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.)