Sin, Salvation and the Reality of Being

How we view sin affects how we understand salvation. When sin is framed as a legal infraction, the violation of a code, salvation becomes a forensic matter requiring a courtroom acquittal. This reduces human reality to a set of rules and transactions. Sin, however, is not the infraction of a law but the brokenness of a relationship. It is to turn away from God, from one another and is even a rejection of our own true selves. It is what St. Augustine called incurvatus in se, a curving inwardly upon ourselves, away from all else — which is not how we were created to be.

Salvation is not a legal adjudication with God delivering a verdict from some neutral corner. In Christ, God does not remain external, delivering a verdict, or granting forgiveness from afar, but unites himself with our nature, entering into our life and death so that humankind might enter into his divine life. Salvation is not an abstract transaction but the concrete reality of Christ’s life lived in us — the re-making of humanity in communion with God. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19). 

The good news of the gospel is that in Jesus Christ, we become partakers of the divine nature, Christ living in us. This life is not abstract but real and tangible. It is what St. Peter and St. Paul confessed in their writings, and saints ever since have shown us what it looks like.

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 1:3-4)

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

In some corners, sin has been understood as a legal infraction and salvation as a legal solution. These, however, are abstractions that do not even begin to address the reality of being but distance us from it. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ, on the other hand, plunges us into the very heart and truth of what it means to be divine and what it means to be human.

Interconnected Through the Incarnation

The Incarnation is not just God entering into our world and drawing near, but God uniting with humanity in Christ. Because the Word became flesh, every human being is already bound up with Him — and therefore bound to one another in Him. The good news of the gospel is not just that we are forgiven, but that in Christ’s humanity we are united with him, and therefore with each other. In Christ, all things are brought together in unity (Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:17).

Formerly, humankind was headed up in Adam, but now it is headed up in Christ. “Consequently, just as one trespass [Adam’s] resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act [Christ’s] resulted in justification and life for all people” (Romans 5:18). “Just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). 

This is the recapitulation about which St. Irenaeus writes so famously. What was once encompassed in Adam is now recapped in Christ. For example, of the hunger, weariness and tears Christ experienced, the wounds he suffered, and the piercing of his side from which flowed blood and water, Irenaeus says, 

All these are tokens of the flesh which had been derived from the earth, which He had recapitulated in Himself, bearing salvation to His own handiwork. (Against Heresies 3.22.2)

For if He did not receive the substance of flesh from a human being, He neither was made man nor the Son of man; and if He was not made what we were, He did no great thing in what He suffered and endured. But every one will allow that we are [composed of] a body taken from the earth, and a soul receiving spirit from God. This, therefore, the Word of God was made, recapitulating in Himself His own handiwork. (Against Heresies 3.22.1) 

St. Leo the Great, in his sermon On the Feast of the Nativity, shows that Christ has taken on human nature, and by that nature conquered death and the devil: “For the Son of God in the fullness of time which the inscrutable depth of the Divine counsel has determined, has taken on him the nature of man, thereby to reconcile it to its Author: in order that the inventor of death, the devil, might be conquered through that which he had conquered.” Isn’t that what we find in Hebrews? 

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

St. Gregory Nazianzen, in a Letter to Cledonius shows that whatever has not been assumed by Christ cannot be saved: “If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.” 

There is only one human nature, of which we all partake, and Christ has assumed it and recapitulated it in himself. St. Gregory writes particularly about the various aspects of human being, such as body, spirit, mind and will; whatever has not been assumed by Christ cannot be made whole. But this applies just as well to all humankind. In his Treatise on 1 Corinthians 15:28, Gregory says, “Now the body of Christ, as I often have said, is the whole of humanity.”

Through baptism, we are incorporated into the body of Christ in a very tangible way. As we participate in the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of our Lord made present, we experience together what it means to become the body of Christ. 

Each of us bears the humanity Christ has made His own and are intimately and inextricably united with Christ and so also with each other. We are each created in the image of God, of Christ, who is the Image of the Invisible God, and in Christ we become partakers of the divine nature. Faith lives in that reality.

The Good News of the Gospel is that 
through the Incarnation, we are, every one of us, 
interconnected with Jesus Christ, 
and so also with one another 
through Him.  

The Church Is the Fullness of Christ

In the book of Ephesians, St. Paul speaks of God’s great and eternal plan for all creation, which has been revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only has it been made known in time but it is the purpose of time, describing the fulfillment of time. God’s purpose in Christ is all encompassing, and time is the measure of its progress. 

God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment — to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)

The operative word for bringing all to unity under Christ is the Greek anakephalaiomai, which means to sum up, to head up, to recapitulate — or as we like to say, to recap. God’s purpose from the beginning is to recapitulate all in heaven and on earth in Christ, with Christ as head. So shall it be at the end of time.

