"we are gods"

As the sun sets between the spindly trees, a fire builds within my bones, screaming: “I am a god.” We are all gods, if you stop and think about it. What is it that makes a god? Ask an ancient Near Eastern pagan, and he’ll tell you of their gods: they have free will, territory, power over the elements, and the greatest ones have power over life and death. Have we not free will? Have we not territory, our own little kingdoms called our lives? Have we not power over the elements, promoted by technology? Have we not power over life and death; can we not take the life of another, and even take our own lives? The ancient Near Eastern gods warred against one another: do we not war against one another now?

The idea of humans being gods is a biblical idea. C.S. Lewis captures this when he investigates the creation of mankind in his published journal entitled, “A Grief Observed.” He writes, “[The] grand enterprise [of God is to] make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a ‘spiritual animal.’ To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, ‘Now get on with it. Become a god.’” (72) After billions of years of guiding evolution, God takes a poor, primal, instinct-driven primate and breathes divinity into it. Arising from the dust of billions of years of evolution is a creature that stands apart from all others: a creature designed in the image of God. We become “gods” over the creation.

Yet the title of gods also comes with responsibility. God made us “gods” so that we could reign with Him in His universe, watching over and caring for His beautiful, prized creation. Yet gods, remember, have free will, and we decided that we’d like to be king god. This is nothing surprising. In all the ancient Near Eastern hierarchies of the gods, power-plays were nothing uncommon. The great goal of the lower gods is always to move up, and the ultimate goal is to take the throne of the king god. We tried to take the throne of the king god, but He is far too powerful for us, and we were overthrown. Our godliness was corrupted, and now we walk this planet as fallen gods, bitter and selfish and greedy, a disgrace to the One who designed us. We are the wickedest, most vile gods, and the world around us testaments to this fact: unparalleled suffering, suicide, genocide, rape and murder, starvation and dehydration and indifference around every corner. It makes us uncomfortable to think that we’ve messed up, but we cannot deny this truth when we look about us and see what the world has come to by our hands.

Yet there is still a choice for us gods. The Great God, who has called Himself “Yahweh,” “He who is,” has called us to rejoin Him in His mission for the earth. He wants to make the world a better place, and He calls us to return to Him and join Him. “Your rebellion will be forgotten and not held against you,” He promises. Yet what happens if we refuse to return to Him? Some believe that humans will eventually overthrow God, that we will throw God down and take over the universe. This is pure foolishness. Psalm 82 prophetically shows what the future holds for those who refuse to return to the King God. In this psalm, God is presiding over all the gods, whether these are the pagan gods, the angels, or humans themselves! God is in disgust with the gods’ wretchedness. He examines their ways, how they refused to return to Him, and exclaims, “I made you gods… but you will die like men.” We are only gods because God has, by His mere word, given us that status; and He will, by His mere word, take away that status: our fates rest in His breath. Unless we turn to the Great God and take our stand with Him in His mission for the world, we will be utterly destroyed—and this is what we deserve.