Many passages in the New Testament speak to the Orthodox understanding of deification/theosis. First is 2 Peter 1:3–4, which states that God’s “divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” through the knowledge of God, who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these things, He has given us His great promises so that we “may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
This verse clearly and unequivocally states that we can become partakers of the divine nature. How so? Through God’s divine power at work in us, we gain life and godliness and are given His promises so that we can escape from corruption. There is God’s action in and upon us, and there is response and corresponding effort on our part.
This brings to mind Philippians 2:12–13, where St. Paul tells us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling,” for it is God who is at work in us “both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Thus we get a clear picture here of the process by which we are renewed and unified so completely with God that we become by grace what God is by nature. God works in us, and we cooperate with His grace.
Another passage of note is John 10:34–36. In a dispute with the Pharisees, Jesus refers to the verse quoted above, Psalm 82:6, where human beings are referred to as “gods.” The Jewish leaders accuse Jesus of blasphemy and are ready to stone Him for equating Himself with the Father (vv. 22–33). Jesus replies, “ Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods” ’? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),” then why do they label as blasphemy Jesus calling Himself God’s Son? Jesus is truly God’s Son, and we are gods because we share in His sonship.
Consider Acts 17:28–29, where St. Paul approvingly quotes the Greek poets, who state that we are God’s “offspring.” Paul concludes that since we are “the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature” is like some lifeless object.
Throughout Paul’s epistles, we find many descriptive passages referring to the same concepts that we have been considering: union with God, sharing in the divine nature through grace, and total participation in Jesus Christ—the biblical concept of theosis/deification. In Ephesians 1, Paul states that we have been given “every spiritual blessing” (v. 3) so that we should be “holy and without blame” (v. 4); we are His “sons” (v. 5). He made “the riches of His grace . . . to abound toward us” (vv. 6–7). We are given wisdom and insight into the “mystery of His will” (v. 9), which is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (v. 10).
Furthermore, we are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (v. 13), the “guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (v. 14). We are recipients of “wisdom and revelation” (v. 17), having “the eyes of [our] understanding . . . enlightened” (v. 18); knowing the “exceeding greatness of His power toward us” (v. 19). We are the “body” of Him who is the head and “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (v. 23).
These are descriptions of sonship, of human beings as children of God with full pedigree and inheritance rights. We are brought into God’s intimate inner circle to know the mystery of His will, being given wisdom and enlightenment. We have grace lavished upon us and are His body, His fullness. The whole purpose of God’s mystery is that all things will be united in Christ and that He will be all in all. Does this not describe partaking of the divine nature, becoming by grace what God is by nature?
Certainly there is much more being described here than “growing in faith and good works,” progressing in sanctification or mortifying sin. Those are indeed excellent enterprises, but not ends in themselves. They are means employed toward a greater end. St. Paul is outlining this compelling, inspiring description of our identity in Christ, indeed showing us what total participation in Christ actually is. Ephesians 1 is a description of theosis.
In other verses in Ephesians, St. Paul continues: we are to “be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:19) and to attain to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (4:13). We are to “grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (4:15). Again, this describes the process of being deified by grace, acquiring the fullness of Christ.
In Romans 6, Paul gives us a wonderful picture of deification. Through baptism we “walk in newness of life” (v. 4). We are not to let sin “reign in [our] mortal bod[ies]” (v. 12), but are to “present [ourselves] to God” (v. 13) so that sin will “not have dominion over” us (v. 14). Our members are to be yielded to “righteousness for holiness” (v. 19). Therefore we have “been set free from sin, and hav[e] become slaves of God” (v. 22). Our hope is to share in “the glory of God” (5:2). Even the very creation “eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (8:19).
Continuing in chapter 8, we are indeed called “sons of God” (v. 14) who have received a “Spirit of adoption,” crying (as Jesus did) “Abba, Father” (v. 15). The Spirit bears witness “with our spirit”—union—that we are “children of God” (v. 16). We are children, “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ . . . that we may also be glorified together” (v. 17). Verse 17 also stipulates, “if indeed we suffer with Him.” We will come back to that in relation to the experience of the saints who have attained deification.
