A reason for divinity is given for each side of the pair. They were called divine because the Word of God came to them; their proximity to the self-revealing God enabled them to be called elohim. It is the Son’s divine sentness that qualifies him for divinity. This does not imply sentness for the Exodus people, just the opposite. If they could be called divine (who were not sent, but only had the Word of God sent to them), how much more could the one who was sent be called divine? Revelation occurs on both sides of the comparison.
While the deathlessness connection is intriguing, it is marginal for this passage. Revelation makes the connection between the two parties who can be called elohim. The one sent by God to be the Revealer is certainly divine, but the people who received revelation could also legitimately be called elohim. What is the content of revelation, but divinity, God-quality? The Revealer is already divine, while the people receiving revelation are divinized, transformed. This notion is reflected in the OT, as well. Moses’ face shone, as a result of being “with the Lord” and writing down the Lord’s commandments (Exod 34:28–30, 35; 2 Cor 3:13). All of this implies that the people who listen to the Son may also be called elohim.
Divinization and the Sonship of Believers
Of course, scholars have recognized a strong Christology in John 10:30–36, but they underestimate the passage’s boldness when they overlook the deification teaching (however brief) that the people who received the Sinai revelation could be called elohim. This is a deification teaching: the action of God transforms humans. This transformation can be described as being or becoming children of God: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are” (1 John 3:1). Unknown transformations are still to come (1 John 3:2). Matthew is the exception in saying sonship with God is achievable through selfless love (Matt 5:41–45, just preceding the perfection mandate). Most NT authors who speak of sonship refer to it as a new status: “in Christ you are all children of God . . . no longer a slave but a child” (Gal 3:26; 4:7). For Paul, “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” changes creation itself (Rom 8:21); sonship causes the removal of class and sex divisions (Gal 3:26–28; cf. Rom 9:24–26).
In John, sonship is not just a status, but a “power”: “To all who received him . . . he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12). Faith has transformed believers into children of God, and this was God’s doing (John 1:13). The same teaching is probably implicit in John 10:34. The psalm that Jesus is quoting says, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you” (Ps 82:6). Although the reference to children or sons [huioi] is elided in John, the words of the original text would have resonated in the minds of many hearers or readers. And if they read on in the Gospel, they would find that Jesus came to “gather into one the dispersed children of God” (John 11:52).
No single passage in John affirms divinization to the same degree as 10:34–36, but a series of later passages can be seen to suggest, or at least allow, divinization, starting with the promise “that where I am, there you may be also,” and that “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these” (14:3, 12). Not ontology, but works, are emphasized, but it certainly is suggestive, especially if linked with some later promises: “The Spirit of truth . . . will be in you” (14:17); “The Spirit of truth . . . will guide you into all the truth” (16:13). “If you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (16:23). “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us . . . The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one” (17:21–22). What is the sequence of deification themes seen here?
•those who received revelation in the past could be called elohim;
•those who receive revelation from me will do greater works than I have done;
•they will have the Spirit of Truth and will be guided into all truth;
•they will receive spiritual things for which they ask, will receive God’s and Jesus’ glory, and will have spiritual unity.
This adds up to the instruction, empowerment, glorification, and divinizing of believers—what the church will later refer to as theosis. In fact, theosis has never been separable from Christology. It is because the divine Word came into flesh, that mortals can be deified.21 His “life was the light of all people . . . The true light, which enlightens everyone” (John 1:4, 9). “The Son gives life” (John 5:21). For John, Jesus is light and life, and he imparts “the fullness of the knowledge of God.” 22
Applying theosis to the Exodus generation may seem inconsistent with the teaching that theosis is derived from Christ, but it ceases to be so if Jesus is saying that he was the source of the Israelites’ theosis—and he may be implying just that, when he says “‘I said, you are gods’” (10:34). Instead of the Hebrew text’s “I say,” the Johannine Jesus uses the aorist form “I said,” apparently identifying himself as the one who spoke to the Israelites in the past. Elsewhere he affirms, “Before Abraham was, I am” (8:58). He had divine glory before the world began (1:1; 17:5, 24). Of course, it is Paul, not John, who specifically places Christ in the Exodus, as the rock that led them in the wilderness (1 Cor 10:4; the rock is a Talmudic expansion of Num 14:14; 20:11), but the idea is not completely alien to John’s thinking. John’s preferred focus is to have Jesus fulfill the meanings of Hebrew festivals: he is the new Passover; he, not the water of Siloam ceremonially poured on the altar, is the water of life; he, in contrast to the torches burning around the temple area,23 is the light of the world (John 1:29; 7:2, 37–38; 8:12). All this implies that Jesus lay behind the symbols, unrecognized.
The Rhetoric of Revelation
Now it is necessary to take a step back from the exegesis of Johannine texts, and speculate about why the historical Jesus might have said these things, or something similar. Here we find a similar pattern in all four Gospels. There are many stories in the Synoptics in which Jesus, in response to ill-willed criticisms, will come back with surprising exegesis of the Scriptures that suggests new ideas. He may use a Scripture to refute the theology of his opponents, as when he cites the familiar “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” to show the Sadducees that God is “God not of the dead, but of the living” (Mark 12:26–27). He will respond to a Sabbath-breaking accusation by citing a story that shows David breaking the Sabbath, and cap it with the radical saying, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:25–27). He will co-join two Scriptures to make a stunning statement about God’s openness to the Gentiles, and opposition to commerce in the Temple: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17; cf. Isa 56:7; Jer 7:11). On every one of these occasions he says something that goes against or goes beyond the theology of his foes. Affirming the “you are gods” passage in the psalms does so, as well.
Whether he is quoting Scriptures or not, Jesus makes his most astonishing theological statements either to selfish people, to those who are openly hostile to him, or to friends who misunderstand him. To his selfish family, interrupting his sermon, sending up notice that they are present, implying that he should pay them some homage, he makes the stunning reply “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). To the hostile Pharisees he says “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21 NCV)—even within his enemies! To the clueless Apostle Philip who asks to be shown the Father, he says, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). So when he quotes a psalm that calls some people gods (or engodded), it is in the same provocative and instructive spirit as these other responses. In every case he conveys a teaching. What else can it mean when humans are called elohim, than that they are taking on (some) divine qualities—being transformed?
Taking on Power; Theosis Themes in Mark
In the last two paragraphs we quoted radical and humanitarian sayings of Jesus in Mark. There is no single theosis passage