Q. Recently I heard that a certain cult teaches we can become gods, based on Psalm 82:6 and John 10:33 and 34. Please comment.

A. The Bible nowhere teaches that humans can attain godhood. Psalm 82:6 reads, “I said, You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” The evil judges of Israel should have been righteous, representing God on the earth. He intended them to be holy and to administer His holy law, but they became wicked. So the psalmist Asaph called these judges gods in a tongue-in-cheek way, not because they were actual deity, but because they acted in giving out judgments against people. Notice that Asaph continued by saying that these judges would die like the humans they really were, though they had high positions.

John 10:33 and 34 read, “The Jews answered Him, saying, For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods?” Here Jesus used Psalm 82:6 to answer the Jews who wanted to stone Him. Jesus was saying that the Israelite judges were called gods in sarcasm. But Jesus was declaring He is God. He could do all things, in contrast to those human judges. They could never be what He is; they died, whereas Jesus rose from the dead.

Notice “are” in John 10:34. Cultists say that they might attain godhood and, if so, it will be in the future, but the present “are” refutes that notion. Also, the Hebrew word for God, Elohim, can be used of humans, as in Exodus 7:1, where God said He had made Moses “as God” to Pharaoh, not because Moses was God or a god, but because Moses stood in the place of God before Pharaoh.

Isaiah 43:10 emphatically refutes any idea of humans attaining godhood: “Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me.”

Do you have feedback or a Bible question to submit? Send your Bible questions to nolson@garbc.org, or mail to Norman A. Olson in care of the Baptist Bulletin, 1300 N. Meacham Rd., Schaumburg, IL 60173-4806.