God put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:22-23)

Christ, as the head of all creation, fills all things in every way with himself. In this way, all creation becomes the embodiment of Christ, and this embodiment is the Church. For just as there is no body without the head, there is also no head without the body. St. John Chrysostom says,

The fullness of the head is the body and that of the body is the head. Observe how skillfully Paul writes and how he spares no word to express the glory of God. The “fullness” of the head, he says, is fulfilled through the body ... Through all members, therefore, his body is made full. Then the head is fulfilled, then the body becomes perfect, when we are all combined and gathered into one. (Homily 3 on Ephesians)

The Church is the fullness of Christ in all things and in every way, but that does not mean Christ is incomplete in himself. Rather, the Church is how his fullness is expressed and made known. Christ ever remains uniquely the head over all things. The Church embodies his fullness not by adding to him or taking from him, but by manifesting him throughout the world. The Church is the revelation of Christ.

In his Treatise on 1 Corinthians 15:28, St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “Now the body of Christ, as I often have said, is the whole of humanity.” Fr. John Behr echoes that and the logical conclusion of Ephesians 1: “The Church is the whole of Creation seen eschatologically; from which we already see islands in the present.” For all in heaven and on earth are made one and headed up in Christ, who is All in All.

Jesus Christ fills everything in every way, 
and the Church is that fullness.

In the Image of Christ Crucified

In the Beginning, God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, and in our likeness.” Jesus Christ, who is the Image of the Invisible God, is the fulfillment (Colossians 1:15). But it is Christ as the Crucified One who reveals God to us. How is this so? St. Paul shows us in Philippians 2, and it is the very heart of the gospel.

Have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8)

Though he is God, our Lord Jesus Christ did not consider it something to be exploited to his own advantage. Rather, he emptied himself, humbled himself, sharing in our humanity, giving himself over for our sake even to the point of shameful death on the cross. This indeed is the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form, God reconciling all in heaven and on earth to himself through Jesus Christ, having made peace by the blood of the cross (Colossians 1:19-20).

This is what it is to be God — and what it is to be human. By sharing in human nature, Christ defines it for us. To be truly human is to participate in the self-giving, other-centered, cross-shaped love of God, and so to take part in the resurrection of Christ as his body, the Church.

Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. (Romans 6:3-5)

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

My confident hope is that I will in no way be ashamed but that with complete boldness, even now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether I live or die. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. (Philippians 1:20-1) 

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that matters is a new creation! (Galatians 6:14-15)

To be created in the image of God 
is to be created in the image of 
Christ crucified and risen. 

Our True Identity Is In Jesus Christ

Human nature is not something we can manufacture for ourselves. Neither is our identity. These can only be revealed to us, and only through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ — Christ in us, the Hope of Glory (Colossians 1:27).

In the Beginning, when God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, and in our likeness,” Jesus Christ is the fulfillment, who is the Image of the Invisible God (Colossians 1:15). He is the Logos of God — the Reason, the Meaning, the Way of God — who became human being, dwelt among us and revealed the glory of the Father to us in bodily form (John 1:14). 

Our nature is not simply biological existence but the image of God revealed in Christ. It is only in union with Christ that we are made complete and become partakers of the divine nature (Colossians 2:9-10; 2 Peter 1:4). See the many ways Scripture affirms it:

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (1 John 3:2-3)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:2–4)

By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. (1 John 4:17)

And the varied ways the early Church confesses it:

He became what we are that He might make us what He is. (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 54)

You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. (St. Augustine, Confessions, I.1)

For the glory of God is a living man, and the life of man consists in beholding God. (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.20.7)

For we believe that a logos of angels preceded their creation, a logos preceded the creation of each of the beings and powers that fill the upper world, a logos preceded the creation of human beings, a logos preceded everything that receives its become from God ... This same Logos, whose goodness is revealed and multiplied in all the things that have their origin in him, with the degree of beauty appropriate to each being, recapitulates all things in himself ... Each of the intellectual and rational beings, whether angels or human beings, through the very Logos according to which each was created, who is in God and is with God, is called and indeed is a portion of God through the Logos that preexisted in God. (St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua 7)

Christ who is the Logos of God is also our logos, our true reason, meaning and purpose — the way of our being. To live in communion with Christ is to come into our true identity, who we really are. Apart from him our identity is fragmented and distorted. Christ, the Logos of God, is expressed in each one of us, and each one of us is expressed in him. 

Our inherent nature and identity is in Jesus Christ alone. 
Only in him do we discover our true selves, 
so to become who we are. 

My Identity in Christ is Not So Fragile

Here is a trustworthy saying, St. Paul writes: “Christ came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15). He saw no contradiction between Christ saving sinners, and himself being not only one of them but the worst of them. If Christ came to save sinners, then please let me be counted among them, even the worst of them — that I might be saved. This is not an encouragement to sin but quite the opposite. St. John said: 

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father — Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)

Again, John sees no contradiction between Christ being the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world and the recognition that it is yet possible for us to sin. And if (when) we do, we have an Advocate with the Father — Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. That is a wonderful promise and comfort, and an encouragement to bring it all before the Lord. To confess our sins, to admit how screwed up we are, how poorly we behave, does not offend the Lord. It honors the Lord and appropriates his promise. Every week in the Anglican Church we make this Prayer of Confession:

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.

