Theosis and Christification Explained
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2018
- The notion of Theosis is often a confusing one, especially for Western Christians. In this video, I give an overview of what that teaching is, and explain the approach that I call Christification.
I converted to the Orthodox faith, It's very cool that Lutherans believe in Theosis. Very awesome that you believe in this. I have a friend introducing me to Lutheran perspective. So I'd like to learn more. thanks.
Currently an Eastern Orthodox Catechumen, We do believe in the eternal progression but unlike the pagan mormons, we believe that there's an infinite movement in growing closer to God. C.S. Lewis in his last Narnia Book, The last battle explores this, "Further up, and Further in". We have eternity to grow ever closer to God but it doesn't start in the next life. Apart of being Orthodox is living the lifestyle that begins theosis (We reject Sola Fide) and since Our Father chooses to work with His Church, we become tools for his salvation. When we pass the walls of night (J.R.R Tolkien's Legendarium) we continue and Theosis has no upper limit on growing closer and becoming ever more like God. Original SIn like you pointed out wasn't wishing to be like God in itself since we were designed by God to bring Glory to Him, but rather to go from created to creator and be like God on our own terms and not according to God's will.
At least that's my understanding, What do I know I'm still a Catechumen, but there's such a deep beauty to it.
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD AS SINNERS
When we hear the words "Faith comes by hearing God's Word," they
refer to people who hear the proclamation of the Gospel, which tells us that God the Son (Jesus) was sent by God the Father, in human form to die on the cross for the sins of humankind. The message of Christ is made known to us from the Scriptures
(The Bible), and also by the preaching, of the same, by Christian disciples - Ministers or pastors. Either way, humankind is made aware, from Scripture, that we are helpless sinners who deserve God's punishment of eternal damnation. We cannot free ourselves from God's judgement. Christ's death on the cross satisfied the Old Testament demands of the Law and the demands of God's justice (Substitutionary Atonement). Christ voluntarily submitted to God the Father's plan of reconciliation, with humankind, in that our sin and judgement was laid on Christ who took our punishment for our sins, and forgave us, and He conquered death through His resurrection (Objective justification). Christ now pours into our hearts, His Word, which is proclaimed from the Bible (God's Word) to sinful people, which causes the hearers to have faith in Christ's message, and by their faith, sinners become truly penitent (Sorry), and they confess their sin to Christ, and turn (Repent) from their sins (Subjective justification) by accepting what Christ did for us through the power of the Holy Ghost, and we are in fellowship with God. God the Son (Christ) is the way through which God the Father forgives our sins, and He has cleansed us and removed our judgement, and has conquered sin, death, and the devil. The spoken words of the forgiveness of sins, which are received by sinful people who are truly penitent, are from John 20: 19-23.
Jesus said unto Mary Magdalene (John 20: 17) "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God, and your God." Jesus came to the disciples who were assembled (John 20: 19), and said to them "Peace be unto you," and the disciples were glad and they knew that this was the Lord Jesus.
Jesus said (John 20: 21), "As my Father hath sent me, even so I send you, and the Holy Ghost was given to the disciples when Jesus breathed on them, and they received the Holy Ghost (John 20: 22).
In John 20: 23, Jesus said, to the disciples, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." This is not to be interpreted as the absolving of sin by a priest, when the priest or pastor falsely believes that he or she has power to remitt or retain someone's sins. Instead, the context is that the disciples were given power to proclaim that Christ paid for humankind's sin
(Objective justification), which includes the disciples, who had already accepted that Christ remitted their sins. Sinful people who receive the disciples' message of Christ, have received that their sins are remitted by Christ, and the disciples can also make this proclamation. Sinful people who reject Christ's message of peace with God, their sins are retained, and this can also be proclaimed by the disciples.
In Luke 7: 37-50, we read about the stingy pharisee named Simon, who is not to be confused with the disciple named Peter. Simon's discernment, of the woman who visited Jesus, was that she was a sinner (retained; not forgiven). Jesus reminded Simon that it was He (Christ) who forgave both the woman's sin and Simon's sin. Jesus said unto the woman "Thy sins are forgiven," and He said
"Thy faith has saved thee: go in peace." When we are in fellowship with God as Christians, we become more focused, not on our continued will to sin, but on God's will to save. We begin to discover the Biblical pattern of worship, prayer, and fellowship.
Devotion is fellowship with God through Adoration (Worship), Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication, either done privately,
or in public fellowship (Church). When the elements of bread and wine (Communion) are included in The Thanksgiving, this is part of the same fellowship. Christ, who is present in a hidden way, but present in a visible way by Christ's own words, gives His body and blood to us (Sacrament), by His own grace (Not earned by us), to be received by us; He says "Take eat;" and
"Drink (1 Corinthians 11: 24-25)." The Church bodies who do not admitt visitors to the Communion part of public fellowship, unless the guests are absolved by a pastor or priest, refuse to believe, by faith, that it is Christ who has invited both pastors and congregants to fellowship. Christ alone is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (John 1: 29); God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53: 6).
Christ's righteousness, which is His own righteousness, comes from Christ, but remains outside of us, and it is merely imputed to us, rather than infused into us. Said Luther, "God pours out Christ his dear Son over us and pours Himself into us and draws us into Himself, so that he becomes completely humanified and we become completely deified and everything is altogether one thing, God, Christ, you." True, Christians are righteous and fully deified, but the righteousness and deification, imputed to us by Christ,
is not yet revealed to us on this side of eternity. As long as we live here on earth, sin stays with us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we wrestle against sin, and it is by this that we have cause for hope. We may understand Paul to be saying, in
Romans 8: 24-25, that we wait in the spirit, through faith, for the righteousness that we hope for, which in due time will be revealed to us. This does not require deeds of further cleansing
(Penance), or continually attaining higher levels of perfection and unity with God, by following a false notion of us becoming a god (Becoming Deified). We are already fully cleansed and fully deified through the merits of Christ's substitutionary atonement.
Ascetism or the gradual attaining of higher levels of deity is supported by the Satisfaction Atonement Theory, the Re-capitulation Atonement Theory, and the Ransom Atonement Theory. Very quickly explained, the Ransom theory teaches the release from prison, meaning the death of Christ was the payment to Satan to have humankind released from prison.
The Satisfaction Atonement theory is the teaching in Roman Catholic theology, which draws from the works of Anselm; it holds that Jesus Christ redeemed humanity by making satisfaction for humankind's disobedience, with His own obedience, by an act of payment beyond what is needed or asked (Supererogation). The satisfaction theory teaches that Christ forgave original sin, which is the inward sin of all human souls, but we must pay a human price for actual sins committed outwardly. Thomas Aquinas articulated this idea of salvation, that justifying grace is provided through penance, which are deeds done, after repentance, like contrition with the determination to never sin again, or performance of some act to repair the damage caused by sin, called Reparation: A payment of money, sacraments, ceremonies, sacrifices, works.
The Re-capitulation Atonement theory is in keeping with the Ascetism of Irenaeus; the keeping of this theory, by John Climacus who created the "Ladder Of Divine Ascent" icon, is the theology that the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts. Irenaeus said of Jesus: "He became what we are, that He might bring us to even what He is Himself."
We do not become, and we do not rise to higher levels of divinity,
and eventually become fully deified. Since Christ cleansed us from our sins, there is no cleansing that further takes place.
Our sins and judgement were laid on Christ and Christ overcame death. When we acknowledge what Christ did for us on the cross,
and when we trust Christ, and confess our sins to Christ, and turn(Repent) from our sins, by the power of the Holy Ghost, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us from Christ himself, and Christ has fully cleansed and deified us. None of this is yet realized by us, because we are dealing with the remaining presence of our sinful will, where we will, either knowingly or unknowingly, to walk out of fellowship with God, which is why we must return to fellowship with the Lord our God through confession to Him by faith and believing by faith that Christ took our judgement for us. Confession, receiving of forgiveness and the Holy Ghost to empower us to turn from our sins, is not a "One-time" occurrence. Now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3: 2).
@Dustin Neely Palamas is a late comer and his doctrine may not be close enough to the early fathers, or it might even be a cunning counterfeit. I will stick with the Holy inspired Scriptures on these things.
Very clear explanation. So many Christian only focus on justification and stop there. But being confirmed to the image of Christ, having Christ formed in me, being transformed from glory to glory should be our life long quest.
