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Summary
With spit in the eye, Jesus heals a man born blind. The Pharisees object, and Jesus tells the Jews that they are not of “His sheep.” He might as well have just spit in their ears and their eyes.
John 10:30, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.” Next verse, “The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?’ The Jews answered him, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.’”
Men making themselves God is a real problem in Scripture. Reference the King of Babylon, King Herod, “The Kings of the Earth.” In Revelations 19, a sword from the mouth of the “King of Kings,” appears to cut the flesh from all these kings and “all men.” Don’t all men attempt to make themselves God? That’s a problem.
God owns everything, and I want to own everything — but if I own everything, I can never be given anything. I can’t know Grace. God does everything, and I want to do everything — but if I do everything, I can’t do anything with anyone. I have to dance alone. God is absolutely free; He does whatever He wants. But if I do whatever I want, I must destroy the wants of all who disagree with me. God is most glorious, so of course I want to be God, but to win the beauty pageant, I must convince myself that everyone is uglier than me. To make yourself wonderful is to trap yourself in a world without wonder. To make yourself the best is to make everyone else the worst. To make yourself first is to make everyone else last. To own everything, you end up killing everyone.
Sigmund Freud argued that “in the beginning was the deed”: that the sons of a primal father killed that father in order to become that father and have the women of the horde all to themselves. “The primal father at once feared and hated, revered and envied, became the prototype of God himself,” he said. Freud argued that each clan represented this “Father-god” with a totem. He argued that Christian communion was the perfect example. That’s horrifying, and yet . . .
The Gospels tell us that the crowd took the life of Christ (one with the Father) out of envy. They saw that Jesus was God, wanted to be God, and so took the life of God…and everything went black. And it wasn’t the first time that it had happened: In the beginning, the Adam (including Eve) saw, but didn’t see, that the thing on the tree was the Good and the Life — the image of God. They took the fruit, and everything went black, for they were hiding from God and one another. Isn’t that what we all do around the age of two? Not knowing what life is, we take knowledge of good, try to make ourselves the best, which is to hope that others are the worst. We try to be God and find ourselves unable to love; we compete.
Jealous of Jesus, they wanted to be Jesus, and so crucified Jesus on a tree in a garden on the Holy Mountain; they were men making themselves God.
John 10:33, They say, “It is… because you being a man make yourself God.” And yet, we the readers of John’s Gospel know that Jesus is actually God, having made Himself man, and He is the very first man to resist the devil’s temptation to make himself God.
So, in John 10, men trying to make themselves God, project their own thoughts and feelings on to God, having made Himself man. Maybe we do this all the time?
We project our bad will onto Jesus and assume that He died for us because He had to, when He died for us because He wants to. He is the Free Will of God. We project our sense of Justice onto God and think He has to satisfy justice, when He is Justice and satisfies Himself by making us in His own image. We project our pride and shame onto God, think He needs to be worshipped by us, when in fact, we need to worship Him, so we’d forget about us. We project our fears onto God and cannot hear the voice of our Shepherd. We assume that He wants to take everything from us — when He desires to give everything to us, including Himself.
John 10:34, “Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your Law, “I said, you are gods”?’” (same group He just described as “of their father the devil” and “not his sheep!”)
They’re obviously men trying to make themselves gods, and Jesus seems to be saying that they already are. He’s quoting Psalm 82, which doesn’t make this easier but far more fascinating.
Psalm 82:1, “God [elohim] has taken his place in the divine council [“the el council”]; in the midst of the gods [elohim] he holds judgment:” God then judges the gods, or God, for not judging justly and saving the weak and afflicted. Elohim is a plural Hebrew noun usually translated with the singular English noun, “God.” “Hear oh Israel: the Lord (Yahweh) our God (Elohim), the Lord (Yahweh) is one.”
Who or what is “the divine council”? No one seems to know.
Psalm 82:6-8, “I said, ‘You are gods [elohim], sons of the Most High [elyown—”God most high”], all of you; nevertheless, as men [adam] you shall die, and fall as one prince.’ Arise, O God [elohim], judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations [goyem: people]!”