We pray this not because we do not believe the grace of God or the gospel of Christ but because we do. We are counting on it. We want God’s help to delight in his will and walk in his ways, because we find so often — daily, not just weekly — that we don’t. Even if I am unaware that I have sinned in thought or word or deed this week, in what I have done or have left undone, I take it as a given that I have — which is much more likely than that I haven’t — and look to God’s forgiveness and help concerning it.

We often tend to think of sin as the infraction of a law, but it is really the brokenness of a relationship, turning away from God, from others, even from ourselves, from who we truly are in Christ. It is a curving in upon ourselves and away from others. We often leave behind us a trail of broken relationships. Broken by things we have done, or said, or thought about others; or by things we ought to have done but failed to do, because of thoughtlessness or neglect, or indifference toward the plight of others.

My identity in Christ is not so fragile that I cannot admit I am still screwed up and need his help daily. Indeed, my identity in Christ is not fragile at all — precisely because it is in Christ. It is his doing, not mine.

Lord, have mercy and help me, 
because I want to be like Jesus, 
to live as he lived and love 
as he has loved. Amen. 

The Irony of Forensic Justification

There is a distinction between Law and Gospel, of course, and an important one. St. Paul says that the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good (Romans 7:12). “Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faithfulness” (Galatians 3:23-4). As we will see, and as Paul spoke about earlier in this letter, the faithfulness by which we are justified is that of Jesus Christ.

Beginning with the Reformation, some made such a sharp distinction between Law and Gospel that it became a hermeneutic, classifying and dividing passages as either Law or Gospel, with Law being not a guardian but tyrant driving us to despair. The main problem for humankind was understood to be a legal one, a matter of law. And if the problem were a legal one, then the solution offered by the gospel would need to be a legal one, too.

What of justification, then? Paul does speak of it, and he makes some important points concerning it — but not as a question of Law.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23-4)

The problem of sin is not the it is infraction of Law but that by our sins we fall short of the glory of God — the glory we were created to share. Infraction of Law is an abstraction, but to come up short of the glory of God is a matter of ontology, a matter of our very being, turning away from God.

And yet, Paul says that we are justified freely by the grace of God through redemption in Christ Jesus. That is the grace by which we are saved — through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Which brings me to Galatians 2:16:

We know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. (NET)

The justification Paul speaks of is not a legal solution. A solution to a legal problem would be a legal one. But Paul denies a legal solution when he says, “not by the works of the law,” for they do not justify. What is needed is not a forensic solution but a transformation. Transformation is what we find a few verses later:  

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 NET) 

Christ now lives in us, and we live by the faithfulness of Christ — the faithfulness by which we are justified. That is justification not as forensic declaration but as transformation.

Those who make the sharpest distinction between Law and Gospel, who see the problem as a legal one, generally insist that justification is forensic — legal in nature. It means that God’s act of justification creates a legal fiction: We are declared to be righteous as a matter of Law, but it does not actually make us righteous; it is a change in status but not a change within our being.

Further, justification as forensic declaration is abstract. It relies on an idea of imputation of righteousness, something not found in either the Scriptures or in the early Church. Righteousness is not actually a transferable thing, nor are there any actual accounts for merits to be credited or debited to or from. 

The early Church had no doctrine of imputed righteousness. In their understanding, the solution the Gospel offers us is one that actually makes us righteous. The justification it brings is transformative. The life of Christ who lives in us and by which we now live actually changes us; it is the faithfulness of Christ by which we are justified actually at work in us. It is not an abstraction, not a legal fiction, not an accounting maneuver. Rather, it is an ontological reality that is dynamic and transformative, changing us to become more and more like Christ, until we are fully conformed to the image of the Son, through whom we become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

The early Church had no interest in Gospel as legal solution, or justification as forensic declaration. Below are three writings* from the Fathers that, by the nature of their subject, we should expect to see descriptions of a pressing legal problem and how it is solved by Christ — if justification as forensic declaration were of any concept or concern to them.

• St. Irenaeus, in his book, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, gives extensive example about how the gospel as it was handed down from the Apostles was preached in his day (mid to late 2nd century). There are a couple of significant things to note about it. First, virtually every point about the gospel is drawn from the Old Testament, revealing our Lord Jesus Christ throughout. Second, through he does speak of the Law, it is preparatory to the Gospel; and though he does speak of justification, it is not about a forensic declaration. He sees justification as a matter of faith, not of Law, and it is transformative, for in justification we receive a new heart and a new spirit.
• St. Melito of Sardis, in his book, On Pascha, also in the mid to late 2nd century, writes what appears to be the oldest known Passover Haggadah, fully on the death and resurrection of Christ, that he is our Pascha, our Passover. Yet he says nothing about a forensic declaration of justification being secured — or even necessary.
• St. Athanasius in, On the Incarnation, describes the pitiful condition of humankind and asks what was God to do about it. But the problem he lays out is not about a detrimental legal situation we were in, nor is the solution he identifies in the Incarnation and the Cross. He shows no interest in justification as forensic declaration. For him, Incarnation and Cross are about our transformation: Christ was incarnate that we might be made divine.

