Christification

ABSTRACT. Saint Paul refers to Christ’s ability to radiate his divine light of himself while other OT luminaries like Moses could only reflect that light. This experience of theosis is being, also, described as “transformation into unveiled glory” (2 Cor. 3.7-18). By this verse deification through the vision of God become an immanent and mystical event. This aspect of deification as transformation into glory (glorification) is both an inward quality of spiritual knowledge and an outward radiance. The nature of the glory of Moses and the visible splendour shining from his face from his direct contact with God (Exod 34.29) signifies God’s visible, divine presence. As all believers encounter God directly (with unveiled faces) through the Spirit’s presence they reflect this glory as mirrors and are themselves glorified in the process (from glory to glory). The transformation into this glory is not only noetic but also embodied because it is a visible manifestation. The noetic enlightenment is associated with participation in divine glory in 2 Cor 3-4 is correlated to the somatic experience of glory in 2 Cor 4:16-5:5. Paul speaks also of this epistemic process of contemplation which generates the ontological mirroring process. And, because for us there is no veil over the face, we all see as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and we are being transformed (μεταμορφούμεθα) into his likeness (τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα) with ever-increasing glory. But Luke is only evangelist to use the word “glory” (doxa) and only to mention that Jesus and the three apostle went up the mountain specifically to pray (Lk 9:29-31). This is a detail in spiritual tradition of hesychasm which was richly developed, the vision of light at the culmination of intense periods of prayer is the deification of our nature. This light is enhypostatic symbol, the uncreated radiance of God, a divine energy. This manifestation of Christ in the divine nature is not something external to ourselves. It is interiorized through the life of ascetism and prayer. Christ will radiate within us. But this pneumatic nature of Christ’s luminous body is experienced through Eucharist as well. This holy sacrament access the divine light, veiled by Christ’s visible body. Also, Sebastian Brock extends forms of light comparison to the internal light of Mary’s womb when bearing Jesus. Christ’s light transforms her body in which He resided, as it ‚gleams from within’. In her, the light-bearing Christ is ‚woven’ as a garment. Speaking of the hesychast method of prayer and transformation of the body, Gregory Palamas also uses this Pauline theology of 2 Corinthians in Tr. I.2.2. But he adds that “We carry this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7). So we carry the Father’s light in the face (prosōpon) of Jesus Christ in earthen vessels, that is, in our bodies, in order to know the glory of the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, during the hesychast controversy, St Gregory Palamas defend the reality of the encounter with God of those monks who reported seeing a vision of light at the culmination of intense period of prayer. For the light is nothing less than the uncreated radiance of God – a divine energy accesible to the senses. This manifestation of Christ is not something external to ourselves.

This study is about the Byzantine historical context of the "Palaeologan revival", in particular Thessaloniki of the fourth century urban society and hesychast life. First we will describe the life of Nicholas Cabasilas as an aristocrat, politician, humanist of Thesalonic and also the intelectual independence of Cabasilas towards Gregory Palamas. But the focus is on his theocentric humanism, hesychast mariology and sacramental christification, as the anthropological content of deification to St. Nicholas Cabasilas.

Christification as Imitative Participation:
Incarnation, Kierkegaard & the Christ Hymn
By: Stefani McDade

CONTENTS
Introduction: Christological Anthropology
Chapter One: Incarnation as Christification
Chapter Two: Kierkegaardian Christification
Chapter Three: Pauline Christification
Conclusion: Prospects of Christification

ABSTRACT
The terms Christification, Cruciformity and Christosis, have only recently become popular in modern scholarship, and yet a flourish of academic research has emerged on this topic in the last few years. And while its language is relatively new, the concept itself is age-old, in that it signifies dynamic identification and vital union with God in the person of Jesus Christ.

In biblical studies, such labels are often used in reference to the cruciform soteriology of the Pauline corpus, wherein Christoformity is seen as transformative participation. In the field of theology, the term may refer to any doctrine of divinization or deification which is defined distinctly along Christological lines—as found in the more Christocentric writers of the Patristic era or in the Augustinian and Lutheran traditions.

In light of the paradigmatic pattern of Christ’s incarnational exchange, I examine the "God-Man" as a Christic prototype and archetype for all divine-human unification. Specifically, I argue for Christification as a holistic model of imitative participation—wherein Christosis is an embodied process of theosis by kenosis, incorporating both existential and relational dimensions.

