Page 105

Alexandr Korol
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Page 105

Post by Alexandr Korol »

And here is the text: “And again He said, ‘To what shall I liken the Kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.’” – Luke 13:20-21.”

“To the simple question of the apostles, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus Christ answered plainly: ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible,’ revealing to His disciples the way He accomplishes this. Therefore, when ‘Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said: “I thirst,”’ and ‘It is finished,’ it meant that the human nature of Jesus Christ had already sanctified the inhabited world and would become ‘a new creation,’ uniting with the Divine nature in the sense of the Hypostasis. Christ is saved, the God-man will be resurrected – ’that the Scripture might be fulfilled.’ How did Jesus Christ resurrect? What did the Lord do with His human nature in the world, and how was its theosis – its salvation by God – accomplished (with the resurrection as its testimony)? This work does not belong to service and tradition but to the practice (the work) of theosis, as the holy fathers carried out their own salvation by deifying their human nature – their bodies. Liturgical services fulfill the commandment of Jesus Christ: ‘Do this in remembrance of Me,’ and therefore, the practice of service has a divine meaning only in fulfilling this commandment through communion with the Body of Jesus Christ and the sacraments that accompany it. But the practice (the work) of personal theosis fulfills the Providence of the Economy of God’s Kingdom, just as Jesus Christ deified and saved His human nature – His own Body. Theosis is not accomplished in liturgical services, and therefore, the saints did not limit themselves to worship but sought ways to recreate themselves. As the ‘Lives of the Saints’ testify, they would leave worship services and go far away if anything interfered with the practice of theosis – the work of human salvation.”

In Catholicism: “The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the Divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4): ‘For this is the reason why the Word became flesh and the Son of God became the Son of Man: it was so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus acquiring Divine sonship, would become a son of God.’ ‘For the Son of God became man to make us God.’ ‘The Only Begotten Son of God, desiring that we participate in His Divine nature, took on our nature so that, by becoming man, He would lead people to become divine.’”