Kyle Yoakum I think you are on the right track. However I think this idea should be taken. It’s not only about conforming to Christ, but to completely “dying to one’s self” allowing Christ to live in you. Also Theosis should be not only conforming not dying. It’s beyond that. It is complete union with God. That’s is why Eastern Catholics and Orthodox say that our Salvation is worked out on a daily basis. We work on it from day to day. Justification based on our faith is not enough, because our faith is weak. We depend on Gods Grace to help us to work our salvation Day to Day.
@@the.nerd.within We only work out what God is working in us (Philippians 2: 12-13). It is still of God's imparted grace. Without the inner working of the Holy Spirit nothing will transpire. We are a work in the making according to Romans 8: 29-30. We can work out what God works in us.
@@louisaccardi2268exactly, Jesus brings salvation as the serpent in numbers 21:8 raised by Moses. John 3:14
the Essence - Energy distinction is key. The Triads refer to that, and Lossky's Mystical Theology Of The Eastern Church book is very good and covers all this so well, definitely must read books, as well as St John Damascene
what is sad is that energy doesn't existe actually.
@@valentincolasMangeon have you read Paul's letters?
@@anon2867 Obviously not. I did not even open the Bible -_-
Your explanations are very helpful and easy to digest. Thank you again I look forward to adding this book to my collection. 🙏🏾
Good summary video, Jordan! The Protestant doctrine of salvation is rightly founded on the biblical concept of justification by faith, but we could use a better understanding of progressive sanctification (Christification), which is the biblical corollary to justification by faith. I like that you’ve borrowed from Eastern Orthodoxy’s concept of theosis, so to speak, in order to help move us in that direction.
I see him converting to Orthodox in the future. Because justification is incompatible with theosis. Since theosis is a process while justification is a one time event (once saved, always saved).
@@alfredhitchcock45 lol this is a reformed nonsense, as the book of concord speaks about works. I love how you reformed do this stuff, trying to push your (wrong) views in this channel.
eduds6 first of all, Lutheran is already an incorrect view. And he tries to merge it with theosis, that’s why he had a syntax error
@@alfredhitchcock45 if you actually knew about Lutheranism you’d know that they don’t believe in once saved always saved. Lolz
Men do become God instantaneously through the sacraments - especially Baptism. It is not a process. When you look in the mirror you see Jesus Christ.
Thank you Pastor. God's peace be with you
Thank you for your explanation! Very clear and concise. God bless.
7:30-7:57, and the concluding point on this being what some refer to as sanctification was a crystalizing statement. Thank you!
This is beautiful.
I love seeing more and more of His beloveds from the East and West coming together and sharing our union in Christ Himself.
Be it Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, or Protestants... The partakers of His divine life. Let us be engulfed by the vision of God.
Theosis surely accompanies the justification (by grace through faith for good works).
Whom He justified, He also glorifies.
As He (Christ) is, so are we in this world.
This may well be the first time the concept has "clicked" for me- thank you very much
Thank you for Law & Gospel!
Are those terms a more detailed teaching of sanctification or completely separate and distinct from sanctification?
This is very helpful thank you. I am curious how theosis is different from the concept of sanctification. Both seem to suggest a being transformed by Christ to realise (in both senses) the imago dei. Is theosis simply the mystical expression of that?
is theosis more in alignment with our sanctification or our justification? Is our justification a process/contingent upon our theoisis then if theosis is part of it?
This is the only place I have ever heard a Protestant talk about theosis. The one thing I did not hear is what is the nature of that participation?. Is it created or uncreated? My understanding of this theology is that Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the doctrine of absolute divine simplicity. Protestantism historically retained the doctrine of absolute divine simplicity from Catholicism even after the Reformation. Absolute divine simplicity is why Protestant theology does not make a distinction between Nature and Person in God. Nor does it make a distinction between God's Essence and His energies. This problem goes right to the heart of what we experience in salvation. The Catholic Church developed Analogia Entis as their theory of how we know God. Analogia Entus is the idea that we see all these essences of things in the world. We can reason from these analogies up to God who is the highest form of essence. So these analogies point us up to God. Protestantism rejected Analogia Entis and developed the idea of Analogia Fide. We know God through the analogy of faith. Thus the Reformers taught faith alone. But both Analogia Entis and Analogia Fide are based on absolute divine simplicity. An analogy is only a created effect. It is not a direct experience of God. Because God is absolutely simple. The idea that we can only know God through created effects (analogy) goes all the way back to Augustine. When Augustine wrote on the Trinity he wrote about the apostles experience at Mt Tabor. Augustine wrote that the light that came out from Christ was a hologram or some kind of created magic trick. The reason that Augustine saw this light as a created effect is because of absolute divine simplicity. Because if God is absolutely simple He cannot manifest His essence in the created order. Because that would mean that God is made up of parts, or divided and is no longer absolutely simple. Augustine is the source of this theology in the West. The Catholic Church dogmatized absolute divine simplicity which is one of the reasons the Eastern church split from Rome in 1054 AD. So I don't know how any form of Protestant theology can maintain any direct experience of God in this life. If you look a the Lord's supper for example there are many different views in the Protestant traditions. I was a Presbyterian for many years and I know that the Lord's Supper is defined as a means of grace in the Westminster Confession. Presbyterianism does not teach that this "means of grace" is uncreated. The grace you receive is just a created effect. Because absolute divine simplicity is at the paradigmatic level of all Western traditions whether you know it or not. I understand that Protestants want to desperately claim they know God through faith and the witness of the Spirit. But at the paradigmatic level, there is no way you can have any direct experience of God in this life. Everything you are experiencing is just a created grace or effect. You can see very clearly why absolute divine simplicity leads to the heresy of Arianism.
Orthodoxy is the only religion in the world that consistently rejects absolute divine simplicity. The church fathers would argue this way. They would say if I build a house that house is the result of the works of my hands or my human energies. The house tells you something about me. But the house is not me. In the same way, God created the world by His uncreated energies. The created order can tell me things about God if I have the spiritual eyes to see Him behind these energies. But the created order is not the essence of God. If you believed that creation is the essence of God you would be a pantheist. Another example of an argument would be the need to make a distinction between God's Nature and the Persons of God. Once you get rid of absolute divine simplicity then your world view begins to make the proper distinctions. Because it is not true to say that to make a distinction in God implies separation, division, or that God is made up of parts. The reason that we make a distinction between Nature and Person is that we cannot define our own anthropology without these distinctions. The church fathers would argue this way.
Since we are made in God's image we make a distinction between our Human Nature and our Hypostasis. We all share a common human nature, but we all have particular personhood. We are individual persons. If I make a distinction between Nature and Person does that mean I am cutting you up into parts and dividing you up? No. Because as a human being you operate every day as a whole union between Nature and Person. Both Nature and Person are enhyposticized into one union. In the same way, a distinction between Nature and Person in God does not cut God up into parts. Because God is one and yet He is Three. Both distinctions express unity. One additional point here. Orthodoxy defines the fall in the garden as a rebellion of Nature against the freedom of the Person. When death entered into creation Nature became mortal and subject to decay. God is free because God is immortal. We are slaves to the fear of death because we lost God's likeness. We lost God's immortal glory. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
So how does this solve the problem of knowing God through theosis? It solves the problem because we know God directly through His uncreated energies. But those energies are not the essence of God. When the priest gives the Eucharist to the saints he calls down the uncreated energies of Christ into the bread and the wine. The priest calls down the same divine energies that deified the flesh of Christ at the resurrection. We are not getting a created effect. We are participating in uncreated grace. That is what theosis is through union with Christ. Lutheranism cannot make sense of theosis because of absolute divine simplicity.
You might not see this, but I've grown up in the Lutheran church, read the confessions and have not come across any mention of divine simplicity. Now the energy/essence language again is a little unfamiliar, but it meshes well with what I understand.
To be honest latin is foreign to me, as is the language of 'created grace/effect'. Perhaps because the Lutheran tradition rejected scholasticism and embraced mystery?
Now maybe I'm just a simple man, but the 'Lutheran' confesses God's word is sure. In baptism the Heavenly Father said to me, 'You are my beloved son'; and in Holy Communion I recieve the flesh and blood of the God-man Jesus Christ on my tongue (I mean it's all in the name Common union with the Holy God and His Holy Church). Yet I fail in that union, so not fully there until the final resurrection and the final revelation. So I suppose, in the 'Lutheran' tradition, I am saved, am being saved, and will be saved all by God's mercy and grace that He has promised me, and His word is sure. Now I live according to His promise because of faith/trust/belief in His Word. So I think Presbyterian you might call me a mad heretic and Orthodox you might call me confused, because honestly I am confused by what you wrote and if you have time could you perhaps point me in a right direction?
