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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2026 6:38 pm
All the attributes of Adam before the Fall return: communion with God, dominion
over all creation, and others.
Gregory the Theologian points out that a person, when delivered from sin,
becomes a visible God:
“Man (1 Tim. 2:5), so that He who is otherwise uncontainable for the bodily,
by reason of the uncircumscribable nature, might not only become containable
through the body; but also sanctify man through Himself, becoming as it were a
leaven for the whole lump, freeing the whole man from condemnation by joining
the condemned one to Himself, becoming for all everything that constitutes us,
except sin — body, soul, mind — everything that death penetrated. And the common
result of all this is man, a visible God through contemplation.”
Within Christian Denominations
In Eastern Orthodoxy
The path toward divinization lies through mystical experience, prayer, the ascension
of the mind toward God, and standing before Him in prayerful contemplation.
In Orthodoxy, this term characterizes the ultimate goal of the Christian
life — a goal that does not end with physical life but leads to dwelling with
God in eternity. In the Sacrament of Baptism, God sows the seed of a new human
nature within a person. Nourished by the grace of the Eucharist and other
sacraments, as well as by the moral perfection of the Christian, this seed grows
and transforms the individual.
“And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like
leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole
was leavened.”
Luke 13:20–21
To the apostles’ simple question — ”Who then can be saved?” — Jesus Christ
answered directly: “With men it is impossible, but with God all things are
possible,” revealing to His disciples the tropos (mode) He was enacting.
over all creation, and others.
Gregory the Theologian points out that a person, when delivered from sin,
becomes a visible God:
“Man (1 Tim. 2:5), so that He who is otherwise uncontainable for the bodily,
by reason of the uncircumscribable nature, might not only become containable
through the body; but also sanctify man through Himself, becoming as it were a
leaven for the whole lump, freeing the whole man from condemnation by joining
the condemned one to Himself, becoming for all everything that constitutes us,
except sin — body, soul, mind — everything that death penetrated. And the common
result of all this is man, a visible God through contemplation.”
Within Christian Denominations
In Eastern Orthodoxy
The path toward divinization lies through mystical experience, prayer, the ascension
of the mind toward God, and standing before Him in prayerful contemplation.
In Orthodoxy, this term characterizes the ultimate goal of the Christian
life — a goal that does not end with physical life but leads to dwelling with
God in eternity. In the Sacrament of Baptism, God sows the seed of a new human
nature within a person. Nourished by the grace of the Eucharist and other
sacraments, as well as by the moral perfection of the Christian, this seed grows
and transforms the individual.
“And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like
leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole
was leavened.”
Luke 13:20–21
To the apostles’ simple question — ”Who then can be saved?” — Jesus Christ
answered directly: “With men it is impossible, but with God all things are
possible,” revealing to His disciples the tropos (mode) He was enacting.