style="font-size:15px;"> 7. Ibid., 35.
8. Ibid., 36.
9. Ibid., 69.
10. Ibid., 126.
11. Ibid., 141.
12. Ibid., 146.
13. Ibid., 169.
14. Gavrilyuk, “Retrieval of Deification,” 657.
15. Gorman, Inhabiting Cruciform God, 7.
16. Ibid., 162.
17. Ibid., 46–48.
18. See also his, Appropriation of Divine Life.
19. Daniel Keating, Deification and Grace, 5.
20. Ibid., 41.
21. Ibid., 48.
22. Here I am adopting Michael Gorman’s methodological principles that he proposed for the treatment of justification, the cross, and salvation in Paul, which in my turn I find very applicable to integrating different aspects of the deification discourse. See Gorman, Inhabiting Cruciform God, 46–48.
23. Milbank, “Sophiology and Theurgy,” 36; see Bulgakov, “Unfading Light,” 149–59.
1
Deification in Jesus’ Teaching
Stephen Finlan
It is beyond dispute that a major theme in patristic thought was the deification of believers, their taking on of divine character. It is almost beyond dispute that deification is also a major theme in the Pauline literature, where believers will be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29), “transformed into the same image” (2 Cor 3:18).1 There is much less data on deification in the traditions of the sayings of Jesus, but the theme is present in key passages in Matthew, Luke, and John, and is subtly suggested in Mark.
There are three particularly vivid deification passages in the Gospels:
The kingdom of God is within you.
Luke 17:21 NIV (1978), NCV, KJV (but default translation is NRSV)
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matt 5:48 NRSV
Is it not written in your law, “I said, you are gods”?
John 10:34
Deification Sayings in the Gospels
The Luke text indicates an indwelling divine potential; the Matthew text suggests continuous transformation into God-likeness; the John text seems to intend the divinization of believers. Mark lacks any unmistakable divinization reference, but profound transformation is certainly suggested in the records of people doing the will of God, becoming Jesus’ brothers and sisters, receiving healing as divine “power,” and seeing the kingdom of God “come with power” (Mark 3:35; 5:30; 9:1). Still, the absence of explicit deification statements makes Mark (not John) the anomaly among the canonical Gospels. John’s harmony with Matthew and Luke in this matter causes difficulty for standard biblical scholarship, which is wont to isolate John and discount its possible historicity. This does not mean that we should reject scholarship, only that we should be attentive to the actual content of the sayings, and be prepared to encounter some surprises.
We will begin with Luke’s kingdom-within, move to Matthew’s perfect-like-God, to John’s you-are-gods and other remarks, and then to some suggestive passages in Mark.
The first thing to notice about the three sayings quoted above is how shocking they are. They evoke amazement, stimulating reflection. To appreciate any of these deification statements requires a willingness to depart from all the arid interpretations that would suffocate the creativity of first-hand religious living. To appreciate Jesus’ sayings demands that one abandon all standardized theologies—Jewish or Christian—and to reject as well the lifeless skepticism that sometimes taints academic discourse. The endeavor to explain Jesus sociologically and to deny any originality to his sayings is an attempt to stifle his, and their, revolutionary import. We must allow them to be as extraordinary as they seem.
The Kingdom Within
Luke 17:21 says that the kingdom is not here nor there (not outwardly located), but “the kingdom of God is within [ἐντός] you” (NCV, KJV, ASV, TEV, NRSV margin). The translation of ἐντός will be addressed shortly. First we must notice that this saying draws our attention to the “kingdom of God,” the main symbol utilized by Jesus in his teaching. Scholars have long recognized more than one dimension to this concept. A nineteenth-century discussion brought out two sides to the kingdom idea: individual and social. One writer says the kingdom idea refers “primarily to the realization of a relationship between the individual soul and God,” but the “social result is essential to the realization of the kingdom of God.”2 Another claims the kingdom “is a state of loyalty to God,” which Jesus can describe in connection with the individual or with “the community, as in the prayer: ‘Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’”3
One does not always find such a balanced approach. Scholarship is engaged in a pendulum swing against any emphasis on the individual and any notion of a kingdom within. This extreme anti-individualism has led to a bland and misleading translation of ἐντός in Luke 17:21: “the kingdom of God is among you” (NRSV, NAB, NJB).
The correct translation of ἐντός, “within,” occurs in KJV, NCV, and ASV, but the trend in the last seventy years has been to undermine the intention of this saying by refusing to allow ἐντός to have its usual meaning, instead insisting on giving it a social meaning, starting with RSV translating it as “in the midst of.” NAB translates it “among,” as does NRSV, but the latter provides the marginal alternate, “within.” NCV reverses this choice, preferring “within,” and giving “among” in the margin.
I suspect that the attempt to socialize, suffocate, and domesticate this saying arises from an anti-personalist and materialistic bias. Some scholars insist the saying can only be social, that the kingdom must refer to the social circle around Jesus. Why must it? Is it because the persons offering this interpretation