@J. G. Absolute Divine Simplicity is a subject that almost no Protestant has any knowledge. Most Protestant Pastors don't know much about this subject. They might have had a class on this subject for one day but overall I never meet a Protestant who knows anything about Absolute Simplicity.
For example, the Analogia Entis is the Roman Catholic theology of how we know God. The Protestants rejected Analogia Entis and replaced it with the Analogia Fide. Faith Alone. Which was one of the sola's of the Reformation. Analogia fide means we know God by faith alone. But it also means that we only know God by analogy. We have no direct contact with God's essence. So the doctrine of faith alone does not mean we know God directly. Both Catholicism and Protestantism teach that we only know God by analogy.
Orthodoxy rejects both the Analogia Entis and the Analogia Fide. Orthodoxy teaches that we know God directly through the Nous. The Nous is the internal faculty of the spirit in man that can know God directly. We know God through repentance and cleaning up our Nous so that we can see God and know Him directly. So these three ideas are very central to how the three traditions develop in church history. If you don't understand the history of absolute divine simplicity you will not understand why the Western Traditions are so different from the Eastern Orthodoxy Church.
The best guy to listen to is Jay Dyer. He has multiple videos on absolute divine simplicity and how it affects everything in your theology. Here is a couple of links to his lectures.
Hope this is helpful. Jay Dyer also has a website: jaysanalysis.com. If you check his video channel you can see hundreds of lectures on all kinds of subjects.
ua-cam.com/video/zx3jNmuMTJA/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/dJ0aqqHxIWE/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/7w0cc--6UQk/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/KFh6pWQ5i_4/v-deo.html
@@randychurchill201 Thanks, this is much easier to read and understand, though again as a simple man the latin just muddies water for me.
I'll get to your links when I have time, yet I still don't see 'absolute divine simplicity' as you've described it taught in my synod (I'm not sure you can say my Lutheran church holds to it if it's not taught, though I'll keep an ear out for it). In fact I thought the Formula of Concord explicitly distinguishes between nature and person. Also I've never heard of only knowing God by analogy of faith (?), I've been taugh we know God by His special revelation to us/me (God's spoken Word/audio bible, the sacraments, and perhaps direct revelation yet that is not promised).
Also I'm a bit apprehensive that Dyer will just conflate the Lutherans with the Calvinist position (like some with Papists and the East), because he did that in response to a listener question. Yet, I trust your judgement as you have at least listened to this Lutheran Pastor so i look forward to
@@randychurchill201 25 min into that first link Dyer states that no protestant teaches that it's Christ's deifying flesh in the Eucharist, how is that different from the Lutheran affirmation of Christ full real presence (divine and elevated human natures)?
I fear Dyer again is ignorant of the most basic of Lutheran teaching, honestly it's a bit disappointing that he ignores the fundamental small catechism (it's like two pages of text) and the Augsburg confession (the first 10 articles could be read in like 15min). I'll keep listening but I'm loosing hope that Dyer will ever address how Lutheran's teach contrary to the orthodox Christology or teaching of the Eucharist (Luther literally wrote that we do not consume the incorruptable flesh and blood, rather it consumes us to produce incorruptablility, in other words Christ makes us more like Christ).
@@j.g.4942 I"ve listened to hundreds of hours of lectures that Jay Dyer does on many subjects. Just because he does not answer a specific question in one video does not mean he does not understand the issues. He does a lot of debates with people who will debate him but no Protestant scholars of any reputation will debate him. I've tried to get Dr James White to debate him but he runs away. I've tried to get Matt Slick at C.A.R.M. to debate him. Matt runs away. If you know a Lutheran that would debate him then by all means go for it. Catholic Answers will not debate Jay Dyer. The Roman Catholics who have debated him get annihilated.
With regard to the Eucharist, Orthodoxy does not teach that the bread and wine become the literal flesh and blood as in Catholicism. Orthodoxy teaches the real presence based on the historic teaching of the Essence/Energy distinction. The Eucharist in Orthodoxy is to participate in the same uncreated energies that deified the flesh of Christ and rose it from the grave. If you check your Lutheran catechism you will find that it nowhere teaches that the grace you receive in the Eucharist is uncreated. All Protestant theology is based on the teaching of created grace not uncreated grace. That is directly connected to the fact that no Protestant tradition teaches the Essence/Energy distinction nor does any Protestant teach the Nature/Person distinction in God. The historic church taught both of these theologies because they are the only way to avoid Platonism. Luther was a Nestorian and he taught Penal Substitutionary atonement which requires a human person Jesus. If you listen to Dyer he talks a lot about the heresies that Luther taught. If you listen to Jay Dyer's lectures on Catholicism he deals a lot with how absolute divine simplicity corrupted the Roman Church and how that corruption then was adopted by the Reformers. Church history is quite complex and it takes a while to understand the connection of things. I would recommend you listen to more of Jay's lectures. You will find he is very well-read. If you can find a Lutheran who will debate him or even do a conversational style interactive show then I will help you set it up. I have met Jay Dyer when he was here in Texas. I'm sure I could connect anyone you bring to the table for a discussion.
- 5:26 , did the church writers believe in apotheosis?
- 6:30 and 8:09 , Christification
- 8:26 How justification and Sola Fide fit in
- 8:46 Eastern Orthodox and the view of salvation as a process
- 9:22 How Luther views justification
but why nOt buy into the full eastern orthodox position?
i agree.
Very interesting - this is a huge topic in Dante's Comedy as well!
How do you see this in Dante ?
@@valentincolasMangeon Hi Maxime! I think the main expression is in the last canto of Paradise, where the ending is not really the Beatific Vision of the Trinity in itself, but rather the unification that comes immediately right after it - and how the Pilgrim becomes one with the "Love that moves the sun and the other stars". Theosis is also arguably the significance of the Pilgrim's first dream in Purgatory, when the Eagle (=Divinity) lifts him up into the Fire where they burn together, as an image.
@@dantesdivinecomedy6963 Thank you !
Would participation with God be the same thing as saying we are Co-Creators with God or are those two separate topics?
So how is this different than sanctification and glorification
As a Jack Mormon I'm glad to hear the biblical version of Theosis.
"God became Man that man would become God". No explanation necessary.
So no theosis before the incarnation?
@@Aaron-xb4rq It appears that that is the order of things.
@@butterflybeatles So what do we make of the saints of the OT? Were the divine energies not present and working in the world from time immemorial? Was God somehow absent, separated from man? Is this even possible? Did God abandon man after the Fall or did man simply forget who he always and already is?
@@Aaron-xb4rq What about the saints of old? They were saints.
@@butterflybeatles How did they become a saint before the incarnation if theosis wasn’t possible until after the incarnation? That’s the point.
Is Christification/Theosis/Scantification something that is only possible after the coming of Christ? Were the OT saints partakers as well?
I don’t think the church can answer this honestly. If theosis was possible before the incarnation, then the need for the incarnation changes. If theosis wasn’t possible before the incarnation, then what do we make of the OT saints and was God not present through the divine energies until the incarnation and the sending of the Holy Spirit. It’s quite obvious what the answer is.
How far can we go in that transformation here on earth?
Can you be in constant prayer and remorse for your sins for twenty or more years of your life, as is an Orthodox monk? If so, then you can go as far as God allows.
Could you make a video explaining why we shouldn't buy into the Eastern Orthodox idea of Theosis?
what is your profile picture?
Raised Lutheran and WELS, but the terms Theosis and Christification are foreign terminology to me. What happened to sanctification which follows justification? Are theosis and christification dealt with in the Book of Concord?
No, these ideas are fully anti-gospel and anti-lutheran.
@@jordantsak7683 Kilcrease Goon Detected
Wow, do I have a mega problem with Athanasius's blanket statement that, "God became man that man might become God." That sounds like blatant blasphemy to me. Did the Eastern Orthodox inherent that from Eastern philosophy and religion? What did God say about His glory? "I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another..." Isaiah 42: 8a. On the surface of Athanasius's saying it sends a wild idea about our relationship to the Almighty. The term Koinonia can mean partakers or fellowship. In our fellowship with God He can beautify us with His salvation, but that doesn't make us God. We can join in a communion with God as John 15 explains, but we remain man and He remains God all by Himself. The divine nature is holiness and love. We are to be holy as He is holy and we are to love with the love of God. Those are the only ways that we can be like Jesus/God. I think Athanasius made a huge mistake making his statement, God became man that man might become God. God is One and no one else is God but God Himself. Not us, because we are creatures, created in time and He is Eternal without beginning or ending. In the resurrection God will cloth us with glorified bodies but we will not be God ever.
