Originally, I was going to write covering more aspects regarding men being “gods” in the first part of this series but then I realized I was going to need more than just one post to get this all written out in reasonably short posts for me to write and for y’all to read. Originally, I wasn’t going to mention Dominic “Bnonn” Tennant’s viewpoint on the “gods” addressed in Psalm 82:6-7 and John 10:34. But then I was mentioned in Bnonn & Foster’s newsletter, and so I have decided to briefly poke fun at their silly theory which attempts to avoid the obvious conclusion that God actually meant what He wrote, and what Jesus Christ again quoted and applied to men while in the form of a man, here on earth. They wrote:
When we first launched It’s Good To Be A Man, we were screeched at by complementarians for being hyper-patriarchal, and we were denounced by hyper-patriarchalists for being closet feminists. (Shout-out to our favorite reader who still routinely reminds us that we are women-worshipers for claiming that our sisters in the faith are being transformed into the image of Christ just like our brothers.)
Yes, I do receive their free newsletter and I do fairly regularly reply back with corrections to some part of it, and I do regularly attribute their consistent errors to their woman-worshipping beliefs. However, their blurb I quoted above does not accurately portray our doctrinal difference. They actually teach that Eve, and every woman after her, is already made in the image of God, not just that female saints are supposedly being transformed into the image of Christ. This stems from their willful failure of reading comprehension regarding passages in Genesis where God clearly went to exceptionally great lengths to avoid ever saying that women were created in God’s image, merely asserting that females and males were both created by God, while at the same time obsessively repeating that “Adam” himself was created in God’s image, as though that is a great and notable distinction that we should be made aware of.
Furthermore, in their quote they seemingly grasp at another straw, by citing a phrase from 2 Corinthians 3:18 as their “gotcha“ proof-text. I responded back to Bnonn & Foster, by email, as follows:
I’ll assume that the biblical phrase you misused above is quoted from 2 Corinthians 3:18. However if you weren’t so stuck on worshipping women as the image of your goddess, you would likely have realized that the verse is clearly not talking about our sisters in the faith, but about the men who are ministers of the church. As God would have it, when I opened up the verse online, my Bible version was previously set to Geneva, and in the footnote I read this:
“But Paul speaketh here properly, of the ministers of the Gospel, as it appeareth both by that that goeth before, and that that cometh after, and that, setting them his own example and his fellows.”
2 Corinthians 3:18 GNV – But we all behold as in a mirror the – Bible Gateway
But to be sure I looked up the verse in Greek, and sure enough the inspired word chosen for “All” is (πάντες or pantes) a masculine form of the neuter root adjective (πᾶς or pás).
So God even made it clear that He was speaking about men, before the [gender-ambiguous] translation, in case you wouldn’t already know (from 1 Corinthians 11:7) that it is [only] men who properly go before Him with unveiled faces.
Now if you have a moment, I also found this fascinating bit of early church commentary linked to 2 Corinthians 3:18. [which verse you cited]
Letter LI. From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. From here:
Sharkly’s note concerning the following quote: [I doubt the scholars currently translating these early church documents believe that only men are the image of God, and they are likely to prefer sexually inclusive language or gender-ambiguous language when they can get away with it, so the fact that, given that natural bias, it still clearly shines through that the original author believed only men to be the images of God, is a testimony to the irrefutably gendered way in which this letter was written prior to translation. While I have not seen this text in its original language, if I personally were tasked with translating it, chances are quite likely that my translation would even more clearly attest to men’s uniqueness in being earthly likenesses of God.]
For, among other wicked things, [Origen] has presumed to say this, too, that Adam lost the image of God, although Scripture nowhere declares that he did. Were it so, never would all the creatures in the world be subject to Adam’s seed—that is, to the entire human race; yet, in the words of the apostle, everything “is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind.” For never would all things be subjected to men if men had not—together with their authority over all—the image of God. But the divine Scripture conjoins and associates with this the grace of the blessing which was conferred upon Adam and upon the generations which descended from him. No one can by twisting the meaning of words presume to say that this grace of God was given to one only, and that he alone was made in the image of God (he and his wife, that is, for while he was formed of clay she was made of one of his ribs), but that those who were subsequently conceived in the womb and not born as was Adam did not possess God’s image, for the Scripture immediately subjoins the following statement: “And Adam lived two hundred and thirty years, and knew Eve his wife, and she bare him a son in his image and after his likeness, and called his name Seth.” And again, in the tenth generation, two thousand two hundred and forty-two years afterwards, God, to vindicate His own image and to show that the grace which He had given to men still continued in them, gives the following commandment: “Flesh…with the blood thereof shall ye not eat. And surely your blood will I require at the hand of every man that sheddeth it; for in the image of God have I made man.” From Noah to Abraham ten generations passed away, and from Abraham’s time to David’s, fourteen more, and these twenty-four generations make up, taken together, two thousand one hundred and seventeen years. Yet the Holy Spirit in the thirty-ninth psalm [verse 6], while lamenting that all men walk in a vain show, and that they are subject to sins, speaks thus: “For all that every man walketh in the image.” Also after David’s time, in the reign of Solomon his son, we read a somewhat similar reference to the divine likeness. For in the book of Wisdom, which is inscribed with his name, Solomon says: “God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity.” And again, about eleven hundred and eleven years afterwards, we read in the New Testament that men have not lost the image of God. For James, an apostle and brother of the Lord, whom I have mentioned above—that we may not be entangled in the snares of Origen—teaches us that man does possess God’s image and likeness. For, after a somewhat discursive account of the human tongue, he has gone on to say of it: “It is an unruly evil…therewith bless we God, even the Father and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.” Paul, too, the “chosen vessel,” who in his preaching has fully maintained the doctrine of the gospel, instructs us that man is made in the image and after the likeness of God. “A man,” he says, “ought not to wear long hair, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God.” He speaks of “the image” simply, but explains the nature of the likeness by the word “glory.”
