2 Peter 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Series finale.

When I saw this passage I wanted to see what translators had to offer as alternative language to divine nature. In all translations except one, they offered no alternative language. They could find no other words to express divine nature. The Worldwide English offered up Satan’s promise to Eve, to become like God too. Somehow that doesn’t sound right.

So I searched deep within all the related text for a deeper understanding for something that should be so obvious that translators chose not to use any other words. Therein I found one thought that I found satisfying. “The power to be distinctive.”

The idea of conformance to the image of Christ is visual. Looking like Christ is not being Christ. God is all about looking at the heart of a man, not the outward and seeming but the inward and real. In this we have to do a factual self-examination and ask if who we are as a distinctive being has changed. Not that we made a choice to act in any particular manner because it is the right, just and the moral thing to do, but because that is who we are today, a new creation.

Divine nature is not an act, or a choice, it is who we are, being distinctive and not like the worldly people we were before Christ. It is natural, not forced or a façade, it is being real.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

He has given us the power to be.