Baptism – The Eternal Moment of Deification

The gospel text for Theophany (Epiphany) in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the baptism of Jesus. One might ask, “Why?”

It is important to realize that baptism is the profound Mystery of our salvation and the manifestation of the gospel to the whole world as part-and-parcel of our salvation. Since this is the case, it is important to explore this Mystery and how it is “lived out.” The living out of it is, in fact, our life of discipleship.

In this regard, St. Nicholas Cabasilas (1322 – 1391), a well known theological writer and mystic of the Orthodox Church would be worth reading. His two treatises, Life in Christ and A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, are classics of Eastern sacramental theology.

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“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father… And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1.12-14, 16 RSV)

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“Your love, Yahweh, reaches to the heavens,
Your faithfulness to the clouds;
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God,
Your judgments like the mighty deep.

Yahweh, protector of man and beast,
how precious, God, Your love!
Hence the sons of men
take shelter in the shadow of Your wings.

They feast on the bounty of Your house,
You give them drink from Your river of pleasure;
yes, with You is the fountain of life,
by Your Light we see the light.” (Psalm 36 JB)

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That Jesus should come and be baptized by John is surely cause for amazement. To think of the infinite river that gladdens the city of God being bathed in a poor little stream; of the eternal and unfathomable fountainhead that gives life to all men being immersed in the shallow waters of this transient world!

He who fills all creation, leaving no place devoid of his presence, he who is incomprehensible to the angels and hidden from the sight of man, came to be baptized because it was his will. And behold, the heavens opened and a voice said: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

The beloved Father begets love, and the immaterial Light generates light inaccessible. This is he who was called the son of Joseph and in his divine nature is my only Son.

This is my beloved Son. Though hungry himself, he feeds thousands; though weary, he refreshes those who labour. He has no place to lay his head yet he holds all creation in his hand. By his suffering he heals all sufferings; by receiving a blow on the cheek he gives the world its liberty; by being pierced in the side he heals the wound in Adam’s side.

And now, please pay close attention, for I want to return to that fountain of life and contemplate its healing waters as they gush out.

The Father of immortality sent his immortal Son and Word into the world, to come to us men and cleanse us with water and the Spirit. To give us a new birth that would make our bodies and souls immortal, he breathed into us the spirit of life and armed us with incorruptibility. Now if we become immortal, we shall also be divine; and if we become divine after rebirth in baptism through water and the Holy Spirit, we shall also be heirs along with Christ, after the resurrection of the dead.

So I cry out, like a herald: Let peoples of every nation come and receive the immortality that flows from baptism. This is the water that is linked to the Spirit, the water that irrigates Paradise, makes the earth fertile, gives growth to plants, and brings forth living creatures. In short, this is the water by which a man receives new birth and life, the water in which even Christ was baptized, the water into which the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove.

Whoever goes down into these waters of rebirth with faith renounces the devil and pledges himself to Christ. He repudiates the enemy and confesses that Christ is God, throws off his servitude and becomes an adopted son. He comes up from baptism resplendent as the sun and radiating purity and, above all, he comes as a son of God and a co-heir with Christ.

To him be glory and power, to him and his most holy, good and life-giving Spirit, both now and for ever. Amen.

Excerpted from discourse on the Theophany by pseudo-Hippolytus (170–236)

The Word Made Flesh Makes Us Divine (Authentically Human)

Sometimes I feel like a broken record. Making the same point over and over. Case in point, my recent post. Actually most of my posts I guess. Well, so be it…

So, here we go again…

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We share the divinity of Christ Jesus by grace because He shared in our humanity. Salvation is the reconciliation – reunioning or re-at-one-ment-ing – of God and man. Our former state of being and life are forgiven. Well, actually the old is more than just forgiven. It dies. We die to death and sin, we don’t just have it forgiven. We die to life without the divine nature (living death, alienation), thereby receiving our authentic humanity (new life) which, by definition means being “God breathed” again.  We do not become God, we become fully human. But not only are we reunited with God. We are also reunited with one another and the whole created universe in and through Christ Jesus. The dividing wall of hostility and alienation in all categories or aspects is removed.

This is the great gift of Christmas and of Easter. St. Peter testifies, “…His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” 2 Peter 1.3-4 (NASB)

St. Peter goes on to talk about maturing in this salvation, the purification and illumination that is essential to it. Notice that I said essential to it. Not extra. Salvation and sanctification are not distinct. Maturing in new life and the growth in holiness is an essential aspect of our salvation.

This is THE Good News. The Church Fathers referred to it as “theosis” and “deification.” The true doctrine of salvation is this and grows out of this root. All depends on it and must be understood in light of it. Indeed, this doctrine is not a doctrine. It is a person – theanthropos – the God-man – Christ Jesus.

