Hello, everyone, and welcome back. Today I want to look at a single verse—just one verse—that creates an enormous problem for Trinitarian teaching. And it's not a problem that can be evaded by appealing to mysterious persons within one divine being.
The verse is 1 John 3:2. Here's what John writes:
"Beloved, we are God's children now, but what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he is revealed, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is."
The one who will be revealed is Jesus Christ. And John says unequivocally that the children of God will be like him.
Now, if Jesus is Almighty God by nature, think carefully about what John has just promised. He has promised that the children of God will be made like Almighty God.
And the moment you see that, a very serious question arises. Where have we heard that promise before?
Go back to Genesis chapter 3. The serpent said to Eve:
"God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5)
The temptation was not simply to eat forbidden fruit. It was to grasp a likeness to God—independent of God—deciding for themselves what was good and what was evil. The man and the woman accepted that offer. And through that act of disobedience, sin and death entered the human family. (Genesis 3:6; Romans 5:12)
The desire to become like God was not the goal God had placed before them. It was the serpent's promise, through which they were deceived. Satan is still using the same sales pitch. He’s just wrapped it inside the Trinity doctrine.
So now come back to 1 John 3:2. John says that when Jesus is revealed, the children of God will be like him.
If Jesus is God—if he is Almighty God by nature—then the final outcome of redemption would be the fulfillment of the serpent's promise. Humanity would finally become like the very God that Adam and Eve sought to resemble. God would be completing through salvation what the serpent offered through disobedience.
Satan got a number of pagan religions to also teach this heresy. Neoplatonism, ancient Hermeticism, and Advaita Vedanta, a school of Hinduism, all teach that oneness with God or deification is the ultimate goal toward which the worshipper strives.
But that is impossible. The purpose accomplished in Christ cannot reproduce the very rebellion from which Christ came to rescue us.
The contradiction disappears the moment we allow Scripture to maintain its own distinction between God and his Son.
Jesus is not the God whom the serpent tempted humanity to resemble. He is, in Paul's words, "the image of the invisible God" and "the firstborn of all creation." (Colossians 1:15)
And here's the key point: an image of God is not the God whose image he bears. These are two different things.
Jesus is the perfectly obedient Son who always reflected his Father and did nothing from himself. He said it plainly:
"The Son can do nothing of his own accord." (John 5:19, 30)
God's purpose is not to make his children into God. It is to conform them to the image of his Son.
Paul states this purpose directly. Those whom God foreknew were appointed:
"to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." (Romans 8:29)
And again:
"He will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body." (Philippians 3:21)
The children become like Jesus because they receive the same kind of immortal, glorified life that God gave him when he raised him from the dead. Jesus is the firstborn among them—the pattern into whose likeness the others are formed.
He is not Almighty God surrounded by creatures who somehow become like God without becoming God.
And Jesus himself confirms this family relationship. After his resurrection, he said:
"I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." (John 20:17)
He did not place himself within the identity of the God whom the children worship. He placed himself alongside them—as the firstborn Son who shares with them one Father and one God.
Hebrews puts it beautifully:
"He is not ashamed to call them brothers." (Hebrews 2:11–12)
The distinction is unmistakable. God is the Father of Jesus and of the other children. Jesus is the firstborn Son among the many children God is bringing to glory.
So let's bring this all together.
First John 3:2 exposes the fundamental error of making Jesus God.
If Jesus is God, then becoming like Jesus means becoming like God—and that takes us straight back to the serpent's promise in the Garden of Eden. The logic is inescapable.
But if Jesus is God's glorified Son and perfect image, the whole scriptural purpose becomes clear. The children of God are not being transformed into the likeness of God's unique identity. They are being transformed into the likeness of the Son who perfectly reveals him.
When Christ appears, they will see their firstborn brother as he truly is. And God will complete in them the same glorious life already made visible in him.
That's the promise of 1 John 3:2—and it is extraordinary. Not the serpent's counterfeit. The real thing.
I hope this has given you something to think about and discuss. If you have questions or thoughts, leave them in the comments below. And if this kind of careful, Scripture-based study is something you value, please consider subscribing and sharing with others who are asking the same questions.
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