My primary methodological goals throughout this project will be to assess the key issues at stake, seek ecumenical convergence and bridge pernicious gaps between theology and anthropology, as well as orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

This study is about the Desert Fathers’s contemplative experience of an outward luminosity, a physical radiance, similar to that of the hesychasts Athonite of the 14th century in late Byzantium. So, there is a convergence of desert wisdom with the Palamite hesychast theology. On these unveiled shining faces, the divine energy of the ‘Christ the Image and Glory of God’ is being revealed. Christ will radiate within us like to the desert Fathers: Pambo, Sisoe, Silvanus. Christology of the Desert Fathers overlaps with pre-Nicene Christology. In anthropological terms of the theosis, man is the mirror of divine glory (δόξα). So, just as the light of the transfiguration the light-bearing robe of the unfallen Adam has a equally teological importance for theosis.
Speaking of the hesychast method of prayer and transformation of the body, Gregory Palamas also uses this Pauline theology of 2 Corinthians in Triad 1.2.2: „Paul says: ‘God, who has ordered light to shine from darkness, has made His light to shine in our hearts, in order that we may be enlightened by the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4:6); but he adds, ‘We carry this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7). So we carry the Father’s light in the face (prosōpon) of Jesus Christ in earthen vessels, that is, in our bodies, in order to know the glory of the Holy Spirit.” We could grasp the convergence between the desert ascetic spirituality and the hesychast spirituality in the work of Gregory Palamas. For him, Moses the lawgiver, Stephen the protomartyr, and Arsenius the desert ascetic are examples from the Bible and the Fathers are men who were visibly transformed by divine light (Triad 2.3.9). God transcends the senses yet the knowledge of God is experiential. The monks know this. They see the hypostatic light spiritually – in reality not in a symbolic fashion. During the hesychast controversy, St Gregory Palamas defend the reality of the encounter with God of those monks who reported seeing a vision of light at the culmination of intense period of prayer. For the light is nothing less than the uncreated radiance of God – a divine energy accesible to the senses. This manifestation of Christ is not something external to ourselves. It is only by having Christ radiant within us that we can enter into the truth which even in the Gospels is veiled from ordinary eyes” (N. Russell 2009, p. 103). Abba Pambo, Sisoes, Silvanus, St Seraphim of Sarov, were man whose radiance was the product of inward openess. Transfiguration becomes an interior experience to St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759-1833) and Archimandrite Sophrony (1896-1991).
Deification to the Desert Fathers acquire a specific anthropological content as Christification, that find its fulfillment in a face-to-face encounter who, „is both a theological theme and a spiritual teaching, both the goal of the divine economy and the process by which the economy is worked out in the believer” (Russell 2009, p. 21). To Palamas, deification is, also, a supernatural gift that transforms both mind and body, making divinity visible (Triad 3.1. 33). Likeness also means a radiation of the presence of God within man, a „reciprocal interiority” (Stăniloae). In the saints this communion is expressed in the way God’s glory is reflected in their faces, in anticipation of the age to come.

Baptist-Orthodox discussions could take the shape of a continuous and constructive dialogue if their historical understandings of the Bible are investigated based on their specific perspectives on doctrine. Concretely, the idea of theosis, present in Greek Patristics and later used by the Eastern Orthodox Church as deification, can be investigated by Baptists in at least three distinct ways: as Christification, as participation, or as perichoresis. All these are prevalent in the works of contemporary Baptist theologians such as Dongsun Cho (United States), Paul Fiddes (United Kingdom), and Emil Bartoș (Romania). Based on the foundation provided by theosis and its range of interpretations, the Baptist-Orthodox dialogue can be further strengthened by a series of common concerns such as apologetics, evangelism, politics, economics, social work, and education.

This article is a study of Christology in which Christ, the center of cosmos, is on the side of creatures in pain. I examine the argument of Jesuit paleontologist and mystic Teilhard de Chardin that the whole universe is in the process of Christification. With Ilia Delio and Elizabeth A. Johnson, I contend that Christ takes the side of suffering creatures going extinct just like Christ opts for the people on the margins of power. First, I sketch a background in which natural evil must be placed within an evolutionary framework. Second, in highlighting Delio's and Johnson's views, I ask, where is Christ in evolution? Finally, I revisit christological notions implied in Colossians 1 and John 1.

Some contemporary Baptists (Medley and Kharlamov) argue that the conservative Baptists in North America need to incorporate the concept of deification into their traditional soteriology because they failed to present the continual and transforming nature of salvation. However, many leading conservative Baptist systematicians (Garrett, Erickson, Demarest, and Keathely) demonstrate their concern about a possible pantheistic connotation of the doctrine of deification. Unlike the conservative Baptists, I argue for the necessity of working with the concept of deification in the traditional Baptist soteriology. The concept of deification is not something foreign to the Baptist tradition because Keach, Gill, Spurgeon, and Maclaren already demonstrated the patristic exchange formula 'God became man so that man may become like God'. They considered the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ as the source and model of becoming like God or Christ, the true Image of God. Christians are called to be united with the glorified humanity of Christ by their adopted sonship and participation in the divine nature. Christification speaks of the real transformation of Christians in terms of a change in the mode of existence, not in nature. The four Baptists taught that Christians could participate in the communicable attributes of God, but not in the essence or incommunicable attributes of God. Therefore, Christification never produces another God-Man. Conservative Baptists do not have to compromise their traditional commitment to sola scriptura and the forensic nature of justification in their employment of the theme of deification. This paper concludes with four suggestions for contemporary Baptist discussions on deification.