“God became man so that man might become God.”
Both St. Augustine and St. Athanasius said this, and they were not alone as it was a belief held by the ancient Church from the earliest of times. They were neither heretics nor on the fringes of Christian belief. St. Augustine of Hippo was the author of the “City of God” and his “Confessions,” and is generally regarded as one of the most well respected, quoted, and referred to theologians in western Church history. St. Athanasius was instrumental during the Ecumenical Councils in promoting and enshrining into Christian doctrine what we now know as the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and was the chief opponent of Arius at the Council of Nicea who proposed that the Father and the Son were two different deities, one greater than the other.
From the most ancient of times, the doctrine of “theosis” (Grk. ΘEOCIC) or “deification” was not just a part of Christian theology, but the very foundation, mechanism, and goal of it. It is only in modern times, post-Reformation, where the teaching and doctrine is looked on with suspicion by those in the western Church, especially by Protestants from the non-sacramental traditions. The idea that a human being could become God is considered not just heresy, but blasphemy, and the concept is relegated to those traditions recognized as cults such as the Latter Day Saints, for example. Though, as I hope to explain, the Orthodox concept of theosis is very, very different from that group’s or any other modern cult’s.
First, let’s look at citations from some of the Church Fathers of the first three or four centuries of the Church:
“God became man so that man might become God. The Lord took the form of a servant so that man might be turned to God. The Founder and Inhabitant of heaven dwelt upon earth so that man might rise from earth to heaven.”
-St. Augustine, 5th century
“Because He became human so that we would be made God.”
-St. Athanasius, 4th century
“What man is, Christ was willing to be—so that man may also be what Christ is. … What Christ is, we Christians will be, if we imitate Christ.”
-St. Cyprian, 3rd century
“As I have already said, He caused man to cleave to and to become one with God. … Unless man had been joined to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility. … He became what we are so that we might become what He is.”
-St. Irenaeus, 2nd century
Again, these are not fringe or heretical theologians, but, quite literally, some of the most important theologians in the history of Christian orthodoxy. As you can see, from at least the second century onward, the concept of theosis or deification was a well established teaching to which these men subscribed, and which they preached and taught openly. It was not a hidden or secret teaching, but something which was openly understood among all Christians.
So, what is this concept? First, it has to be understood that theosis is rooted deeply in the writings of the New Testament, and it stems from the union of the human being and God through Jesus Christ so that they become “one thing”:
“Make your home within Me, and I within you. Just like the branch can’t produce on its own if it doesn’t make its home within the vine, so neither you if you don’t make your home within Me. I am the vine, you, the branches. The one making his home within Me and I within him, this one produces a lot of fruit, because separated from Me you can’t do anything at all. If someone doesn’t make his home within Me, he is tossed outside like the branch and dried up and they gather them together and toss them into the fire and they are burned. If you make your home within Me and My words make their home within you, you would ask whatever you wish and it will happen for you.”
-John 15:4-7, Jesus Christ, 1st century
“Yet I am not requesting about these alone, but also about those putting their trust in Me through their message, so that all of them would be one thing, just like You, Father, are within Me and I within You, so that also they would be one thing within us, so that the world would trust that You sent Me. And I have given to them the glory which You had given to Me, so that they would be one thing just like we are one thing; I within them and You within Me, so that they would be having been brought to completion into one thing, so that the world would know that You sent Me and loved them just like You loved Me. Father, what you had given to Me, I wish that where I am those also would be with Me, so that they would watch My glory, which You had given Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
-John 17:20-24, Jesus Christ, 1st century
Through union with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, we are made one thing with Him, joined with Him:
“Or are you ignorant that as many of us as were baptized into the Christ, Yeshua, were baptized into His death? We then were buried together with Him through that baptism into His death, so that just like the Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we should be walking with a fresh newness of life. Because if we had become grown together with the likeness of His death, we will on the other hand be of His resurrection; knowing this that our old worn out human being was crucified. So that the malfunctioning body would be rendered inert for us to no longer be enslaved to that malfunction; because the person who died has been made right away from the malfunction.”
Romans 6:3-7, St. Paul, 1st century
That joining, that grafting or intertwining of the human being with Jesus Christ Himself, because Jesus Christ Himself is the union of God the Son and human biology, means that the person joined with Jesus Christ, through Him, is joined to, literally made one thing with the full Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as a part of God the Son and with everything that brings with it. The process of salvation then is the process of that theosis working itself out until completion.
This understanding was the foundation for Paul’s writings in the New Testament and exhortations towards those he taught and wrote to:
“As also if anyone is within Christ, they are a fresh creation; the ancient things passed by, look, they have become fresh and new; yet all things from God who was exchanging us for Himself through Christ and giving to us the service of that exchange, like that God was with Christ exchanging the world for Himself, not accounting to them their missteps and the message of that exchange having been placed within us. On behalf of Christ then we act as elder statesmen like God pleading through us; we are bound on Christ’s behalf, be exchanged to God. Because He made the One not knowing malfunction to be malfunction, so that we we would become God’s state of being observant to do the right thing by means of Him.”