Instead of the three proofs from Holy Scripture which you said would satisfy you if I could produce them, behold I have given you seven. Who, then, will put up with the follies of Origen? I will not use a severer word and so make myself like him or his followers, who presume at the peril of their soul to assert dogmatically whatever first comes into their head, and to dictate to God, whereas they ought either to pray to Him or to learn the truth from Him. For some of them say that the image of God which Adam had previously received was lost when he sinned. Others surmise that the body which the Son of God was destined to take of Mary was the image of the Creator. Some identify this image with the soul, others with sensation, others with virtue. These make it baptism, those assert that it is in virtue of God’s image that man exercises universal sway. Like drunkards in their cups they ejaculate, now this, now that, when they ought rather to have avoided so serious a risk, and to have obtained salvation by simple faith, not denying the words of God. To God they ought to have left the sure and exact knowledge of His own gift, and of the particular way in which He has created men in His image and after His likeness. Forsaking this course, they have involved themselves in many subtle questions, and through these they have been plunged into the mire of sin. But we, dearly beloved, believe the words of the Lord, and know that God’s image remains in all men, and we leave it to Him to know in what respect man is created in His image. And let no one be deceived by that passage in the epistle of John, which some readers fail to understand, where he says: “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” For this refers to the glory which is then to be revealed to His saints; just as also in another place we read the words “from glory to glory,” [2 Corinthians 3:18] of which glory the saints have even in this world received an earnest and a small portion. At their head stands Moses, whose face shone exceedingly, and was bright with the brightness of the sun. Next to him comes Elijah, who was caught up into heaven in a chariot of fire, and did not feel the effects of the flame. Stephen, too, when he was being stoned, had the face of an angel visible to all. And this which we have verified in a few cases is to be understood of all, that what is written may be fulfilled. “Every one that sanctifieth himself shall be numbered among the blessed.” For, “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
That concludes the excerpt from my email in reply to Bnonn & Foster, and the introductory setup for this next sharing of my beliefs.
I can see already that I’m going to need at least a third post to explain how men are indeed “gods” and what that might mean for us and how men and women should then live accordingly.
I was enlightened by this early church father’s note, and I discovered that psalms 39:6 describes all men using the exact same masculine Hebrew noun translated as “image” used elsewhere only in the phrase “image of God” in Genesis 1:27 & 9:6. So now there is yet another verse, previously unknown to me, referring to all men, but not women, as walking about as “images”.
Anyhow, Bnonn seems to have taken to seeing the “gods” of Psalm 82 as much like the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” and that the “gods” are various immortal Titans or powerful spirit beings who compose a “Divine Council” not headed by Thanos or Captain Marvel, but by the Most High. And that despite being the supreme ruler of all the universe, the Most High, is really a very bad communicator, like Joe Biden, frequently needing folks like Bnonn to explain and walk back his clearest statements.
Psalm 82:6(AMP) I said, “You are gods; Indeed, all of you are sons of the Most High. 7 Nevertheless you will die like men and fall like any one of the princes.”
Bnonn says that clearly these immortal Spirits can’t die like men nor fall dead like earthly princes, but that God meant to say that they will suffer a spiritual separation from God, alive, in the lake of fire which is a depiction of “death”, sometimes called the second death, even though they’re still just as alive there as those spirits ever were. Evidently Bnonn’s God has great trouble expressing Himself clearly!
Bnonn struggles greatly with Psalm 82 and even admits that his belief has some problematic spots that are difficult to overcome. But to otherwise take those words of God literally, and to use Psalm 82 as if it were speaking of men, how Jesus clearly applied it in John 10, would mean Bnonn of necessity giving up his Feminism and his religious ideology that men and women are both equally images of our Father & Son Godhead, and that is still anathema to Bnonn.
