Theosis: the Heart of Christianity

1. Definition of Theosis

The word theosis (Gk.) means “[the process of] becoming like God,”1 the term itself
being derived from theos, the Greek word for God. The equivalent words derived from
Latin are divinization, or deification (deus is the Latin word for God). Therefore, theosis =
deification, and to be deified is the same as saying to become like God. Though the word
theosis is not found in the Scriptures (like other words, e.g., Trinity,
homoousios/consubstantial [in the Creed2], catholic, Theotokos,3 or Orthodox), theosis is used
to express the meaning of Scripture in the Church’s confession and practice of the
Christian Faith.

The teaching of theosis is embedded in the creation of human beings. Then God said, “Let
us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of
the sea, over the birds of heaven, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that moves on the earth…Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen.
1:26-28). Image (Gk., eikon; that is, icon) denotes an exact representation containing, or
conveying, the qualities of the original. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the image of the
invisible God (Col. 1:15; 2 Cor. 4:4), the brightness of [God’s] glory and the express image of
His person (Heb. 1:3). Human beings are made in God’s image, an image of the Image who
is the Son and Word (Gk., Logos4) of God. This means that human beings are created
with the ability to relate and reflect the things of God in Christ.

Likeness (Gk., homoiosis; that is, similitude [Jam. 3:9]) denotes a dynamic capability in the
human person. St. John of Damascus writes: “From the earth [God] formed his body
and by His own inbreathing (cf. Gen. 2:7) gave him a rational and understanding soul,
which last we say is the divine image – for the ‘according to His image’ means intellect
and free will, while the ‘according to His likeness’ means likeness in virtue as is
possible” (An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith II.12).5 God gave the first man,
Adam, the command concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to exercise

1 In the formation of Greek nouns, the –osis ending denotes process; other examples of nouns with these
endings are: metamorphosis (the process of change), necrosis (the process of death/decay), and scoliosis (the
process of curvature).
2 Homoousios is usually rendered with the phrase “of one essence.”

3 The title given to the Virgin Mary meaning “Birthgiver-of-God.”

4 Cf. John 1:1-18. The Greek logos translated into English as “word” carries the various senses of that

term, notably, “reckoning, measure, relation, explanation, principle, reason, or rationale.”

5 Saint John of Damascus Writings, trans. by Frederic H. Chase, Jr., (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic

University of America Press, 1958), pg. 235.

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himself in virtue according to the likeness of God (Gen. 2:15-17). Adam had dominion
over all the earth as if he were God there; men and women were to fill the earth and subdue
it according to God’s will. God brought all the animals to Adam to see what he would call
them (Gen. 2:19), an exercise of the wisdom and knowledge of God entrusted to the
man.

A person experiences theosis, or is deified, when he or she lives according to God’s

original purpose and design. As such, theosis is the realization of being a child of God
the Father, the source of all being (cf. Luke 3:38); it is living as a reflection of the
template of personal existence who is the Son of God, the Image of the Father, and it is
continuously seeking perfection in that life by the operation of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gen.
2:7). Concerning this fact, St. Seraphim of Sarov explains: “The point is, that if the Lord
God had not breathed afterwards into his face this breath of life (that is, the grace of our
Lord God the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son and is sent
into the world for the Son’s sake), Adam would have remained without having within
him the Holy Spirit who raises him to Godlike dignity…when the Lord God breathed
into Adam’s face the breath of life, then, according to Moses’ word, Adam became a
living soul (Gen. 2:7), that is, completely and in every way like God, and like Him,
forever immortal.”6

6Quoted in An Extraordinary Peace St. Seraphim, Flame of Sarov, by Archimandrite Lazarus [Moore], (Port
Townsend, WA: Anaphora Press, 2009), pg. 122.

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2. The Biblical Explanation of Theosis

a. A Negative Example

The Biblical explanation of theosis begins with a negative example. The falsification of
theosis and its consequences gives way to a restoration of theosis and its realization in the
life of the Christian person.

After the initial creation of man and woman, and the command by God to abstain from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in order to exercise themselves in the life
given by God, the woman was tempted by Satan to disobey God’s command. The devil
deceived the woman with the allure of a false theosis. Then the serpent said to the woman,
“You shall not die by death. For God knows in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4-5).

What happened? So when the woman saw the tree was good for food, was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree beautiful to contemplate, she took its fruit and ate. She also gave it to her husband
with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew they were naked. So
they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings (Gen. 3:6-7). They were
ashamed, hid themselves from God and, when confronted by God, blamed the other for
transgressing God’s command, ultimately shifting responsibility of the fall to God
Himself (Adam said, “The woman You gave me…”; Gen. 3:8-13).

For God created man for immortality and made him an image of His own eternity. But death
entered the world by the envy of the devil, and those of his portion tempt it (Wisdom of
Solomon 2:25-26). Rather than becoming like God in grace and virtue, Adam and Eve
succumbed to the temptation of envying God’s own status. Through greed and self-
indulgence, they wanted to be their own gods independent of the Creator. The result
was no longer life as given by God, but death from choosing to liken themselves to
Satan who rebelled against the true God and arrogated to himself a position of equality
with God (cf. Isa. 14:12-15; John 8:44; 2 Cor. 4:4; Rev. 20:2). Thus the devil and his
angels were cast out of heaven, and his human followers were cast out of paradise,
separated from their former living communion with God.

Professing to be wise, [human beings] became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible
God into an image made like corruptible man…who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and
worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Rom.
1:23, 25). Man turned his desire for divinity to himself – a creature – and abandoned the
only authentic source of divinity, namely, the uncreated God. In other words, man

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forsook genuine theosis as an icon of God, and he chose false deification in the service of
creation, making himself an idol (lit., an idea of godhood contained in created form).7

b. The Relationship between Uncreated and Created

God simply reveals Himself as I AM the Existing One (Ex. 3:14; lit., I am, the Being One
[the One who Is]).8 He is eternal, immortal, invisible…who alone is wise…who alone has
immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be
honor and everlasting power (1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16). Clouds and darkness surround Him (Ps.
96[97]:2; cf. Ex. 20:21; Deut. 5:22). The Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard
the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice (Deut. 4:12).

God by nature, or essence, is infinite, invisible, incomprehensible, and ultimately

unknowable to any creature because God is uncreated and beyond any created form or
concept.9 There is no similarity whatsoever between God and anything created, which

7 The prohibition of idols is not the prohibition of making images per se but the command not to worship
any creature as if it were God. You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in heaven above, or
in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them (Ex. 20:4-5;
Deut. 5:8-9). Many images (i.e., icons) were permitted, and even commanded, to be made in Israel: the
tabernacle and temple, Ark of the covenant (with the lid of cherubim [i.e., angels]; Ex. 25-27), the Altar
and Laver (with oxen underneath; 3 Kgs.[1 Kg.] 7:13), the copper (or, bronze) serpent (Num. 21:8), etc.
Human endeavor is to be iconic, not idolatrous. “You see that the law and everything it commanded and
all our own practices are meant to sanctify the work of our hands, leading us through matter to the
invisible God” (St. John of Damascus, Second Apology Against Those Who Attack the Divine Icons, 23). “For
nothing else so soils the work of God and makes unclean what is clean as the deification of creation and
the worshiping of it as equal to God the Creator and Maker” (St. Symeon the New Theologian, First
Ethical Discourse, 2).
8 Gk., Ἐώἰὃὦ(ego eimi hoōn); this was written in Hebrew as Yahweh, meaning “He who Is,” and is

usually represented in English Bibles with the word LORD (all capital letters; see the introduction, or
preface, to the English editions of the Bible). See also Rev. 1:4. Orthodox icons of Jesus Christ have the
Greek words ὃ ὦ(ho ōn – “He who Is”) around Christ’s head clearly identifying Him as God.
9 The Divine Liturgy describes God as “incomparable, incomprehensible, immeasurable, inexpressible,

ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, ever-existing and eternally the same, who brought us from non-
existence into being” (The Divine Liturgy According to St. John Chrysostom, Second Edition, [South Canaan,
PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1977], pp. 31, 62-63). “The basic category of Christian thought is the
clear distinction between the created and the uncreated together with the teaching that between the
created and the uncreated there is absolutely no similarity. This is not only the fundamental doctrine of
the Patristic tradition (i.e., the Fathers of the Church), but also of the Jewish tradition until today”
(Patristic Theology, by Protopresbyter John S. Romanides, trans. Hieromonk Alexis Trader, [Dulles, OR:
Uncut Mountain Press, 2008], pg. 71). “Every created nature is far removed from and completely foreign
to the divine nature. For if God is nature, other things are not nature; but if every other thing is nature,
He is not a nature, just as He is not a being if all other things are beings. And if you accept this as true
also for wisdom, goodness, and in general all things that pertain to God or are ascribed to Him, then your
theology will be correct and in accordance with the saints” (St. Gregory Palamas, Topics of Natural and

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includes literally everything else that is; anything other than God has been brought into
being by God and is created and defined within the limits of creation. In the beginning
God made heaven and earth (Gen. 1:1).

Who, or what, God is as the uncreated, incomprehensible Being includes His simple
unitary essence and the fact that God is plural, that is, Three-in-One. Already in the first
chapter of Genesis, the tri-personal nature of God is revealed. There is God and the
Spirit of God (Gen. 1:1-2). God speaking to Himself says, “Let Us make man in Our
image” (Gen. 1:26; italics mine); as stated above (see page 1; John 1:1-3), the image of
God is the Son and Word (Gk., Logos) of God. Thus God is One and Three: God-Word-
Spirit.