@Dustin Neely So, do you construe that to mean that we become God? It isn't that at all Dustin. The glory Jesus is referring to is the reciprocal indwelling of Christ in us and the Father in Christ. Jesus is the God- man, which means mankind can be united with God through Him even as we are to some extent now according to I Cor. 6: 17 "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." While that is true God is still God and we are still man, but more ennobled.
@Dustin Neely Well, I suppose that solves it. I don't agree with the statement that, "God became man that we might become God." That statement is blasphemy. We never become God. God is uncreated and we are finite so anything God Almighty does for us does not make us God. Making a flat statement like that is troublesome; "God became man that we could become God". Now, for a deep theological teaching it would be better not to make a statement like that than to muddy the waters, with something that doesn't mean that on the surface. I read much of orthodox literature and have been blessed by it, but have always thought that this theological teaching misses the mark from a Biblical standpoint.
@Dustin Neely He is referring to deification in the statement I mentioned. It is hard for me to get passed the statements in the literature that mentions deification, and such.
@Onurb Ulfr That is a good question Onurb. The concept of becoming one is not difficult at all because we are told in Ephesians to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit Eph. 4: 3, and in I Corinthians 1 the apostle Paul exhorts us to say the same same thing and be one in judgement according apostolic doctrine. The two shall be one in sacred marriage, however, both husband and wife continue to have their own identities and minds yet experience a unity and oneness. According to I Cor. 12 we as believers are members of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is a mystical unity that is mysterious and yet real and it is a oneness of sorts. There are other ways of being one that doesn't make us God. God Almighty doesn't deify anyone. All the glory goes to Him alone.
@Onurb Ulfr No, it doesn't at all Onurb. We are becoming more and more like our Lord Jesus according to the plan of the Father Almighty in Romans 8: 29. We become like Him in love and the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5: 22-24 "By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit." That is the NRSV of the Bible. Try to ground your faith in the inspired Word of God, the Bible.
I have two questions: 1) According to lutheranism, what can we do to help advance our christification, or can we do anything, or is it completely just up to God without our actions having any causal role whatsoever? 2) Why be interested in christification, besides it being a central theme in the Bible?
Catholics have answers to these, but haven't heard much teaching on this from lutherans, which to me is very sad, as I think it makes christification just some theoretical teaching instead of it being a practical part of our day-to-day faith. And if pursuing christification in the correct way indeed can contribute to advancing it, then being passive means missing a very essential good that God has intended for us.
Lutherans are stuck on justification. Methodists/Holiness/Orthodox are stuck on sanctification. Pentecostals are stuck on baptism of the Holy Spirit. Bring them all together and you have the Full Gospel Life.
Historically, bring them all together and you get modern atheist Europe. All started with the Prussian Union of Churches.
Mygoalwogel
I wasn’t talking of a union of churches which typically throw out the Bible for a politically correct unity... making female bishops, downplaying *substantiation, and agreeing to disagree, which is another way to say the Bible doesn’t count.
@@zarnoffa That's a relief. What did you mean by bring them all together?
Mygoalwogel
Justification, Sanctification, and Baptism of the Spirit should be together in a Christian’s life.
@@zarnoffa So a zarnofad union in place of a Prussian Union. No thanks. Lutheran theology has no need or desire to budge on any of those topics. Practice may be another story, but still.
00:42 📚 Theosis, a term often used in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, refers to the idea of salvation as participation in God's nature, rooted in New Testament writings.
02:04 🧐 Theosis is not about humans becoming gods like in Mormonism's eternal progression; it's about participating in God's nature without becoming gods ourselves.
03:53 🌟 Norman Russell defines theosis as the restoration of individuals through participation in Christ, initiated in this world and culminating in union with God.
06:28 🕊 Christification, a concept akin to theosis, emphasizes the ontological union of God and humanity through faith in Christ, leading to the believer's transformation and growth in holiness.
08:19 ⚖ Christification doesn't negate justification by grace through faith; it complements it, emphasizing the ongoing process of becoming like Christ while acknowledging justification's centrality in salvation.
11:43 🎥 For further exploration, resources like lectures on Christification provide deeper insights into this theological concept.
The way to union with God is obedience to Jesus Christ. Salvation, the forgiveness of sins, is immediate but we grow in Christ as we put to death the deeds of the flesh. As I decrease He increases.
At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
John 14:20-21 KJV
As far as I can tell, participation in Plato is becoming. Becoming is the place between being and nonbeing.
For Those Commenters who are in need of more attention and better clarity, this comment is meant to be of help.
Luther understood the Scriptural context of theosis correctly.
To understand what Luther correctly understood, first take a look
at the Eastern Orthodox understanding of theosis.
Theosis (Eastern Christian theology)or deification (deification may also refer to apotheosis, lit. "making divine"), is a transformative process whose aim is likeness to or union with God, as taught by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Byzantine Catholic Churches. It is considered achievable only through synergy (or cooperation) of human activity and God's uncreated energies (or operations). In Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Theosis is understood to have three stages: first, the purgative way, purification, or katharsis; second, illumination, the illuminative way, the vision of God, or theoria; and third, sainthood, the unitive way, or theosis. Thus the term "theosis" describes the whole process and its objective. In order to justify the said interpretation, of deification, Eastern Orthodox Theologians quote Psalm 82:1, John 10:34, Romans 13:1, and other related Biblical passages. For all practical purposes, we can respond to Eastern Orthodoxy, beginning with the correct exposition of the context of all three said passages, beginning with John 10:34.
John 10:34
Jesus was speaking to His Jewish family whose intention was to stone Jesus for blasphemy. Jesus quoted Psalm 82:1. Jesus used the term gods to refer to the Jews(Israelites) as the judges, leaders and rulers of their law, which here does not just refer to the Pentateuch, but the Old Testament as a whole. In Romans 13: 1, Paul was writing and stating to Christians to submit to the governing authorities - The civil rulers, all of whom were probably pagans at the time of Paul's writings. Christians may have been tempted to not submit to them and claim allegiance only to Christ. Even the possibility of a persecuting state did not shake Paul's conviction that civil government is ordained by God. Paul is not saying that this will always be true but he was explaining the proper ideal function of rulers. When civil rulers overstep their proper function, the Christian is to obey God rather than man. See Acts 4:19/5:29.
For Luther, God, by the merits of Christ, gave what only the Lord's Christ could achieve. Christ achieved peace with God, for us, by His own merits. Humans are unable to achieve what God has achieved for us. Christ's achievement, of peace with God, is a gift of grace, given to us by Him, by His own merit, and when we receive, by faith, what Christ did for us, we share freely in Christ's divinity. Grace does not change or elevate a human’s nature. Instead, it “effects a wholly new creation in which the natural person dies.” Grace kills the old in order to bring about the new. In a 1526 sermon Luther said: "God pours out Christ His dear Son over us and pours Himself into us and draws us into Himself, so that He becomes completely humanified and we become completely deified and everything is altogether one thing, God, Christ, and you." Luther came to understand justification as being entirely the work of God. Against the teaching of his day that the believers are made righteous through the infusion of God's grace into the soul, Luther asserted that Christians receive that righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ, it actually is the righteousness of Christ, and remains outside of us but is merely imputed to us (rather than infused into us) through faith. "That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law," said Luther. "Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ".
In his Smalcald Articles, Luther explains justification in the first and chief article. The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification (Romans 3:24-25). He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood (Romans 3:23-25). This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law, or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us...Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls (Mark 13:31).
lutheranism saved me from calvinism and made me orthodox ❤
Dr. Cooper--
Good talk, but....
Why attach Christification (which you term a nuanced version of sanctification) to the erroneous notion of Eastern Orthodox theosis (or Catholic divinization)? Theosis is attached to a wrong concept of justification and often to an inappropriate penetration of the Creator-creature divide.
He just mixed the 2 ideas. Deep inside he loves the concept of Orthodox theosis but since he wants to appease the Lutherans, he included "free gift".
Theosis+justification=salvation
Divinization is not proper term as we can never become Divine. Theosis is something else - being deified is to become god by Grace, while God is God by nature. This distinction is very important and shall never be overlooked.
To partake in the divine nature means that we now can deny sin and live towards God. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are children of God. Isn’t that good enough?
It is good enough for the average Christian, imo. Here are some monks from Mt. Athos in Greece who have attained theosis. You see it is not the same at all as "sanctification" or whatever the pastor here considers to be "Christification": ua-cam.com/video/6YzVbZvKLks/v-deo.html
Atman and God are one.