Jesus seems to think that this Divine council includes the Jews that He’s talking to in John 10 on the Holy Mountain. And crazier still, He seems to think that they are all one . . . God: Elohim.
Paul did write in two places that “As in Adam all die, so in Christ (the eschatos adam) will all be made alive.” Isn’t this the seventh sign that is the substance? All things filled with Christ and united in Christ, such that God is all in all: billions of persons and one substance, one love, “one God and father of all, who is over all through all and in all,” to quote Paul (Ephesians 4:5)?
For 1500 years, most of the institutional church has said, “Impossible!” However, for the first 500 years, most of the early church said, “This the Gospel!” Some called it the “recapitulation of Adam” and the doctrine of “theosis.” “He was made man that we might be made god,” wrote Athanasius.
John 10:34, “‘Is it not written in your Law, “I said, you are gods’”?’” says Jesus. “He called them gods to whom the word of God became (‘ginomai,’ as in ‘The Word became flesh.’). And Scripture cannot be broken.”
You were created with the breath of God that is God and the Word of God that is God. Doesn’t that make us all “God become man”… eventually? So, how did all of us become man making himself God? It seems as if along the way, we believed a lie…. And, of course, we did. So, we each are man making himself God, unaware that God is making us himself. In the same way, every child tries to make himself or herself, mom or dad, unaware that every good mom or dad wants to make that child themself.
We all take knowledge of Good and evil, trying to make ourselves in the image of God, while God commands us to make no images of Him; we are the image that He is making. Believing the devil, we do the work of the devil for him — we make an idol out of ourselves; we make a false self in which our true self is imprisoned. Each and all of us try to be God, and so — jealous of God — we crucify God and find ourselves dead and alone. And that’s when we meet God — when we know that we can’t make ourselves God, but God delights in making us Himself. In other words, we’re saved by Grace through Faith, and this is not of ourselves.
One last interesting thing to note: Jesus didn’t say, “You will be gods,” he seemed to say, “You are gods.” For Jesus, “Everything is good,” and “It is finished,” and when you abide in Him, you see that what’s true for Him is true for you. And that’s your hidden superpower: Humility.
Humility is knowing that you cannot make yourself God, because God has already made you Himself… even before you’ve met that self that He has made.
I hope we’ve established that we each have two selves: an old man and a new man, a false self and a true self, the shadow and the light, a self that I think I make and a self that God has made, man making himself God and God having made Himself man. One is far worse than I can imagine, and the other is infinitely better than I can even begin to dream. I can’t sort them out, but I know that I want to lose one and the other cannot be lost; he is imperishable. Whatever the case, I have no self that I can make into the image of God, and I have no self that needs to be defended or can be offended. When I believe this, I’m free of me, and I can be me (the true me); it’s humility.
Humility is the power to not be offended, the power to forgive, the power to enjoy your neighbors and love the Lord your God with all your heart. Humility is billions of people losing their lives and finding them in each other — the Body of Christ. Humility is the Divine Council, the counsel of God given to the gods, enabling them to live His Eternal Life — the communion of sacrifice called Love.
I think humility was Jesus’ superpower, and he got it from his Dad, and He’s giving it to us. That’s how He beat the temptations of the devil. He heard the word of His Father: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” and He believed the word that He heard. He had nothing to prove, nothing to earn; He could be… I Am.
When we come to the communion table, we confess that we are man, being man, who has made himself God — that’s sin. And we confess that God, being God, has made himself man that he might make all of us Himself — that’s Grace. We each confess, “I took your life on the tree.” He looks each of us in the eye and says, “I gave you my life on the tree, even before you took it.”
In the words of Solomon Vandy to his son Dia at the end of the movie Blood Diamond: “I know they made you do bad things, but you are not a bad boy. I am your father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son again.”
His body and blood: It is who “we am.” God is humble, and we are the image of God.