As the Scriptures unfold, God is identified as Lord and Father (Deut. 32:6; Ps. 88[89]:27;
Isa. 63:16). The Son is identified as the Word (or, Voice) and Angel of the Lord (Gen. 15:1,
4; 16:7-14; Ex. 3:2, 14; Isa. 9:5). The Spirit is the Holy Spirit (Gen. 6:3; Ps. 50[51]:13; Ez.
2:2). The Father is the source and unity of the Divine Essence (1 Cor. 8:6) from whom
the Son is begotten (John 1:14, 18), and from whom the Spirit proceeds and rests in the
Son (John 15:26). The Persons (Gk., Hypostaseis10) of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are
distinct yet co-equal and of one essence, fully God, one Person neither superior nor
inferior to the others in any way pertaining to the Divine Being. “The Unity and the
Trinity are both affirmed and conceived as truly one and the same, the first denoting the
principle of essence, the second the mode of existence” (St. Maximos the Confessor, On
the Lord’s Prayer).11

Though the uncreated (i.e., God) and the created (i.e., everything else) are completely
distinct and have no similarity whatsoever, God enables creatures – in particular,
humankind - truly to know Him and participate in His divine life. For thus says the Lord
who made heaven – this is the God who formed the earth and made it. He established it, and did
not make it in vain, but formed it to be inhabited – I Am, and there is no other. I have not spoken

Theological Science, 78 [from The Philokalia, Vol. 4, trans and ed. by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and
Kallistos Ware, (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), pg. 382)].
10 The preferred Church term for person is hypostasis (sing.; pl., hypostaseis). In the ancient world, the word

person (Lat., persona; Gk., prosopon) originally referred to an actor’s mask, or characterization. Hypostasis,
originally a synonym for the word for essence (Gk., ousia), referred to a subsistence, or distinct entity, which
shared the same essence, not merely something appearing with a certain persona. For instance, each
human being – John, Mary, Peter, etc. – is a distinct hypostasis sharing the same essence with every other
human being. Eventually according to usage the word person became synonymous with hypostasis;
however, the Church prefers hypostasis when confessing the Trinity of Persons in God because of the
greater precision of the term.
11 Op. cit., The Philokalia, Vol. 2, pg. 296.

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in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth. I did not say to the seed of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in vain.’ I
Am. I am the Lord who speaks righteousness and declares the truth (Isa. 45:18-19).

Human beings can never see, know, and comprehend God’s nature, or essence, including
God’s Trinitarian manner of existence, but they can perceive God according to His
operations, or activities.12 For since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible attributes are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,
so that [men] are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as
God, nor were thankful (Rom. 1:20-21). For from the greatness and beauty of created things the
Creator is seen by analogy (WSol. 13:5). The Apostle Paul explained to the Athenians:
God, who made the world and everything in it…so that [every nation of men] should seek the
Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each
one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have
said, ‘For we are also His offspring’ (Acts 17:24, 27-28).

This knowledge of the incomprehensible is not obtained through human intelligence,

reason, philosophical speculation, or observation. It is obtained through experience,
that is, through theosis itself. Even though God cannot be described, He can truly be
known through participation in His divine, uncreated energies.

Consider these examples. The Lord God commanded Adam, saying… (Gen. 2:16). [Adam
and Eve] heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden that afternoon (Gen. 3:8). Then
God appeared to [Abraham] at the oak of Mamre…he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three
men stood before him (Gen. 18:1-2). [Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of
Israel] saw the place where the God of Israel stood. Under His feet was, as it were, a paved work
of sapphire stone and the appearance of heaven’s firmament in its purity…The sight of the Lord’s
glory was like a burning fire on the top of the mountain (Ex. 24:10, 17). Similar visions, or
revelations, of God are witnessed by the Prophets, such as Isaiah (Isa. 6) and Ezekiel
(Ez. 1), and the Apostles (Matt. 17:1-8; 2 Cor. 12:1-6; 2 Pet. 1:16-21).

“We say that we know the greatness of God, His power, His wisdom, His goodness, His
providence over us, and the justness of His judgment…The operations are various, and
the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His operations, but do not
undertake to approach near to His essence. His operations come down to us, but His
essence remains beyond our reach” (St. Basil [the Great] of Caesarea, Letter 234 [to
Amphilochius], 1). “What, then, the Prophets and Moses, the Apostles and the Saints of
the Church saw is not God’s essence, but God’s uncreated glory and natural energy, His

12The Greek term is energies, formed from the word ergon, that is, “act, work.” We distinguish between
the uncreated being (essence) of God and His uncreated activities (operations).

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grace and kingdom…The catechized believer receives, through baptism, the betrothal of
the Spirit. Following his baptism, the believer moves into marriage through ascending
towards perfection and participating in the grace of God, which is uncreated, as well as
in the rest of God’s energies. This is the way, according to the Church’s teaching, that
man is deified and becomes God’s friend, and not by participating in God’s essence,
which would lead to pantheism, as everyone can ascertain” (italics original).13

The supreme instance of participation of creation in the divine, uncreated life is the
Person of Jesus Christ, the God-man. “Behold the virgin shall be with child and bear a Son,
and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23; Isa.
7:14). And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). For in Him dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9). And without controversy great is the mystery of
godliness. God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached
among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory (1 Tim. 3:16). And we know
that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is
true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life (1 John 5:20).

“For just as we confess that the Incarnation was brought about without transformation
or change,14 so also do we hold that the deification of the flesh was brought about…For
not by its own operation does the flesh do divine works, but by the Word united to it,
and through it the Word shows His own operation. Thus, the steel which has been
heated burns, not because it has a naturally acquired power of burning, but because it
has acquired it from its union with fire” (St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the
Orthodox Faith III.17). “When the Logos (i.e., Word) of God became man, He filled
human nature once more with the spiritual knowledge that it had lost; and steeling it

13 An Outline of Orthodox Patristic Dogmatics, by Protopresbyter John Romanides, (Rollinsford, NH:

Orthodox Research Institute, 2004), pp. 7, 9. Also on page 9: “The distinction, then, between essence and
energy in God, man’s participation in the uncreated energies of God and his theosis, and the relation of God to His
creatures through the uncreated energies constitute basic doctrines of the Church.” Concerning pantheism (the
teaching that everything [Gk., pan] is God), in order for something to know, or participate in, the essence
of God, that something would have to be God itself. Such a teaching obliterates the distinction between
everything created and the uncreated God. “Further, that which participates in something according to its
essence must necessarily possess a common essence with that in which it participates and be identical to
it in some respect. But who has ever heard that God and we possess in some respect the same essence?”
(St. Gregory Palamas, Topics of Natural and Theological Science, 111; op. cit., The Philokalia, Vol. 4, pg. 397).
14 Incarnation refers to the Son of God becoming, or taking on, flesh; in this mystery, neither was the

divine nature transformed, or changed, into the human nature, nor was the human nature transformed,
or changed, into the divine nature. Each nature remains what it is, completely intact, yet in union with
one another.

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against changefulness, He deified it, not in its essential nature but in its quality. He
stamped it completely with His own Spirit, as if adding wine to water so as to give the
water the quality of wine. For He becomes truly man so that by grace He may make us
gods” (St. Maximos the Confessor, Second Century of Various Texts, 26).15

c. Restoration of Theosis in the Incarnation of the Son of God

The counterfeit theosis of the devil, which is idolatry, leads to sin and death. The
incarnation of the Son of God redeems mankind to genuine theosis through communion
with Him, the God-man. God’s original plan for all people to be like Him is restored by
the power, grace, and operation of Christ and the Holy Spirit. In the Incarnation of the
Son of God, God becomes like us in every way – except sin (Rom. 8:3; Heb. 4:15) – in
order to deify our nature and lead us back to the divine life of God. For whom He
foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be
firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He
called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Rom. 8:29-30).

This marvelous transformation was indicated immediately after Adam and Eve
disobeyed God and fell into sin and death. Speaking of the consequences of the fall,
God said to the serpent (i.e., the devil): I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall be on guard for His
heel (Gen. 3:15). The promise of the seed continues throughout the Old Testament
beginning in the book of Genesis in the genealogical record of the people of blessing,
from Adam to Noah and then to Abra(ha)m, Isaac, and Jacob (Gen. 15:4-5; 17:7; 22:17-18;
26:4; 28:14). Both in the Greek and Hebrew languages, the word for seed is singular and
masculine, that is, a male child. Therefore the Apostle Paul writes: Now to Abraham and
his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one,
“And to your Seed,” who is Christ (Gal. 3:16).

From the inception of sin and delusion of evil, God being born from the woman was the
remedy promised by God to bruise the devil’s head, crushing the power of death, and
to renovate human nature in communion with the pre-fallen, divine life. Inasmuch then
as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, [Jesus] Himself likewise shared in the same, that
through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release
those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. 2:14-15). He
who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of
God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of

15 Op. cit., The Philokalia, Vol. 2, pg. 193.

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God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of
God (1 John 3:8-9).