Ironically, this is not what I hear from the Protestant/Evangelical/Charismatic pulpit on Sunday mornings. Sad. This is so basic to any right appreciation of the self-offering of Christ Jesus on the cross. The reason for His death and resurrection. It is Christianity 101. Here is a modern translation of Hippolytus’s (170–235) articulation of deification. (If you want to read the excerpt in a more literal translation that retains the word “logos” instead of “word,” it can be found here.)

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Our faith is not founded upon empty words; nor are we carried away by mere caprice or beguiled by specious arguments. On the contrary, we put our faith in words spoken by the power of God, spoken by the Word himself at God’s command. God wished to win men back from disobedience, not by using force to reduce him to slavery but by addressing to his free will a call to liberty.

The Word spoke first of all through the prophets, but because the message was couched in such obscure language that it could be only dimly apprehended, in the last days the Father sent the Word in person, commanding him to show himself openly so that the world could see him and be saved.

We know that by taking a body from the Virgin he re-fashioned our fallen nature. We know that his manhood was of the same clay as our own; if this were not so, he would hardly have been a teacher who could expect to be imitated. If he were of a different substance from me, he would surely not have ordered me to do as he did, when by my very nature I am so weak. Such a demand could not be reconciled with his goodness and justice.

No. He wanted us to consider him as no different from ourselves, and so he worked, he was hungry and thirsty, he slept. Without protest he endured his passion, he submitted to death and revealed his resurrection. In all these ways he offered his own manhood as the first fruits of our race to keep us from losing heart when suffering comes our way, and to make us look forward to receiving the same reward as he did, since we know that we possess the same humanity.

When we have come to know the true God, both our bodies and our souls will be immortal and incorruptible. We shall enter the kingdom of heaven, because while we lived on earth we acknowledged heaven’s King. Friends of God and co-heirs with Christ, we shall be subject to no evil desires or inclinations, or to any affliction of body or soul, for we shall have become divine.

Whatever evil you may have suffered, being man, it is God that sent it to you, precisely because you are man; but equally, when you have been deified, God has promised you a share in every one of his own attributes. The saying Know yourselfmeans therefore that we should recognise and acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in his own image, for if we do this, we in turn will be recognised and acknowledged by our Maker. The treatise of St, Hippolytus On the Refutation of All Heresies, Book 10, Chapters 32-33

The Core Significance of the Fulfillment in the Incarnation

Why the Nativity? Why the Incarnation? Here is what we have believed from the beginning regarding these questions.

“The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.” Irenaeus (c. 130-200), Against Heresies, Book 5, Preface

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“The Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God.” St. Clement of Alexandria (150-215), Exhortation to the Heathen, Chapter I

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“Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us.” St. Athanasius (296-373), Against the Arians, Discourse I, Paragraph 39

“For He was made man that we might be made God.” St. Athanasius (296-373), On the Incarnation, Section 54

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“For just as He in Himself assimilated His own human nature to the power of the Godhead, being a part of the common nature, but not being subject to the inclination to sin which is in that nature (for it says: “He did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth), so, also, will He lead each person to union with the Godhead if they do nothing unworthy of union with the Divine.” St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395), On Christian Perfection

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“That which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.” St. Gregory of Nazianzus (321-390), Epistle 101

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“This Logos the Father in the latter days sent forth, no longer to speak by a prophet, and not wishing that the Word, being obscurely proclaimed, should be made the subject of mere conjecture, but that He should be manifested, so that we could see Him with our own eyes. This Logos, I say, the Father sent forth, in order that the world, on beholding Him, might reverence Him who was delivering precepts not by the person of prophets, nor terrifying the soul by an angel, but who was Himself—He that had spoken—corporally present amongst us. This Logos we know to have received a body from a virgin, and to have remodelled the old man by a new creation. And we believe the Logos to have passed through every period in this life, in order that He Himself might serve as a law for every age, and that, by being present (amongst) us, He might exhibit His own manhood as an aim for all men. And that by Himself in person He might prove that God made nothing evil, and that man possesses the capacity of self-determination, inasmuch as he is able to will and not to will, and is endued with power to do both.  This Man we know to have been made out of the compound of our humanity. For if He were not of the same nature with ourselves, in vain does He ordain that we should imitate the Teacher. For if that Man happened to be of a different substance from us, why does He lay injunctions similar to those He has received on myself, who am born weak; and how is this the act of one that is good and just? In order, however, that He might not be supposed to be different from us, He even underwent toil, and was willing to endure hunger, and did not refuse to feel thirst, and sunk into the quietude of slumber. He did not protest against His Passion, but became obedient unto death, and manifested His resurrection. Now in all these acts He offered up, as the first-fruits, His own manhood, in order that thou, when thou art in tribulation, mayest not be disheartened, but, confessing thyself to be a man (of like nature with the Redeemer), mayest dwell in expectation of also receiving what the Father has granted unto this Son.” Saint Hippolytus of Rome (?-c.235), The Refutation of all the heresies, Book 10, Chapter 29