Here's a good read on theosis (not written by me, PM me if you want the source link to this since I can't post it):
Union with God :
Theosis · Divinization · Deification
A couple of years ago, I made a trip to meet a friend with whom I'd become acquainted through this website. Over pizza, our conversation turned to God. I began sensing that her experience of God was a class apart, that she was always in God's presence. I asked her to describe what her relationship with God felt like, and she whispered in awe-struck amazement, "It feels . . . like there's no difference between us!"
That was my first encounter with someone who had become spiritually awakened. Union with God was once considered the goal of the Christian life. If you're not familiar with the idea of spiritual awakening or divine union in this life, this page will challenge you. (Just don't flame me until you've read it carefully, including the references.) ;-)
A Gift and Calling by God's Grace
Theosis, (also called divinization, deification, or transforming union) was one of the most important of early Christian doctrines, but it has become such a well-kept secret, that is nearly unknown to most contemporary laymen. It means participating in, and partaking of, God's Divinity. It is likely to sound so alien to our ears that we might quickly dismiss it as some heresy, rather than realize this is the heart of the Christian calling.
Yet, from the first chapter of Genesis, to Christ the Word of God, through the Apostles, to numerous saints, theologians, and Christian writers throughout the centuries and today, the message is clear: God made us to be like him, wants us to become like Him, and will ultimately transform us into being like him. From the second-century St. Ireneaus, to the twentieth-century C. S. Lewis, some theologians have used the most shocking language to bring home how shocking this gift of God is: "becoming gods," or even "becoming God."
Becoming God doesn't mean we become all-knowing, all-powerful, or that we remember saying "let there be light." It really means becoming Christ, or becoming divinethat God's God-ness is experienced and known not as something outside and separate, but as a part of our own being. It means knowing God as Jesus knew the Father, so like Jesus, we are with him, fully human, and fully divine.
This is a difficult teaching to accept at first. It is one thing to think of ourselves as children of God in the sense that, like all creation, we ultimately come from God. But it is quite another to believe in the biblical usage of the words children and sons, because their implications of likeness, growing up, and inheritance are much stronger than that. "the power to become children of God," (John 1:12) indicates something much more than the fact that he created us.
It would be less shocking to consider this transformation a purely moral one: that our goal of "godness" just means "goodness" or "godliness," in the moral sense, coupled with the reward of eternal life, another divine quality.
It certainly is that, but the indications from both Scripture and Tradition are that it is much morea transforming union with God that makes us also Christ, at once human and divine, as Jesus was. This is the completion and perfection of salvation, to become Sons and Daughters of God with, within, and like him, the Son of God.
Children of God
Paul teaches that as Adam was the first man, so Christ is the "last Adam," superseding all that has come before. All who are born in him will be children of God, so even more surely than we are children of Adam, we are the children of Christ. Elsewhere, he describes us as being given the "spirit of sons," and declares that "the Spirit and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children, we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christs, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory." (Rom. 8:15-17) Sharing his glory. I don't know how many times I might have read that or heard that without letting it hit me. We will share his glory!
Theosis is described in Scripture in many wayschildren inheriting from their Father and growing up to be like their Father is just one example. This is present even in the first chapter of the Bible. After God creates animal life by telling the earth to produce every kind of creature (Gen. 1-24-25), God does something completely different with man. He makes man directly, not indirectly, and makes him "male and female" to be like him, charged with ruling the rest of creation. (1:26-27) The implication is man is a little god, by the grace of God. (Of course, Genesis 3 describes how something went wrong with that!)
Bride of Christ
Another image is the "divine marriage." Jesus is the Lover of the Church and the Christian soul. He is the Bridegroom and we are the Bride. He will marry us, and we will become one with him. Jesus repeatedly described himself as the Bridegroom, probably bringing up the powerful love imagery of the Song of Songs to his listeners' minds. This image of theosis carries with it a powerful message of what changes usChrist's unfailing and total passion for us. Theosis is considered the fruition of grace and love, nothing that comes to us by right or by nature. Our union with Christ is passionate, ardent, joyous and life-giving.
Paul describes this transformation of love as leading to a union so profound there are no barriers: "the two will become one body...This mystery applies to Christ and the Church" (Eph. 5:31-32), which leads us to...