The Son of God assumed our human nature, sick and corrupt with sin, and renewed it,
uniting it with His divine nature in His person. Christ assumed our mortal nature now
subject to death and experienced death in His own, which is our, flesh, triumphing over
the power of sin and death by His glorious resurrection on the third day. By taking our
nature corrupted with sin and making our death His own on the Cross, His life becomes
our life. [He] bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live
for righteousness (1 Pet. 2:24). Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things
have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Cor. 5:17). The Scriptural language
of Christ’s sacrificial saving work – e.g., redemption (Rom. 3:24-25; Heb. 9:11-15),
ransom (Mk. 10:45), reconciliation (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-21), propitiation/expiation (1
John 2:2) – all describes the restoration of our nature through union with the divine in
the Incarnation of the Son of God (that is, deification).16

16St. Gregory the Theologian (d. 391) anticipated and responded to a view of redemption, or atonement,
made popular in the medieval West which exclusively emphasized the sacrifice of Christ as a satisfaction
for the debt of sin so as to appease the just wrath of God toward man. While the Fathers of the Orthodox
Church speak of Christ’s sacrifice as a satisfaction, this concept is always understood within the wider
context of Christ’s work of restoring human nature to communion with God, not restricted to a juridical
concept. St. Gregory writes: “We were detained in bondage by the Evil One, sold under sin, and
receiving pleasure in exchange for wickedness. Now, since a ransom belongs only to him who holds in
bondage, I ask to whom was this offered, and for what cause? If to the Evil One, fie upon the outrage! if
the robber receives ransom, not only from God, but a ransom which consists of God Himself, and has
such an illustrious payment for his tyranny, a payment for whose sake it would have been right for him
to have left us alone altogether. But if to the Father, I ask first, how? For it was not by Him that we were
being oppressed; and next, on what principle did the blood of His only-begotten Son delight the Father,
Who could not receive even Isaac when he was being offered by his father, but changed the sacrifice,
putting a ram in the place of the human victim (see Gen. 22:11ff.)? Is it not evident that the Father accepts
Him, but neither asked for Him nor demanded Him; but on account of the Incarnation, and because
humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God, that He might deliver us Himself, and overcome
the tyrant, and draw us to Himself by the mediation of His Son Who also arranged this to the honor of
the Father, Whom it is manifest that He obeys in all things?” (Oration 45.22 [Second Oration on Pascha]). St.
Gregory Palamas (d. 1359) also writes: “Man was led into his captivity when he experienced God’s wrath,
this wrath being the good God’s just abandonment of man. God had to be reconciled with the human
race, for otherwise mankind could not be set free from the servitude. A sacrifice was needed to reconcile
the Father on high with us and to sanctify us, since we had been soiled by fellowship with the evil
one…This is why Christ was revealed, who alone is undefiled and presented Himself as an offering and a
sacrifice of firstfruits to the Father for our sake, that all we who look towards Him, believe in Him and
attach ourselves to Him through obedience will appear through Him before the face of God, obtain
forgiveness and be sanctified” (Homily 16.20-22; in Saint Gregory Palamas the Homilies, ed. and trans. by
Christopher Veniamin [Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009], pp. 124-125).

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St. Gregory Palamas explains: “But Christ came, setting human nature free and
changing the common curse into a shared blessing. He took upon Himself our guilty
nature from the most pure Virgin and united it, new and unmixed with the old seed, to
His divine person. He rendered it guiltless and righteous, so that all His spiritual
descendants would remain outside the ancestral curse and condemnation. How so? He
shares His grace with each one of us as a person, and each receives forgiveness of sins
from Him. For He did not receive from us a human person, but assumed our human nature
and renewed it by uniting it with His own person” (Homily 5.2; italics mine). “Since
the only-begotten Son of God did not take a human person from us, but our nature, and
made it new, being united with it in His own person, does He not impart His grace to
each person, and does not each of us receive the forgiveness of sins from Him?...He has
not merely renewed the nature of each of us who believe, but also our person, and
granted us remission of sins through divine baptism, through the keeping of His
commandments, through the repentance which He bestowed on the fallen, and through
the communion of His own body and blood” (Homily 60.1817; italics mine).

This means that in becoming man the Son of God did not merely save one human person
– Jesus of Nazareth; rather, taking our flesh, our created nature, the Son of God makes
salvation possible for every person having the same flesh by renewing that created nature
shared in common by each person. For if by the one man’s (i.e., Adam’s) offense death
reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:17). For since by man
came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ all shall be made alive (1 Cor. 15:21).

In His person Christ Jesus united our created nature with His divine nature thus
deifying our nature and becoming the source of eternal life for all who are in Christ.
Restoration of theosis in the Incarnation of the Son of God is the fulfillment of all
Messianic hopes through participation in the reign of Christ which consists in the peace
and blessings of paradise experienced once again (cf. 2 Kgs.[2 Sam.] 7:10-13; Mic. 5:1-4;
Isa. 9:5-6; 11:1-10; 65:17-25; Matt. 6:31-33; 19:27-30; Lk. 22:28-30; 23:42-43; Eph. 2:13-18;
Rev. 22:1-5). Jesus Christ is the New, Perfect Man (Eph. 4:13, 24), the second, heavenly
Adam (1 Cor. 15:47-48), the Head of His body, the church (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18), the
Firstborn of many brothers (Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:18; Heb. 2:10-11, 17; 12:23; Rev. 1:5).

17
Op. cit., Saint Gregory Palamas the Homilies, pp. 34, 501.

10
 d. Created for Kinship and Communion with God

Likeness to God enables human beings to be called sons of God (Gen. 6:2), that is, those
who hope[d] in the Lord God and call[ed] upon His name (Seth and Enosh; Gen. 4:2618), who
[are] well-pleasing to God (Enoch; Gen. 5:24), righteous and perfect in his generation (Noah;
Gen. 6:9). The opposite to likeness with God is murder, wickedness, evil intent,
corruption, and unrighteousness (Gen. 4:10, 23-24; 6:5, 11); these are characteristics of
the children of the devil, the enemy of God. Christ said to the Jews who rejected Him: If
God were your Father, you would love Me…You are of your father the devil, and the desires of
your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning…he is a liar and the father
of it (John 8:42, 44).

Throughout the history of God’s people, likeness to God enabled them truly to be called
the children of God. You are the children of the Lord your God…For you are a holy people to
the Lord your God, and the Lord chose you to be a people for Himself, a special people above all
the nations on the face of the earth (Deut. 14:1, 2). As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him…To such as keep His covenant and remember
His commandments to do them (Ps. 102[103]:13, 18). Whereas those claiming the name, yet
disobeying Him, forfeit their status as the children of God. They sinned: the blameworthy
children are not His, a generation twisted and perverse…for they are a perverse generation, sons
in whom is no faith (Deut. 32:5, 20). “Woe to the apostate children,” says the Lord! “You made
counsel, but not through Me, and covenants, but not of My Spirit, so as to add sins to
sins”…For this is a disobedient people, false children, children who are unwilling to hear the law
of God (Isa. 30:1, 9).

Our Lord points out this teaching that theosis = divine sonship, or kinship with God,
showing from the Psalm that all human persons are called to be divine in a relative

18St. Gregory Palamas draws out the implications of the text further: “The first to be called sons of God in
the Scriptures are the descendants of Enos, who was the first to hope to be called by the Name of the Lord
(cf. Gen. 4:26 Septuagint [Greek] text). Enos was the son of Seth whose family was separate from the
accursed family of Cain, and lived chastely. For their sake the world continued until, according to the
Scripture, they saw the daughters of men, that is, the women of Cain’s stock, that they were fair (Gen.
6:2). Overcome by their corrupt beauty, they took wives of all whom they chose, and learnt their ways.
Then evil increased on earth and the flood came and swept them all away (Gen. 6:17ff.). If on earth in
those days Noah and his sons had not been found to be chaste – as shown by the fact that each man had
one wife with whom he went into the ark (Gen. 7:13) – there would have been no root or source from
which a second world could begin.” (Homily 5.15; op. cit., pg. 38). See also St. John Cassian, The
Conferences 8.21, for further discussion concerning the division of the sons of Seth (i.e., sons of God) and
the offspring of Cain (i.e., sons of men) “because of their own of their ancestors’ wickedness and because
of their worldly deeds” (John Cassian: The Conferences, trans. by Boniface Ramsey, [NewYork: Newman
Press, 1997], pp. 304-307).

11
sense just as He is divine by essence, or nature. Jesus answered [the Jews], “Is it not written
in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’ (Ps. 81[82]:619)? If He called them gods, to whom the word
of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified
and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, “I am the Son of God? (John
10:34-36). St. John writes: Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we
should be called children of God. Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know
Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but
we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John
3:1-2).

All people created according to the image and likeness of God are brought into being to
be the children of God, an awesome reality! “When you hear about the dignity of
humanity, how it has substantially been endowed with intellect, do you not understand
that God had spoken these words, not of angels, but of human nature: ‘Let us make
man according to our image and likeness’ (Gen. 1:26), and that Heaven and earth would
pass away, but you have been called to immortality, to be a son, a brother, and a spouse
of the King?” (Pseudo-Macarius, Homily 16.13).20

Divine sonship is fulfilled and restored in the Person of the God-man, Jesus Christ, and
in all who are in Christ. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as
many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ…But when the fullness of time had
come, God sent forth His Son, born of the woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”21 Therefore you are
no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ (Gal. 3:26-27; 4:4-
7). But as many as received [God the Word], to them He gave the right to become children of
God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13).

Theosis is both the result and expression of divine adoption, divine kinship. Thus Christ
teaches His disciples to pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom
come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:9, 10); the sons (i.e., children) of
God address God the Father who is now their mutual Father with the Son from all
eternity, Jesus Christ. “For hidden within a limited compass this prayer contains the
whole purpose and aim of which we have just spoken,” namely, “the deification of our

19 The entire verse reads: I said, “You are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High.”
20 In Pseudo-Macarius The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, trans. and ed. by George Maloney, S.
J., (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), pp. 134-135.
21 Abba is an Aramaic term of intimate endearment equivalent to our term “Daddy.”

