THEOSIS is the Eastern Orthodox belief that Christians are called to become more like God through His grace. The word is sometimes translated, “deification.” But this conveys the erroneous belief that humans can be like God in His nature. Rather, Theosis is the process of salvation and sanctification. As Peter says in his second epistle, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness … so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:3-4).
Theosis restores, the image of God which was marred when Adam sinned. Christ, who assumed our human nature, renewed that fallen image so that those who are joined to Him through faith, enter into a process of re-creation, becoming “partakers of the divine nature.”
The path to renewal is found by ‘following hard after God’ (Ps. 63:8) through observing the spiritual disciplines. These include prayer, reading and meditating on Scripture, fasting, charity, helping others, church attendance, and watchfulness (1 Peter 5:8). In Theosis we seek to manifest virtue and the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our lives, while crucifying “the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal. 5:19-24). In the Orthodox tradition, humility is called the “mother of all virtues,” and pride is regarded as “the cause of all sin.”
Theosis is an upward ladder, as St. John Climacus observed, which represents the striving of the soul to fulfill its heavenly calling (see Paul in Phil. 3:14 and 1 Cor. 9:24-27). It is a process in which the soul becomes more interpenetrated with the ‘energies’ (grace) of God by being joined to Christ in both body and soul.
MISSION is the work of the church in the world to which each Christian is called to participate. Christ sent us into the world to spread the good news of His salvation (Mt. 28:19-20) and, following his example, to relieve suffering as we are able.
Our mission is one of compassion, not condemnation. “[H]ave mercy on those who doubt,” says Jude, “save others by snatching them from the fire; and to still others show mercy tempered with fear” (22-23). Yet, as followers of Christ, we must acknowledge the work of evil in the world and call it by name, “hating even the clothing stained by the flesh” (23). Shining a light in dark places invites persecution—it always has. Christ was not crucified for being merciful, but for opposing and exposing evil.
WORSHIP is the eschatological destiny of the church. The book of Revelation gives us a glimpse into the worship of heaven, where angelic beings worship God day and night, without ceasing, as they chant the Trisagion before the heavenly throne (Rev. 4). To borrow the words of the Westminster Catechism, this is “the chief end of man…to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
But the work of worship, the liturgy (from the Greek, leitourgia, “work of the people”), does not belong only to the future. Heavenly worship, like the eschaton itself, impinges upon the present. As the writer of Hebrews says, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven…” (12:22-23). The future is realized in the present, and the powers of the world to come are now manifested on earth. In other words, our worship is intended to be the ‘earthly heaven,’ a foretaste of our eternal destiny.
Theosis (godliness), Mission (evangelism), and Worship (heaven), are the three pillars of the Christian life.