For the Fathers, the gospel and justification are transformative in nature: Christ became human being so that we could be divine, becoming by grace what he is by nature. 

So, it is ironic that those who are most insistent on a sharp distinction between Law and Gospel are also most insistent that justification is forensic. Such an idea was not known in the Church until about the 16th century.

* These three books, by the way, are a great place to begin reading the Church Fathers.

The Church Fathers and Lordship Salvation

The debate between “Lordship Salvation” and “Easy Believism” was quite the “tempest in the teapot” for a certain segment of evangelicalism — it just so happened to have been in the segment of which I was a part, as a student of the particular Bible college I attended in the mid-70s. The names, “Lordship Salvation” and “Easy Believism,” were the designations each group used for the other, and were generally applied pejoratively. The latter represented what has come to be known as the “Free Grace” movement; the former was a new name for how the Church has understood the nature of faith and salvation all along, even among the Reformers. 

In a recent conversation, someone who attended the same Bible college I did — which vigorously promoted the “Easy Believism” view — wondered what the early Church might think of this modern debate. I thought that was a good question, so I put it to ChatGPT. Below is my question and the answer I got back:

Q. What might the early Church Fathers say about the late 20th century debate between “Lordship Salvation” and “Easy Believism”?

A. Great question. The debates in the late 20th century between “Lordship Salvation” (John MacArthur, et al.) and “Easy Believism” (Charles Ryrie, Zane Hodges, et al.) were framed in very modern, Protestant terms — but if we ask how the early Church Fathers might have looked at this dispute, their testimony points clearly in certain directions.

1. Faith as Obedience and Fidelity

For the Fathers, faith (pistis) was not a mere mental assent or one-time decision, but a lived trust expressed in obedience.

• St. Irenaeus speaks of faith as obedience to God’s word (Against Heresies 4.16.2).
• Clement of Rome (1 Clem. 35) exhorts believers to show faith by “hospitality, humility, and perseverance in good works.”
• Origen: “To believe in Christ is not merely to say ‘I believe,’ but to live in accordance with his words” (Commentary on John 19.6).

They would not separate confessing Jesus as Lord from actually living under his lordship.

2. Cheap Grace vs. Transformation

The Fathers consistently reject the idea of a bare, inactive faith.

• St. James (canonical text): “Faith without works is dead” (Jas 2:26), repeatedly cited by Fathers.
• St. John Chrysostom: “Faith without works of love is not faith at all” (Homilies on Romans 18).
• St. Basil: warns against thinking that baptism or confession alone saves apart from a transformed life (On Baptism 1.3). This lines up more with the Lordship Salvation insistence that true faith brings forth fruit than with Easy Believism’s worry that demanding fruit compromises grace.

3. Salvation as Ongoing, Synergistic

The Fathers saw salvation as a dynamic process of cooperation with grace (synergeia), not a punctiliar event.

• St. Athanasius: “The Word was made man in order that we might be made God” (On the Incarnation 54). This implies transformation, not mere status change.
• St. Maximus the Confessor: salvation requires our free cooperation with divine grace in obedience.

Thus, they would likely object to the “one-time decision, forever settled” framework of Easy Believism.

4. Assurance and Perseverance

The Fathers rarely speak of assurance the way modern Protestant debates do. Instead, they emphasize watchfulness, repentance, perseverance.

• The Didache: “If you are able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you are not able, do what you can” (6.2).
• Hermas, Shepherd: stresses repeated repentance and obedience, warning that faith without moral transformation is worthless.
• Augustine: genuine grace transforms the will, and perseverance to the end is God’s gift (On the Gift of Perseverance).

5. Likely Patristic Evaluation of the Debate

• They would reject Easy Believism outright as a distortion: reducing faith to a mental act apart from obedience would sound to them like the gnostics who claimed salvation by secret knowledge without transformation.
• They would agree with the Lordship Salvation concern — that to confess Christ is to submit to him as Lord, and that genuine faith shows itself in obedience and holiness.
• At the same time, they would be uneasy with any suggestion (sometimes found in Lordship Salvation rhetoric) that salvation is reducible to moral performance — for them, it is always grace working in us, not human effort alone.

In Summary:

The Fathers would not recognize a dichotomy between “faith” and “obedience.” To them, faith is entrusting oneself to Christ as Lord, which necessarily issues in obedience and transformation. They would strongly criticize Easy Believism as antinomian, and would support the Lordship position—though always with the caveat that obedience is not a human achievement but the fruit of grace.

The Revelation of Divinity and Humanity

What does it mean to be God — and how would we even know? We might think we have a pretty good idea by picking up hints from creation or gleaning shadows from the Mosaic Law, but do we really? And do  we even really know what it means to be human? Looking at the goings on in the world around us, it would seem that we do not. 

When we come to the Incarnation, the Word of God becoming flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14), the temptation is for us to take what we think it means to be God, mix it with what we think it means to be human, and suppose that gives us a pretty good idea of what it means for God to become human. But again, not really.

