Incarnation and Deification

We have been created in the image of God and to be like God, and though it has often been tarnished and obscured, the divine image nonetheless remains. God has never backed away from his purpose. Indeed, Jesus Christ has himself become the image of the invisible God, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, and in him we are made complete (Colossians 1:15; 2:9-10). 

By his Incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ has united divinity with humanity, God with humankind, and through the work of the Cross reveals both what it means to be human and what it means to be divine. So the Incarnation shows that human nature was meant to be the bearer of divinity. We are expressly created for it.

Deification is the fulfillment of what it means to be human. It is to become in Christ, “partakers of the divine nature.” To be like God, becoming by grace what Christ is by nature. To be conformed to the image of the Son, who is himself the image of the Father. To be who we truly and inherently are, what God planned for us even from before the foundation of the world. To enjoy in Christ the relationship he has with the Father and the Holy Spirit. For it is the gracious work of the Father, through the faithfulness of the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:4)