To appreciate the early Christian writers position on transformation it is helpful if the reader is sympathetic to the theological assumptions under which these writers worked. Early Christian writers operated under the assumption that God’s action in history (particularly the Incarnation), God’s teaching, and God’s being along with the practices of the Church (baptism and Eucharist) produced genuine knowledge that if applied properly (discernment) under the right circumstances (holiness of life) may affect personal transformation. This transformation encompassed the whole person—affective, intellectual, moral, and social. The Greek term most often used to describe this transformation was theosis, that is, deification. The choice of this term was deliberate and directly challenged pagan usage of apotheosis, in which human beings, particularly emperors, advanced to the rank of the divine. For the early Christians it was abundantly clear that human beings belong to the created order. As created, human beings remained finite whereas God was infinite.
Incarnation and Deification
Very early in the church’s reflection on scripture, the concept of deification was associated with the doctrine of the Incarnation. Athanasius’s formula, “the Word of God… became human so that we might become God” was one of the more famous examples. Athanasius reasoned that humans are most unlike God in the fact that they sin and die. Yet Christ became a human being in order to redeem humanity from sin and death. Consequently, in doing so, Christ makes humans Godlike, that is, deifies humanity. In addition, human beings, originally created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26) lost their rootedness in that divine image because of sin. Athanasius taught that it was through the Incarnation that the image of God was renewed, “The Word of God came in his own person, in order that, as he is the image of the Father, he might be able to restore man who is in the image.” As such the Incarnation affirms the image character of humanity and opens up the possibility of our development/transformation into the likeness of God.
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Michael Glerup, Ph.D., serves as Research and Acquisitions editor for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS), a twenty-eight volume patristic commentary on Scripture. ACCS, published by InterVarsity Press, is an ecumenical project promoting a vital link of communication between the varied Christian traditions of today and their common ancestors in the faith. Read more at http://www.ancientchristian.com
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