Good enough according to John, the elder, the apostle, per 1 John. I think you've read that
AN ARRANGEMENT OF PRAYERS TOWARD THEOSIS by George Engelhard at AMAZON BOOKS
People who are living in allegiance/pistis=(more than faith alone) are declared to be righteous=faithful to the covenant with Abraham. Living in allegiance can be explained as partaking in the spirit led process of theosis, reestablishing the image of Christ in human beeings. The new perspective on Paul fits much better to theosis than sola fide declaration of justification. The members of the new covenant people (justification) are meant to be the renewed humanity (theosis). But being declared a member in the covenant family (justification in the historical sense of being a member in the eschatological covenant family) is not final declaration of righteousness. It is a proleptical way of adressing members in the covenant family as people who will be finally declared to be the new humanity after judgment according to works. Final justification hinges on the progress of our theosis: if Christians are living sinful lifestyles, they will not inherit the kingdom of God 1. Cor 6, 9ff. If Christians are not living in holiness, they will not see the Lord.
Protestantism has to bridge the gap between "your conviction guarantees heaven" (sola fide justification) and the NT with its high moral standards. Some say, the transformation passes automatically, some deny that there has a transformation to occur. To have pistis means to allow the spirit to transform you into the image of Christ, that includes works and obedience, and this pistis is not the mere conviction of sola fide.
Divination? Isn’t that called out as a wicked practice next to sorcery
Divinization, not divination 😂
@@jadenmarker8109 Yes, they are two different things.
Christification is salvation. It is dying unto God in this life. It is not only intellectual thing but a sacrifice full of life worthy of God. In the Bible it is an union between the bride, the human and the groom, the divine or Christ. It is not a theoretical knowing but sexual in nature fully felt mind, body and heart. Salvation s not immortality but life renew again. It is life in God fellowship with Christ the King.
Justification and salvation are not synonymous terms. The man who repented in the brief parable given by Jesus was justified. However, Jesus says in Matthew 24:13 that only those who endure unto the end will be saved. Justification, therefore, precedes salvation.
Interestingly, as an Eastern Catholic (Syro-Malabar) this [theosis] is a part of our theology as well. even tho we are in full communion with the Latin Church.
Theosis is called Divinization in the Latin Church. It isn’t contrary to the Catholic faith.
@@MrTzarBomb I'm Byzantine Catholic and we use both terms
Be "Coming As God". "Be" motivated and inspired and "moved" JUST AS GOD WOULD BE SO MOVED. "This" is what "makes us God"(becoming one of his body's "parts" such as a finger or mouth or eye). This too is the way that we are "God's"(and even "gods" as well). While reading/hearing The Bible "recognize" the "current event". This is "WHY" it was written! For Us To "SEE"(it)! Have faith in your belief enough to "recognize" the "actual living aspect of what is written". Do Not Listen to naysayers denying what you KNOW TO BE "True"; telling you that THAT is being "disrespectful" to dare compare THIS "HERE" to THAT "THERE"!
I find your explanation very much Orthodox but since you wanted to appease the Lutherans, you included "free gift" which is the core of Protestant Theology.
I think people try to intellectually understand what is not possible to understand. If you go by what Jesus says he taught that if we follow his teaching that we will know that it is from God and we find the kingdom of heaven within ourselves and Paul says the kingdom is peace in the holy spirit. When we meditate on the teachings of Christ and apply what he teaches to our lives we become aware of our union with God. It is a subjective experience that we can have. Each person has to find it for themselves and the way to do that is to follow what Jesus taught. What any church teaches is redundant the only thing that matters is to follow what Jesus teaches in scripture. Nothing else matters; if we do that everything else falls into place.
I’m not sure that theosis (ie the orthodox understanding) vs Christification is really a meaningful distinction. The orthodox generally believe man to be made in the image of the Divine Logos, and theosis to be the restoration and healing of that image in man, and the growing in His likeness. As far as I can tell, Orthodox theosis IS Christification. And your point about the Orthodox thinking Theosis = Salvation....well, depends what you mean. I’m sure you know the orthodox don’t have a forensic concept of justification. Salvation is the healing of mans nature and the restoration of the image of Christ in him. And this begins in baptism.
In Baptism you are a little Christ. You aren't just part-God.
Eternal progression is not a doctrine of Latter-Day Saint theology
Deification or theosis is not the same as "sanctification" (being "set apart") or what you term "Christification" (apparently becoming Christ-like"). Theosis is something achieved not by Christians simply putting on the "fruits of the Spirit" which is our acceptable service to God, and hard enough for us since we are sinners. Theosis takes years to achieve, by monks in monastic settings, in which they have dedicated their lives to prayer-mostly the Jesus Prayer, although they pray otherwise as well. By their years of dedication to constant prayer the passions are extinguished by God's grace and deification is achieved. it is experiential. It is something experienced, not something taught in Sunday School and for all to think they've "grasped" by having something "explained" to them.
And as soon as a monk thinks highly of himself for being "deified" then that monk has missed the mark, and is deluded (called "prelast"), because there is no pride in theosis. An Orthodox monk will tell you, as did St. Paul, that he is the chief of sinners. You as a Protestant have attempted to explain a concept which you have fundamentally misunderstood, by simply substituting your known Protestant terms for Orthodox, which you neither know nor can teach. I'm not saying you're not a Christian, just that you know not whereof you speak.
This video might help you to understand that theosis is more than what you assume it is: ua-cam.com/video/QZR0_TmbCfQ/v-deo.html
I notice you are a merciful commenter, I'm hoping to understand the EO's teaching of theosis.
I was under the impression that it meant growing into union with God in Christ Jesus by the strength of the Holy Spirit, but you are saying that that's incorrect?
As I understood Dr. Cooper, it seemed he was saying that the goal of the Christian life is full union of our humanity with Christ's humanity, and this is completed for the Christian in the resurrection with the New Creation. Lutheran's would point to the marriage metaphor used in scripture, that the Eucharist is a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb (a foretaste of the full participation in the body and blood of Christ; His glorified human nature). Also that when God speaks, things happen. So we would look to Baptism, Confession & Absolution, and the Eucharist as the primary means of this union, this side of eternity; the 'means of grace'.
And so all, including monastics, 'strive to lead a holy life, even as Christ has made [the baptised] holy,' that for lutherans there isn't a theological difference between monk and non-monk (though perhaps the EO would say the same?). However, also understanding that we cannot be fully perfected before the parousia, as all Christians are called to confess their sin (the Lord's Prayer) and recognise themselves as chief of sinners (for, from my perspective, I know my sin more and better than anyones elses, as the crass sins dissappear the subtle sins are revealed). Luther's last note, 'we are beggars, this is true.'
Listening to some internet EO priests, monks, and apologists; mostly it seems to me that the EO teaches the same regarding Christology and soteriology as my lutheran tradition (your guys even speak of staurology, which was exciting to find! I thought the theology of the cross was a perculiar lutheran emphasis). However, I'm constantly told that lutheran Christology and soteriology is wrong, in the same breath as an explanation of EO teaching that sounds like the Lutheran Confessions. It's confusing. Maybe it's just a difficulty in translation from slavic/greek into the germanic languages.
Thanks for the opportunity to write this out, if you could point me somewhere to clarify that'd be great [edit, I'll check out that link].
Yet regardless, Christ's peace be with you.
@@j.g.4942 Well, sir, let me say that I don't think one has to be in this or that denomination to be a Christian. God is merciful, and not willing that any should perish, as the bible says. However, I do believe that the Orthodox Church has kept the teaching of the Apostles in its pure form for 2000 years.
Having said that, I was raised Baptist and converted to Catholicism several years ago, but have not gone to Mass in a while. I couldn't agree with some of their doctrines (such as the filioque and that the Holy Spirit is the "love between Father and Son) and their emphasis, at least by the priest I knew, on the teachings of Augustine, who believed and taught that Christ took our place on the cross in order to suffer our punishment from an angry God. He isn't angry at us because we're sinners. God is love. He loves us and wants to heal us from the effects of sin. That's how Orthodox view salvation.
I'm studying Orthodoxy, I am not Orthodox yet and wasn't raised Orthodox, so I don't know all about them. But I have been studying their beliefs for over a year and I believe they have stuck faithfully to what the Apostles taught. It's just that we often, when not understanding a bible verse, sort of skip over it and don't think about its actual implications, such as in the verses about the Eucharist (Lord's Supper).
