Why did God become man? So we might become ‘gods’

For the first Christians, to be saved was to be made a son of God. Their word for the process conveyed their astonishment. They dared to call it theosis and theopoeisis. In English we usually translate these words as “deification” or “divinization.” Literally, they describe “god-making.” And why should Christians shy away from such language if Jesus himself used it?

A group of opponents once threatened Jesus, saying: “We stone you for no good work but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33).

Jesus replied: “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’?” (John 10:34). He was quoting Psalms 82, but only partially. The sentence in its fullness reads: “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you” (Ps 82:6).

And this seems to be his view of humanity’s potential. He could look at a crowd and challenge them to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). He could even lay the challenge upon an individual: “If you would be perfect…” (19:21).

What is implicit in John becomes explicit in Paul, who speaks of the “saved” in exalted, divine terms. Christians are children of God, heirs of God, glorified with Christ (Rom 8:17; see also Gal 4:7). Because of their association with Christ, they are given gifts that belong properly to God alone: “For all things are yours … and you are Christ’s; and Christ’s is God’s” (1 Cor 3:21, 23).

In the eleventh century, Saint Anselm of Canterbury famously asked the question, Cur Deus Homo? — “Why did God become man?”

Saint John anticipated the question and provided an answer:

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16).

Again, when we speak of “eternal life,” we’re talking about something that belongs by nature only to God. Eternal life is not the same as “everlasting life.” So Jesus is not promising simply a salvation from sin and its wages. Eternal life is life that transcends time. It is the life that belongs exclusively to God. Yet it becomes ours when we know Jesus Christ. We have the Savior’s word on this: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

This is why God became man: to save us from sin, so that we could be holy — with his holiness.