Theosis

https://t.me/Tech_freedom_chat?videochat=5717ca64bedc8d3281

Father, As we look at this topic that has been hushed up in Western Christianity for so long due to misunderstanding, I ask that you would send the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and hearts to grasp, or at least begin to grasp the truth of it. Help us to break through the molds of Western Christendom that have taught us that we are less than, or far away and need the Church to help us get closer to God. Help us to see that there really is not much difference between theosis and sanctification, other than language. Let the Spirit in which you prayed in John 17 permeate these brief thoughts. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen. What is theosis? Simply put, it is the ultimate goal or telos of salvation in Orthodox Christian traditions. What is it, though? It is the belief that Jesus came to earth as a man, so that by believing in Him, we humans might become one with Him. What is sanctification, then? The process of walking out our salvation, with the help of the Holy Spirit, until we become “perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect”. It is the process of becoming holy so that we are fit for heaven when we die. Do you see the difference in language? In stance? In Orthodox belief, original sin is not a reality. Was there a fall? Yes. Do they tend to see it as having or being a norming norm for humanity, in the way that many protestants, at least, see the doctrine of total depravity? No. Gregory of Palamas, whom we will look at over a couple of memesplanations in the coming week, believed that human passions were actually not native to us. He believed that they were things which were actually counter to our nature. The process of becoming holy (whether you term it sanctification, theosis, or divinization doesn’t matter much) is the process by which we grow closer to God, toward the end of becoming one with Him in heaven. Does this mean that we lose our individuality? No. It means that we gain communion with Him, for eternity. We get all of God, for eternity, and God gets all of us, His whole image, reunited. The way I see it, heaven is unity with God. What is this based on? There are several prooftexts, and a long tradition of thought about it among the Orthodox Churches. Ever wonder what the image of God is? Ever wonder why there is such an emphasis on unity in the New Testament, in particular? Theosis can explain some of that. The unity in question for the New Testament writers is not a top-down thing, but rather it is a Spirit-up kind of thing. The Holy Spirit comes and knits us together, and we grow in unity and love among ourselves as we grow closer to God. That is the unity I am talking about, mutually self-sacrificial love. That is what is supposed to characterize the Jesus Community, not infighting, empire building, or sniping at one another for doctrinal misunderstandings. I digress. So what is theosis, then? It is the process of walking out your justification, of, “Working out (y)our salvation with fear and trembling”. That is not a favorite scripture for many of us, I’d wager. That is not fluffy bunnies and rainbows, that is the meat of the Word, boys and girls. So what is sanctification, then? It is the process, aided by the Holy Spirit, of doing good works in response to the Love that we have received. I think that is more or less how most Western Christians would probably define that term, in a rough sense. It is the Holy Spirit working in and through us to realize the justification we received at the foot of the cross when we surrendered our lives to Jesus and made Him our Lord and Savior. How different are these terms, really? In practice, not very, in end goal, particularly in terms of linguistics, worlds apart. I touched on that earlier. In the West, we are nothing but poor, miserable sinners, saved by grace. That, while saying that we still in some small, corrupted way, carry the image of God in us. This line of thinking puts a great chasm between us and God, which only the cross can span. Most of the West would agree with these metaphors. In the East, man is still basically good to start with, but in need of a doctor and a hospital to heal and restore him, not a judge in a courtroom to merely declare him righteous. In the East, the cross does pave the way, but to wholeness and Communion, not to penal justice and rule keeping, to “stay within the boundaries set by the law”. In the East, we can be restored to full Communion, and that is the expected end of the Christian life. In the West, we simply “go to heaven when we die”. Personally, the Eastern concepts speak far more to me. I want you to really consider these things, as we walk through the next month of teachings on this, both in devotions and in soundbite form in the memesplanations during the week. Part of what I want to do in this study is to show that although we have come to use different terminology, the ends truly are the same. I want to show that we are not as different as we have come to see ourselves as being. I hope to stoke your sanctified imagination with new metaphors and understandings as we go. Next week, I will show you some of the Old Testament texts used to support theosis, as an echo of some of my memesplanations this week, then the following week, we will dive into the New Testament to see what is there. After that, we will wrap it up with a nice little bow at the end of the month.