12
nature”; “we are taught to proclaim the grace of our adoption, since we have been
found worthy of addressing our Creator by nature as our Father by grace…showing
ourselves to be His children through our actions, and through all that we think or do
glorifying the author of this adoption, who is by nature Son of the Father” (St. Maximos
Confessor, On the Lord’s Prayer).22

Likeness to God is also expressed in terms of the ability of human beings to be in union,
or communion, with God. [God’s] divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life
and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have
been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be
partakers (lit., communicants) of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust (2 Pet. 1:3-4; see also 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1). Our Lord prayed for His
disciples before His crucifixion: That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in
You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the
glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one (John
17:21-22).

Man’s union, or communion, with the divine causes a profound transformation of the
human person resulting in the glorification, or perfection, of the one experiencing
theosis. Enoch was translated from this earthly life (Gen. 5:24). God would speak with
Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend, so that his face shone – the skin of his face
was glorified while God talked with him (Ex. 33:11; 34:29). Joshua, Elisha, and Daniel
conversed with angels (Josh. 5:13-15; 4 Kgs.[2 Kg.] 6:17; Dan. 8:16-17). Elijah was taken
to heaven in a fiery chariot (4 Kgs.[2 Kg.] 2:11). The Virgin Mary became the Mother of
God and held the Son of God within her womb (Lk. 1:31-32, 35, 42-43). The martyr
Stephen, who had the face of an angel…being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 6:15; 7:55). The
Apostle Paul was caught up to the third heaven…to Paradise (2 Cor. 12:1-6).

22 Op. cit., The Philokalia, Vol. 2, pp. 286, 291. “First of all, [the Lord Jesus Christ] leads us not to a
mountain but to Heaven itself, which He has rendered accessible to all men by virtue. Secondly, He gives
them not only the vision of, but a share in, the Divine power, bringing them as it were to kinship with the
Divine Nature…For Truth does not teach us to deceive, to say we are what we are not and to use a name
to which we have no right. But if we call God our Father Him who is incorruptible and just and good, we
must prove by our life that the kinship is real…Now the way which leads human nature back to Heaven
is none other than that of avoiding the evils of the world by flight; on the other hand, the purpose of
fleeing from evil seems to me precisely to achieve likeness with God. To become like God means to
become just, holy, and good and suchlike things” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Lord’s Prayer, Sermon 2, in St.
Gregory of Nyssa The Lord’s Prayer The Beatitudes, trans. by Hilda C. Graff, [New York: Paulist Press, 1954)],
pp. 35, 39-40, 42).

13
Theosis constitutes the actual experience of God, by grace of course, that is, a real
participation in the energies of God in Christ. This experience changes a person causing
them to become more divine, more like God. After reflecting on Moses’ communion
with God so that his face shone, the Apostle Paul writes: But we all, with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image (Gk.,
eikon) from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:18). [The Father] would
grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit
in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length
and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled
with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:16-20). The Apostle John writes of this experience: The
life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life
which was with the Father and was manifested to us – that which we have seen and heard we
declare to you, that you also may have fellowship (Gk., koinonia, that is, communion) with us;
and truly our fellowship (Gk., koinonia) is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (1
John 1:2-3).

From the beginning, this experience of communion, or union, with God, clearly beyond
description but nonetheless real, has been expressed in a twofold way: the sharing of
food (and drink), and the indissoluble love in marriage. Ultimately, both of these
expressions are joined together as one complete image of a person’s union with God, for
instance, the Holy Communion of the Lord’s Supper referred to as the marriage supper of
the Lamb (Rev. 19:9).

Not only did God give man every seed-bearing herb…and every tree whose fruit yields seed
for food, but He especially planted a garden with the tree of life for mankind (Gen. 1:29;
2:8, 9). The tree of life, when eaten, enabled man to live forever, but having fallen into sin
by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, man was prevented from eating
its fruit and was expelled from the garden (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:11, 22-24). “If the serpent
had been rejected along with sin, Adam and Eve would have eaten from the tree of life
and the tree of knowledge would not have been withheld from them; from the one they
would have gained infallible knowledge, and from the other they would have received
immortal life. They would have acquired divinity with their humanity, and if they had
acquired infallible knowledge and immortal life, they would have possessed them in
those same bodies” (St. Ephrem of Syria, Commentary on Genesis II.23).23

23 St. Ephrem the Syrian Selected Prose Works [Fathers of the Church Vol. 91], trans. by Edward G. Matthews,
Jr. and Joseph P. Amar, ed. by Kathleen McVey, (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1994), pg. 114. St. Ephrem remarks that “When God created Adam, He did not make him mortal,
nor did He fashion him immortal, so that Adam, by keeping or transgressing the commandment, might
acquire from one of the trees, the [life] that he preferred. God created the tree of life and hid it from Adam

14
By eating all that God had given for food, and by abstaining from the tree of knowledge
in accordance with God’s command, God was calling man to participate in His
superabundant life beyond the confines of material creation. Through the icon of food,
God was inviting man to share in a communion with divine life itself. O taste and see
that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who hopes in Him (Ps. 33[34]:9). Our Lord said, I
have food to eat of which you do not know…My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and
to finish His work (John 4:32, 34).

Meals both confirm and manifest the blessing of God, especially within the covenant
between God and His people (Gen. 14:18-20; Ex. 24:9-12; Deut. 26:1-4, 11). Both priests
and people share the meat of the various sacrifices offered to God as a seal of
reconciliation with God (see Lev. 6:19; 7:7, 9, 15-16). The Kingdom of God in Christ is
described as a banquet on Mount Zion in Jerusalem: They shall drink in gladness; they shall
drink wine; they shall anoint themselves with ointment on this mountain (Isa. 25:6, 7; Amos
9:13-15; Joel 2:23-26; Prov. 9:1-6). Specifically in the Church, the Body and Blood of
Christ is called the New Testament (covenant), the Communion (Lk. 22:20; Acts 2:42; 1
Cor. 10:16), and the participation of the faithful in this Lord’s Supper is the essence of
the worship of God on earth (1 Cor. 11:17ff.).

Concerning His Body and Blood, Christ says, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink His blood, you have no life in you…He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in
Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds
on Me will live because of Me (John 6:53, 56-57). Likeness to God by communion in the
divine life is possible because participation in the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, is granted
in the Church.

The same intimate communion is expressed as the love experienced between husband
and wife, and like eating and drinking (i.e., tasting), this love is an icon of the ineffable

and Eve. This was so that the tree would not cause any great struggle within them by its beauty and thus
double their agony. In addition, it was not right that they heed a commandment from Him who could
not be seen for the sake of a reward that was before their eyes. Even though God, in His goodness, had
given them everything else, He wanted, in His justice, to give them immortal life that was to be conferred
by their eating from the tree of life. Therefore, God set down for them a commandment” (italics mine;
Commentary on Genesis II.17.3-5, ibid., pg. 100). Thus, “The tree that is called the Tree of Knowledge
symbolizes the gate of Paradise: it is through the gate of knowledge that one is able to enter in; it is the
likeness of its glorious Creator, in whose hidden abode through the gate of knowledge all who are
perceptive may approach His hiddenness…So likewise that Wood, which is the Tree of Knowledge, can,
with its fruit, roll back the cloud of ignorance, so that eyes can recognize the beauty of that Tabernacle
hidden within; but because Adam and Eve ate it in sin, the vision that should have caused joy of heart
resulted in grief of heart” (St. Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise XV.2, 5, trans. by Sebastian Brock,
[Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990], pp. 182, 183).

15
and all-encompassing desire for God, the truly Beloved. And the Lord God said, “It is not
good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. And after the creation
of the woman from the rib of the man: Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh
of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 For this reason a
man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one
flesh (Gen. 2:18, 23-24).

The unique relationship between God and His people within the covenant is expressed
in terms of the union of marriage first manifested between Adam and Eve. You shall fear
the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and hold fast to Him, and take oaths in His name…For
if you carefully keep all these commandments I command you today – to love the Lord your God,
to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him (Deut. 10:20; 11:22). The verb to hold fast to
God is identical with that of being joined to one’s spouse. The Lord says: I will betroth you
to Myself forever; yes, I will betroth you to Myself in righteousness and justice, and in mercy
and compassions. I will betroth you to Myself in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord
(Hos. 2:19-20). Again: As a young man lives in wedlock with a virgin, so shall you sons dwell
with you, and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so the Lord shall rejoice over you (Isa.
62:5).

Explicitly in the Gospel, Christ Jesus refers to Himself as the bridegroom (Matt. 9:15; Mk.
2:19). The Kingdom of God is likened unto a marriage for his son (Matt. 22:2). And in the
Wedding Epistle reading concerning the spiritual significance of marriage, the groom is
likened unto Christ, and the bride is likened unto the Church, so that human marriage
in its pure experience is an icon of the love between God and His people (Eph. 5:21-33).
Thus marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God
will judge (Heb. 13:4), precisely because the love exemplified in marriage manifests
fidelity and communion with God.

This all-encompassing love as union between God and His people, specifically between
Christ and “the soul betrothed to God,”25 is overwhelming desire for the Beloved. The
watchmen who do their rounds in the city found me, and I said to them, “Have you seen him
whom my soul loves?” Scarcely had I departed from them when I found him whom my soul

24 In Hebrew the phrase reads: “She shall be called Ishah, because she was taken out of Ish,” verbally
demonstrating the unique complementarity of the man and woman. “Eve was inside Adam, in the rib
that was drawn out from him. Although she was not in his mind she was in his body, and she was not
only in his body with him, but she was also in soul and spirit with him…After the extracted rib had been
fashioned with all sorts of beautiful things to adorn it, God then brought her to Adam, who was both one
and two. He was one in that he was Adam and he was two because he had been created male and
female” (St. Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis I.29.2, II.12, op. cit., pp. 94, 105).
25 Op. cit., Saint Gregory Palamas the Homilies, pp. 146, 159, 227.

