So, Why Does It Matter?

Today is the "Sunday of Orthodoxy" on which Orthodox Christians celebrate the victory of Orthodoxy over the Iconoclasts. For over one hundred years around the eighth century, the icon-smashers ripped down and burned all the icons they could get their hands on, destroying not just magnificent works of art, but objects personifying Christ, as well as beloved saints and martyrs who were personally known to many Christians of that time. And the icon-smashers also murdered thousands of priests, monks and lay-people who defended the belief that we should venerate and honor the images of Christ, the saints and martyrs. So, why does it matter?

It matters precisely because matter matters! "God created man in His own image" (Genesis 1:27). "Image" is "eikon" in Greek. We were created as material beings, with bodies as well as souls. In the beginning, Adam and Eve were glorious beings: I can envision that their bodies glowed, clothed only in the glory of God, as they walked in the Garden of Eden with the pre-incarnate Christ. They were young and innocent, like teenagers, curious to learn all about this wonderful garden paradise, and even more curious to know God more and more, being transformed from one degree of glory to another in the presence of the Lord. But then the deceiver Satan tricked them to go beyond the limits that God had set for them. They took the bait: they ate, and their eyes were opened to see the glory fade away and and their nakedness appear.

Ever since Adam and Eve lost the glory of God in their bodies, mankind has created a false dichotomy, a dualism that opposes soul and body, mind and matter. All over the world and throughout human history, religions have sprung up teaching that the soul or spirit is good but the body or matter is evil. Some, called Ascetics, taught that the body isn't important, so we should deny our bodily needs. Others, called Epicurians, taught that the body isn't important, so we should eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die. Just as there is a bit of truth in every lie, there is a bit of justification for this false dualism: the soul lives forever, but the body eventually dies and decays into corruption - at least in our fallen, sinful state.

The body is important: we ought to take care of it, getting enough exercise, rest and nourishment, but not too much of any of those. The glorious image of God that we ought to possess in our bodies has been sullied by sin - gluttony, fornication, drunkenness, drugs and sloth that destroy our bodies: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). So God forbade mankind to make and worship images that try to depict God, because it was impossible: the image was always imperfect, defective and corrupted due to sin, and thus not worthy of God. But then, all of that changed....

"The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw His glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). God put on a human body! The glory of God returned to human flesh! "His Son is the radiance of His glory, the very image ['icon' in Greek] of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself made purification for our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3). From the moment of the Incarnation onward, it is possible to depict God in an image, because the original image of God in mankind has been restored: the image - the icon - has been restored!

And not only in Christ's body is the divine image restored: "But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image [icon] from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18). The process of our being restored, re-modeled into Christ's image and likeness has begun. The icon-smashers are smashed. The false dualism of soul versus body, mind versus matter, is overcome. Now matter matters! Human life matters, from before the cradle to the grave and beyond, our bodies are in the process of being transformed into glorified bodies: "He [Christ] has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust" (2 Peter 1:4).

So, why does it matter? Matter matters because we are no longer talking about subjective ideas and feelings, but we are dealing with objective material reality. The whole material universe that has been groaning and travailing under the burden of mankind's fall into sin will be transformed along with us: "the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now" (Romans 8:21-22). The objective material world is affected when we sin, and the objective material world is also being transformed when we are transformed.

If the only reality is one's own subjective ideas and feelings, then matter doesn't matter at all. I can treat my body to all sorts of pleasures and passions because the only important things are my thoughts and feelings. I can conjure up an infinite number of parallel universes in my mind so I can explain away the need for a Creator of this finite universe that must have had a beginning and will certainly have an end. In the final analysis, the ultimate subjectivity of one's ideas and feelings denies the real existence and created goodness of the material universe, and ends in the twisted thought that the only thing which really exists is the one thinking such thoughts. It denies the personhood of others, and makes them into mere objects that satisfy one's own passions and drive for power. No! The Incarnation cancels all that nonsense! God now inhabits not just the body of the baby Jesus Who grew up to die for our sins and rise again: God now inhabits the Body of Christ - the Church. And when we partake of His Body and Blood, we receive the Divine Nature into our human nature and are transformed.

So, why does it matter? Matter is important because God became incarnate in Christ. From the Incarnation onward, God is not merely an idea or a theory, but a material reality, a divine-human Person. For centuries mankind has been theorizing and speculating about the existence and nature of God, as if He were just an abstraction in our minds. Even after Christ was born, lived, died and rose again, people argued that Christ only "appeared" to be human (Docetism), or that Jesus was merely a really holy man, a prophet, sort of god-like but not fully God (Arianism and its stepchild, Islam), or that Jesus was born as an ordinary human and that the Spirit of God later inhabited him at his baptism and made him into Christ that obliterated his human nature (Nestorianism), or that Jesus' human will was totally dissolved into Christ's divine will (Monothelitism).