Many Baptists would say it was creepy and blasphemous, probably, to believe the bread and wine are the actual body and blood of Christ, while the Catholics feel they have to explain exactly how the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ (they started dissecting the Scriptures and meanings of this and that doctrine a long time ago. This is called scholasticism.) The Orthodox simply say it is a Mystery, one of the Mysteries of God that can't be explained, and is done (we don't know how) by the Holy Spirit. Basically that's the difference in their outlooks.
As far as theosis, it does involve sanctification, and growing into "union with Christ", but is also much more than that. The monks spend years fasting and praying the Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner") before attaining theosis, if ever. It's not something within the grasp of the ordinary parishioner and if you are told it is, well, you're being lied to or told something by someone who doesn't understand it at all.
I believe that theosis is not something the average Christian needs to worry about, because as you said, the Sacraments will lead us to become more like Christ. The Jesus Prayer, however, if said consistently for a while I've found, will lead one to see their sins in a new way. Sins we didn't remember will come to mind, and we will be ashamed and want to repent in prayer to God and/or go to confession. I repeat the Jesus Prayer generally thirty times a night, if I am doing what I should, and I can attest to the efficacy of saying it. I have a prayer rope (ordered from an Orthodox Monastery on Mt. Athos) which has 30 beads and two crosses. The two crosses at beginning and end are for the Lord's Prayer.
You seem to me to be a fine and genuine Christian; you have God's love in your heart and this is, after all, what we are supposed to have. Without it, no amount of sanctification, "Christification" or even theosis or deification is worth anything at all.
However, deified monks have been seen to fly, prophecy, tell a person's name before meeting them along with their life story and what they came to see the monk about, heal people, all kinds of things which we who haven't spent years in fasting and prayer (along with battling demonic attacks) would never be able to do. But do we want to do these things, us ordinary Christians, and do we need to?
Here is a nice little video which "explains" theosis (very difficult to "explain" as it's experiential, not given to explanation) as simply as I have been able to find: ua-cam.com/video/QZR0_TmbCfQ/v-deo.html Here is another video, longer, about a monk who became a Saint, and describes his life and living in the monastery: ua-cam.com/video/KucuOOvem-4/v-deo.html
There are many Orthodox videos on UA-cam which talk about Orthodoxy and doctrine (my favorite is Trisagion Films, because the priest, Father Panagiotis, is full of the love of God, and also "Orthodox Teaching of the Elders" is good) and videos about Church history and the Great Schism (Ryan Reeves explains these well) and there is also Orthodox Wiki, like Wikipedia. God bless you, in Christ!
@@karenbartlett1307 a wonderful and well thoughout comment, thank you for your time.
And yes I too believe that Christ's church is spread wherever His Word is proclaimed. The Lutheran Confessions state that God is at work making Christians everywhere His Word is taught and people are baptised and communed according to God's promise. I understand other traditions may be uncomfortable with this teaching, yet I trust that we are all saved by God's mercy, as you write receiving God's love in our hearts.
And yet it is interesting to hear of those with a larger foretaste of what is to come in the New Creation when we will all rise in our glorified bodies in Christ. Those of my tradition often refrain from speaking of these things in their lives (visions/healings/miraculous), a humility I think perhaps wrongly placed for rather than demphasising those wonders in light of the wonderous promises in the Means of Grace, those wonders of God's work are neglected and forgotten. And yet I wait for the Lord where He has placed me, to learn and try to understand and to serve Him in those around me.
Thanks for those links, that David Goa one is simple to understand; I've enjoyed Father Panagiotis' appraisal of the reformation in 2017, and I'll have to find out about this Ryan Reeves.
Nevertheless, Christ is born tonight and I must prepare.
The peace and joy of His Gospel be with us all!
@@j.g.4942 Amen, brother. Merry Christmas...Christ is born! Thank you, Lord.
That is simply what Calvin and the Reformed call "Union with Christ" I think. Theosis only sounds more mystical to western christians but is not in concept.
Then why does Christ say we will sit upon his throne as he sits upon the throne of his father? Why does paul say we are Gods offspring? Why are we called joint heirs with jesus christ. Mormon view is biblical.
Theosis is a process
Justification is a one time event (once saved, always saved)
So the 2 are theologically incompatible
Because they work in different ways for different (although related purposes) they are incompatible?
@@elijahsmith6508 yes they are incompatible! the orthodoxy is firm in denouncing the protestant movement. it's like mixing oil with water.
@@alfredhitchcock45 I understand that, I'm just meaning logically why couldn't you have both? Knowing that Christ is the way I come to God and find acceptance through His life and death, along with His other promises, gives me confidence to really pursue conformity to His nature. Not from fear of judgment but from freedom to obey righteousness. Not saying you or the orthodox are afraid (in a non holy way) necessarily, just that I believe justification by faith alone produces confidence before God. Not presumptuously, but because it's based on the promise of God.
@@elijahsmith6508 You cannot have both because the Protestant Theology is a heresy and an aberration of faith. The Orthodox Fathers have said it perfectly: "I am being saved". We are being saved, until the end, not a one time event as Luther wanted it to be, that if you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you are already accepted to heaven. No we don't. We are being judged until the end of our lives. That's why Luther wanted to get rid of the Book of St. James, because he wanted to exclude the verse: "Faith without works is dead".
@@alfredhitchcock45 I understand that and would agree with "I'm being saved" as a protestant because Scripture speaks in that manner. However it also declares that we have been saved and been justified through faith in Jesus Christ. I'm aware of Luther and his opinions on James, which I admit is odd because it's not in opposition to what Paul writes in Roman's 3 and 4 of course.
Maybe you can help me. How does an Orthodox Christian know that he is accepted before God? Not everyone attains the highest level of holiness in this life or obeys the commands perfectly, so how do I know I'm accepted before God? Hope that makes sense
Theosis/Christification = A human being is taken up into the eternal love between the Father and the Son, which is the Holy Spirit. God loves a finite creature with infinite, divine love.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father, and is a Person, in fact the third Person of the Trinity, and is not an emotion between Father and Son.
@@karenbartlett1307
As a Divine person (= self-presence of the divine reality), the Holy Spirit connects the Father and the Son. As such, the Holy Spirit is indeed the personal love between the Father and the Son. Why do you think that divine love (which is identical to God) is an "emotion"?
Are you Calvinist?
Jordan Cooper is not a Calvinist. He's a Lutheran.
With all due respect to dr Cooper, theosis theology is synergism, mysticism and enthusiasm or theology of glory par excellence and constitutes the opposite of the lutheran theology and soteriology. When EO speak about theosis doesn't mean ''christification''. If someone thins theosis and christification/sanctification is the same he is our of mind, ignorant of the EO theology and tradition and it's more than obvious that he adds nothing essential on the discussion. Theosis is more subtle and more deep and, be careful, you have to know perfect greek in order to fully embrace the meaning of it. The english language and mentality doesn't help at all. EO theologians, especially russian and greek, consider it to be the absolute truth of EO and the crucial differentiation of it and other christian traditions. I 'd like also to say that speaking so often of the wrong/false/heretical theologies of other christian theologies as ''different traditions'' is a modern/americanized concept and darkens the sound exposition of the right theology.
the more theologically focused a person's mind becomes, the better the memes. This is why based Christians are typically excellent memers.
Lutheransatire is nothing but hilarious memes.
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD AS SINNERS
When we hear the words "Faith comes by hearing God's Word," they
refer to people who hear the proclamation of the Gospel, which tells us that God the Son (Jesus) was sent by God the Father, in human form to die on the cross for the sins of humankind. The message of Christ is made known to us from the Scriptures
(The Bible), and also by the preaching, of the same, by Christian disciples - Ministers or pastors. Either way, humankind is made aware, from Scripture, that we are helpless sinners who deserve God's punishment of eternal damnation. We cannot free ourselves from God's judgement. Christ's death on the cross satisfied the Old Testament demands of the Law and the demands of God's justice (Substitutionary Atonement). Christ voluntarily submitted to God the Father's plan of reconciliation, with humankind, in that our sin and judgement was laid on Christ who took our punishment for our sins, and forgave us, and He conquered death through His resurrection (Objective justification). Christ now pours into our hearts, His Word, which is proclaimed from the Bible (God's Word) to sinful people, which causes the hearers to have faith in Christ's message, and by their faith, sinners become truly penitent (Sorry), and they confess their sin to Christ, and turn (Repent) from their sins (Subjective justification) by accepting what Christ did for us through the power of the Holy Ghost, and we are in fellowship with God. God the Son (Christ) is the way through which God the Father forgives our sins, and He has cleansed us and removed our judgement, and has conquered sin, death, and the devil. The spoken words of the forgiveness of sins, which are received by sinful people who are truly penitent, are from John 20: 19-23.
