How to be Equal to God?
19th Sunday after Pentecost
2 Corinthians 11:31-33; 12:1-9; Luke 6:31-36
There is a false ambition among people — the attempt to equal God, and even more often — the desire for divine honour to be shown to a person. The first humans, Adam and Eve, under the influence and temptation of the devil, wanted to become as wise as God — “and you will be like God.” (Genesis 3:5)
We know from that biblical story that when this thought prevailed in the first people, they became most foolish and distanced themselves from God.
Various emperors, kings, conqueror-dictators tried through power and demonstration of their strength and authority to equate themselves with God. Roman emperors ordered statues in their likenesses to be made, temples built for them, demanding divine honours for themselves.
But they were not the first in these absurd ambitions: more than 300 years before the birth of Christ, Alexander the Great, having conquered the Near East of Asia and Egypt, imagined himself, at the urging of pagan priests and flatterers, as a god… And before that, various Eastern rulers from Persia, Assyria-Babylon, and other countries had, similarly, already declared themselves gods. Thus, they demanded unconditional obedience from the peoples over whom they gained power. There were also some sages whose “mind went beyond reason” and who imagined themselves the wisest, the source of the highest wisdom, and denied the existence of God.
But let us return to Rome. In Rome there were once emperor-“gods” or “demigods,” and, by that tradition, the bishops of Rome reasoned to proclaim themselves as the deputies of Jesus Christ, His vicars on earth. Thus, paganism pushed into Christianity with the ambition to equalize or equate itself with God.
People vainly hide behind the Apostle Peter — the Apostle Peter never considered himself the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, never expressed such absurd thoughts. He considered it completely normal that at the Apostolic Council he did not preside, but the Apostle James did, and that there, both at the Council and outside of it, other apostles, especially the Apostle Paul, could point out to him his mistaken actions in matters of confessing the faith in Christ. In the Epistle to the Galatians it is written:
“Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed”. (2:11)
In whichever environment, in whichever confession of faith, the ambition to equate a human with God is nurtured — we know that this is a false thought, and nurturing it leads not to bringing people closer to God, but to distancing people from God.
It should be said that in our time, outside of Christianity, the emperor in Japan was officially considered a god until recently, because his family was deemed descended from the grandson of the sun goddess. At the end of World War II, the American commander-in-chief, General MacArthur, forced the Japanese emperor to proclaim that he was not a deity. MacArthur also issued an order prohibiting the support of Shinto temples from the state treasury. But the U.S. occupation of Japan is long over, and many Japanese continue to recognize their emperor as a deity. In that Shinto cult, it is taught that the Japanese have a divine relationship through their emperor, and therefore they are a superior race destined to rule the world.
For a person, no matter what level of civilization he or she is at, whether in the age of oxen and sailing ships or in the age of electronics and space travel, it is important to know his or her place in the world:
A human being is a creation of God, not the Creator, not God. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, dwells in him. He is deified when he truly confesses Christ, but this Holy Spirit is a gift from God the Creator (1 Corinthians 6:19), it sanctifies him, opens the way to salvation, but, of course, it does not make any person God.
Therefore, no matter how wise a person may be, whatever spiritual institution they may lead, whatever position they may hold in political or state life, or whatever material wealth they may possess, all this a person must perceive as a temporary allowance or a manifestation of God's mercy toward them.
Neither in wisdom, nor in strength, nor in omnipotence can a person not only not equal God, but cannot even come close to Him, because the greatness of God and the world He created, which He oversees, are boundless; while a person, though important, is only a part of God's creation.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Sermon on the Mount, which we have just heard from the Gospel, gave people guidance—how we can resemble and draw near to God—in mercy:
“Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)
And the more we act, align ourselves, and follow the Heavenly Father in mercy, the more we will be pleasing to God, the closer we will come to God, and the more we will feel our God-Creator.
Another, simple question: To whom should we show mercy? To God?
Obviously, God personally does not need our mercy; we are to show mercy to our neighbours, show mercy to one another, and even, as the Lord calls us, to show it, our love, to our personal enemies (Luke 6:35).
So, where should we begin our acts of mercy? What wise rules should we follow in life in order to act mercifully?
The Lord Jesus Christ gives us a very simple instruction, which is easy to remember and which, without any convoluted wisdom, gives us a measure for life, our behaviour, our relationships with our neighbour.
“And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.” (Luke 6:31)
a) We don't like when falsehoods are spoken about us; we don't want people to mention our faults or reproach or scold us.— As we do not wish this for ourselves, let us not do it to others.
b) We dislike it when we are deceived, wronged, or slandered behind our backs. — Let us not do all of that to our neighbours.
c) If we love for other people to remember and mention our good deeds but not recall our mistakes and sins — let us do the same towards our neighbours.
d) We love it when people forgive us — let us also forgive others, including our neighbours.
This list can be continued for quite some time. It is important that we accept this simple instruction from Our Lord Jesus Christ as the rule of our life:
“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.” (Matthew 7:12)
That simple rule from Christ should control our actions and behaviour towards others, and the manifestation of mercy will come as a logical outcome of these actions. For we love how God shows His mercy to us; we love how people show us the same mercy – let us also act in the same way toward those around us.
When we constantly show mercy to those around us, even personal enemies will become few. With love and mercy—that is, with goodness—we will overcome evil. As testified by the Apostle Paul from God:
“Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.” (Romans 12:17).
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
