Deification of Man / Theosis
Bible verses that the Early Church usually quoted...
God stood in the assembly of gods; He judges in the midst of the gods. – Psalm 81:1
I said, “You are gods, And you are all sons of the Most High.” – Psalm 81:6
The Judaeans answered him, “We stone you not on account of a good work, but rather on account of blasphemy, and because you who are a man make yourself out to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law ‘I said, “You are gods”’? If he called gods those to whom God’s Logos came, and the scripture cannot be dissolved, How is it that, because I have said I am the Son of God, you say, ‘You blaspheme’ to one whom the Father sanctified and sent out into the cosmos?” – John 10:33-36
Whereby he has given us his precious and majestic promises, so that through these you may become partakers in the divine nature, having escaped from the decay that is in the cosmos on account of desire. – 2 Peter 1:4
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. – Romans 8:14-17
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. – 1 Corinthians 15:42-49
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. – 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. – Galatians 4:5-7
Beloved ones, now we are children of God, and what we shall be has not yet become apparent. We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. – 1 John 3:2
Early Church Quotes:
Justin Martyr, Teacher in Rome (100–165 A.D.):
But to prove to you that the Holy Ghost 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 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. (Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 124)
And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue. (First Apology, Chapter 21)
Theophilus of Antioch (120-190 A.D.):
Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God. (To Autolycus, Book 2, Chapter 27)
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (130-200 A.D.):
And again: “God stood in the congregation of the gods, He judges among the gods.” He [here] refers to the Father and the Son, and those who have received the adoption; but these are the Church. For she is the synagogue of God, which God—that is, the Son Himself—has gathered by Himself. Of whom He again speaks: “The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken, and hath called the earth.” Who is meant by God? He of whom He has said, “God shall come openly, our God, and shall not keep silence;” that is, the Son, who came manifested to men who said, “I have openly appeared to those who seek Me not.” But of what gods [does he speak]? [Of those] to whom He says, “I have said, Ye are gods, and all sons of the Most High.” To those, no doubt, who have received the grace of the “adoption, by which we cry, Abba Father.” (Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 6)
To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: ‘I said, You are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but you shall die like men.’ He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. (Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 19)
Or how shall man pass into God, unless God has [first] passed into man? (Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 33)
For we cast blame upon [God], because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness he declares, “I have said, You are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High.” (Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 38)
But 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, Book 5, Preface)
Clement of Alexandria (150–215 A.D.):
Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal. “I,” says He, “have said that you are gods, and all sons of the Highest.” (The Paedagogus, Book 1, Chapter 6)
His is beauty, the true beauty, for it is God; and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, “Men are gods, and gods are men.” (The Paedagogus, Book 3, Chapter 1)
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, Chapter 1)
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 flesh. (Stromata, Book 7, Chapter 16)
Tertullian, Teacher of Carthage (155-220 A.D.):
For so will it belong to Himself if it belong to Him alone; and therefore it will be impossible that another god should be admitted, when it is permitted to no other being to possess anything of God. Well, then, you say, we ourselves at that rate possess nothing of God. But indeed we do, and shall continue to do — only it is from Him that we receive it, and not from ourselves. For we shall be even gods, if we, shall deserve to be among those of whom He declared, I have said, You are gods, and, God stands in the congregation of the gods. But this comes of His own grace, not from any property in us, because it is He alone who can make gods. (Against Hermogenes, Chapter 5)
Hippolytus, Teacher of Rome (170-235 A.D.):
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: for whatever sufferings you underwent while being a 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, Book 10, Chapter 30)
If, therefore, man has become immortal, he will also be God. And if he is made God by water and the Holy Spirit after the regeneration of the layer he is found to be also joint-heir with Christ after the resurrection from the dead. (The Discourse on the Holy Theophany)
Origen, Teacher of Alexandria (185-253 A.D.):