16
loves. I held him and would not let him go until I brought him to my mother’s house, into the
chamber of her who conceived me. I implore you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the hosts and
powers of the field, that you rouse not nor wake my love until he wishes…I sleep but my heart
keeps watch; the voice of my beloved – he knocks at the door! (SS 3:3-5; 5:2). My sister, my
bride, you ravished my heart; you have ravished my heart with one look from your eyes, with one
jewel of your necklace…My sister, my bride, is an enclosed garden; an enclosed garden, a sealed
fountain…You are beautiful, my companion, you are my good pleasure; you are as beautiful as
Jerusalem; you are awesome as an army set in array. Turn away your eyes from before me, for
they have ravished me (SS 4:9, 12; 6:4-5).

“God is said to be the originator and begetter of love (Gk., agape) and the erotic force
(Gk., eros). For He externalized them from within Himself, that is, He brought them
forth into the world of created things. This is why Scripture says that God is love (1 John
4:16), and elsewhere that He is sweetness and desire (cf. Song of Songs 5:16), which
signifies the erotic force…You should understand that God stimulates and allures in
order to bring about an erotic union in the Spirit; that is to say, He is the go-between in
this union, the one who brings the parties together, in order that He may be desired and
loved by His creatures. God stimulates in that He impels each being, in accordance
with its own principle, to return to Him. Even though the word ‘allurement’ signifies
something impure to the profane, here it stands for the mediation which effects union
with God” (St. Maximos the Confessor, Fifth Century of Various Texts, 87, 88).26

In the end as with actually tasting and sharing food, the experience of communion as
love constitutes true knowledge of God. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if
anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone
loves God, this one is known by Him (1 Cor. 8:1-3). Love never fails. But whether there are
prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge,
it will vanish away…Now I know in part, but then (i.e., when that which is perfect has
come) I shall know just as I also am known (1 Cor. 13:8, 12). Christ said, By this all will know
that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35). And, O righteous
Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You
sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which

26Op. cit., The Philokalia, Vol. 2, pp. 281-282. “Such an experience seems to me to belong to the soul which
loves what is beautiful. Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond,
always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived…This truly is the vision of
God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see Him. But one must always, by looking at what he can see,
rekindle his desire to see more. Thus, no limit would interrupt growth in the ascent to God, since no limit
to the Good can be found nor is the increasing of desire for the Good brought to an end because it is
satisfied” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses, 231, 239, trans. by Abraham J Malherbe and Everett
Ferguson, [New York: Paulist Press, 1978], pp. 114, 116).

17
You loved Me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:25-26). No one has seen God at any time.
If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us…And we have
known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in
God and God in him (1 John 4:12, 16).

God is known in His love for all mankind, in His creation and preservation of the
world, in His wise providence granting the blessings of life, and in His condescension
providing restoration to eternal life in the sacrifice of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. So
all persons are granted the true knowledge of God in their love of Him, very simply
acknowledging God’s love for them and desiring above all else to know God in the
keeping of the God-given life. Our Lord says, He who has My commandments and keeps
them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love
him and manifest Myself to him (John 14:21).

18
3. Achieving Theosis

How do we summarize all of the above? How do persons achieve theosis and attain to
the likeness of God for which they were created? First, because of sin and death, a
person must be restored to their created purpose through incorporation into Christ. This
action restores the person in the image of God by cleansing and reactivating the intellect
and free will according to God’s direction. Second, because of the ongoing struggle
against sin and the deception of demons, a person must strive to keep the
commandments of God according to His eternal will. This activity confirms the person
in the likeness of God through the freedom of grace and love. Confirmed in the likeness
of God, a person attains to the vision of God, that is, partakes of the glory of God and is
perfected.

a. Restored in the Image in Christ

As was the man of dust (i.e., Adam), so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the
heavenly Man (i.e., Christ), so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image
of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man (1 Cor. 15:48-49).
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all
things have become new (2 Cor. 5:17).

Mankind has grown old in sin and death. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till
you return to the ground from which you were taken. Earth you are, and to earth you shall
return (Gen. 3:19). In the genealogy of Adam through Seth, despite their almost
millennial lifespans, the constant refrain concludes each generation: and he died (Gen.
5:5, 8, 11, etc.). Because of his rebellion against God in the pursuit of a false theosis, man
has become corrupt in his own desires, and the original image has been obscured and
must be renewed.

The image of God is renewed in the Person of the God-man, Jesus Christ. In Christ,
death is overcome, and sin is cleansed away – He is the new Man. Put off, concerning
your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be
renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created
according to God, in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:22-24). Since you have put off the
old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to
the image (Gk., eikon) of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all
(Col. 3:9-11).

19
The first aspect of achieving theosis is actual incorporation into Christ which is
accomplished in and through the Church, His body (cf. Eph. 1:22-23). Just as Christ
Himself became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14; Bar. 3:38), so those who are in Christ
are joined to Christ as members of His body – not only in name, or mental construct, but
in reality; therefore, this incorporation occurs at Baptism (and Chrismation), and it
manifests itself at Holy Communion which entails every other facet of life in the
Church, both ascetic and contemplative. For this reason the Church is necessary for the
salvation and theosis of every person.27

Our Lord says, unless one is born again,28 he cannot see the kingdom of God…unless one is
born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5). John the
Baptizer said of Christ, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is
coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you
with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matt. 3:11). On the Day of Pentecost, the Apostle Peter
declared, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit…those who gladly received his
word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them” (Acts 2:38,
41).

Baptism by definition is endowed with the grace of the Holy Spirit, not as an act
effective merely in its performance, but it is effective because of the promise of Christ
received in faith. Buried with [Christ] in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him
through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead (Col. 2:12). For you are all
sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have

27 The Greek word translated as “church” is ekklesia, meaning “assembly” (see Acts 19:32; 1 Cor. 14:23).
The Church is always a concrete, local reality manifested in the assembly of the faithful around Jesus
Christ, specifically at the Divine Liturgy in Holy Communion. Likewise the word catholic literally refers
to the Church as “whole, or entire,” that is, each local assembly (if it is the Church) is completely the
Church. “See that you all follow the bishop, as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery (i.e.,
Priests) as if it were the Apostles. And reverence the deacons as the command of God. Let no one do any
of the things appertaining to the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist
which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints. Wherever the bishop appears let the
congregation be present; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful
either to baptize or to hold an ‘agape’ (i.e., meal of love; cf. Jude 12) without the bishop; but whatever he
approve, this is also pleasing to God, that everything which you do may be secure and valid.” (St.
Ignatios of Antioch, Smyrnaeans 8.1-2; The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 1, trans. by Kirsopp Lake, [Cambridge,
Massacusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985], pg. 261.) The bishops are the successors to the Apostles
and the chief pastors of the Church; they are icons of the Archpastor and Bishop, Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 2:25;
5:4). Therefore, bishops maintain the unity of the Church. See The One and the Many, by John D. Zizioulis,
(Alhambra, California: Sebastian Press, 2010) for an excellent explanation of this entire subject matter.
28 The Greek word – anōthen – translated as “born again” also means “from above.”

20
put on Christ (Gal. 3:26-27). There is also an antitype29 which now saves us – baptism (not the
removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 3:21). Thus Baptism is truly life-giving.

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many,
are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – whether
Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free – and have all been made to drink into one Spirit (1 Cor.
12:12-13). Therefore we were buried with [Christ Jesus] through baptism into death, that just as
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life (Rom. 6:4). [God] saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of
the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior (Titus
3:5, 6). Theosis cannot be achieved without Baptism as its foundation.

Along with incorporation into Christ, Baptism bestows and makes one receptive to the
enlivening grace of the Holy Spirit, which is further manifested in the act of
Chrismation, that is, anointing with the seal of the Holy Spirit. Now He who establishes us
with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in
our hearts as a guarantee (2 Cor. 1:21-22). But you have an anointing (Gk., chrisma) from the
Holy One, and you know all things…But the anointing which you have received from [Jesus]
abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you
concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in
Him (1 John 2:20, 27; cf. John 14:26; 16:13).

Christians are kings and priests to our God (Rev. 5:10), made by anointing according to the
ancient law (see 1 Kgs.[Sam.] 16:13; 3 Kgs.[1 Kg.] 3:39; Ex. 29:7; Ps. 132[133]:2). They are
christs (lit., “anointed ones”) in communion with the Christ (lit., the Anointed One; Heb.,
Messiah) who has been anointed with the Holy Spirit (Isa. 61:1; Acts 10:38). “When,
however, flesh was deified and human nature gained possession of God Himself by
hypostatic union,30 the former barrier opposed to God became joined to the Chrism (lit.,
“ointment, anointing”). The difference gave way when God became man, thus
removing the separation between Godhead and manhood. So chrism represents Christ

29 The type (Gk., typos) is the example, or pattern, found before – in this case salvation from the Flood in
the ark of Noah; the antitype (Gk., antitypos) is the corresponding event in the Kingdom of Christ (e.g.,
baptism) which is the fulfillment of the type. In the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, the sanctified
Gifts – the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ – are referred to as “the antitypes of the
holy Body and Blood of Thy Christ”; thus the Gifts given in Holy Communion are not merely empty
symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ, but they are the present fulfillment in reality of Christ’s Body
and Blood born of the Virgin Mary and given at the Lord’s Supper to His apostles. See The Divine Liturgy
according to St. John Chrysostom, op. cit., pg. 134.
30 I.e., the personal union, in the Person of the Incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man.

