Plymouth Brethren writers, especially Darby, insist that salvation involves a **real communication of divine life** from Christ to the believer, while still rejecting any notion that we share God’s essence or become God.[1][2][3][4][5]
## Real communication of life
– Darby describes conversion as receiving something genuinely new:
> “The important point is to see that **divine life is really communicated, that I receive what I had not before.**”[3]
– He ties this directly to Christ:
> “I receive spiritually life from Christ, as I receive naturally life from Adam. **In this sense Christ is my life. He is eternal life… ‘he that hath the Son of God hath life.’**”[2][4]
So the believer does not just get moral influence but a new, God‑given life.
## How this relates to “divine nature”
– Darby distinguishes “life” from “nature,” but keeps them inseparable:
> “Nature is… more character thus used than life; **but it involves the other, and the two cannot be separated.**”[3]
– Another Brethren writer summarizes:
> “The Bible plainly says that we are **partakers of the divine nature. As those born of God, we are the children of God, possessing the life and nature of God.**… The life and the nature are inseparable.”[5]
Thus, real communication of life (eternal life in the Son) necessarily brings participation in the “divine nature” understood as God’s moral character.
## Guardrails: no sharing of essence
– While stressing real communication, Darby is equally clear that this is not deification:
> “Far from bringing into Godhead, which is incommunicable as supreme, because we are creatures… **the moral elements of what He is God can communicate in giving us life in Christ.**”[2]
– He warns against any idea that the divine nature is “modified” in us or that we share God’s attributes as such; we receive a new life that bears God’s moral likeness, not God’s essence.[2][3]
## Practical effect
– Because this life is real, believers are called to live out its character:
> “This is the point to which my soul clings… **the real communication of life in receiving Christ… created again in Christ Jesus, though the flesh still be there. But I am not in flesh but in Spirit, and am privileged and bound to hold it dead.**”[2]
So in Brethren thought: real communication of divine life = Christ’s own life imparted by the Spirit, producing a new nature that shares God’s holiness and love, yet without any ontological blending with the Godhead.[4][5][3][2]
Sources
[1] The Capacity for Knowing Divine Love, and how we know it. https://www.stempublishing.
[2] Partaker Of The Divine Nature – Plymouth Brethren Writings https://plymouthbrethren.org/
[3] Two Greek Words Translated “Partakers;” Life and Eternal Life; Real … https://bibletruthpublishers.
[4] Life and Eternal Life; Real Communication of Life – John Nelson … https://bibletruthpublishers.
[5] Does the Believer Have the Divine Nature? – Contending for the Faith https://contendingforthefaith.
[6] Real Communication of Life; the Degree of Knowledge of the Remnant https://www.
[7] Real Communication of Life – John Nelson Darby (#63944) – Bible … https://www.
[8] Dead With Christ; Eternal Life; John’s Epistles; Real Communication … https://s401405884.initial-
[9] On the Communication of the Properties of Christ’s Human & Divine … https://reformedbooksonline.
[10] Review of “The Revelation of Law in Scripture” – STEM Publishing https://www.stempublishing.
[11] All true communication begins with God https://journal.
[12] Life and Eternal Life; Real Communication of Life – John Nelson … https://bibletruthpublishers.
[13] Romans 6 (JND) – Bible Truth Library https://bibletruthpublishers.
[14] Baptism of the Holy Spirit; Real Communication of Life; New Birth … https://s401405884.initial-
[15] [PDF] John – Commentaries by John Nelson Darby – Click Bible https://clickbible.org/post/
