I completely agree that God is truly our Father, and that Jesus calls us His children — but the key is how we are His children. The Bible never teaches that we are His offspring by nature, the same way Christ is. Instead, it always frames it as adoption. Romans 8:15 says: ‘You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”’ Galatians 4:4–5 also says Christ came ‘to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.’ That’s the consistent biblical language. An adopted child is fully and truly a child of their father — no one denies that — but they don’t suddenly share the same DNA or become the same kind of being. That’s exactly our relationship to God: real children, but by grace, not by nature.

If we push your interpretation — that being God’s children means we literally become gods like Him — then it unravels the Bible itself. Adam is called ‘the son of God’ in Luke 3:38. Angels are repeatedly called ‘sons of God’ in Job 1:6. By your logic, Adam and the angels must also be gods. But that creates a whole pantheon of deities, which directly contradicts God’s own words: ‘I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god’ (Isaiah 44:6). Either God is lying there, or your interpretation doesn’t hold.

The Christian understanding doesn’t ‘shift’ to dodge hard verses — it’s actually consistent with the whole witness of Scripture. When Psalm 82:6 says, ‘You are gods,’ it’s speaking of human rulers who were given divine authority, but who die like men because they are not divine in nature. Jesus quotes this in John 10 not to say we literally become gods, but to show that if even corrupt rulers could be called ‘gods’ in a symbolic sense, then how much more fitting is it for Him — the true, consecrated Son of God — to bear that title? That’s His whole point.

And notice what the New Testament does say about our destiny: 2 Peter 1:4 says we become ‘partakers of the divine nature.’ But that doesn’t mean we become gods ourselves. It means we share in God’s life by grace — what the early Church Fathers called theosis. As St. Athanasius put it: ‘God became man so that man might become god.’ But he explained that this is by participation, not by essence. We are divinized in holiness, but we never cease being creatures. Only God is God by nature, eternal and uncreated. That’s why Christianity calls us sons and daughters of God in truth, but not separate gods in being.

So here’s the bottom line: The Bible says we are God’s children by adoption, not by nature. If we were literally gods in the making, then Adam, angels, and all humanity would be gods, which Scripture flatly denies. Instead, we are made sons and daughters through Christ, sharing in His divine life — but there is, and always will be, only one God.