21
as the point of contact between both natures; there could be no point of contact were
they still separate.”31

In completion of Baptism and Chrismation, reception of Holy Communion with its

attendant life provides the necessary means of achieving theosis. Not only is Holy
Communion literal incorporation into Christ by the eating of His body and the drinking
of His blood (Lk. 22:19-20; 1 Cor. 10:16-17), but it is “the medicine of immortality, the
antidote that we should not die, but live forever in Jesus Christ” (St. Ignatios of Antioch,
Ephesians 20.2).32 Weekly reception of Holy Communion, particularly on the Lord’s Day
of Resurrection (Acts 2:42; 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10), determines the Christian’s way of
life before God and one’s fellow human beings. Having been baptized into Christ and
sealed with the Holy Spirit, the Christian desires, is nourished with, and continues in
the strength of the Bread of Life, the true food which gives eternal life (John 6:35, 53-57).

All the disciplines of the Christian life: fasting, prayer, works of service, acts of mercy,
humility, obedience, etc.; all the mysteries (i.e., sacraments) of the Church: Confession,
ordination, Holy Unction (healing), Marriage, the funeral services, monasticism, the
Divine Liturgy, etc. – all of these prepare a person to receive Holy Communion worthily
and beneficially “in the fear of God, and with faith [and love]”33 (see 1 Cor. 11:27-34);
conversely, all of these disciplines and mysteries can only be accomplished in an on-
going God-pleasing manner in the strength provided by Holy Communion itself. As
Christ says, Without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5); and, The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen (2
Cor. 13:14).

Holy Communion is therefore received by the Baptized and Chrismated who, with all
their being and powers, want to be more like God. By all its means, the Church is the
location of this possibility in Christ, and the essence of the Church is the Eucharist, that
is, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. “That of which we partake is not something of
[Christ’s], but Himself. It is not some ray and light which we receive in our souls, but
the very orb of the sun. So we dwell in Him and are indwelt and become one spirit
with Him (cf. 1 Cor. 6:17). The soul and the body and all their faculties forthwith
become spiritual, for our souls, our bodies and blood, are united with His…Wherefore
the Eucharist, alone of sacred rites, supplies perfection to the other Mysteries. In the act

31 The Life in Christ, by Nicholas Cabasilas, trans. by Carmino J. deCatanzaro, (Crestwood, New York: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974), pg. 105.
32 The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 1, trans. by Kirsopp Lake, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University

Press, 1985), pg. 195.

33 The Divine Liturgy according to St. John Chrysostom, op. cit., pg. 80. The last words: “and love” are

frequently said by the Priest, although they are not actually printed in the text of the Divine Liturgy.

22
of initiating it comes to their aid, since they cannot be completed otherwise. It assists
the initiates after their initiation, when the ray of light derived from the Mysteries must
be revived after having been obscured by the darkness of sins. To revive those who
fade away and die because of their sins is the work of the sacred table alone.”34

After the fall into sin and death, man still is created in and retains the image of God.
Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, because I made man in God’s image
(Gen. 9:6). However, “Adam, when he transgressed the commandment, lost two things.
First he lost the pure possession of his nature, so lovely, created according to the image
of and likeness of God. Second, he lost the very image itself in which was laid up for
him, according to God’s promise, the full heavenly inheritance…We nevertheless do not
say he was totally lost and was blotted out of existence and died. He died as far as his
relationship with God was concerned, but in his nature, however, he still lives”
(Pseudo-Macarius, Homily 12.1, 2).35

Sinful man lost the pure possession of God’s image in which he is created, by which he
would have enjoyed unbroken communion with God. Incorporation into Christ through
Holy Baptism and Chrismation, and the ongoing communion with Christ and the Holy
Spirit in the Eucharist, restores the full capacity of the image of God and thus
subsequently renews the capability for theosis. The soul’s powers darkened by sin and
death become enlightened again and pursue the things of God with complete devotion.
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the
fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to
the Lord (Eph. 5:8-10).

The process of theosis works through the cleansing of man’s spiritual (or, noetic)
faculties, the highest powers of the soul. These things we also speak, not in words which
man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual…For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have
the mind (Gk., nous) of Christ (1 Cor. 2:12, 16). For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal
but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought (Gk., noēma) into
captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5).36 And do not be conformed to this world
(lit., age), but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Gk., nous), that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom. 12:2).

34 The Life in Christ, op. cit., pp. 115-117.

35 Op. cit., pg. 97.
36 For lack of better terms, the Greek word nous is usually translated into English as “mind” or “intellect.”

The Greek word noēma denotes the movement, or operation, of the nous, that is, a “thought.” Noetic
simply means “pertaining to the nous.”

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“God the Word, then, wishing to restore that which was in His image, became man.
But what is in His image, if it is not the mind (Gk., nous)? Did He, then, disregard what
was better and assume what was worse? For mind stands midway between God and
the flesh as being a companion of the flesh on the one hand and on the other an image
of God. Thus, mind is associated with Mind and the mind holds the middle place
between purity of God and grossness of the flesh” (St. John of Damascus, An Exact
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith III.18).37

When our Lord began His public ministry, He began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:14). After His resurrection from the
dead, Christ opened [the apostles’] understanding (Gk., nous), that they might comprehend the
Scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ
to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24:45-47).

Importantly, the Greek word for repent/repentance is metanoein/metanoia which literally

means to change the mind, that is, to re-orient the nous back to God. This is the essence of
theosis, that having been restored to the image of God in Christ, the person is free to
pursue once again the things of God in faith and in truth according to the direction of
the Holy Spirit now that the nous, the faculty of spiritual perception, has been restored
to health and functions properly directing the soul – the person – in a God-like way.

Another way of stating this reality is with the language of the heart. Although [men]
knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their
thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened…Therefore God also gave them up to
uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts (Rom. 1:21, 24). No longer walk as the Gentiles walk,
in the futility of their mind (Gk., nous), having their understanding38 darkened, being alienated
from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their
heart; who being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness
with greediness…be renewed in the spirit of your mind (Gk., nous; Eph. 4:17-19, 23).

The nous, then, is the eye of the heart, and the heart – both physiologically and
spiritually – is the center of the human person. Christ says, For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies (Matt. 15:19);
and, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8). Therefore the heart
thinks and sees; it also feels and desires. All these powers of the soul – the person – are

37Op. cit., pg. 319.

38The Greek word here translated as “understanding” is dianoia, a cognate of nous, meaning “rational
thought.”

24
renewed in Christ and act according to the knowledge of God by the prompting of the
Holy Spirit. This knowledge is not primarily rational, gained by logical deliberation,
but it is experiential, gained by the experience of the truth of God in trust and love
because Christ and the Holy Spirit are living and dwelling in the hearts of the faithful.
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if
anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead
because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness (Rom. 8:9-10).

The cleansing of the nous, or purification of the heart, is the beginning of theosis. Herein
the person’s thinking, mental (i.e., noetic) sight, feelings, and desires are stripped of all
that opposes God, and the person – both soul and body, because the heart acting by the
nous directs the whole person – is re-oriented toward God to pursue life according to
God’s design.

The cleansing and purification of the nous and heart is also known as guarding the
heart, or watchfulness. Keep your heart with all watchfulness, for from these words are the
issues of life (Prov. 4:22). Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope
fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:13).
The process of theosis consists of the discernment and purification of thoughts in order
for the person to war against the passions39 and be attentive in seeking the will of God,
which is prayer. Thus a person is liberated from slavery to sensuality, reason, and
fantasy, and the energies of the soul are free to know God without distraction. 40

Purification leads to illumination, and illumination leads to sanctification, or

glorification, that is, continual union with God. This way of theosis is demonstrated
throughout the Scriptures and actualized within the Church, for it is the goal of our
Faith, all the mysteries (i.e., sacraments) of the Church, and all our spiritual disciplines
of body and soul.

39Lusts, desires, and habits contrary to the will of God.

40For a comprehensive summary of this teaching, see Orthodox Psychotherapy, by Bishop of Nafpaktos
Hierotheos, trans. by Esther Williams, (Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1994), and a
shorter work by the same author, The Illness and Cure of the Soul in the Orthodox Tradition, trans. by Effie
Mavromichali, (Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1993).

25
 b. Confirmed in God’s Likeness by Keeping His Commandments

“We believe, in accord with the Fathers’ teachings, that the image of God is the potential
likeness of God and the likeness of God is the image in action. In the same way man,
created by God and re-created through holy baptism by the Church, is potentially a
person. And when, through personal struggle and mainly by the grace of God, he
attains the likeness, then he is an actual person.”41 Our Lord said, For whoever does the
will of God is My brother and My sister and mother (Mk. 3:35). And in another place, Not
everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the
will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your
name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me you who practice
lawlessness’ (Matt. 7:21-23).

Participation in the divine life must be proven. We glory in tribulations, knowing that
tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope
does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit
who was given to us (Rom. 5:3-5). My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various
trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect
work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing…Blessed is the man who endures
temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has
promised to those who love Him (Jam. 1:2-4, 12).

