the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one . . . then shall you enter the kingdom” (Saying 22).29 Mystics often assert the unity of heavenly and earthly, inward and outward, rejecting commonly accepted distinctions as unenlightened. This “unitive mysticism”30 is typical of Thomas, but is not evident in the canonical Jesus.
Saying 113 also preserves a version of Luke 17:21: “The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.”31 This shifts attention away from the inwardness of the kingdom, and toward people’s ignorance of the spiritual possibilities within and amongst them. This reflects the common Gnostic theme of the ignorance of ordinary people and their religions. Rather, the locus of enlightenment lies with “the solitary one” (16, 49, 75). Again, the views seem to be more those of “Thomas” than of Jesus.
Of the three versions of the “kingdom within” saying, Luke 17 is the one that preserves inwardness most vividly; Thomas 3 diverts the message toward a mystical sameness of inner and outer. The emphasis in Thomas 113 is on the kingdom as “spread out,” and people as ignorant. Clearly, then, gnosticizing texts do not always have more inwardness than orthodox texts. These two Thomasine sayings move away from an emphasis on inwardness.
The most interesting inward-focused saying comes about as far away as it can get, sequentially, from the other two sayings: “That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves. That which you do not have within you will kill you if you do not have it within you” (Saying 70).32 Although lacking the optimism of Luke 17:21, it is intriguing, is not necessarily Gnostic, and offers more promise for reflection about what the historical Jesus might have said, than do Sayings 3 and 113.
The kingdom-within saying proceeds quite far along a gnosticizing trajectory in the third century. Hippolytus reports a version that adds this at the end: “For there, hiding in the fourteenth aeon, I am revealed.”33 This reflects the Valentinian concept of the aeons: divine beings, part of the collective Godhead, the Pleroma. Thomas has “the All” (Saying 67) but neither “the Pleroma” nor aeons.34
The Gospel of Mary has Jesus warning his inner circle to watch out for those who say “‘Lo here’ or ‘Lo there.’ For the Son of Man is within you.”35 This dissolves the concreteness of Christ, completely internalizing him, and sounds like other Gnostic claims of personal deification, such as “you have become the . . . Christ.”36 Orthodox believers consider such claims of divinity to be either disproportionate or deranged. For the orthodox, deification never means that one is literally made equal to Christ, only that one takes on Christ-like qualities while still dependent on Christ, who is Lord.
The pattern of variations in the kingdom-within saying, the later ones being more gnosticized than the earlier ones, suggests Luke 17:21 as the initial source, and Gnostic imagination as influencing the later versions. This also indicates that the kingdom within was Jesus’ own idea. It was later used by Gnostics—and unfortunately abandoned or explained away by many of the orthodox.
Conclusion
Suggestions of the deification or divinizing of believers are found not only in a vivid Lukan saying on the kingdom within, a Matthean text commanding perfection (or perfecting), and a Johannine reference to people divinized by contact with revelation, but also in many texts that speak of the Spirit within, and of lives transformed by contact with Jesus. Further hints of divinization may be present in Markan records of people being “made whole” (Mark 5:34; 10:52 KJV) by faith, of Jesus imparting divine “power,” and of the kingdom of God coming “with power” (5:30; 9:1). Even more deification statements appear in the epistles.
All these sayings need to be considered within the context of the particular works in which they appear, but the teaching of the historical Jesus does seem to have provided the central concept. Before a NT author wrote that believers “may become participants of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4), Jesus had already linked divinity with humans, spoken of a kingdom within, and mandated the quest for Father-like perfection.37 The Synoptic Gospels affirm that Jesus announced that the kingdom “has come,” and that those who do the will of God are Jesus’ brothers and sisters (Mark 1:15; 3:35; Matt 12:28, 50; Luke 8:21; 11:20).
Transformation is strongly indicated in John: to all who believed, “he gave power to become children of God,” and they “will do greater works than these” (John 1:12; 14:12). This could be called the Christification of believers, as also in the letter: “when he is revealed, we will be like him” (1 John 3:2). How could anyone even approach this, unless divinized—transformed in character and attributes—by following Jesus? Even if human divinization can only be partial and limited, it comes from the transforming touch of God, and is a foretaste of more change to come (Phil 1:6; 3:21).
Regarding this teaching, the believer can use the test that Jesus recommended for all teachings: “Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own” (John 7:17).
1. See Finlan, “Can We Speak?” 68–80.
2. Rush Rhees, in Abbott et al., “The Kingdom of God,” 12–13.
3. Lyman Abbott, in ibid., 12.
4. Dodd, Parables, 84 n.1.
5. Roberts, “Kingdom,” 3, 6.
6. Ibid., 8; e.g. Luke 12:31; 18:16; Mark 10:15; Matt 13:45.
7. O’Neill, “Kingdom,” 141.
8. Luke 11:37; 13:31; Acts 5:34–39; 15:5; 23:6–9.
9. Bradford, Age of Faith, 31.
10. This is the best translation of huios theou without the article. Further, a Roman soldier would be more likely to speak of “a son of God” than of a unique “God’s Son.”
11. Harper, “Be Perfect,” 244.
12. Matt 5:6; 6:33; John 6:27.
13. Matt 9:11–13; 11:19; 21:31.
14. Matt 23:26–28; 15:18; Mark 7:15–23.
15. Harper, “Be Perfect,” 244.
16. Albertz, History of Israelite Religion, 132.
17. Abodah Zarah 5a. Neyrey says “Israel could be called god because deathless” (Neyrey, “‘I Said: You Are Gods,’”