…They see that from Him there began the union of the divine with the human nature, in order that the human, by communion with the divine, might rise to be divine, not in Jesus alone, but in all those who not only believe, but enter upon the life which Jesus taught, and which elevates to friendship with God and communion with Him every one who lives according to the precepts of Jesus. (Against Celsus, Book 3, Chapter 28)
“Therefore, it is said, “God stood in the gathering of gods.” But what makes us human beings, so that, having fallen from divinity, we might destroy the legacy calling us to become gods? What makes human beings? Hear Paul speaking about very small sins:8 “for when there is among you jealousy and strife, are you not fleshly, and do you not walk in a human manner?” And he adds, “Are you not hu- man beings?” Does he not all but cry out there and say: “The logos has called you, so that you may be gods, but, for this rea- son and that, you are human beings”? And here he says well, “‘I have said, “You are all gods and sons of the highest,” but you’—I see us practicing such things not worthy of divinity”—he adds and says, “see, in fact, ‘you die as human beings and you fall as one of the rulers,’ and God’s legacy coming to us, making us gods, which ought to be received with the whole soul, we sinners do not accept, but throwing away and eliminating divinity, we accept the flesh’s ways of thinking, accomplishing works of the flesh, not putting to death by spirit the deeds of the flesh, which we ought to do.” For when the deeds of the body are put to death, so that there are no longer deeds of the body in us, then we have been made gods. A god-logos, if it is produced in the soul, makes the soul that receives it a god. For if a small leaven leavens the whole lump, what is to be said, not concerning a small and insignifi- cant leaven, but about the god-making logos, but that it, hav- ing come to be in the soul, leavens the whole lump of a human being into godhood and the whole human being becomes god? For “the kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a wom- an took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.” Are not, then, the three measures the spirit, the soul, and the body of a human being?The leaven came from the woman, the Church that has received Christ, and the leaven itself, preaching to the three measures, leavened that whole, the lump,… and has made the human being from the whole to become a god.” – Origen, Homilies on Psalms, Psalm 81
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (210-258 A.D.):
This is our God, this is Christ, who, as the mediator of the two, puts on man that He may lead them to the Father. What man is, Christ was willing to be, that man also may be what Christ is. (Treatise 6)
What Christ is, we Christians shall be, if we imitate Christ. (Treatise 6)
Gregory Thaumaturgus (213-270 A.D.):
For we hold that the Word of God was made man on account of our salvation, in order that we might receive the likeness of the heavenly, and be made divine after the likeness of Him who is the true Son of God by nature, and the Son of man according to the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ. (A Sectional Confession of the Faith, Chapter 16)
Anthony the Great of Thebes (251-356 A.D.):
But the fool pursues evil and is proud of doing so: he is like someone caught in a snare, who struggles helplessly in its toils. So he is never able to look up, and to see and know God, who has created all things that man may be saved and deified. (On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life, Chapter 168)
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (296-373 A.D.):
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, Discourse 3, Chapter 26)
For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. (On the Incarnation, Chapter 54)
For He has become Man, that He might deify us in Himself, and He has been born of a woman, and begotten of a Virgin, in order to transfer to Himself our erring generation, and that we may become henceforth a holy race, and ‘partakers of the Divine Nature,’ as blessed Peter wrote. (Letter to Adelphium, Chapter 4)
Hilary of Poitiers (300-368 A.D.):
But the Incarnation is summed up in this, that the whole Son, that is, His manhood as well as His divinity, was permitted by the Father’s gracious favor to continue in the unity of the Father’s nature, and retained not only the powers of the divine nature, but also that nature’s self. For the object to be gained was that man might become God. But the assumed manhood could not in any wise abide in the unity of God, unless, through unity with God, it attained to unity with the nature of God. Then, since God the Word was in the nature of God, the Word made flesh would in its turn also be in the nature of God. Thus, if the flesh were united to the glory of the Word, the man Jesus Christ could abide in the glory of God the Father, and the Word made flesh could be restored to the unity of the Father’s nature, even as regards His manhood, since the assumed flesh had obtained the glory of the Word. Therefore the Father must reinstate the Word in His unity, that the offspring of His nature might again return to be glorified in Himself. (On the Trinity, Book 9, Chapter 38)
Basil the Great (330-379 A.D.):