In verse 29, St. Paul writes that we are destined to be “conformed to the image of His Son.” Furthermore, those He “justified, these He also glorified” (v. 30). Note that he did not say God will glorify them only after they die, at the final resurrection. This glorifying can be a present reality. Verse 32 says that God will “with Him also freely give us all things.”
Does this not get you just a little bit excited? Does it not describe something more than “being saved” or “going to heaven when I die”? Is your heart racing just a little? If so, you are starting to grasp theosis. It is an understanding of our purpose as believers that is not just Orthodox, it is thoroughly biblical.
Before we briefly note some other New Testament passages, let’s consider an additional way to understand deification from the Book of Genesis. There we learn that we are created in God’s image. Through sin, that image has been greatly broken and damaged, but through redemption in Christ it is renewed “according to the image of Him who created” it, as Paul notes in Colossians 3:10. Add all these other motifs—sonship, being fellow heirs, union, being made like Christ, partaking of the divine nature—and we see that these describe the divine image, broken and marred (but not altogether lost) through Adam’s fall, being remade in us through Christ’s redeeming work, so that we become like God. Thus in Genesis we are created in God’s image; through Christ we are given the opportunity to acquire God’s likeness. In Ephesians 4:23–24 this very idea is reinforced: “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” and “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” And in 5:1 we are enjoined to be “imitators of God.”
A number of other New Testament passages describe theosis:
Romans 12:1–2: We are to present our bodies as a “living sacrifice,” doing so as part of our spiritual worship. And we are to “be transformed” by the renewing of our minds into the likeness of God.
1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:17: We are reminded that we are God’s “temple” and that “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him”—union with God.
Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Philippians 1:21: “For me, to live is Christ.”
Colossians 3:3: We have “died” and our lives are “hidden with Christ in God”—total participation in Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23: May God “sanctify you completely”—complete conformity to the image and likeness of God.
2 Thessalonians 2:14: We were called by God “for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 John 4:17: “Because as He is, so are we in this world”—the possibility of deification, total participation in Christ this side of eternity.
John 17:22: In His high priestly prayer, Jesus says that He has given us the glory that the Father gave Him.
Revelation 21:7: At the beginning of the eschaton, Christ says of each of us, “I will be his God and he shall be My son.”
1 John 3:2: “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
Philippians 3:21: Christ will “transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.”
These passages promise to all Christians an ending “like Christ” at the consummation of history. Since that is our end—actually a new beginning, for which we were created and redeemed—we are urged throughout the New Testament to obtain more and more of that reality in this life, as a “dress rehearsal” for the life to come. In short, this is what theosis/deification is: the possibility that we can acquire in this life that state that we will have as resurrected, glorified persons in the presence of God in eternity.
Finally, we must consider our Lord’s transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Matt. 17:1ff; Mark 9:2ff). One of the twelve major feasts of the Orthodox Church, it provides great insight for our understanding of theosis. Jesus went up the mountain with Peter, James, and John and was transformed before their eyes. He appeared to them in His glorified humanity and was illumined with the light of divinity. Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, appeared with Christ as He was enveloped by the glory cloud, the presence of the Holy Spirit. As at His baptism, the Father spoke, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matthew 17:5).
Here we have the whole Bible summed up in this one event. The Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, point to Christ, the eternal Son come in the flesh. He appears with the Holy Spirit and the Father—the Trinity. Through His Incarnation He is joined to our humanity and glorifies it in Himself, uniting us to God, fulfilling the purpose of our creation in Genesis. We are to listen to Him because He is God’s ultimate revelation of Himself to us (cf. Hebrews 1:1; John 1:14). Furthermore, this event occurred to prepare the disciples for Christ’s crucifixion, which would deliver our fallen humanity from sin and death and raise us up with Him in His resurrection.
Thus we may be glorified together with Him. We are joined to Christ in His glorified, deified humanity and so are united to God. Through this union we are made partakers of the divine nature. Through grace we can become what He is.
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