Imagine

Contemplating a passage from something I wrote a day or two ago.

There is no deeper divide between Islam and Christianity than this, that the Divine Nature, God, is One, yet within Himself has existed from eternity in a Threefold relationship that cooperates in the Creation, in the Redemption, and eventually in the Deification of the Universe under the priestly Kingship of the Human race.

Though the occasion of this thought was the comparison of Islam and Christianity, what is more profound in its application is what is hinted at in the last few words, ‘the Deification of the Universe under the priestly Kingship of the Human race.’

Caught up as we are in the flow of events in this our current time and place, planet earth, twenty-first century, we see mostly the threats that come against us, against our religion, Christianity, or if we are secularists, against our world, global warming, or if we are social activists, against equal rights for sexual minorities, or if we are politicos, the lying dogs of our opposite party, and so on.

For these latter groups, engrossed as they are by their earthly fears and hates, there is no alternative to fear, because they know no Savior. For us, Christians, we have no excuse for pessimism. Time is far longer than our minds can imagine, but we have been, first visited by, then integrated with, the Divine Nature, in the person of Jesus Christ.

He is at this moment fashioning us and preparing us for a world that neither we nor anyone can imagine on our own, and that preparation includes everything that is currently happening in our world, our countries, our churches, our families, and ourselves.

We can be blinded to the Truth, sometimes, by the intensity of what we are going through. We can be tricked out of our grasp of the certainty of the Divine Victory that, being won in an invisible way, is soon to be visibly revealed in a complete transfiguration of all things.

Pursuing ‘théosis’ on our own, individually, or not at all, both can still render us insensitive to the Divine transformation that is percolating all around us, which cannot result in anything but the fulfillment of the plan of God—the Deification of the Universe under the priestly Kingship of the Human race.

Yet this is a certainty, this is ‘as it must be’ and in its path, all that we undergo is leading us to overcome. Yes, Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those entombed, bestowing life. If nothing else, brethren, let us imagine this.