If you know theology you know St. Thomas Aquinas. He is the “Angelic Doctor”, one of the best known academic theologians in the Western Tradition. He still saw this as the case, particularly in light of passages such as Philippians 2:12-13, 2 Peter 1:3-4, Psalm 82:6, and others. What does it mean that Jesus wants us to share in his divinity? After all, he did not consider his divinity a thing to be grasped or clung to, he emptied himself, so that we could be one with Him. That is good news, y’all. That is the nature of salvation, at least in the Eastern half of the Church.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons on the nature of salvation. In Orthodoxy, Original Sin is not a thing, though they do admit to nature being slanted toward evil. Jesus came to make us one with Him. God knows that we are separate from Him by nature, but He wants to be with us, for we bear His image in His world. Love makes it so that He does not force the issue, but that we would have the choice to live into that which we were designed for from the beginning: communion with Him and one another. That is Heaven, union with God and peace among humans on earth.

To rephrase himself, here is another quote from St Irenaeus. Jesus is the Word, the Son of God and the Son of man: he became like us, so that we might become like Him through communion with Him. That is how we become sons of God in Him. This is theosis, the end goal for the Christian walk in Eastern Orthodox belief. One of the things that I love about Orthodoxy is that they have allowed mystery to be a real part of their spirituality, rather than having cut & dried answers for every little thing under the sun, as we Western Christians believe that we must, for the most part.

This Psalm seems to be talking about the Heavenly council, the word used in Hebrew is elohim, and God is talking to the rulers in his council, whom we know as elders and perhaps some angels, or perhaps his seven spirits. Yes, the seven spirits of God. But Jesus, in quoting it, seems to imply that, in the vein of Psalm 8, God may have been talking to us, after all. In Him, we become sons of God, and can look forward to living in perfect communion with Him, the Holy Spirit and the Father. That is the essence, if you’ll pardon the pun, of theosis.

I have talked a bit about St. Gregory in the past, but as we begin this journey into looking at theosis, about which he had much to say, it is important to ground who he was. He was a hesychastic monk and priest in Greece during the 14th century, well educated, well spoken, ascetic, and deeply spiritual. From this font sprang volumes of theology, among which was this quote. Our response to God’s grace, in his opinion, should lead to ascetic purity and mental prayer, such as the Jesus prayer, which we talked about around a month ago. This purity and devotion, not lessons on theology, will lead to revelation about union with God. Because we are slow, and descendants of the”enlightenment”, we will go through this month of introduction to the idea, it is up to you what you do with it. Will you choose to press in in ways that Gregory Palamas would encourage you to do, or will it stay as simple information for you?

Check out my devotion on Sunday, we'll talk through a couple of passages from the Psalms which suggest this interpretation... you make your own call in that regard. https://rumble.com/v2cju4w-theosis-in-the-old-testament.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y

How does theosis work, Gregory? We come into communion with God through prayer, purity, and praise. It is simple, but not easy. What are these godlike virtues? St Gregory would tell you that they are natural similitudes with God, and they begin with the end of our impassioned throughts, which he says are contrary to nature. As we pursue these “godlike virtues”, or things which are in keeping with our true natures, they become “divine passions” and move us into position to receive the grace of being able to unite with God through prayer and praise.

St. Athanasius talking of the divine exchange that was enabled at the cross. Jesus became incarnate that we might be reunited with God in the way that Adam and Eve were in the garden. That is what the rescue operation was about. That is why Jesus came, showed us what communion with the Father looked like, then gave himself to unlock this for us. This is salvation. We will talk about this over the next few weeks.