Jesus Christ is the full and final unveiling of what God is like, “the radiance of his glory and the express image of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). He is “the image of the invisible God,” in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:15, 19). He said of himself, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

The Incarnation is the full revelation of what it means to be God. And it is also the full revelation of what it means to be human, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness” (Colossians 2:9-10). Our completeness as humans is found only in Christ, in whom all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. And in him we become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

This is what we were made for: to participate in the divine nature, to bear the image of God — to be like God (Genesis 1:26-27). When God said, “Let Us make Humankind in Our image, to be like Us,” Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that. For he is the Image of the Living God, and God predestined us to be “conformed” (symmorphos) to the image of the Son — which is to say, formed together with him (Romans 8:29).

This understanding is echoed in the early Church, among such Fathers as St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, and St. Maximus the Confessor.

It was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and he who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.19.1) 

He was made man so that we might be made God. (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 54). 

In Christ, God is made man and man is made God, so that the Giver and the receiver might be one and the same, wholly God and wholly man, and known in both. (St. Maximus, Ambigua 5)

Yet, what does it mean to be God? And how is it revealed in Jesus Christ? St. Paul shows us in Philippians 2, where he enjoins us:

You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8) 

Our Lord Jesus, in his very form and nature, is God — eternally so. Yet, he did not consider it something to be plundered and used to his own advantage. Rather, he emptied himself, humbled himself, sharing in our humanity — and by so doing redefined it — giving himself over for our sake in cross-shaped love. He did not come to be served, but to serve and to hand his life over for ours (Mark 10:45). This is precisely what it means to be God.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)

If we would know what it means to be God, however, we must understand this: Christ’s humility on the Cross was not a means to divine glory but was the very expression of it. When we see the humility of Christ in his deep descent, we are not seeing the divine glory in recess but as it is most fully revealed. 

We see that this is also what it means to be human. It is to empty ourselves, humbling ourselves, giving ourselves in cross-shaped love for one another. For Paul entreats us to have the very same mindset toward one another that is in our Lord Jesus Christ. Then we will see what it is to be truly human, and that it is to be like God.

Were it not for the Incarnation, we would not know what God is like — or what it means to be human. These are revealed only in Jesus Christ crucified and risen.

The Mystery of Incarnation and Being

The mystery of the Incarnation, the union of Divinity and Humanity, of God and Humankind is not by halves. That is, our Lord Jesus Christ is not half-God, half-human. He fully shares our humanity so He may fully heal it. This union is not partial, but complete in both natures. He was truly made man, and is said to be of the same nature with us according to the flesh. He is consubstantial — of one substance, of one being — with the Father, and he is also consubstantial with humankind. His consubstantiality with us is as real and complete as His consubstantiality with the Father, and it is for this reason that his Cross and Resurrection are of saving benefit for us.

This mystery is central to the understanding of the Church Fathers, and indeed, to the Christian message. It is enunciated in the Nicene Creed that our Lord Jesus Christ is of one being with the Father, and that for us humans, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became Human. It is affirmed by the Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, in AD 451) in its Definition of Faith: that our Lord Jesus Christ is at once complete in divinity and complete in humanity, truly God and truly man, of one substance with the Father regarding his divinity, and at the same time of one substance with us regarding his humanity. 

Here are a couple of brief quotes from St. Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzus) and St. Athanasius, and an extended one from St. Cyril of Alexandria, whose writings on this are foundational to the theological understanding of the Christian faith.

That which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. (St. Gregory Nazianzus, Epistle 101.5)

He became what we are, that He might make us what He is. (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 54)

Following in all points the confessions of the Holy Fathers which they made (the Holy Ghost speaking in them), and following the scope of their opinions, and going, as it were, in the royal way, we confess that the Only begotten Word of God, begotten of the same substance of the Father, True God from True God, Light from Light, through Whom all things were made, the things in heaven and the things in the earth, coming down for our salvation, making himself of no reputation, was incarnate and made man; that is, taking flesh of the Holy Virgin, and having made it his own from the womb, he subjected himself to birth for us, and came forth man from a woman, without casting off that which he was; but although he assumed flesh and blood, he remained what he was, God in essence and in truth. Neither do we say that his flesh was changed into the nature of divinity, nor that the ineffable nature of the Word of God was laid aside for the nature of flesh; for he is unchanged and absolutely unchangeable, being the same always, according to the Scriptures. For although visible and a child in swaddling clothes, and even in the bosom of his Virgin Mother, he filled all creation as God, and was a fellow-ruler with him who begot him, for the Godhead is without quantity and dimension, and cannot have limits.
     Confessing the Word to be made one with the flesh according to substance, we adore one Son and Lord Jesus Christ: we do not divide the God from the man, nor separate him into parts, as though the two natures were mutually united in him only through a sharing of dignity and authority (for that is a novelty and nothing else), neither do we give separately to the Word of God the name Christ and the same name separately to a different one born of a woman; but we know only one Christ, the Word from God the Father with his own Flesh. For as man he was anointed with us, although it is he himself who gives the Spirit to those who are worthy and not in measure, according to the saying of the blessed Evangelist John. (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Third Letter to Nestorius)

The Incarnation means that our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who is of one being with the Father, 
is also of one being with us. 

