Objection: Faith Preachers Embrace Mormon-Like Teaching That We Can Become Gods, or Are “Little Gods” Already, So They Are Evil Cultists
First, Mormons (also known mistakenly as Latter-Day Saints when they are actually Latter-Day Sinners) are in an evil cult that teaches that God used to be a man like you and that someday you can be a God like Him and rule over your own planet. I know of NO faith teacher who has EVER even hinted that God was once a man; that’s ridiculous because God created man. I have heard one faith teacher who speculates that we can have our own planets to rule someday, but that is pure speculation, as there is nothing in Scripture to back that up. Even he never said that we would be like God is now. There is only one God who is like God is now and that is all there ever will be. To generalize that ALL faith teachers preach such a thing would be a huge exaggeration. Besides, I teach faith but I don’t teach speculations dogmatically, so I won’t be promising you your own planet to be a “god” over.
Now to the “little gods” thing. Some people are upset at anyone who preaches that you have a divine nature, but Scripture is quite clear that you are created “after God” (in His likeness, spiritually) in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24). While you are decidedly not another being in God’s sovereign class, which He has all to Himself, your born-again spirit has the same basic nature as God even though you are not omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. You are “one spirit” with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17), which would be impossible if your spirit were still dead and sinful (as many believe) because He is not spiritually dead and sinful. What is the whole point of being born again? A new spirit is born at that moment – born of God. Children resemble their parents. God would never “birth” a spirit that would be of inferior makeup to His. While He is not birthing other omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent spirits, those who believe God’s Word and become Christians partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
So I’m fine with the idea that Christians have spirits that are like God even though they don’t have all of God’s deity attributes (such as omniscience and omnipresence). So does that make us “little gods,” and what are “little gods” anyway?
BIBLICALLY, you CAN be a little god, but you’d better study out what that term means as it’s used in Scripture. Little gods are not additional God-class beings. That’s not the context in which the term is used! Little-g gods are actually people who have power due to their position on earth. The term does NOT refer to men getting the godlike status who can do everything God does like speak “let there be light” to a dark planet somewhere in a galaxy far, far away. That doesn’t even happen in the New Testament, and this is an Old Testament Scripture reference that is merely quoted by Jesus in the New Testament. Specifically, it’s this:
Psalm 82:6:
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
Taken out of context, this could be interpreted to mean that God as made us “little-g gods” who can do what He can do because we’re His offspring. This gets even farther afield when it is extrapolated to mean that we are now the “gods” over the earth. Now the earth WAS given to man throughout the Bible and man has dominion over the earth already – that’s why both God and Satan work through human instruments to get things done here. The problem is that even now, sinners and saints are sharing the planet, and they either submit to “the god of this world” (meaning Satan) or to God the Father. The saints don’t have the place to themselves without the devil’s subjects, though they WILL have the new earth in which righteousness dwells to themselves. Right now, God is still the owner – Psalm 50:10 says, “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” But man is the manager, and man has managed to mangle the place.
But doesn’t Psalm 82:6, which is even quoted by Jesus, prove that we as saints, who ARE children of the most High, are now “gods” over this current earth, as this seems to be what the verse comes out and says? It even says that these men are elohim – a term used to refer to God Himself! Can we really be additional elohim like God?
NO! That verse refers to powerful PEOPLE who are FLAWED and do NOT possess God’s nature!
We can see a similar use of “gods” in the Law:
Exodus 22:28:
Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.
God did not change his mind and decide that there are now many beings in His divine class! He was obviously talking about human rulers here, even though the word elohim is used for “gods” here as well. If this meant other divine beings, Elijah transgressed when he mocked Baal (1 Kings 18:27: “And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.”). By the way, Exodus 22:28 above is the command that Paul transgressed when he called the high priest a whitewashed wall; he had to repent for that.
However, you would NOT want to be like one of the little-g gods in Psalm 82:6 once you read the context!
Psalm 82:1-7 [with comments]:
God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
[Scripture is clear that there is only one God, so these little-g gods cannot be God-class beings.]
How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
[As we see, this was the little-g gods who were doing this! This was not God-like at all!]
Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
[This and the next verse are good things that the little-g gods were NOT doing.]
Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
[This is again what the little-g gods are up to – walking on in darkness!]
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
[This is the subject verse in context.]
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
[This can’t refer to godlike children of God!]
So I re-assert that biblically, you CAN be one of the little-g gods in this passage. But I doubt that you would want to be one! I wouldn’t!
Are there faith teachers out there who say that you can be a little-g god in the sense of having God’s overall ownership of this earth? Perhaps there are, but I don’t see Scripture for that. The verse they quote is the one above, which clearly doesn’t teach what they say it does in context. As for the elohim issue, the word IS used to refer to God, but ALSO to other gods [elohim], household gods [elohim], nonexistent gods [elohim] of Egypt, and so on. You can verify this readily with a concordance. The usage of elohim parallels how it’s translated into English. It is not necessarily referring to deity when you see it. So its usage in Psalm 82:6 does NOT prove that you are a divine God-class being or that you have God-class privileges.
Just a little food for thought along that line – I don’t believe I’ve ever actually heard anyone violate the third commandment with regard to God’s Old Testament name. His name is Yahweh (the Jews like to spell it YHWH, which is translated “the LORD”), not God (elohim). It is Yahweh who said that He won’t leave unpunished the one who takes His name in vain. God is His title, not His name. I’m not advocating misusing the word “God” either, but there’s probably less commandment-breaking going on than you think, though of course the Ten Commandments were never given to the New Testament Church anyway – it got the Four Commandments (Acts 15:29: “That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.”) and the royal law of love (all over the New Testament).
So Psalm 82:6, when it says that you are gods [elohim], is NOT saying that you are beings like God or “little-g god” beings with God-like powers. I do not teach that, so not ALL faith teachers do, and the fact that they might be wrong about interpreting certain Scriptures does not prove that they are misinterpreting all healing-related Scriptures. You have to take things on a case-by-case basis. Being wrong on one Scripture certainly doesn’t mean that you’re an evil cultist, unless your interpretation somehow denies Jesus’ resurrection or His deity or the new birth.