This notion that there could be rebellion in the New Heaven and New Earth is absurd,
if you understand glorification.
Hebrews 1:3, who is he? Who are we being transformed into the likeness of?
Okay, well the short answer's Jesus, but look at this description here.
Jesus, God's Son, "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint
of his nature" Okay, that is the destination of sanctification.
It is not just imitative behavior.
This is who, in the New Heaven and the New Earth, okay, when it's all said and done,
this is what you and I, all believers are going to be.
You are going to be a partaker of the radiance of the glory of God,
and in some way share in who Jesus is, and he is the exact imprint of God's nature.
Again, it's hard to even fathom what that means. But that is what the text is telling us.
Let's go out to Litwa. Go this way to make sure that it works. So this is the bigger book,
"WE ARE BEING TRANSFORMED".
And again, you have an article by him on this particular verse,
but I want to read you a few things that he says in the book.
So this transformed, we are being transformed into the image, okay.
"The ambiguity here is whether Christians are transformed
into Christ’s image, or into the image of God which Christ is."
And that's one of the questions.
Alan Siegel, whose name I have invoked before in the previous semester,
he's the Two Powers in Heaven guy, takes the latter view,
then he's going to discuss this but he says, "Christ, as Paul later clarifies,
is 'the image of God'". He is, as Hebrew says, "the exact imprint of his nature."
And Christ is the image of God, 2 Corinthians 4:4, we see this language again.
"This implies more than that Christ is a perfect human being. He is a divine being."
He's more than human, "Thus to be transformed into the image that Christ is
(as I interpret it) is to be changed into the divine image.
This amounts to, I argue, a participation in Christ’s divinity. The transformation is thus
a deifying transformation." Again, that's his terminology,
but again, this is glorification.
Then he talks about how do we understand this. This is an interesting note here.
"Unlike in similar passages, however (Rom 8:29; Phil 3:21; 1 Cor 15:49),
Paul’s focus in 2 Cor 3:18 does not appear to be eschatological."
In other words, it's not just future for Paul.
Paul uses a present tense verb. It's from metamorphóō,
metamorphoumetha in this.
Let's just go here back to 2 Corinthians 3:18. We "are being transformed." Here's the verb.
If I hover over it, you can see its present, passive, indicative. This is a present tense verb.
Paul doesn't set this exclusively in the future. He says in some way it's happening now.
We are being transformed. "The only other place Paul uses
the verb metamorphóō is in Rom 12:2,
where he tells Gentile converts: 'Do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed'" Again, like right now. be transformed.
Don't be conformed to the world, be transformed right now.
"[again present tense] 'by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern
what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.'" Now, in that verse,
he says, Paul is clearly angling for moral conformity. Don't be conformed to the world,
be transformed by the renewing of your mind. But in 2 Corinthians 3:18,
it's being transformed into the image of God, okay, into what Jesus is.
Now, let me see if I marked anything else, right here. Let's go here.
Now, Litwa spends a lot of time, it's a whole book on this subject.
And here's sort of where he is in a nutshell. He says, My own contribution,
“2 Corinthians 3:18 and Its Implications for Theosis,”
which, you know, again, you have an article like that,
"was developed from an insight of Cuthbert Lattey, who saw Paul’s theology
of becoming God’s image in terms of deification.
In this article, there were two basic observations. First, becoming “the same image”
as Christ does not mean (as some argue) only becoming like Christ in his humanness.
For Paul, Christ as image of God is the divine image, representing the power
and nature of God. Becoming that image, therefore,
carries implications for deification.
Second, deification in Paul does not mean fusion with the Godhead."
Okay, we're not going to become members of the Trinity,
Trinity is not going to expand. "This is a lingering misconception
commonly used to discount the idea of Pauline deification, and is rightly discarded."
Okay, I completely agree.
I want to say a few things about that. If Christ is the image of God,
it's more than behavioral. Since Christ was God incarnate, we're already in Christ.
So something has to be happening there, in terms of what we are
not just what we do.
And in light of Litwa's summary, here's my take on this. I think Scripture teaches
that one human was God. Okay, that was Jesus.
But all other humans cannot become God. They can't be God, they can't become God.
Nevertheless, human believers are united to that one human who is God.
And so humans do become qualitative partakers of God's nature.
And I'll get back to the free will line there. Not merely moral, okay, so in other words,
it's not just imitating behavior, we will actually become what Jesus is in some way.
But it's going to fall short of being members of the Trinity.
Why? Because we're lesser. In glorification we are metaphysically transformed,
to also share with God's glory. We become what Jesus is in terms of his body,
the image of God as well as its character, but we don't join the Godhead.
This is not possible. Expansion of the Godhead is not possible
because he was pre-existent and eternal and chose to become a man,
an act of his own will. We can't say any of those things.
Even after glorification, we are contingent beings. So there's no sense here.
If this is new to you, if you've never heard sanctification
talked about in terms of its ultimate endpoint; glorification,
where you become like Jesus. 1 John 3, 2 Corinthians 3:18. 2 Peter 1:4,
1 Corinthians 15. I mean, there are a number of passages that say this.
What we're not saying. Okay, this is not Mormonism where you get to be a little Yahwehs.
Ok, what we're not saying is that the Godhead expands.
That is impossible because we are not eternal. We had a beginning.
And we didn't choose to be. Okay, that's Jesus. He never had a beginning
and he chose to become a man. We are, by definition, still lesser,
but we are nevertheless as much like him as we can possibly be.
And my note about it addresses the freewill question
is I often get the question of, well, you know, if you're going to teach free will,
you know, when we get to the New Heaven and New Earth, you know,
we don't become robots. We still have free will. So is it possible that we could rebel?
Okay, if you understand glorification, that's an absurd question.
Okay, God has planned for our endpoint to be as much like Jesus as possible
without expanding the Trinity. So the answer is no.
We're not going to have sin and rebellion in the New Heaven and New Earth.
Yes, we're not God. We're not perfected in that way.
So I mean, I jokingly when I get this question, I like to joke and say, Well, okay, look,
yes, we're not perfect. We're not God. So I guess it's possible. But it's not plausible.
It's possible that I could win an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize
and be the next American Idol, all in the same year.
Okay, none of those things are going to happen. It's absurd.
It's completely implausible. And that's what this is.
This notion that there could be rebellion in the New Heaven and New Earth is absurd,
if you understand glorification, if you understand the impact of these things.
So the presence of free will; still being like him in that way,
doesn't mean you're going to have a repeat, a do-over, another tragedy like the fall.
Okay, that is out of the question. It's absurd. So let's be clear on that respect.