To become perfect
like Christ -- not, as Mormonism would have it, to
become Christ(s).
To quote St. Hippolytus of Rome (d. 236), in his "Dogmatical and Historical Fragments" (as the collection has been called; you can find the entire thing
in the CCEL) which allude to this verse: "For there is also one Son (or Servant) of God, by whom we too, receiving the regeneration through the Holy Spirit, desire to come all unto one perfect and heavenly man."
We become perfect by Christ, not by
becoming Christ in any kind of anthropomorphic way. There is still only one Christ -- still only one God -- and we will never be Him. We will be as we are (created humans), but are
perfected in Him, by cooperation with (not co-opting!) God. This is what the apostle St. Paul meant when he called on us to become "partakers in the divine nature": to truly commune with God, and in that communion, to become ever more united with Him, without ever fusing or becoming our own almighty creator gods.
You are completely misreading the epistle to claim that this is some kind of sanction for men becoming creator gods, as it must be properly set in its context. St. Paul writes to the Ephesians as to any mixed congregation, with new and old believers, and so forth. It is in this context that he exerts all to come and attain the fullness of Christ in the one faith. As the great scholar Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-c.215) put it in his book
The Instructor:
And if we have one Master in heaven, as the Scripture says, then by common consent those on the earth will be rightly called disciples. For so is the truth, that perfection is with the Lord, who is always teaching, and infancy and childishness with us, who are always learning. Thus prophecy has honoured
perfection, by applying to it the appellation
man. For instance, by David, He says of the devil:
"The Lord abhors the man of blood"; he calls him man, as perfect in wickedness. And the Lord is called man, because He is perfect in righteousness. Directly in point is the instance of the apostle, who says, writing the Corinthians:
"For I have espoused you to one man, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ," (
2 Corinthians 11:2) whether as children or saints, but to the Lord alone. And writing to the Ephesians, he has unfolded in the clearest manner the point in question, speaking to the following effect:
"Till we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we be no longer children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by the craft of men, by their cunning in stratagems of deceit; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up to Him in all things," (
Ephesians 4:13-15) — saying these things in order to the edification of the body of Christ, who is the head and man, the only one perfect in righteousness; and we who are children guarding against the blasts of heresies, which blow to our inflation; and not putting our trust in fathers who teach us otherwise, are then made perfect when we are the church, having received Christ the head. Then it is right to notice, with respect to the appellation of infant (νήπιος), that τὸ νήπιον is not predicated of the silly: for the silly man is called νηπύτιος: and νήπιος is νεήπιος (since he that is tender-hearted is called ἤπιος), as being one that has newly become gentle and meek in conduct. This the blessed Paul most clearly pointed out when he said, "
When we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, we were gentle (ἤπιοι) among you, as a nurse cherishes her children." (
1 Thessalonians 2:6-7) The child (νήπιος) is therefore gentle (ἤπιος), and therefore more tender, delicate, and simple, guileless, and destitute of hypocrisy, straightforward and upright in mind, which is the basis of simplicity and truth. For He says,
"Upon whom shall I look, but upon him who is gentle and quiet?" (
Isaiah 66:2) For such is the virgin speech, tender, and free of fraud; whence also a virgin is wont to be called a tender bride, and a child tender-hearted. And we are tender who are pliant to the power of persuasion, and are easily drawn to goodness, and are mild, and free of the stain of malice and perverseness, for the ancient race was perverse and hard-hearted; but the band of infants, the new people which we are, is delicate as a child.
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Do you see anything in any of this that says "By 'fullness of Christ', it means we become Gods"? No. You don't. Because that was never a teaching of Christianity, anywhere, ever. That is inherently anti-Christian. Obviously the verse is talking about teaching those who are "new people", which at the time of the writing in the first century obviously most people would have been (Christianity being a still rather small Mediterranean religion).
The only way you can get to the Mormon idea of "progression to Godhood" or whatever you call it whereby you literally become Gods is by a complete failure to understand even the most basic facts about the Christian religion and its Holy Scriptures.
And that's not just me saying that now, that's Christian writers and saints saying that going back to at least the second century, which I know from talking to Mormons on here is within the period when the Church was not corrupted or in apostasy or whatever, as Mormon posters like Peter have speculated that the 'great apostasy' must've started around the beginning of the third century, whereas Clement of Alexandria wrote his
Instructor near the end of the second century. In other words, about 1,600 years before your 'prophet' was even born.