Jesus said unto Mary Magdalene (John 20: 17) "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God, and your God." Jesus came to the disciples who were assembled (John 20: 19), and said to them "Peace be unto you," and the disciples were glad and they knew that this was the Lord Jesus.
Jesus said (John 20: 21), "As my Father hath sent me, even so I send you, and the Holy Ghost was given to the disciples when Jesus breathed on them, and they received the Holy Ghost (John 20: 22).
In John 20: 23, Jesus said, to the disciples, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." This is not to be interpreted as the absolving of sin by a priest, when the priest or pastor falsely believes that he or she has power to remitt or retain someone's sins. Instead, the context is that the disciples were given power to proclaim that Christ paid for humankind's sin
(Objective justification), which includes the disciples, who had already accepted that Christ remitted their sins. Sinful people who receive the disciples' message of Christ, have received that their sins are remitted by Christ, and the disciples can also make this proclamation. Sinful people who reject Christ's message of peace with God, their sins are retained, and this can also be proclaimed by the disciples.
In Luke 7: 37-50, we read about the stingy pharisee named Simon, who is not to be confused with the disciple named Peter. Simon's discernment, of the woman who visited Jesus, was that she was a sinner (retained; not forgiven). Jesus reminded Simon that it was He (Christ) who forgave both the woman's sin and Simon's sin. Jesus said unto the woman "Thy sins are forgiven," and He said
"Thy faith has saved thee: go in peace." When we are in fellowship with God as Christians, we become more focused, not on our continued will to sin, but on God's will to save. We begin to discover the Biblical pattern of worship, prayer, and fellowship.
Devotion is fellowship with God through Adoration (Worship), Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication, either done privately,
or in public fellowship (Church). When the elements of bread and wine (Communion) are included in The Thanksgiving, this is part of the same fellowship. Christ, who is present in a hidden way, but present in a visible way by Christ's own words, gives His body and blood to us (Sacrament), by His own grace (Not earned by us), to be received by us; He says "Take eat;" and
"Drink (1 Corinthians 11: 24-25)." The Church bodies who do not admitt visitors to the Communion part of public fellowship, unless the guests are absolved by a pastor or priest, refuse to believe, by faith, that it is Christ who has invited both pastors and congregants to fellowship. Christ alone is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (John 1: 29); God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53: 6).
Christ's righteousness, which is His own righteousness, comes from Christ, but remains outside of us, and it is merely imputed to us, rather than infused into us. Said Luther, "God pours out Christ his dear Son over us and pours Himself into us and draws us into Himself, so that he becomes completely humanified and we become completely deified and everything is altogether one thing, God, Christ, you." True, Christians are righteous and fully deified, but the righteousness and deification, imputed to us by Christ,
is not yet revealed to us on this side of eternity. As long as we live here on earth, sin stays with us, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we wrestle against sin, and it is by this that we have cause for hope. We may understand Paul to be saying, in
Romans 8: 24-25, that we wait in the spirit, through faith, for the righteousness that we hope for, which in due time will be revealed to us. This does not require deeds of further cleansing
(Penance), or continually attaining higher levels of perfection and unity with God, by following a false notion of us becoming a god (Becoming Deified). We are already fully cleansed and fully deified through the merits of Christ's substitutionary atonement.
Ascetism or the gradual attaining of higher levels of deity is supported by the Satisfaction Atonement Theory, the Re-capitulation Atonement Theory, and the Ransom Atonement Theory. Very quickly explained, the Ransom theory teaches the release from prison, meaning the death of Christ was the payment to Satan to have humankind released from prison.
The Satisfaction Atonement theory is the teaching in Roman Catholic theology, which draws from the works of Anselm; it holds that Jesus Christ redeemed humanity by making satisfaction for humankind's disobedience, with His own obedience, by an act of payment beyond what is needed or asked (Supererogation). The satisfaction theory teaches that Christ forgave original sin, which is the inward sin of all human souls, but we must pay a human price for actual sins committed outwardly. Thomas Aquinas articulated this idea of salvation, that justifying grace is provided through penance, which are deeds done, after repentance, like contrition with the determination to never sin again, or performance of some act to repair the damage caused by sin, called Reparation: A payment of money, sacraments, ceremonies, sacrifices, works.
The Re-capitulation Atonement theory is in keeping with the Ascetism of Irenaeus; the keeping of this theory, by John Climacus who created the "Ladder Of Divine Ascent" icon, is the theology that the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts. Irenaeus said of Jesus: "He became what we are, that He might bring us to even what He is Himself."
We do not become, and we do not rise to higher levels of divinity,
and eventually become fully deified. Since Christ cleansed us from our sins, there is no cleansing that further takes place.
Our sins and judgement were laid on Christ and Christ overcame death. When we acknowledge what Christ did for us on the cross,
and when we trust Christ, and confess our sins to Christ, and turn(Repent) from our sins, by the power of the Holy Ghost, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us from Christ himself, and Christ has fully cleansed and deified us. None of this is yet realized by us, because we are dealing with the remaining presence of our sinful will, where we will, either knowingly or unknowingly, to walk out of fellowship with God, which is why we must return to fellowship with the Lord our God through confession to Him by faith and believing by faith that Christ took our judgement for us. Confession, receiving of forgiveness and the Holy Ghost to empower us to turn from our sins, is not a "One-time" occurrence. Now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3: 2).
Informative video. Free google book recommendation: The Divine Secret of Nothing by Vincent Morales
I believe Christ CAN/DOES "Live IN/THROUGH Me". "THIS" is "Being Christ"(ian). In "THIS WAY" Christ "Actually Lives"! "THIS" is what makes it so important for us to "get out of the way" and learn to "accept Christ" for "UNSELFISH Reasons"("NOT"- just so that i get to live forever)!
7:00 c'mon dr cooper smh
Apotheosis sounds a lot like that first lie... You will be like G-ds.. similar I think.
I recently became very interested in the idea of Theosis and the Christian life being a process of being unified with Christ; it started because I have a working/developing theory that Harry Potter is the story of theosis/the Christian (Harry), saint and sinner that he is, bearing his cross and participating in the sufferings of Christ. It's still a very nascent theory but there is a lot of interesting stuff there. I do not claim that Rowling intentionally hid this message within the series, though it's possible. Either way it's fun to compare the life of Harry with Scripture.
To be sure, it's tricky. I would say well hidden. He is called the chosen one, said that he must die in order to destroy the enemy. So people assume that he is a picture of Christ himself. And that may be one intepretation. Yet, Harry in my mind is the perfect picture of the Saint and Sinner believer clinging to faith while struggling along the way. I intepret his christological identies as pointing to Christ in him rather than himself. Harry was able to die because he was died for by the sacrificial love of his parents.
Protestantism teaches that God can only be HEARD about or READ about in the Bible, which it confuses with The Word of God = Christ Himself - hence, as it substitutes the Bible for God Himself. God cannot be SEEN or MET, whereas THEOSIS = TRANSFIGURATION is the VISIBILITY [or VISION] of Christ Almighty as He is in Himself. Becoming a god is what Theosis is & Christ deliberately point to the Psalm of Asaph 81 [82 in some texts] in which the gods are cast down, to confound the Pharisees and those with strict Unitarian beliefs. As St Athanasius so rightly put it: God became man so men could become God - i.e. - God by Increate Grace, which differs considerably from the "created Grace" of western Christendom. It's NOT "Christification" but gods in power, intellect, holiness etc.
So we become by grace what God is by nature.....but not really? This sounds like theology jumping through hoops to explain away apotheosis, which is really what the symbolism of the divine council represents. If we partake of christ's nature then we are a god by grace.
Was theosis/Christification not possible before the incarnation?
Imagio Dei to Imagio Christi. All are in the Imagio Dei. Those in Christ are Imagio Christi.
Cannot be"explained"...can omly be experienced.
Indeed, we Are already, it needs just to be seen.
Is this pointed out, directly, in a christian tradition, i wonder.
Phenomenological and not logical
Protestantism seems to me to be a faith of addendums added many hundred years afterwards. “We’re apostolic! But not on all these sacramental, doctrinal, and ecclesiastical ways.” It is certainly true that the Reformation made every man a Pope. The sheer pride of it all!
The Reformation didn't turn every man into a Pope. It turned the Pope into every man.
Have you spoken to a Lutheran? they are EXTREMELY sacramental.