The Body of Christ
This image goes even farther in bringing home the depth and immediacy of theosisthe Body of Christ. This is the one we are probably most familiar with, and maybe we have become too familiar with it to be shocked by its spiritual implications. Bridegroom and bride will share their bodies intimately, but a persistent theme in Paul's revelation is that Christ lives in our bodies, and together, we are his body.
In other words, the Incarnation was not a just a one-time event, but is the pattern of how Christ chooses to work on Earth. As God the Son was incarnate in Jesus, the risen Christ indwells us, enfleshed in all his people. He literally lives within these cells of skin and blood. And if Christ, who is both human and divine, lives within us, we become both human and divine as well. A book title I saw recently said it wellOne Jesus, Many Christs. Or, in Jesus' own words "I am the vine, you are the branches." How close is a living branch of a vine to that vine? It is part of the very same organism!
The divinized Christian is a living Eucharist, a vessel presenting God's spirit to the world, constantly welling up within them. He is transforming this world, by living within us, and we are his hands, feet, and mouths. Instead of asking why God allows so much suffering on Earth, we should ask ourselves why we allow it!
Light of the World
Another image of theosis is seen in the use of the words sun and light. Jesus identified himself as "the light of the world," yet on another occasion called his disciples the light of the world." John teaches us that He is the "true light that enlightens every one" (Jn.1:9) Paul says we are like mirrors that not only reflect God's brightness, but which are transformed into the light which they reflect.(2 Cor. 3:17-18)Theosis and the Second Coming
There are many more Biblical images of this wonderful work of God. He changes us like living water welling up within us, by living in him and he in us, by knowing him, and by becoming his brothers, just to name a few more.
Theosis has eschatological implications which are seldom addressed. Christ is returning. and his parousia (literally presence, but usually mistranslated as "coming") will be bodily. But his body has changed. We are his body. Is the man-sized form of Jesus of Nazareth the central part of his return, or does it have something to do with a divine manifestation of him throughout his whole body, a body of millions and millions of members, a body which covers the earth, which he longs and prays for to become more and more perfect, more holy, manifesting him more clearly, for the purpose of ultimately bringing in everyone?
A Pentecostal minister, J. Preston Eby, examines this idea in depth. Looking for His Appearing is a series of 48 booklets now available on the Web containing well over 250 pages of intense Biblical examination of the ideas of parousia and theosis, written from a (very) conservative Protestant perspective. As of yet I have found absolutely no better resource for the Biblical evidence of theosis.
Eby contends that many of the "end-time" prophecies concerning the return of Christ, are fulfilled by the ultimate revelation and perfecting of Christ's presence in us. Eby's insights are sometimes astounding:he points out that the word astrapê translated as "lightning" in Matt. 24:27 (one of the main "proof texts" that supposedly show the parousia of Christ is a sudden event), is the same word translated as "shining" in Luke 11:33) With this in mind, context indicates that the image is not of lightning, but of sunrise. A better translation would be:If, then, they say to you, "Look, he is in the desert," do not go there; "Look, he is in some hiding place," do not believe it; because the presence (parousia) of the Son of Man will be like shining (astrapê) in the east and illuminating (phanetai) far into the west. (Matt. 24:26-27 Jerusalem Bible, my substitutions)When the mistranslations are corrected, the emphasis shifts from suddenness to the gradual dawning of the Presence of the Lord. Thinking that he could be secretly "here" or "there," is contrasted with His Presence revealed unmistakably everywhere. Eby has hundreds of other thought-provoking examples as well.
Matthew Fox, an Episcopal priest known for his many works on Christian mysticism, agrees. The final section of his masterwork, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, is titled "A Vision of the Second Coming," and considers the coming of the Kingdom of God to be the work of the God's children acting in their divinization, restoring the Earth and rebuilding all human institutions to eliminate hunger, hopelessness, and violence.
I have come to believe that God has also entrusted us with far more of the responsibility of saving the world than we might commonly suppose. He is the vine, we are the branches. He is the Light of the world, and we are the bulbs through whom it shines through. Christ is creating little Christs, flooding the world with mini-Christs, and our responsibility is transform ourselves and our world through the love of Christ, and the light of Christ, the Good News of Christ, into ever more and more Christedness. Theosis is one more reason why I believe the "emergency airlift" idea of "the Rapture" is completely mistaken.
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