If Jesus is divine, does that make him God?

God’s nature is divine his essence is spirit

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

Divine nature pertaining to Jesus Christ and the children of God

But scripture says that we can share in God’s nature so all the more Jesus Christ who after all has a body now, that we will eventually have. It is written that we will be like him. If Jesus Christ is God because he has divine nature, then why aren’t we God by reason of participating in the same divine nature?

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Connecting the dots, most will agree that we are not God and never will we be God. So divine nature doesn’t qualify you as being God himself.

Was Jesus God or a man?

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus existing in the form of God doesn’t make him God, rather that his nature is from God. A good explanation of a son of God. We also read that Jesus emptied himself, but of what did he empty himself? Many think it was his foreknowledge and divine nature because he took on flesh or human nature and became a man being born like us. He started life as a baby, grew to a child, then an adult. We do know right now that Jesus is at the right-hand of God in the glory he had with him even before creation itself. So it seems he was with God, came to Earth in an empty state, and is back with God in the glory he had with him before the universe existed.

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Conclusion

Divine nature doesn’t make you God just as having a spirit doesn’t make you God. Yes God is divine, and He is spirit. But angels are spirits and they are not God and we can share in divine nature and we are not God. What we do know is this:

Jesus Christ existed with God before the world began as the Word. While he shared in divine nature with God, he emptied himself and became a man, even a baby who had to learn how to walk and talk like the rest of us. Providing the perfect sacrifice for our sins through his death, he is now with God at his righthand side in the glory he had with him before the world began. Now we who are in the flesh can be born of the Spirit and participate in this divine nature because Christ died for us.

We need to understand that there is a difference between being God who has divine nature and being a son who shares or inherits divine nature. Receiving the divine nature of God is a good description of being a son and chief among the sons of God is the Son of God himself. He reflects the fullness of God’s nature and glory in visible form from the invisible God.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Discussion