Christ and the Cross of Our Deliverance

The Gospel is not about sinners in the hands of an angry God, but about sinners in the hands of a loving God, God in the hands of angry sinners, and how God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting our sins against us. For the Word did not become human to satisfy divine anger or settle divine accounts but to confront the powers that enslaved humanity — to destroy death and bring us to life.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15) 

This is not the appeasement of an offended deity, but freedom from the enslaving power of death, the fear of death, the devil — and so, also, from the power of sin.

Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:15)

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)

For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:9-10)

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

This early Church Fathers understood the atoning work of Christ to be not one of divine penalty or appeasement but of divine victory over everything that stood against us.

St. Irenaeus, in Against Heresies (5.21.1), “He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head.” 

St. Athanasius, in On the Incarnation (2.10), “For by the sacrifice of His own body He did two things: He put an end to the law of death which barred our way; and He made a new beginning of life for us, by giving us the hope of resurrection. By man death has gained its power over men; by the Word made Man death has been destroyed and life raised up anew.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his Catechetical Orations (§24), speaks of  how Christ deceived the devil by offering himself under the veil of our human nature, like bait to a greedy fish, “the hook of divinity might be swallowed with the bait of the flesh, and thus when life came to dwell in death and light shone in the darkness, that which is understood as the opposite of light and life might be utterly destroyed.”

St. John Chrysostom, in his Paschal Homily, tells how Christ destroyed death by enduring it, and Hades by entering into it. “It is in an uproar because it is now made captive. Hell took a body, and it discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.”

Christ did not go to the Cross to deliver us from 
God but to rescue us from the power of death, 
the power the devil, and the power of sin.

Tears of Repentance

Tears of repentance flow from an awareness of some sort of  “distance” or “disconnect”from God (and others — and even within ourselves), and there is a longing to return. There is no actual distance, of course, between us and God, which would be impossible, but we still do distance ourselves in our thoughts and attitudes.

St. Paul said, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior” (Colossians 1:21). Yet, even while we were hateful toward God, “we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son — how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10). Even so, we may still often turn away from God, curving inwardly upon ourselves.

There are things that are alien to our nature and not at all what we were created for. We are beset by many things the Fathers called “passions” — disordered movements of the soul that distort human nature and separate us from God in our thoughts. They arise when the soul’s natural powers are misdirected:

What, then, is evil? Clearly it is the passion that enters into the conceptual images in accordance with nature by the intellect; and this need not happen if the intellect keeps watch. Passion is an impulse of the soul contrary to nature, as in the case of mindless love or mindless hatred for someone of for some sensible thing. In the case of love, it may be for needless food, or for a woman, or for money, or for transient glory, or for other sensible objects or on their account. In the case of hatred, it may be for any of the things mentioned, or for someone on account of these things. Again, vice is the wrong use of our conceptual images of things, which leads us to misuse the things themselves. (St. Maximus the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love, 2:15-17)

The powers of the soul were given to us by God for doing good, but when we misuse them, we create the passions. The passions were not planted in us by God, but we ourselves bring them about through our negligence. Yet, the Fathers did not teach that passions must be annihilated — but they must be transfigured.

So we are given the gift of repentance. Repentance is not merely sorrow over wrongdoing but it is a cleansing, a purging of the distortions that have clung to us. When we weep with godly sorrow, it is not because we are being diminished. Quite the opposite, it is because we are being restored. Something is being discerned in us, uprooted in us.

Tears of repentance are not the product of human effort. St. John Climacus, in The Ladder of Divine Ascent, speaks of tears as a second baptism, a gift from God to the humble. Do not force them, or try to work them up — that will do you no good — but do not try to hold them back, either. Let them simply come, for they are healing. When we weep in repentance, the heart is being softened, and the passions are being loosed. The tears we shed mark the nearness of our freedom.

The man who sighs over his soul for but one hour is greater than he who raises the dead by his prayer while dwelling amid many men. The man who is deemed worthy to see himself is greater than he who is deemed worthy to see the angels, for the latter has communion through his bodily eyes, but the former through the eyes of his soul. (St. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies)

The end of the Christian life not a cold detachment, but a love that is free, pure, and fully rooted in God. When the soul has brought the passions to their proper us, it is illumined by divine love and becomes like God in all things, with a heart of compassion.

And what is a merciful heart? It is a heart burning with compassion for the whole of creation, for humans, for birds, for animals, and even for demons and all creatures. From the memory and contemplation of them, his eyes flow with tears. Due to great patience, his heart becomes small, and he cannot bear to hear or see any harm of even the slightest sorrow happening in creation. And because of this, he offers prayers with tears at all times. (St. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies)

Tears of repentance mean that things are 
being uprooted in you that do not belong. 
Let them flow freely, for they are 
a gift from God, and your 
deliverance is at hand.