Something protestants won't obtain
I like your sense of reason. You are obviously intelligent. I say that simply because online is a gamble. I wanted to convey something from my own experience on this issue. When you start defining christification and go on to say it grows through.faith and connection with the church and its rotuals as such, I must disagree to a small extent. Being saved is the moment of christification itself and not when we are baptised in a promise of pursueing God to lead.us through.faith. In my.mind the faith is what.gets you there for sure but the event itself is pretty final and sees the end of any need for faith because God actually.comes.to you first proving his reality in full and very personally, and then comes the effect that has on you, which is an event of stagering proportions. From then on, we are actually.saved as children of God. Jews do a.similar thing to Christians, in contrast, by considering themselves children of God before the evnt itself. As a result, I feel, it means they never get there because they think they simpl6 serve the idea of Gods grace and goodness. It certainly earns us brownie points spiritually but alone it cannot save us. Angels are.extremely intelligent and not half baked intellectually. Our understanding of the natural order is important to recognize the distinctions between what is physical and what is spiritual. This is the issue that concerns Christification. Our ability to understand how they are one and the same but in two oppozite states at once. Their unification while in Gods direct company is what Christifies us. Gods being expands from us, taking us with him, in the event. I hope this.gives food for thought at the least. Ppl dont usually beleive that anyone has gone through.it and dont recognize the experience is repeated in the Bible many times: Rev 6:12 for instance, is a very succinct version. Much obliged for the video.
Theosis comes from eastern orthodox lot of lutherans coming orthodox because they want the church Christ gave to the apostles
Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef would not even understand this persian/greek slop.
He’s pretty smart… I’m sure he will figure it out
Peter explains what he is alluding to when he shares that we can become partakers of the divine nature. That is interpreted by the context of II Peter 1. The Christians graces that follows is clearly what Peter had in mind. The Eastern Orthodox take it to extremes in saying that God became man and that we become God. Not even close. Theologians have divided the attributes of God into communicable and non-communicable. That is an excellent reminder. We can't ever become God, God is eternal, uncreatesd and we humans are created and began in a point in time; God has not. God is Almighty and truly eternal, and will remain so. Even though we are to have love, His divine love can only be in us in a limited way, never as large as God's love. St. Stephen was martyred and prayed like Jesus when he was being stoned. That was an outward example of displaying the character of Christ. We are to exemplify His character. That is probably as close as it gets in reality. We fall far short of that ideal. Anything we teach that is not replicated in real life is a bunch of hot air and merely theoretical.
BEGOME ORDODOX
"God" WANTS TO "MANifest" upon this earth via "Kingdom". God "NEEDS US" in order to do this. For if "ungodly" man continues upon "HIS way" this place is Doomed! "MAN" CAN DESTROY THIS PLACE SEVERAL TIMES OVER!!!! We MUST "Be Filled" with GOD'S "Spirit"! "See" clearly! And set things aright... "the hour is late"!
More and more is progression uh..m Catholic
Interesting. God became man so man could become...human?
Yes. This is exactly what protestabtism confesses: Christ came to restore man into the prototype: Adam before the Fall.
Buah... I abhor of such a God...
I’m not sure if I understood your final comment. Sorry.
Protestsnts understand participation in God in a moral sense, Orthodoxy in a TRUE sense and Catholics in a “via media” sense (created grace and so on).
I am roman catholic myself but I increasingly preceive that official Roman theology is a via media between the TRUTH (lets say the true Tradition as maintained mostly by Orthodoxy) and the ERROR (lets say those opinions originated by Saint Augustine and maintained by protestants).
Thank you fo clarifying your statement.
We are to become the living word. If you read, and exercise the word you will grow into expressing attributes of your heavily Father. Christ tells us, Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect. If we adhere to the word, those things that Christ did we will do also
Yes, we do become God.
No we don't.
@@regpharvey Deification is a belief of the Early Church.
"What I define as Theosis." Can't get past what you said. You reference the Orthodox Church and how Theosis is an Orthodox term, go on to explain what St. Antanosis said about it and then rediffine it by how you define Theosis. Madness.
Creepy idea that you have to get changed mystically on the inside why does this weird thing have to happen?
Really its staying in constant communion with God and praying ceaselessly that transforms you.
It is not secret Saint Paul said pray ceaselessly.
Because that is how Christ changes us
@@jakelerms1935
Always praying is already a weirdness. Why do we have to stay in communion ( whatever that means) with God. I thought God could do that without our help. Oh I see - sanctification by works. Wait a minute it's s God who changes us? It ain't working
@@mysticmouse7261 You don't understand sanctification or obedience to Scripture. "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." (II Cor. 6: 17). Human responsibility is not foreign to Scripture or taboo.
@@louisaccardi6808 our sanctification being conditional on human endeavour contradicts the Lutheran confession.
@@mysticmouse7261 Are the Lutheran Confessions the final court of authority? What does the Bible teach? Does Biblical theology inform us here about sanctification? There are too many injunctions in New Testament theology that indicate that sanctification is based on obedience to the word of God. "Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently:" (I Peter 1: 22 ASV). "Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (II Cor. 7: 1 ASV). "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication;" (I Thess. 4: 3 NRSV). In addition, consider Hebrews 12: 14. John 17: 17. The sections of the N.T. on this topic are too broad to include here.
Oh no. Go East young man. Luther did not promote mystical union. The biggest problem aside from its mystical creepiness is that it doesn't happen. You're so obviously not LCMS. Something's off here.
The mystical union is spoken about and preached on in nearly all early LCMS sources. Walther has numerous sermons on the doctrine.
@@DrJordanBCooper Not in the Concordia - give me a Luther quote that promotes this clearly Eastern doctrine.
@@thethikboy Luther promoted a work called the Theologica Germanica that emphasizes this notion of total union to God mystically. Yes. Luther did.
@@johnnywatson4914 "total" union "to"? God. I doubt it. That's a huge claim. For Luther, its aberrant. Because he hardly promoted mysticism anywhere else. It's considered a heresy. The most you can prove with that reference is that Luther contradicted himself. It's nonetheless creepy.
WE MUST ALL REALIZE THE KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN
JESUS SAID he that over comes shall I grant to sit on the throne as I overcame on and sit next to the Father. God never condemned man for want to be like God. Early Christian believe we will be a God. God condemned Satan for trying to rule OVER God. .How clear can Orthodox Bishops make it teaching that Christians will be a God. Even have their own Universe. This guy is twisting the scriptures to hide the fact that Mormons are correct.
How dishonest!
THEOSIS REFUTED
If theosis was taught by the early church, and what point do you say Italy "stopped believing it"??? Tell us what the Catholics "departed from the doctrine". That question is proof your claims are bunk.
Like junk such as "the miracle of holy fire" (faked annually) Theosis is becoming an embarrassment to Orthodoxy, so now you are trying to deny what it is to shapeshift your way out of heresy.
ha ha - how pathetic, more Evangelicalism "personal relationship with God". You are trying to change heresy and clone it into our beliefs. You are simply liars - completely embarrassed about the doctrinal cowpat of theosis. It is pure demonic blasphemous evil.
You are not a Christian yourself, you accept Jesus as your semi Saviour, and make yourself and so called priests Co Saviours. Blasphemy against Jesus, who is our one and only Saviour. see this website for total proof....
www.easternorthodoxchristian.com/
Jesusandbible - you sound so hateful and bitter. You don't know zip about Orthodoxy and don't seem to have an open heart at this time. Hopefully your hard heart will soften to the truth someday.
My website about Orthodoxy proves it is false....
www.easternorthodoxchristian.com/
the doctrine of Theosis is not "becoming more Christlike" which both Protestants, Catholics and Evangelicals believe. That is just the Orthodox trying to shapeshift their way out of their blasphemy.
I said already Catholics and Protestants believe similar. You are just disguising the trash Orthodoxy believe, which like the fake miracle of Holy Fire is becoming an embarrassment. Plenty more junk doctrine to deal with, like chrism, the magic potion that gives eternal life to babies, possessed only by the wizards of Orthodoxy.
Your chrism has about 40 ingredients, and is only seen as Chrism when your phony bishops prayed over it. Are you saying olive oil used to anoint the sick in Evangelical churches is chrism? Thus no need for all the prayer and 40 ingredients whatever? Its witchcraft. Calls it that in Revelation "by her sorceries were all nations deceived". The junk you get deceived by.
Jesusandbible quit shoving your heresies down our throats we do not need your cult that you have created
Jonathan E are you calling me an idiot? Or jesusandbible, because either way throwing insults is not bringing anything substantial to the conversation
@@atanasiogreene8493 what is your problem with the orthodox church?