“For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Prov. 3:12).
If you endure chastening (Gk., paideia), God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there
whom a father does not chasten?...Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but
painful; nevertheless, afterwards it yields peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been
trained by it (Heb. 12:6-7, 11). The term paideia literally means “child-rearing,” referring
specifically to the correction necessarily given to children so that they mature and grow
in the likeness of God the Father. The children of God engaged in theosis accept that
correction and prove their desire to become more God-like through humility,
obedience, and love.

Summarizing the experience of the spiritual life, the Elder Sophrony (1896-1993)
described the process of theosis in terms of the history of the people of God, Israel (i.e.,
deliverance from Egypt, testing in the wilderness, and entrance into the Promised
Land), concentrating especially on the second stage or aspect, the “long and difficult
struggle” of life in which the believer “express(es) to God, under adverse conditions,

41 Op. cit., Orthodox Psychotherapy, pg. 162.

26
[his] appreciation of the wonderful gift of His grace.” “Man is deified according to how
deeply and thoroughly he has lived through God’s ‘abandonment,’ that is, through the
withdrawal of His grace (i.e., the withdrawal of the initial overwhelming experience of
God’s grace, usually with great joy and peace). According to the Elder, the fullness of
perfection must be preceded by the fullness of self-emptying.”42

Continuing on this same theme after illustrating its reality from the parable of the
Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32): “The general purpose of the second stage of the spiritual
life is for us to prove that we are true children of the Heavenly Father…One way or
another we must undergo this phase and suffer it, but there are two ways of doing so.
One way is the lawful and therefore godly way; the other is the way of despondency,
negligence, self-will, and pride…The wise way out of our desolation is to react after the
manner of Abraham: to hope in God where, humanly speaking, there is no hope, and to
humble ourselves under His mighty hand…Man is called to redeem the gift of life by
offering a sacrifice – the sacrifice of his own corrupted will through obedience (cf. Rom.
12:1).”43

God’s children prove their communion with Him in the keeping of God’s
commandments. Jesus said: If you love Me, keep My commandments…He who has My
commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by
My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him…If anyone loves Me, he will keep
My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him
(John 14:15, 21, 22). Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the
commandments of God is what matters (1 Cor. 7:18). Here is the patience of the saints; here are
those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus…Blessed are those who do His
commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates
into the city (i.e., the new, heavenly Jerusalem, that is, Paradise; Rev. 14:12; 22:14).

“Life of the soul is union with God, as life of the body is it union with the soul. As the
soul was separated from God and died in consequence of the violation of the
commandment, so by obedience to the commandment it is again united to God and is
quickened.” (St. Gregory Palamas, To the Most Reverend Nun Xenia, 12).44 Having been
restored to life in Christ – through Holy Baptism, Chrismation, and Holy Communion –
by being incorporated into Christ’s death and resurrection in forgiveness and newness
of life, Christians demonstrate that they are, in fact, alive in the keeping of God’s

42 Remember Thy First Love, by Archimandrite Zacharias, (Dalton, Pennsylvania: Mount Thabor Publishing,
2010), pp. 37, 47.
43 Ibid., pp. 145, 146, 147.

44 Op. cit., The Philokalia, Vol. 4, pg. 297.

27
commandments! This is, after all, the Great Commission of our Lord: Go therefore and
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you (Matt. 28:19-
20).

Do you see that faith was working together with [Abraham’s] works, and by works faith was
made perfect? (Jam. 2:22). Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my
presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and
trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil.
2:12-13). Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if
you do these things you will never stumble (2 Pet. 1:10).

What are these commandments? ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the
second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang
all the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 22:37-40). Christ says, A new commandment I give to
you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another (John 13:34).
From the comprehensive command to love, all other commandments follow.
“Almsgiving heals the souls incensive (i.e., feeling) power; fasting withers sensual
desire; prayer purifies the intellect (Gk., nous) and prepares it for the contemplation of
created beings. For the Lord has given us commandments which correspond to the
powers of the soul” (St. Maximos the Confessor, First Century on Love, 79).45

The person is proven in theosis by carrying out the entire ascetic and sacramental (i.e.,
mystical, or worship) life of the Church. Crucially, this life is fulfilled only when done
in love, that is, by grace through faith in the love of God in Christ. In this is love, not that
we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved,
if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:10-11; cf. Eph. 2:4-10). “In
everything that we do God searches out our purpose to see whether we do it for Him or
for some other motive” (St. Maximos the Confessor, Second Century on Love, 36).46

“We avoid evil through fear of punishment and take the attitude of a slave; or, seeking
to obtain the reward, we observe the commandments for our own advantage and in this
we are like hirelings; or else, for the sake of the virtuous act itself and out of love for
[God] who gave us the law, we rejoice to be deemed worthy to serve a God so good and
so glorious and we are thus in the dispositions of sons” (St. Basil the Great, The Long

45 Op. cit., The Philokalia, Vol. 2, pp. 61-62.

46 Ibid., pg. 71.

28
Rules, Preface).47 Thus confirmation in God’s likeness is a freely chosen service
rendered to God out of love, especially considering the trials and hardships involved in
such a task. Yet only through such struggle does the child of God attain complete
purification from sin and passion becoming prepared to receive the vision of God’s
glory in permanence as the summit of all desire.

The way of theosis outlined above is the God-given way of realizing the goal of our
existence: to be complete (i.e., perfect) in the image and likeness of God. “Bit by bit, by
steps that appear insignificant, we shall make progress toward greater perfection, and
ascend to become perfect men in Christ…The continual quest for penitence and
compunction, the search for aids and means for affliction, weeping, and compunction,
the zealous practice of these things without any way preferring oneself or performing
the will of the flesh, quickly bring a man to make progress and to attain purification and
impassibility…If I were to practice all the things that I have mentioned, I would receive
the Holy Ghost, for He is the seed of Christ, through which we poor mortals become
Christ’s kin. When it falls into the good soil it ‘bears fruit thirtyfold and sixtyfold and
hundredfold’ (Mk. 4:20), and this very thing is the kingdom of heaven. Apart from this
all other things are useless” (St. Symeon the New Theologian, The Discourses, XXX.1, 10,
12).48

Theosis, then, is the heart of Christianity; it is salvation and eternal life.

47 Saint Basil Ascetical Works, trans. by Sister M. Monica Wagner, C.S.C., (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1962), pg. 227.
48 Symeon the New Theologian The Discourses, trans. by C. J. deCatanzaro, (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist

Press, 1980), pg. 318, 325, 327.

29
4. Samples of the Teaching of Theosis in the Writings of the Church Fathers

a. Justin Martyr (110-165)

“But as my discourse is not intended to touch on this point (i.e., the fall of Satan),
but to prove to you that the Holy Spirit reproaches men because they were made
like God, free from suffering and death, provided that they kept His
commandments, and were deemed deserving of the name of His sons, and yet
they, becoming like Adam and Eve, work out death for themselves; let the
interpretation of the Psalm (i.e., 81[82]) be held just as you wish, yet thereby it is
demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming ‘gods,’ and of having
power to become sons of the Highest; and shall be each by himself judged and
condemned like Adam and Eve. Now I have proved at length that Christ is
called God.” (Dialogue with Trypho, 124)

b. Theophilus of Antioch (115-168)

“But someone will say to us, Was man made by nature mortal? Certainly not.
Was he, then, immortal? Neither do we affirm this. But one will say, “Was he,
then, nothing? Not even this hits the mark. He was by nature neither mortal nor
immortal. For if [God] had made him immortal from the beginning, He would
have made him God. Again, if [God] had made him mortal, God would seem to
be the cause of [man’s] death. Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did [God]
make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if [man] should
incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he
should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God (i.e., a
god); but if, on the other hand, he should turn to the things of death, disobeying
God, he should himself be the cause of death to himself. For God made him free,
and with power over himself.” (To Autolycus II.27)

c. St. Irenaeus of Lyons (120-202)

“[God] declares, ‘I have said, You are gods; and you are all sons of the Highest.’
(Ps. 81[82]:6) But since we could not sustain the power of divinity, He adds, ‘But
you shall die like men’ (Ps. 81[82]:7), setting forth both truths – the kindness of
His free gift, and our weakness, and also that we were possessed of power over
ourselves. For after His great kindness He graciously conferred good upon us,
and made men like to Himself, that is in their own power; while at the same time
by His prescience He knew the infirmity of human beings and the consequences
which would flow from it; but through His love and His power, He shall
30
overcome the substance of created nature. For it was necessary, at first, that
nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be
conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by
incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of
God, having received the knowledge of good and evil.” (Against Heresies IV.38.4)

“…following the only true and steadfast Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord
Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that
He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.” (Against Heresies V, Preface)

d. Clement of Alexandria (153-217)

“And now the Word Himself clearly speaks to you, shaming your unbelief; yea, I
say, the Word of God became man, that you may learn from man how man may
become God.” (Exhortation to the Heathen, 1)

“It is then, as appears, the greatest of all lessons to know one’s self. For if one
knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God,
not by wearing gold, or long robes, but by well-doing, and by requiring as few
things as possible.” (The Instructor III.1)

“To be ignorant of the Father is death, as to know Him is eternal life, through
participation in the power of the incorrupt One. And to be incorruptible is to
participate in divinity; but revolt from the knowledge of God brings corruption.”
(Stromata V.10)

