Body That Cannot Die

1 Corinthians 15:42-44 So also is the resurrection of the dead; it is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in dynamis δύναμις doo'-nam-is(power); it is sown a psychikon(soulish) body, it is raised a pneumatikon(spiritual) body; if there is a psychikon(soulish) body, there is also a pneumatikon(spiritual) body.

1 Corinthians 15:53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.

The body is raised imperishable. In verse 42 Paul’s word is aphtharsia, imperishability, and when he says “the dead will be raised imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:52), the word is aphthartos, the same word Peter used for the imperishable seed of the new birth (1 Peter 1:23). The seed that began the life was imperishable, and the body in which that life is completed is imperishable. And this mortal puts on athanasia, deathlessness.

Yeshua Himself described those who reach that age.

Luke 20:35-36 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

They are isangeloi, equal to angels, sons of the resurrection who cannot die. The same verse says that in that age they “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” Marriage in the body, through which the earth was filled, will have done its work. What remains is the marriage it pictured, the Lamb and His bride.

Revelation 20:6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; the second death has no exousia ἐξουσία ex-oo-see'-ah(authority) over these, but they will be priests of God and of the Messiah and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

“I Said, You Are Gods”

Scripture goes further still, in a line that sounds too bold to many ears.

Psalm 82:6-7 I said, "You are gods, and sons of the Most High (Elyon), all of you." Nevertheless like man (adam אָדָם aw-dawm') you shall die, and like one of the princes you shall fall.

The word is elohim, gods, and the same verse calls them “sons of the Most High (Elyon).” In the psalm these are judges who “judge with injustice” (Psalm 82:2), and the very next line says they will die like men. Yet God Himself gave them the name. Yeshua quoted the line, and He drew a principle from it that cannot be set aside.

John 10:34-35 Yeshua answered them, "Has it not been written in your nomos νόμος nom'-os(law): 'I said, you are gods'? If he called them gods, to whom the logos λόγος log'-os(word) of God came — and the graphe γραφή graf-ay'(written-scripture) cannot be broken —

The Greek word is theoi. The name stands because God spoke it, and Scripture cannot be broken.

Peter then says what believers will share.

2 Peter 1:4 by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become koinonos(partakers, sharers) of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world through epithymia ἐπιθυμία ep-ee-thoo-mee'-ah(lust, desire, strong craving).

The Greek phrase is theias koinonoi physeos, sharers of the divine nature. Believers become partakers in the nature of God, and Peter says it is God Himself who has granted it through His promises.

Taken together, these words of Scripture say a great deal: those to whom God’s word came are called elohim and theoi, believers become partakers of the divine nature, and in the resurrection they will be like Him, conformed to the body of His glory, sons of God, equal to angels, unable to die, beyond the reach of the second death. The judges of Psalm 82 were called gods and still died like men. The sons of the resurrection are called sons of God, and they “cannot even die anymore.”

What these words carry can be stated with confidence: the completion of salvation lifts the redeemed into the divine realm. They are gods in the sense in which Scripture itself uses the word, sharing the divine nature and the deathless body of the Son. That is the height to which the agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay of God is bringing His children.

To many ears this sounds dangerous, as if believers were promised to become gods of their own, independent of the One who made them. That fear is fair, and the answer to it is not to say less than Scripture says. It is to state, just as firmly, the boundary that Scripture itself puts around these words.

The Only True God

Scripture never makes any of the redeemed a second god to be worshiped.

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth — as indeed there are many gods and many lords — yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Yeshua Messiah, through whom are all things and we exist through Him.

Yeshua spoke the same boundary in His prayer.

John 17:3 This is eternal zoe ζωή dzo-ay'(life), that they may know You, the only alethinos ἀληθινός al-ay-thee-nos'(true, genuine) God, and Yeshua Messiah whom You have sent.

“The only alethinos(true, genuine) God.” The word monos means only, and alethinos means true, genuine, the real one as opposed to every counterfeit. The redeemed share His nature. He alone is the true God.

The same line runs between the sons and the Son. The sons receive huiothesia; they are placed as sons. The Son is the monogenes, the only-begotten.

John 3:16 For God so agapao ἀγαπάω ag-ap-ah'-o(loved) the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal zoe(life).

He is the firstborn among many brothers, and He alone is the only-begotten. The many brothers are conformed to His image and share in the divine nature, but none of them ever becomes the only-begotten Son or the only true God.

They Will Serve Him

The last chapters of the Bible show how the two truths stand together for ever.

Revelation 22:3-5 And there will be no more curse, and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will serve Him, and they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no night there, and they have no need of the light of a lamp and the light of the sun, because the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.

“His servants will serve Him.” The verb is latreuo, the word for the service of worship. “They will reign forever and ever,” and the verb is basileuo, to reign as a king. They reign, and they serve. They see His face, and His name is on their foreheads. The glory given to them never turns them into objects of worship. When John fell at the feet of the angel who showed him these things, he was told, “I am a fellow servant of yours … worship God” (Revelation 22:9).

So the song of the barren woman, whose children are born of the word and the Spirit, reaches its end. The children of faith are born of the imperishable seed, grow from milk to the stature of Messiah, are conformed to His death, and are conformed at last to the body of His glory. They are called gods in the sense Scripture uses the word, partakers of the divine nature, sons who cannot die. And for ever they are the servants of the only true God and of the Lamb; they see His face and worship Him.

This is where the agape of God is heading: not only to forgive, but to make sons who share His life and His nature and serve Him for ever. That raises a hard question for the present age. If this is where love is leading, why does Yeshua say that, as the age draws to its end, most people’s love will grow cold?