SFINŢII IUSTIN MARTIRUL ŞI FILOSOFUL ŞI IRINEU AL LYONULUI DESPRE ÎNDUMNEZEIRE
THE SAINTS JUSTIN MARTYR AND PHILOSOPHER AND IRENAEUS OF LYONS ABOUT DEIFICATION

Summary/Abstract: The Saints Justin Martyr and Philosopher and Irenaeus of Lyons about Deification. Becoming one with God is the most perfect achievement of Christianity, which constantly surpasses itself by its uncreated grace, by recreating God’s image in its body, that is by appropriating the state of sacrifice and transfiguration of the Body of the Resurrected Christ into its body, thus making it transparent and projecting it towards perfection and becoming one with God. The essence of this teaching about becoming one with God is – according to the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Fathers and important orthodox theologians – spiritual, sacramental and moral rebirth, into the Christians’ adoption, holiness and religious-moral-social perfection. Having made peace with God by Christ’s redemption work, the Christian man leaves his state of slave to sin and death and of separation with God, and he finds again his freedom and immortality. The deification of man is the highest stage in the economy of deliverance, as this is the stage in which the uncreated energies and the gifts of the Holy Ghost are acquired by the faithful, and they become the body and soul in the “temple of God” (I Cor. 5, 19-20), as the faithful feels that “Christ lives in him” (cf. Gal. 2, 20), and through Christ, the whole Holy Trinity.

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