We really don’t need to struggle so hard if we can just accept that the holy Scriptures which came to us, tell us that men are gods, and sons of the Most High, nevertheless, we men have been doomed to die, even the greatest of us. Luke, in his genealogy of Jesus Christ, by inspiration, plainly tells us that Adam, our fleshly father, was “the son of God”. Which would make us all descendants of the Father, who is thereby the patriarchal LORD of all spirits and all flesh.
Luke 3:38 who was the son of Enos, who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God.
Sorry if my writing here is seemingly “stream of consciousness”, as I point to the layout of many separate foundational stones set into the metaphorical groundwork of our temples of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s now look at the definition of the key noun here: “god”.
- A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
- The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
- A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
- An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
- One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed.
It is accepted convention to use a capital letter “G” whenever referring to the One God of definition number one. Whereas, except for when at the beginning of a sentence, when referring to the gods of definitions two through five, we use a normal lower case “g”. I try to follow that convention, for clarity’s sake, but I am not the One perfect “God” and therefore I am not completely immune from making errors and typos.
I believe that all men can fit definition two by showing an aspect of masculine God in their created being. I believe the Bible teaches us that all men also fit definition four, by being images of the supernatural God, to be reverenced by their wives. (Ephesians 5:33) No other graven images (idols) are to be made than the image God Himself formed in his own imprint from the dust of the earth. Adam, whose image was then reproduced in his son, Seth, (Genesis 5:3) and eventually was passed down to us men as well. And the words of some men are followed: Princes, Judges, Rulers, Pastors, Priests, and Etc., fitting definition five. The early church fathers weren’t scared of men being called “gods”:
Epistle of “Mathetes” to Diognetus from Chapter 10 … How will you love Him who has first so loved you? And if you love Him, you will be an imitator of His kindness. And do not wonder that a man may become an imitator of God. He can, if he is willing. For it is not by ruling over his neighbors, or by seeking to hold the supremacy over those that are weaker, or by being rich, and showing violence towards those that are inferior, that happiness is found; nor can any one by these things become an imitator of God. But these things do not at all constitute His majesty. On the contrary he who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbor; he who, in whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a god to those who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of God.
So clearly it wasn’t originally so inconceivable for mortal men to be called “gods” or to be encouraged to become better gods. Calling mortal men “gods”, is like a litmus test, which all Feminists reflexively balk at, preferring to reverence and give honor to other “idols” but never to the earthly image of God. LOL
The Feminist’s lord and master, Satan, keeps them from ever acknowledging all men’s exclusive reflection of their Father God. The “image of God” isn’t inclusive of women, it’s exclusive, a men’s-only group. But women can still join into God’s revealed truth by appropriately acknowledging and reverencing men as the images of God.
Stay tuned for more to come. (Part 3)
Lots to digest. But 7-8 verses that confirm your assertions, that’s strong.
Christians I know would denounce Feminism yet refuse to make any distinction between my wife and I when I ask them to back up my authority in my own home. Like BGR has taught they see us as 2 “adults” via John Locke. Neutrality is their highest value and they refuse to judge righteously.
To say men alone are made in God’s image is one thing, but to argue that men are literal gods is heading into the realms of heresy.
…And it’s all based on a nonsensical anthropocentric interpretation of a single verse in the gospel of John, which itself is quoting a psalm addressed not to men, but to אלהים — literal gods.
If men were really gods, then that is a huge claim, and there would be a great deal more to back it up than a single verse.
I hate feminism probably more than you do. Moreover, I believe that men are superior to women, and were intended by God to subjugate them, since women are destructive children and ruling them as such is the only way to have solid families and a functioning society. But to let one’s hatred of feminism and righteous disdain for women drive one into declaring oneself a god is to stray from the truth.
”To say men alone are made in God’s image is one thing, but to argue that men are literal gods is heading into the realms of heresy.”
“literal gods” I gave you five literal definitions of the word “god” and definitions 2, 4, and 5 do not require a person to be in any way supernatural to be called a “god”. Furthermore we are sons of the Most High. The plural Hebrew word “Elohim” can also mean: godly, great, judges, magistrates, mighty, rulers, and Etc. And since verses 1, 2, 3, and 8 of Psalm 82 refer to judging and judgement it only makes sense that the term was referring to the judges “of the land”, as it says. Which would also make sense as to why Jesus would apply that Scripture to Himself and to the Jewish leaders of the land who were trying to judge Him to be guilty of blasphemy.