Shining upon those that are cleansed from every spot, He makes them spiritual by fellowship with Himself. Just as when a sunbeam falls on bright and transparent bodies, they themselves become brilliant too, and shed forth a fresh brightness from themselves, so souls wherein the Spirit dwells, illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual, and send forth their grace to others. Hence comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of what is hidden, distribution of good gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a place in the chorus of angels, joy without end, abiding in God, the being made like to God, and, highest of all, the being made God. (On the Holy Spirit, Chapter 9)
Gregory of Nyssa (335-395 A.D.):
Since the God who was manifested infused Himself into perishable humanity for this purpose, that by this communion with Deity mankind might at the same time be deified, for this end it is that, by dispensation of His grace, He disseminated Himself in every believer… (The Great Catechism, Chapter 37)
For just as He in Himself assimilated His own human nature to the power of the Godhead, 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), so, also, will He lead each person to union with the Godhead if they do nothing unworthy of union with the Divine. (On Perfection)
Augustine of Hippo (354-403 A.D.):
“But he himself that justifies also deifies, for by justifying he makes sons of God. ‘For he has given them power to become the sons of God’ [referring to John 1:12]. If then we have been made sons of god, we have also been made gods. (Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm 50)
He who was God became Man in His effort to make godlike those who were men; without relinquishing what He was, He desired to become what He had made. He Himself fashioned what He would become, in that He added man’s nature to God without losing God’s nature in man. (Sermon 192)
Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 A.D.):
He came down into our condition solely in order to lead us to his own divine state. (On the Unity of Christ, 63)
It follows, therefore, that He Who Is, The One Who Exists, 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 human beings, might rest in him. In short, he took what was ours to be his very own so that we might have all that was his. (On the Unity of Christ, 59)
For we too are sons and gods by grace, and we have surely been brought to this wonderful and supernatural dignity since we have the Only Begotten Word of God dwelling within us. (On the Unity of Christ, 80)
Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390 A.D.):
While His inferior Nature, the Humanity, became God, because it was united to God, and became One Person because the Higher Nature prevailed in order that I too might be made God so far as He is made Man. (Oration 29, Chapter 19)
For there is One God, and One Mediator between God and Man, the Man Christ Jesus. For He still pleads even now as Man for my salvation; for He continues to wear the Body which He assumed, until He make me God by the power of His Incarnation. (Oration 30, Chapter 14)
And how is He not God, if I may digress a little, by whom you too are made God? (Oration 39, Chapter 17)
Thalassios the Libyan (580-640 A.D.):
God, who gave being to all that is, at the same time united all things together in His providence. Being Master, He became servant, and so revealed to the world the depths of His providence. God the Logos, in becoming incarnate while remaining unchanged, was united through His flesh with the whole of creation. There is a new wonder in heaven and on earth: God is on earth, and man is in heaven. He united men and angels so as to bestow deification on all creation. The knowledge of the holy and coessential Trinity is the sanctification and deification of men and angels. (On Love, Self Control and Life in accordance with the Intellect 1:95-101)
Maximus the Confessor (580-662 A.D.):
Nothing in theosis is the product of human nature, for nature cannot comprehend God. It is only the mercy of God that has the capacity to endow theosis unto the existing… In theosis, man (the image of God) becomes likened to God, he rejoices in all the plenitude that does not belong to him by nature, because the grace of the Spirit triumphs within him, and because God acts in him. (Letter 22)
It is through this second kind of knowledge that, when we come into our inheritance, we receive supernatural and ever-activated deification. (Various Texts 4:29)
And he who is ignorant of the great mystery of the new grace does not rejoice in the hope of future deification. Thus failure to contemplate the written law spiritually results in a lack of the divine wisdom to be apprehended in the natural law; and this in its turn is followed by a complete ignorance of the deification given by grace according to the new mystery. (Various Texts 5:31)
If the divine Logos of God the Father became son of man and man so that He might make men gods and the sons of God, let us believe that we shall reach the realm where Christ Himself now is, for He is the head of the whole body, and endued with our humanity has gone to the Father as forerunner on our behalf. God will stand ‘in the midst of the congregation of gods’ – that is, of those who are saved – distributing the rewards of that realm’s blessedness to those found worthy to receive them, not separated from them by any space. (Two Hundred Texts on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God 2:25)