When All Creation is Subject to Christ

In First Corinthians 15, St. Paul unfolds for us the gospel and its cosmic dimension. He begins: “Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). In the balance of the chapter, he shows the scope and significance of the gospel, and its final resolution:

Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be All in All. (1 Corinthians 15:24-28) 

The gospel Paul preaches is not merely a local or regional concern but is without geographical boundaries — indeed, it knows no cosmic limitations whatsoever. In several other of his epistles, Paul lays out the “big picture,” the express and eternal purpose and pleasure of God accomplished through Christ.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:19-23) 

He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment — to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10) 

 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

It is the salvation, the redemption, the deliverance, of all of heaven and earth; which is to say, of everyone and everything. All are brought to unity and summed up in our Lord Jesus Christ. “And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1:22-23). Christ is the one who fills everything in every way, and the Church, which is the Body of Christ, is that fullness of him. In this way, all creation becomes the Body of Christ, and so does God become All in All.

We find this understanding echoed in the early Church Fathers. For example, in St. Irenaeus of Lyons, in Origen of Alexandria, and in St. Athanasius of Alexandria: 

For the Creator of the world is truly the Word of God: and this is our Lord, who in the last times was made man, existing in this world, and who in an invisible manner contains all things created, and is inherent in the entire creation, since the Word of God governs and arranges all things; and therefore He came to His own in a visible manner, and was made flesh, and hung upon the tree, that He might sum up all things in Himself. (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.18.3)

If, then, that subjection be held to be good and salutary by which the Son is said to be subject to the Father, it is an extremely rational and logical inference to deduce that the subjection also of enemies, which is said to be made to the Son of God, should be understood as being also salutary and useful; as if, when the Son is said to be subject to the Father, the perfect restoration of the whole of creation is signified, so also, when enemies are said to be subjected to the Son of God, the salvation of the conquered and the restoration of the lost is in that understood to consist. (Origen, De Principiis 3.5.7) 

For the Lord touched all parts of creation, and freed and undeceived them all from every deceit. As St. Paul says, “Having put off from Himself the principalities and the powers, He triumphed on the cross,” so that no one could possibly be any longer deceived, but everywhere might find the very Word of God. For thus man, enclosed on every side by the works of creation and everywhere — in heaven, in Hades, in men and on the earth, beholding the unfolded Godhead of the Word, is no longer deceived concerning God, but worships Christ alone, and through Him rightly knows the Father. (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 45)

Christ is intimately and inextricably 
united with all creation. It is as all creation 
is subject to Christ, and Christ is subject 
to the Father, that God is All in All.

The Incarnation As Mutual Indwelling

The Incarnation is the mystery of God and humanity dwelling together in unbroken, inseparable union. Christ has taken on our full humanity, not as a vessel or garment to be cast aside but as that which he has become, without in any way detracting from his full divinity. For “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). This union is not a blending or confusion of natures but a co-inherence — a mutual indwelling — such that wherever the Son is, both divinity and humanity are fully present. St. Maximus the Confessor speaks of this great and encompassing mystery:

By his gracious condescension God became man and is called man for the sake of man and by exchanging his condition for ours revealed the power that elevates man to God through his love for God and brings God down to man because of his love for man. By this blessed inversion, man is made God by divinization and God is made man by hominization. For the Word of God and God wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of his embodiment. (Ambigua 7)

“God became man” in order to save lost man, and — after he had united through Himself the natural fissures running through the general nature of the universe ... to fulfill the great purpose of God the Father, recapitulating all things, both in heaven and on earth, in Himself, in whom they also had been created. (Ambigua 41)

The deified person, while remaining completely human in nature, both in body and soul, becomes wholly God in both body and soul, through grace and the divine brightness of the beatifying glory that permeates the whole person. (Ambigua; Patrologia Graeca 91, 1088)

In the Incarnation, Christ did not become merely one of us but one with us. He is not simply one man among many but the one in whom God’s eternal purpose to bring unity to all in heaven and on earth — all are summed up in Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10). Christ is in all and all are in Christ. This mutual indwelling is the heart of salvation. 

Christ has united human nature to himself, and so is present in all humanity, sustaining each one of us. In him, humanity is healed, restored, and brought into union with God. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus says, “That which he has not assumed he has not healed; but that which is united to his Godhead is also saved” (Epistle 101, To Cledonius).

The Co-Inherence of Divinity and Humanity in our Lord Jesus Christ means that salvation is not some abstract, legal declaration, but a real and transformative union. Through such tangible means as baptism and the Eucharist, we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection, and by the Holy Spirit we share in his divine life. “It is no longer I who live,” says Paul, “but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

The Incarnation is the co-inherence,
the interpenetration, the mutual indwelling
of divinity and humanity, of God and humankind.
It means Christ is in all and all are in Christ.

Some Moment Other Than the Cross

The Cross is where the world is judged and the sins of the world forgiven. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19). Christ is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:12). Even as he was being crucified, our Lord Jesus Christ prayed for us all, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

The Moment of the Cross is the only true moment, the only moment in which we belong — the only moment there is. To turn away from this moment is to turn toward non-being. To embrace this moment is to embrace Christ, who draws us to himself. Looking to this moment, Lord Jesus said, “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:31-32).

When we do not forgive others, or ourselves, 
we are living in some moment other than 
that of the Cross, for the Cross is where 
the forgiveness of all is revealed.