All of these heresies destroy the image of God in Christ, the fact that Christ is fully God and at the same time fully man, two natures and two wills - divine and human - in one Person. We are not talking about a mere idea that can be debated, or an opinion that can be modified, or a mirage that vanishes like a mist: we are talking about a real, material human Person. It matters what we believe about Who Christ is, because if we believe wrongly, we believe in the wrong Person, we don't believe in the real Jesus Christ, the God-Man, the real Person Who became one of us so that we could become one with Him. If Christ did not fully partake of our human nature, we cannot become partakers of the divine Nature, be saved and deified. He is not just a bunch of conflicting ideas, He is the one real Person who can deify us into His image and likeness, making us into real persons again.

We should always ask the "So what?" question. So what! - if we have all our theological ducks lined up, and we have rejected Docetism, Arianism, Nestorianism and Monothelitism. So what! - if we know all about being transformed and becoming partakers of the divine nature, if we don't have one thing: LOVE. If we don't love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves - that includes "those people" with a different skin color, dialect or ideology. Christ teaches us to love even our enemies! So what! - to all that theology theory, if we don't love those who are not-us! They are persons, not objects, just as much as we are persons... in Christ.

So, that's what matters. That's why God became matter.

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 20 Mar. 2016.)

The Fullness

The photo here, taken from inside the dome of a church in Romania, shows the halo around Christ, in which are the Greek letters "HO ON" for "I AM", and on each side the Greek letters "IC XC" for "Jesus Christ" around it, and below "HO PANTOKRATOR" for "The Almighty." He is surrounded by the Seraphim, Cherubim and the angelic host. This gives you an inkling of understanding of the awesome greatness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ!

In our 04 Jan. 2015 Hosken-News essay, "The Fullness of Christ," we considered several passages dealing with this topic: Eph. 1:19-23 & 3:19; Col. 1:14-20 & 27-28; 2:9-10. Take a few minutes to re-read that issue and meditate on the Scripture passages. But today let's consider the question: "What exactly is this Fullness?"

Perhaps the central text is - "For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily," (Col. 2:9) where St. Paul tells us that the man Jesus Christ is also fully God. As well as being fully man with a rational mind, human emotions, and a free will - all that makes up human nature - He also possesses the infinite love, power, wisdom, knowledge and authority of the Godhead. When the Virgin Mary conceived, she gave human nature to the divine nature. In Christ Jesus from that very moment, our weak, fallen human nature was transformed by being united to the divine nature. This is not to say that Christ assumed sinfulness, but He did take upon Himself our human nature that was weakened by the Fall. And by uniting this human nature with His divine nature, He began the process of redeeming and transforming human nature.

What does this mean for us? St. Paul continues in the very next verse - "and you have this fullness in Him, Who is the head of all principality and power" (Col. 2:10). We possess the same fullness of the Godhead! That is rather astounding, but it is exactly what St. Paul wrote and taught. Because Christ took upon Himself our fallen human nature with all its weaknesses, redeemed and transformed it, He gives us the privilege of participating in His divine nature. And just as He did not lose His divine nature by taking up human nature, we do not lose our human nature and personhood by partaking of the divine nature. Christ is fully God and fully human, and we become fully human and fully divine - deified not in our essence, but by participating in the divine energies flowing from Christ. We do not lose our human personhood, but rather we are being transformed into the perfect human beings that Adam and Eve were before the Fall.

As mentioned in our last essay "Transformation," St. Peter wrote about this - "Seeing that His [Christ's] divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and virtue; by which He has granted to us His precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust" (2 Pet. 1:3-4). This is called sanctification, theosis or deification. Adam and Eve's sin brought death and corruption into the world. But corruption can be overcome by our partaking of the divine nature. Cheryl and I have seen the bodies of saints in Russia who died hundreds of years ago, and their bodies lie in the caskets incorrupt. There are stories of people seeing these saints at prayer glowing with the fiery light of transfiguration.

St. John of Damascus writes - "So then, He had by nature, both as God and as man, the power of will. But His human will was obedient and subordinate to His divine will, not being guided by its own inclination, but willing those things which the divine will willed. For it was with the permission of the divine will that He suffered by nature what was proper to Him. For when He prayed that He might escape the death, it was with His divine will naturally willing and permitting it that He did so pray and agonize and fear, and again when His divine will willed that His human will should choose the death, the passion became voluntary for Him. For it was not as God only, but also as man, that He voluntarily surrendered Himself to the death. And thus He bestowed on us also courage in the face of death." (An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, p. 211, available for free at www.agape-biblia.org/literatura/.)

This is how we "become partakers of the divine nature": by submitting our human will to the divine will of Christ our God. We can voluntarily give up the desire for wealth, position and power. We can voluntarily identify with the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, helping them overcome these obstacles to having the fullness of life in Christ. The path to transformation, glorification and sanctification is through humility and suffering, not through pride and power. This is how we become fully human, like Adam and Eve were before the Fall, and even more, because this new, transformed human nature will be fully mature, tried by the fire of the divine presence of Christ.

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 03 Mar. 2016.)