John 10:31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? 33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
In that passage the Jews were wanting to stone Jesus, who had just called God His Father, because, “thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” Jesus basically replied teaching that it was not blasphemy for men to say that, because God Himself had, in Psalm 82, called men “gods” and sons of the Most High. The answer worked, giving Jesus enough time to escape from them, even though they had previously stated that they viewed Jesus to be merely a man, because it was understood by all that the passage was referring to God calling mortal men, “sons” of His, and therefore “gods”. And if that wasn’t the case, then you make Jesus out to have been teaching that scripture falsely, and deceiving them and us, just to buy himself an extra moment to elude the inquisitor’s grasp. If the passage Jesus quoted wasn’t relevant to the instance of a son of man calling himself a son of God and thereby making himself a “god”, then it makes no sense for Jesus to have even mentioned that particular passage in that exact instance of being accused of blasphemy.
If you are accusing me of blaspheming because I say that I am a son of the Most High and therefore a “god”, I’ll offer you the exact same verses in my own defense that Jesus used. And I’ll use God’s words the exact same way as Jesus Christ used them to remind the Jews that God Himself had called men His sons and also “gods”. And as Jesus reminded them, that inspired Scripture cannot be wrong about that.
When some churchian pastor inevitably speaks of the whores in his church as “daughters of the King”, (a term that appears nowhere in the Bible) do you accuse him of heading into heresy? Then why can’t men also be sons of the Most High, and consequently gods, as an aspect of God’s image and glory, as per 1 Corinthians 11:7?
I don’t disdain women. I try to see them and their use as I am Biblically instructed to see them and use them. We prove our love for others through following God’s word, (1 John 5:2-3) not through the sin of flattery. To wrongly flatter women as being men’s equals to gain their approval and favor, is selfish and unloving.
Whenever I think I’m as far to the right as I can go, I discover that God is still further to the right of me. How could I possibly be more sexist than a God who intentionally created two separate sexes and created a lesser sex to serve the greater sex and to reverence the greater sex and to submit to him in everything as unto the Lord, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God?
Although I often learn various things from all of my commenters, those who most often sharpen me are those few who are still to the right of me in some areas, like ikr, ray, and burnstaicho.
I truly do think that people’s instinctive revulsion for calling a son of God, who images God, a “god”, is a cultural manifestation of Satan’s enduring effort to disparage all men. If I had written in some other post that, “women are the gods (or goddesses) of our feminist society”, nobody would have batted an eye. But when I write that we men are sons of the Most High and, by divinely granted dominion, we are to be the “gods” of this earth, out comes people’s Feminism to tear men back down a notch. It really is reflexive. I too would think it blasphemy to equate myself with God, if God, Himself, hadn’t made so clear that men are all sons of the Father of all, and bear His image and thereby an aspect of His glory. And I too might not call men “gods” if only the Psalmist had called men “gods”, but When the Lamb of God, my Savior, also used that same verse to reiterate that men are all sons of the Most High and therefore not blaspheming to even call themselves “gods”, then I accept His Gospel: that the Son of God came to redeem wayward gods to make them His brethren.
Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all(masculine plural), how shall he not with him also freely give us all(neuter plural) things?
Should we try to deny glory to those God, Himself, has glorified?
P.S. It is difficult to understand the Bible text until you realize that most of it was written and addressed exclusively to men. So for most parts the assumed audience is men. Today we just assume the text was addressed to both men and women, but that often leads to misunderstandings in who is being addressed. And having the text mostly neutered into inclusive-English certainly doesn’t help us understand that.
Related: in reading through Exodus 22, the first parts of the Laws of Moses, verse 28 says “Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.” I haven’t been able to find the original Hebrew word for “gods” as used in the verse, but translation notes accompanying the verse say that whatever the word was, it can be interpreted as either “gods” or “judges.” The latter certainly makes sense in context, given the time and circumstances under which Moses and Israel were living, and it also speaks to the idea of God ensuring that MEN made in His image were to be His instruments in ruling His people according to His laws.
Feeriker, that’s a good find. The word used is again: (’ĕ·lō·hîm) אֱלֹהִ֖ים
The Wycliffe translation actually explains it:
Exodus 22:28 (Wycliffe) Thou shalt not backbite [the] gods, that is, (the) priests, or (the) judges, and thou shalt not curse the prince of thy people (and thou shalt not curse the leaders of thy people).
It appears to be a Hebrew poetical form called “synonymous parallelism” where the two lines are different ways of saying a very similar thing. It can be diagrammed as:
Curse not ruler
Revile not gods
Ran across Matthew 5:9 (NASB 1995) today:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
Exodus 7:1 KJV “And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.”
dave snope,
That verse is a really good find. It is a clear example from the Torah of where God calls a mortal man,(Moses) a “god” (’ĕ·lō·hîm) אֱלֹהִ֖ים and it also, at least figuratively, deifies him by saying he has his own prophet. LOL Thanks for sharing that excellent supporting verse.