Despite the great gulf between human beings and God being crossed in Christ - a crossing that we can truly call, with the New Testament, reconciliation - despite that, there is no sense in which the holiness of God collapses into the ordinary. God remains in his godness God - the incarnation and the atonement don't change this. We are purified and brought into his presence, inhabited by the Holy Spirit and granted a place in the divine fellowship (2 Pet 1:4) -but though the matter of sin has been dealt with, our union with God does not mean that the creature is no longer a creature and the divine no longer divine. God's holiness is still awe-inspiring. (I don't quite want to be the Orthodox doctrine of theosis, here, if it means the divine-human is collapsed. I think there can be union, and reconciliation, but it is without loss of the transcedent.)
We can see this from the prominence given to the idea of 'reverent fear' in the NT as an absolutely appropriate emotional response to an encounter with God - even for those who have been reconciled with God. The people of God are both confident to walk into the heavenly throne room and trembling at the prospect.
Take Hebrews 12:28-29, for example
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; 29 for indeed our God is a consuming fire.
The people of God know better than anyone that God is to be truly and deeply revered. God is not in anyway tamed by the incarnation.
Will this be the case in the eschaton? I think so - God is visibly near, but not even then visible, no?
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Will this be the case in the eschaton? I think so - God is visibly near, but not even then visible, no?
Visible in Christ? And, according to Augustine, in my neighbour and the rest of the new creation.
I don't quite want to be the Orthodox doctrine of theosis, here, if it means the divine-human is collapsed.
NB Not sure that a good Orthodox would think theosis means the collapse of the distinction between the divine and the human.
“The idea of deification [i.e. theosis] must always be understood in the light of the distinction between God’s essence and His energies. Union with God means union with the divine energies, not the divine essence: the Orthodox Church, while speaking of deification and union, rejects all forms of pantheism.” (Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 232)
Anyway, doesn’t inappropriate and irreverent mateyness with God (assuming this is what the post is really directed against) arise more from an over-use of the language of "relationship with God" than from the language of mystical union with Christ?
Thanks for this. I guess the language of theosis will always get Westerners coming over all Shirley Maclaine-like...
'Theosis' is and out there word for us modern day people...it depends on who is using it and the context and what they are trying to say. Usually it is just left in the eastern camp..
If you are interested I can refer you to some books if you have the time
(did you know that even Augustine talked about deification and he is classified as 'western'?)
Irene
As a (moderate) preterist, I think the context of Hebrews 12:28-29 is AD70 (it is the saints receiving the kingdom [Dan. 7]).
The writer refers to the destruction of Jerusalem as a sacrifice - a consuming fire in which the animal is purified and ascends to God in glorious clothes of flame. Divided by the sword of the gospel, Judaism was cut in two (Heb. 4:12) to the joints and the marrow. Following Lev. 1, Christ ascended first as head, then the saints ascended as body, by water and fire.
After the saints received the kingdom, rebellious Judah, prefigured by Judas, would be shortly sent by the ascended Christ to destruction. Atonement is always the outworking of Passover. For those who rejected Passover, there was no more sacrifice for sins. They were un-covered before the eyes of the Lord (Gen. 3:10; Luke 23:30; Rev. 6:16).
For the individual, this 'division by Covenant' is completed at death. I don't believe there will be the same 'fear' we experience now. His presence, by His dividing Word, brings death to the flesh. We fall down as dead men and are raised up by His right hand. (In liturgy, this is the confession at the beginning of the service I think).
A believer is covered by Christ's Passover. My personal Jericho/Atonement finishes the mortification of sin begun in my call from Egypt. The tearing of flesh is again a door to a new Land, and while the traitor is exiled forever to Azal, the disciple eats with Jesus, clothed in 'consuming fire', and being like Him, seeing Him as He is (Tabernacles).
I guess the language of theosis will always get Westerners coming over all Shirley Maclaine-like...
At least it will always do so long as the misunderstanding is perpetuated. :-)
It is an easily misunderstood term...I think it would take really astute brave protest/evang scholars to really think about theosis/deification and not just leave in the 'eastern camp' or the too mystical/out there hard basket...
From my understanding of what I have been reading the church fathers didn't talk about it in a way where the 'divine-human collapsed'- I think that is quite misleading.
(I was surprised one day to even find an article in existence on John Calvin on deification...so even he thought about it).
Irene
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