- Nov 11, 2022
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Isn't it hard to say we are partakers of the divine nature yet say we will not be divine?We shall never be "divine", but we have partaken of God and His life. We have, through Jesus, been brought into fellowship--communion--with the Holy Trinity.
I think as long as we are PARTAKERS of the divine nature, that will make us divine by nature.
It was purchased FOR us. We were not inherently divine.
There are SPECTATORS.
There are ADMIRERS.
There are OBSERVERS.
Peter goes beyond these to say the Christians are PARTAKERS - taking part of that divine nature.
The more we use it to escape the corruption in the world the more partakers we become.
" . . . exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the vorrution which is in the world through lust." (2 Pet. 1:4)
Yes it is not dehumanizizing but rather making us human according to what God MEANT by human being.The Christian doctrine is Theosis, never dehumanization or apotheosis.
God placed man before "the tree of life." Though man forfieted temporarily his right to take in the life of God we see it was the inention of the Creator that man WOULD.
By reading just Genesis is is not easy to see this. In light of the whole Bible the essence of this tree of life is enlightened to us.
It must have stood for the very life of God. For God from creation of man wanted to join with, live in, indwell man as His living vessel.
St. Athanasius on his work on the Incarnation says that He (the Logos, our Lord Jesus) was "made man" (ἐνηνθρώπησεν, in-humanity-ed), so that we might be θεοποιηθῶμεν (divinized, God-ified, "made divine"). The whole locus is the Incarnation, God coming and sharing in our humanity that, in Him, we might share in His Deity. Never that we stop being human, never that we become "divine" in the way that God is Divine but that we, as St. Peter says, have partaken of the divine nature--by God's grace, by our union with Christ and having His life. It is about sharing in, participation with, it's about communion and fellowship; God sharing Himself with us in the Incarnate Jesus, as pure grace.
-CryptoLutheran
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