Originally posted by checkbaiter
I understand what you are saying, but it is confusing. How is "Deification" possible?
It is not easy.
Think of the saved being filled both within with the life of God and swallowed up without with the life of God. That is a thorough saturation with the life of God. Don't you think so?
Here we see filled up within with God as life:
"But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever;
but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life." (John 4:14)
Surely that is being filled up inwardly with God's life.
What about outwardly ?
" If indeed, being clothed, we will not be found naked.
For also, we who are in this tabernacle goran, being burdened, in that we do not desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that what is mortal may be SWALLOWED UP by life." (2 Cor. 5:3,4)
Surely this is to be swallowed up even in our body in God's divine life. So we can see what Paul must mean when he says we would be filled unto all the fullness of God
" ... And to know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:19)
Isn't mankind eventually going to be here on earth?
Yes. At least on earth. My opinion is that perhaps His kingdom will extend further.
But this is my musing. I am not dogmatic about it.
That is, the "new heavens and the new earth".
That is right. That is
Revelation 21:1. The full matching Bride occupies the new heaven and new earth.
Peter says new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells
(2 Peter 3:13) .
If we are a born again person at least one part of our being is already in that realm - our regenerated spirit.
It is going to end as God began, in the "garden of delights."
His consummation is beyond what God begun. Not just at what He began but beyond what He began. It is back to Eden yet BEYOND.
A place where there will be peace, no more sin, no more tears, an abundance of food, etc.
God's will -
Revelation 21 and 22.
Yet beyond this is the climax - the mingling of God and man,
We need to also uplift out view of the church. For the church must be the community where God is growing Christ within saved people. And the local church must be a place where this growing of God in man is also the building up of the living temple of God for the new heaven and new earth.
"For we are God's fellow workers, you [the church in Corinth] are God's cultivated land [farm] God's building."
And won't we hold different positions in the Kingdom depending on rewards earned in the here and now?
Yes. The millennial kingdom, though, is a preliminary period of 1,000 years
BEFORE the eternal age of the new heaven and new earth.
(Rev. 20).
Some still need maturing during that time who have missed the reward. The reward is set before the saints as an incentive to cooperate with grace.
The period after the millennial kingdom sees the church with no more immaturity. So the entire total renovation of the old heaven and old earth is ready. And the mingling of God and man is consummated in the new heaven and new earth.
God's will is accomplished.
God's eternal purpose is accomplished.