Forgiveness is All of One Piece

St. Paul tells us that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19). This forgiveness by which we are forgiven is all of one piece with the forgiveness by which we forgive each other. All humankind is one, also, for there is only one human nature, only one human being, of which we all partake. Through the Incarnation, the Human Being in which we all participate is defined in Jesus Christ, who reveals for us exactly what it is to be human. And in him we are all forgiven from before the foundation of the world.

Through our participation in Jesus Christ, the only Human Being there is, we are intimately and inextricably bound to each other, and the implication runs deep. We belong to each other so deeply that none of us can finally be whole until each one of us is finally whole. So we must learn to forgive one another, allowing the forgiveness of God, revealed in Jesus Christ, to have its full work in us. Until we do, we will not be whole. In a very real way, and as the ancient Desert Fathers would say, “My brother is my salvation.”

Divine Grace Through Tangible Means

Christ is the Creator of all. Everything in heaven and on earth is his handiwork and reveals him. It is no wonder, then, that he would minister divine grace to us through tangible things. Indeed, through the tangibility of created matter, he ministers salvation to us. For salvation is not abstract and disembodied, separating spirit from body, but it is actually and transformative. God ministers grace to us in tangible ways and through such means as water, oil, bread and wine. These are not mere symbols but become sacramental elements through which God actually accomplishes something in us, manifesting salvation to us.

In the Water of Baptism, we are buried with Christ, baptized into his death, so that just as Christ has been raised from the dead, we too may live in newness of life, the life of Christ in us.

Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:3-4)

In the Oil of Anointing, Christ ministers healing to us, just as he sent the disciples out to preach, with authority to expel demons and heal diseases. Presbyters/Priests were likewise given authority to anoint with oil for healing.

They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. (Mark 6:13)

Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. (James 5:14)

The Bread and Wine of Eucharist have true participation in the Body and Blood of Christ, and so we, who are many, become the Body of Christ.

Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

Whoever Loves Not Knows Nothing

God is Love. Where Love is, there God is. The Love of God is not abstract but is very tangibly revealed in the self-giving of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross. This is the love God desires to reveal in us and through us — self-giving, other-centered, cross-shaped. St. Paul speaks quite splendidly and famously, in 1 Corinthians 13, on the nature of Love.

St. John the Theologian also brings us some important insights in the middle three chapters of First John. He tells us quite plainly that whoever loves has been born of God and knows God, and whoever does not love does not know God.

Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them. (1 John 2:7-11)

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. (1 John 3:14)

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:18-20)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8) 

Whoever Loves Not Knows Nothing.
Whoever Loves Knows God,
For God is Love.

All of One Piece

Who and how we worship instructs our faith and informs how we live — and these cannot be separated. Even those who claim no faith nonetheless have an object of highest concern that functions as their deity. They have a pattern of rituals developed in service to such idols, which instructs their thoughts and reinforces the intents and purposes of their hearts. And so are their lives shaped and formed day by day.

Who we worship is not just a matter of doctrine — it is the foundation of our identity. To worship the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit is to anchor our lives in the One who is not only true and beautiful and good, but is Truth, Beauty, and Goodness itself.

But how we worship matters too. If our worship is full of awe, centered on the mystery of Christ, breathing the Scriptures with the Spirit of Life, we will be drawn into the divine fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our faith will be nourished with depth and clarity, illumined with the Light of God. But if our worship is casual, self-focused, empty of the sacred, our faith will easily wither into sentiment and we will be darkened by delusion.

Worship is not performance — it is formation. It teaches us who God is, who we are, and how the world, stripped of all delusion, is created to be: the Kingdom of God come, the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven. In lifting our hearts to the Lord of All, we are shaped into people who do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. 

Lex Orandi, 
Lex Credendi, 
Lex Vivendi.

How we pray, 
how we believe, 
how we live is 
all of one piece. 

The Humble Expectation of Hope

Do not trust in yourself or in your own strength, but put your trust in the Lord. As the wise man said, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6). 

This is humility and hope, to recognize our own weakness, inability and lack, that we may have all our confidence and expectation in God. St. Paul had a serious matter he was dealing with. “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). 

Hope is not a wishy-washy maybe-so-maybe-not affair; it is a peaceful anticipation, a joyful expectation. Lord Jesus counsels us to learn of him, for he is gentle and humble in heart, and in him there is the calm assurance of rest for the weary soul. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). 

The psalm writer captures this very well, coming humbly before the Lord, lifting up his cry for help, and  watching in patient expectation:

Listen to my words, LORD, 
    consider my lament. 
Hear my cry for help, 
    my King and my God, 
    for to you I pray. 
In the morning, LORD, 
    you hear my voice; 
    in the morning I lay my requests 
    before you and wait expectantly. 

Let all who take refuge in you be glad; 
    let them ever sing for joy. 
Spread your protection over them, 
    that those who love your name 
    may rejoice in you. 
Surely, LORD, you bless the righteous; 
    you surround them with your favor 
    as with a shield. (Psalm 5:1-3, 11-12)

The secret of humility and hope is that they go together. 
In hope, there is humility, and in humility, there is hope.