Defining Our Terms (1 of 2)

The same words can carry the truth or carry the fall.

"Become like God" is four words. In the mouth of the serpent in Genesis 3, they produce exile. In the mouth of Athanasius, they produce the exchange formula that anchors your mission in the humility of the Incarnation. In the mouth of a New Age teacher, they produce the oldest confusion of all: that the creation can become the Creator.

Before this volume goes further, it must make the vocabulary precise. Not to make things complicated. To protect something real: the difference between who you are becoming and who only God can be.

Before we build the bridge from Psalm 82 to 1 Thessalonians 5, we must define our terms with surgical precision. The reason so much divine council teaching goes off the rails is not lack of information. It is lack of definition.

The same phrase — "sons of God," "become gods," "children of light" — means radically different things in different contexts. If we do not define them, we will import Second Temple meanings into New Testament texts, or New Age meanings into patristic texts, and we will end up with the very heresy the Fathers fought.

This chapter gives you the lexicon for the rest of the book.

Term 1: Sons of God

In the Bible, "sons of God" (bene elohim, huioi theou) has at least four distinct meanings:

1. Angels by creation (Job 38:7, Job 1:6)

• Direct creations of God, members of the divine council
• Present at creation, predate humanity
• Called "sons" because they are created directly, not procreated
• This is the meaning in Psalm 82:6 — "you are gods, sons of the Most High"

2. Israel by covenant (Exodus 4:22, Hosea 11:1)

• "Israel is my firstborn son"
• Sonship by election and covenant, not by nature
• Corporate, not individual

3. Kings by adoption (Psalm 2:7, 2 Samuel 7:14)

• "You are my son; today I have begotten you"
• Applied to Davidic kings at coronation
• Typological of Christ

4. Believers by regeneration (John 1:12, Romans 8:14)

• "to all who did receive him... he gave the right to become children of God"
• Sonship by adoption through the Spirit
• This is the New Testament's primary use

KEY IDEA: When we talk about "sons of God" in this book, we must specify which meaning we intend. Volume VII focused on meaning #1. Volume II focuses on meaning #4, and how it fulfills and replaces meaning #1.

Term 2: Children of Light

"Children of light" (huioi photos, tekna photos) appears only in the New Testament, and always with an ethical, not ontological, emphasis:

1 Thessalonians 5:5 — "You are all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness."

Ephesians 5:8 — "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light."

John 12:36 — "Believe in the light, while you have the light, so that you may become children of light."

Notice the pattern:

• It is always plural and corporate
• It is always connected to behavior — walking, living, believing
• It is always contrasted with darkness, night, sleep
• It is never used of angels

KEY IDEA: "Children of light" is not a title of status like "sons of God." It is a description of walk. You are a son of God by adoption (status). You become a child of light by abiding (state). The first is forensic. The second is experiential.

This is why Paul can say in 1 Thessalonians 5:5 "you are all children of light" and then in verse 8 say "let us be sober, putting on faith and love." The indicative (you are) grounds the imperative (become what you are).

Term 3: Theosis (Deification)

Theosis is the Greek patristic term for "becoming god" or "deification." It comes from 2 Peter 1:4 — "partakers of the divine nature."

What theosis IS:

• Participation in God's communicable attributes (goodness, holiness, love, wisdom)
• By grace, through union with Christ, by the Spirit
• A process of being conformed to Christ's image (Rom 8:29)
• Retaining full humanity and created nature

What theosis IS NOT:

• Becoming God by nature (apotheosis)
• Absorbing into the divine essence
• Ceasing to be human
• Becoming omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent

[TIER 3 — MAGISTERIAL] CCC 460, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."

Aquinas clarifies: we share in the divine nature by way of a "created grace" — a quality God puts in us — not by becoming uncreated.

KEY IDEA: Theosis is the answer to how humans fill the vacancy left by Psalm 82. We do not become new gods by nature. We become, by grace, what the fallen sons failed to be by obedience: faithful images who reflect God's character and govern rightly.