Friday of the 33rd Week

2 Peter 1:1-10

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so short-sighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practise these qualities you will never fall. 

Mark 13:1-8

At that time, as Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.

The question of the destruction of the temple, the coming of false prophets and false christs was deal with on Saturday of the 31st Week, so for the sake of brevity I won't repeat what I wrote there.

Christ warns us, See that no one leads you astray. Many Christians are so fearful of being mislead that they have become obsessed with the coming of the antichrist and all of the possible signs that will accompany it - bar codes, microchips, the number 666, various conspiracy theories about government plots and secret societies, etc. - yet in so doing have completely lost sight of their spiritual life and their relationship with Christ. But St. Peter says that it is precisely such neglect that will cause us to fall, to become innefective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so short-sighted that he is blind. We may study the ins and outs of every plot, every scheme, every institution, every government action, but if we lose sight of Christ, if we do not supplement our faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love we have already been led astray. 

Those who do not fall away, God has called to his own glory and excellence, to become partakers in the divine nature. This is the very essence of salvation, and what the Fathers call 'theosis' (θέωσις).* The lie of the serpent in Eden was not "you would be like gods" (Gen. 3:5), but that Adam and Eve could become like gods without God, prematurely, and by their own effort. As St. Paul says, theosis can only come from God because it involves transformation into His image and His glory:  "We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:18). Christ Himself also makes reference to Psalm 81:6, saying, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming’, because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?" (John 10:34-36). Through our union with Christ, the incarnate Word of God, we become by grace what Christ is by nature. We do not become another God, as Mormons and various pagans assert, for there is but one God and can never be another; nor are we absorbed and dissolved into God's being the way some forms of Eastern mysticism suggest; nor do we become additional persons of the Godhead; nor are we united to God in the way that Christ's divine and human natures are united in the Person of the Word of God, becoming further incarnations of God. All of these ideas are utterly blasphemous. The Fathers make a distinction between the essence, substance, or nature of God and His energies. The former is unknowable, incomprehensible, utterly transcendent, and we as created beings can never partake of it. He remains the uncreated Creator, while we remain creatures subject to Him. His energies, however, refer to what is knowable and what we can relate to: He is love, humility, kindness, justice, immortality, and so on. Although St. Peter uses the expression divine nature (φύσεως), what he refers to here are God's energies, not His essence. As I mentioned on Monday, theosis consists of us attaining God's likeness. As God is unending love by nature, we will become unending love by His grace; as He is immortal by nature, we will be made immortal by His grace; as He is light by nature, we will become light by His grace. In this union, God remains God, and we remain human, but fully human, created in God's image and having attained to His likeness, not the partial humanity we experience in this state of sin - sin being the state of separation from Him.

When we understand that salvation and damnation do not consist of reward and punishment, but of union and separation from Christ respectively, we can understand why Christ said "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). It is not enough merely to 'be a good person' if we do not have a relationship with Christ, because salvation is not simply a reward for good behaviour but is Christ Himself and our relationship with Him, in which we become partakers in the divine nature.

Since it is such an important topic, and the above explanation does not in any way do it justice, here is a link to a great little book by Archimandrite Gregory of St. Gregorios Monastery on Mount Athos called Theosis: The True Purpose of Human Life, which I'm sure many of you will find useful.

*Theosis is often translated into English as 'deification' or 'divinization', though I prefer to avoid these terms as they're frequently misunderstood and confused with the non-Christian and heretical ideas mentioned above. While less precise, the term 'glorification' might be preferable.