This is mainly a collection of texts from across the first three centuries of the Church which speak about Theosis: Our destiny to be divinized by our Lord Jesus Christ working through the power of his Spirit, so that we may become godlike as Children of God. Theosis is typically an Eastern Orthodox way of describing salvation in Christ, but it is also taught under such ideas as Divinization, Deification, Apotheosis, Union with God, Communion, Sanctification, and even Glorification. While I have written several times about Theosis, I have never really made a catalogue of the main texts that inspire the concept.
These texts are just a sampling of the concept of Theosis, which was assumed by nearly all learned Christians in the first centuries of the Church. Although it is still foundational in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, it has almost completely been erased from Western Christianity (both Protestant and even Catholic). Thus, it may sound weird to Western ears. This is because Theosis describes humans being so filled with God (capital "G") that they become gods (lower case "g") who radiate the glory and love of God.
In Theosis, there is an organic continuity between the life of God and life in our world, and creation is an outward manifestation of the inner life of our Creator. Compare this with Western Christianity, which sharply distinguishes between the Creator and the creation, and stresses that there can be no true participation or inner sharing between God and the world. In most of Western Christianity, Creator and creation remain distinct and separate, and thus God and humanity can never shall be united in a substantial way. In the West we may speak of "union" with Christ, but that is really only the union of two very separate people who happen to agree on some course of action or idea. It isn't a true and full sharing of essence in which one person experiences the reality of another within themselves. Thus, the West keeps humans and God separated forever. We may speak of God judicially declaring that we are forgiven and righteous, but nothing is truly changed within. To use the image of Martin Luther: The sinner is not changed by the grace of God, but rather is like a mound of dung covered by white snow. We are "covered" by the atonement of Christ, but we will always remain separate from God's inner life as miserable sinners.
This is not so in the Eastern Orthodox teaching on Theosis. In Theosis, the human identity is so merged with God's identity that every thought, every feeling, and every choice is infused with God-consciousness. And yet, unlike some Indian or Asian religions, we do not lose the sense of being a distinct self or person, and the distinction between God and human is not erased. Rather, we merge as a husband and wife merge in the act of lovemaking, or as a sponge that is completely immersed in water, or as a rod of steel glows white hot from being plunged into a fire. We radiate the energies of God by being fully integrated into the Divine Life through Christ.
This shocking teaching of true participation in God's life through Christ, and a true union of our self with God's Self, while not abolishing the distinctness of our identity and God's identity, was taken for granted in the early Church. And perhaps, if we want to revive our relationship with Christ, we should make it the foundation of our understanding of salvation today. With that said, here are just a few of the manifold early texts that presume this idea of Theosis:
God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26)
God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods... I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you...” (Psalm 82)
Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Judeans answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If those to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’—and the scripture cannot be annulled— can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (Jesus in John 10:32–38)
I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their message; that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; that they also may be one in us. (Jesus in John 17:20-21)
In God we live and move and have our being... For we are God's offspring. (Acts 17.28)
It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. (Galatians 2:20)
All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3.18)
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5.17)
Through these promises you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Peter 1:4)
Those who have lived close to God in holiness and virtue are deified. (Justin Martyr, c. 160 CE)
The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, through His transcendent Love, became what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself... How will humanity pass into God, unless God had first passed into humanity? (Irenaeus, c. 180 CE)
In this way, it is possible for the man of God already to have become divine. “I said, you are gods, and sons of the highest.” ...The man of God is consequently divine and is already holy. He is God-bearing and Godborne. (Clement of Alexandria (c. 195 CE).
Well, then, you say, at that rate we ourselves possess nothing of God. But indeed we do, and will continue to do so. Only, it is from God that we receive it, and not from ourselves. For we will be even gods, if we deserve to be among those of whom He declared, “I have said, ‘You are gods,’ ” and “God stands in the congregation of the gods.” But this comes of God’s own grace, not from any property in us. For it is He alone who can make gods. (Tertullian, c. 200 CE)
I am of the opinion that the expression, “God will be all in all,” means that He will be “all” in each individual person. Now, He will be “all” in each individual in this way: when everything that one can either feel, understand, or think will be wholly God. This will be when a person has been cleansed from the dregs of every sort of vice, and has every cloud of wickedness completely swept away. . . . It is when God will be the measure and standard of all movements. Thus, God will be “all,” for there will no longer be any distinction of good and evil—for evil will exist nowhere. (Origen, c. 225 CE)
They see that from Christ there began the union of the divine with the human nature. This was so that the human—by communion with the divine—might rise to be divine. This not only happened in Jesus, but also in all those who not only believe, but enter upon the life that Jesus taught. (Origen, c. 248 CE)
What Christ is, we Christians will be, if we imitate Christ. (Cyprian, c. 250 CE)
God became human that humans might become divine. (Athanasius, c. 320 CE, On the Incarnation 54.3)
This is a translation of the Greek “Αυτός γαρ ενηνθρώπησεν, ίνα ημείς θεοποιηθώμεν” which literally translates as “For he was humanized in order that we may be deified”. He refers to the “Word of God” in the previous verse, and “we” refers to humans. So you could translate it as “The Word of God was humanized that humanity might be divinized”, or paraphrased very strongly as “God became human that humans might become gods”.
God has made us not only spectators of the power of God, but also participants in his very nature. (Gregory of Nyssa, c. 370 CE)
Since the God who was manifested [in Christ] infused Himself into perishable humanity for this purpose, so that by this communion with Deity humanity might at the same time be deified. It is for this end that, by dispensation of His grace, He disseminates Himself in every believer through that flesh, whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending Himself with the bodies of believers. He does this to secure that, by this union with the immortal, humanity may also be a sharer in incorruption. (Gregory of Nyssa, c. 370 CE)
What has not been assumed [in Christ] has not been healed... So let us seek to be like Christ, because Christ also became like us: to become gods through him since he himself, through us, became human. He took the worst upon himself to make us a gift of the best. (Gregory of Nazianzus, c. 380 CE)
So, in summary we may say: Christ became what we are that we might become what he is. May we all pray for the grace of his Spirit to divinize us that we may be infused and enlightened and transformed by Divine Life, that we may glow white hot with Christ’s Love, just as a white hot iron glows with the heat of the fire it is immersed in.
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