2 Peter 1:4 ‘[God] has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire.’

This is one of the most striking claims in the whole of Scripture. Although the phraseology here is unique, the thought is echoed in Jn 1:12; 1 Jn 3:2-3; 1 Pet 5:1, and Rom 8:23,29. Peter does not mean, of course, that we ‘become God’, but rather that we become ‘like God’.

This verse has been central in the Orthodox doctrine of theosis, or ‘deification’.  This describes

‘the desired end result of the salvation process…Theosis is closely connected to the creation of humankind in God’s image. In attaining salvation in this fuller sense of being recreated in the image of God is a fulfillment of the Trinity’s original purpose in creating humans. This completion of the image finds biblical support in texts like Romans 8:29 and 1 John 3:2.’ (Stamoolis, EDT).

The early Church Fathers often said: ‘God became man so that man might become God.’  Put so bluntly, this is open to criticism.  It would be better to say that ‘we become like God’.

The doctrine of theosis is also related to that of human beings created in the image of God: in deification (it is argued) that image is being re-made, and God’s creational intent is at last being realised (see Rom 8:29; 1 Jn 3:2).

The Orthodox place a ring around the doctrine by drawing a distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies.  It is the latter, and not the former, which can be communicated to human persons.  Some Orthodox theologians link these energies with the Holy Spirit; thus, to be united to God’s energies is to be united to the Spirit.  It is to be noted, however, that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in the present text.

In addition to the present text, 2 Cor 3:18 is often appealed to:

‘And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.’

While we should not understand believers to partake of the divine essence, neither are we merely observers.  We are, as this text teaches, participants: we we become through our union and communion with God, like him.  Moreover, ‘to share in divine nature is to become immortal and incorruptible’ (Bauckham).  As for the means of this, note the emphasis on the words ‘knowledge’, ‘promises’, and ‘faith’.

Calvin goes so far as to marvel that

‘it is the purpose of the gospel to make us sooner or later like God; indeed it is, so to speak, a kind of deification.’

Murray Harris (Navigating Tough Texts) describes this sharing as

‘a contingent and derived immortality, a gracious gift of the divine will (cf. Rom 2:7; 6:23), involving, as God’s immortality does, inviolable holiness and so freedom from all decay and death (God “alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light,” 1 Tim 6:16). Just as resurrected persons can be described as “like the angels” because “they can no longer die” (Luke 20:36), so also those who can be described as “participants in the divine nature” are “like God” in having become immortal but without in any sense sharing in the divine essence.’

Harris adds that we are probably to understand this sharing in the divine nature as lying in the future.  Harris notes, among other things, that the ‘promises’ referred to in v4 about about the second advent of Christ, the day of the Lord, and the future day of God (2 Pet 3:4-13).

Harris concludes:

‘All this means that what Christians eagerly anticipate is not total absorption into the divine being, with the consequent loss of personal identity, but direct participation in God’s infinite life and holiness (cf. Col 1:22). We will enter into eternal union with God, with a consequent enhancement of individual identity; or as Paul would express it, we will permanently bear the image of the heavenly man, the exalted Christ Jesus (1 Cor 15:49).’

As the context makes clear, the similarity we are meant (and destined) to have with God is one of outlook, attitude, and moral behaviour.