“And as, if one devote himself to Ischomachus, he will make him a farmer; and
to Lampis, a mariner; and to Charidemus, a military commander; and to Simon,
an equestrian; and to Perdices, a trader; and to Crobylus, a cook; and to
Archelaus, a dancer; and to Homer, a poet; and to Pyrrho, a wrangler; and to
Demosthenes, an orator; and to Chrysippus, a dialectician; and to Aristotle, a
naturalist; and to Plato, a philosopher: so he who listens to the Lord, and follows
the prophecy given by Him, will be formed perfectly in the likeness of the
teacher – made a god going about in the flesh.” (Stromata VII.16)

e. Hippolytus of Rome (170-236)

“And you shall be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer
enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For you have
become God (i.e., a god); for whatever sufferings you underwent while being a
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man, these He gave to you, because you were of mortal mold, but whatever it is
consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon you,
because you have been deified and begotten unto immortality.” (Refutation of All
Heresies X.30)

f. Athanasius of Alexandria (297-373)

“For [the Son of God] was made man that we might be made God; and He
manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen
Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”
(On the Incarnation of the Word, 54)

“Therefore, if even before the world was made, the Son had that glory and was
the Lord of glory and the Highest, and descended from heaven, and is ever to be
worshiped, it follows that He had not promotion from His descent, but rather
Himself promoted the things which needed promotion; and if He descended to
effect their promotion, therefore He did not receive in reward the name of the
Son and God, but rather He Himself has made us sons of the Father and deified
men by becoming Himself man. Therefore He was not man and then became
God, but He was God and then became man, and that to deify us. Since, if when
He became man, God called the ancient people sons and made Moses a god of
Pharaoh (Ex. 7:1; and Scripture says of many, ‘God stands in the congregation of
gods’ [Ps. 81{82}:1]), it is plain that He is called Son and God later than they.”
(Against the Arians I.39)

“So I became free from [affections], being no more abandoned to their service
because of the Lord who has made me free from them. For if you object to my
being rid of that corruption which is by nature, see that you object not to God’s
Word having taken my form of servitude; for as the Lord, putting on the body
became man, so we men are deified by the Word as being taken to Him through
His flesh, and henceforward inherit life everlasting.” (Against the Arians III.34)

g. Gregory [the Theologian] of Nazianzen (329-390)

“But the scope of our art is to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the
world and give it to God, and to watch over that which is in His image, if it
abides, to take it by the hand, if it is in danger, or restore it, if ruined, to make
Christ to dwell in the heart by the Spirit, and, in short, to deify and bestow
heavenly bliss upon one who belongs to the heavenly host.” (Oration 2 [In Defense
of His Flight to Pontus], 22)
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“Now the Creator Word, determining to exhibit [the whole riches of goodness],
and to produce a single living being out of both – the visible and the invisible
creations, I mean – fashions man; and taking a body from already existing
matter, and placing in if a breath taken from Himself (cf. Gen. 2:7) which the
Word knew to be an intelligent soul and the Image of God, as a sort of second
world. He place him, great in littleness on the earth; a new angel, a mingled
worshipper, fully initiated into the visible creation, but only partly into the
intellectual; king of all upon the earth, but subject to the King above; earthly and
heavenly; temporal and yet immortal; visible and yet intellectual; halfway
between greatness and lowliness; in one person combining spirit and flesh; spirit,
because of the favor bestowed on him; flesh, because of the height to which he
had been raised; the one that he might continue to live and praise his Benefactor,
the other that he might suffer, and by suffering be put in remembrance and
corrected if he became proud of his greatness. A living creature trained here and
then moved elsewhere; and, to complete the mystery, deified by its inclination to
God. For to this, I think, tends that Light of Truth which we here possess but in
measure, that we should both see and experience the Splendor of God, which is
worthy of Him who made us, and will remake us again after a loftier fashion.”
(Oration 38 [On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ], 11)

h. Gregory of Nyssa (335-395)

“But, ‘the Mediator between God and men’ (1 Tim. 2:5), who through Himself
joins the human being to God, connects to God only that which is worthy of
union with Him. For just as He in Himself assimilated His own human nature to
the power of the Godhead (i.e., the divine nature), being a part of the common
nature, but not being subject to the inclination to sin which is in that nature (for it
says: ‘He did no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth’ [1 Pet. 2:22; Isa. 53:9]),
so also, will He lead each person to union with the Godhead if they do nothing
unworthy of union with the Divine.” (On Perfection)

i. Cyril of Alexandria (378-444)

“As it is said: ‘If we have been conjoined with him in the likeness of his death, so
also shall we be in the likeness of his resurrection’ (Rom. 6:5). It follows,
therefore, that He Who Is, the One Who Exists (cf. Ex. 3:14; John 8:58), is
necessarily born of the flesh, taking all that is ours into himself so that all that is
born of the flesh, that is us corruptible and perishing beings, might rest in him.
In short, he took what was ours to be his very own so that we might have all that

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was his. ‘He was rich but he became poor for our sake, so that we might be
enriched by his poverty’ (2 Cor. 8:9). (On the Unity of Christ)

j. Maximos the Confessor (580-662)

“A sure warrant for looking forward with hope to the deification of human
nature is provided by the incarnation of God, which makes man god to the same
degree as God Himself became man. For it is clear that he who became man
without sin (cf. Heb. 4:15) will divinize human nature without changing it into
the divine nature, and will raise it up for His own sake to the same degree as He
lowered Himself for man’s sake. This is what St. Paul teaches mystically when
he says, ‘that in the ages to come He might display the overflowing richness of
His grace’ (Eph. 2:7).” (First Century on Various Texts, 62)

“The plan was for [God] to mingle, without change on His part, with human
nature by true hypostatic (i.e., personal) union, to unite human nature to Himself
while remaining immutable, so that He might become a man, as He alone knew
how, and so that He might deify humanity in union with Himself. Also,
according to this plan, it is clear that God wisely divided ‘the ages’ (Gk., aiones)
between those intended for God to become human, and those intended for
humanity to become divine…Since our Lord Jesus Christ is the beginning,
middle, and end of all the ages, past and future, it would be fair to say that the
end of the ages (1 Cor. 10:11) – specifically that end which will actually come about
by grace for the deification of those who are worthy – has come upon us in potency
through faith…For nothing created is by its nature capable of inducing
deification, since it is incapable of comprehending God. Intrinsically it is only by
the grace of God that deification is bestowed proportionately on created beings.
Grace alone illuminates human nature with supernatural light, and, by the
superiority of its glory, elevates our nature above its proper limits in excess of
glory.” (To Thalassius 22)

“If then the realization of the divine counsel is the deification of our nature, and
if the aim of the divine thoughts is the successful accomplishment of what we ask
for in our life, then it is profitable to recognize the full import of the Lord’s
prayer, to put it into practice, and to write about it properly.” (Commentary on the
Our Father, 1)

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k. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)

“Let no one deceive you! God is light (1 John 1:5), and to those who have entered
into union with Him He imparts of His own brightness to the extent that they
have been purified. When the lamp of the soul, that is, the mind, has been
kindled, then it knows that a divine fire has taken hold of it and inflamed it.
How great a marvel! Man is united to God spiritually and physically, since the
soul is not separated from the mind, neither the body from the soul. By being
united in essence man also has three hypostases by grace. He is a single god by
adoption with body and soul and the divine Spirit, of whom he has become a
partaker. Then it is fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet David, ‘I have said,
you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High’ (Ps. 81[82]:6), that is, sons of
the Most High according to the image of the Most High and according to His
likeness (Gen. 1:26). We become the divine offspring of the Divine Spirit (John
3:8).” (The Discourses XV.3)

l. Gregory Palamas (1296-1359)

“All things participate in God’s sustaining energy, but not in His essence. Hence
the theologians say the divine omnipresence also constitutes an energy of God.
If we have conformed ourselves to God and have attained that for which we are
created, namely, deification – for they say that God created us in order to make
us partakers of His own divinity (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4) – then we are in God since we are
deified by Him, and God is in us since it is He who deifies us. Thus we, too,
participate in the divine energy – though in a different way from the universe as
a whole – but not in the essence of God. Hence the theologians say that ‘divinity’
is also an appellation of the divine energy.” (Topics of Natural and Theological
Science, 104, 105)

“By becoming the Son of man and sharing our mortality, [the Son of God] made
men sons of God and partakers of divine immortality. Human nature was
shown to have been created in the image of God, unlike the rest of creation, and
this kinship with God was such that human nature could be joined to Him in one
person. He honored this mortal flesh so that the proud spirits should not
consider themselves, or be considered, favored above mankind or as deified
because of being without bodies and apparently immortal. He united men and
God, who were by nature separate, becoming a mediator through His twofold
nature. What more can be said? If the Word of God had not been made flesh,
the Father would not have been shown to be truly Father, nor the Son to be truly
Son, nor would the Holy Spirit have been shown to be essence and hypostases
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(i.e., personal), but would have seemed to be merely some sort of energy
observed in creatures.” (Homily 16 [On Holy and Great Saturday], 19)

m. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (1749-1809)

“When our mind (Gk., nous; that is, the organ of spiritual perception) seeks to
imitate these divine perfections, it will never neglect to walk in the endless way
of godly progress and ascent. We will be ever stretching to reach those things
that are ahead, and forgetting those things that are left behind, according to St.
Paul (cf. Phil. 3:13). He who imitates these divine perfections, that is, he who is
naturally in the image of God, will become willingly also in the likeness of God.
For St. Gregory of Nyssa said: ‘You possess the image of God by being rational;
you receive the likeness of God by acquiring virtue. In creation I have the image,
but I become through the exercise of my free will in the likeness of God.’
Through this likeness, the mind is united with God; the image is united with the
prototype and is deified or, what amounts to the same thing, is saved.” (A
Handbook of Spiritual Counsel XI.6)

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