-2 Corinthians 5:17-21, St. Paul, 1st century
The consequences of this union, this being made one thing with Him, are many. The first is that we don’t have to let our malfunctioning neurology or biology control our responses or behaviors any longer. This consequence comprises the bulk of Paul’s writing in his letters:
“Because the impotence of the Torah with which it was weak through the biology, God having sent His own Son with the likeness of malfunctioning biology and about that malfunction judged against the malfunction within the biology, so that the right action of the Torah would be fulfilled within us who don’t walk down the line of the biology but down the line of the Spirit. Because those existing down the line of the biology are conscious of the things of the biology, yet those down the line of the Spirit the things of the Spirit. Because the consciousness of the biology is death, yet the consciousness of the Spirit is life and peace; for this reason the consciousness of the biology is hostile for God, because it doesn’t submit to God’s rules, because it can’t. And those existing by means of the biology can’t please God. Yet you don’t exist by means of the biology by by means of the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells within you. Yet if any doesn’t possess the Spirit of Christ, this person doesn’t belong to Him. Yet if the Christ is within you, then on the one hand the body is a lifeless corpse because of the malfunction yet the Spirit is life because of a state of being observant to do the right thing.”
-Romans 8:3-10, St. Paul, 1st century
“And you being corpses by your missteps and your malfunctioning behaviors, by means of which you walked at one time down the line of the aeon of this world, down the line of the chieftain of the authority of the air, the breath of what is now working within the sons of disobedience from distrust; among whom also we all retired at one time by means of the cravings of our biology doing the will of our biology and of our thoughts, and we were by nature children of natural impulse like also the rest; yet God being wealthy with mercy, because of His much agape which He loved us, and us being corpses by our missteps He made us alive together with the Christ—you are having been delivered by His charity—and awakened us together with the Christ and sat us down together with the Christ within the high heavens by means of the Christ, Yeshua, so that He might demonstrate within the upcoming aeons the beyond wealth of His charity with His simple kindness upon us with the Christ, Yeshua. Because you exist having been delivered through faith; and this not from you, the gift of God; not from works, so that not anyone might brag, because we are His opus, having been created by means of the Christ, Yeshua with reference to good works which good works God made ready beforehand, so that we would walk by means of them.”
-Ephesians 2:1-10, St. Paul, 1st century
“Don’t you know that to whom you offer yourselves slaves for obedient submission, you are slaves to whom you obey, either of the malfunction resulting in death or of obedience resulting in a state of being observant to the right thing? … Because just like you offered your body parts slaves to filthiness and to lawlessness upon lawlessness, so now offer your body parts slaves to the state of being observant to the right thing resulting in being holy. Because when you were slaves of the malfunction, you were free to a state of being observant to the right thing. What fruit then did you have at that time? Upon which things you are now ashamed, because the goal of those things is death. Yet at this present time being free from the malfunction and being enslaved to God you hold your fruit resulting in being holy, and the goal the eternal life. Because the paycheck of the malfunction is death, but the charitable gift of God is the eternal life by means of the Christ, Yeshua, our Owner.”
Romans 6:16, 19b-23, St. Paul, 1st century
Yet another consequence is that we inherit everything Jesus Christ inherits from His Father because we are one thing with Him. Those who belong to Christ, also belong to God. They are one thing with Him. Everything belongs to God from one end of creation to the other. Therefore, as Jesus Christ is God the Son, so also everything belongs to Christ, and everything also belongs to those who are one with Him. The one who owns everything has no need to be attached to anything. He has no need to hoard, because everything belongs to him.
What does it mean to have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God? Put simply, it means to have given up everything to which you have clung or had an attachment to whether it is possessions, relationships, or even your own self-identity in favor of total identification and union with Jesus Christ. Why? Because you just don’t need them anymore. They’re unnecessary baggage which you can freely dispose of. It means to be possessed of and by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, surrendering yourself to that Spirit so that it is He who acts and speaks through you, keeping your own triggers and responses disengaged in favor of His. It means to fold yourself into Him. It has less to do with forgiveness and the afterlife, and far more urgently to do with how this life, the here and now is lived. As Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is now.”
For this reason, clinging to anything, any property as uniquely one's own and to be protected, is absurd. It's to adopt what has been called a "poverty mindset." It's the same as the son of a very wealthy man choosing not to make use of his family's wealth, even though his father would freely share it on a "what's mine is yours" basis, but to try and gain his own through his own efforts. While working for your own wealth may be ethically admirable, it is absurd when you already have access to everything you could ever need. It's digging through the garbage for your provision when you need only go to the family storehouse.
This, more than anything, drives the conditions of discipleship to let go of anything and everything which becomes an obstacle to Jesus Christ, whether it's personal relationships, personal wealth or property, personal self-identity, or anything else. It is all to be let go as so much crap (CKYBAΛA, “skubala,” according to Paul in Philippians 3) as we learn to make use of the shared wealth of literally the entire creation, the shared inheritance which we have through our union with Jesus Christ which He receives from the Father.
It is this inheritance from his own union with God through Jesus Christ that drove Paul, as he writes in Philippians 3, to keep divesting himself of anything and everything, and counting it as crap, which did not contribute to his goal of gaining Christ and experiencing the power of His resurrection, the communion of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if somehow he would meet up with the resurrected state, the completion of the process of theosis, in the here and now. He knew he hadn’t yet, but he pushed hard for it like an athlete, training and disciplining his body, reaching out like a runner for the finish line, the goal of being fully transformed and conformed to Jesus Christ.
God became a human being so that human beings might become and experience His Eternal Life with Him as a part of Him in the here and now, this moment. He became a human being so that human beings might be rescued from their own malfunctioning flesh and its behaviors; transformed and conformed to God the Son, becoming what God the Son is. Theosis is that process by which this takes place.
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