Wednesday, December 03, 2008

The Old Testament and Theosis

“Utilizing the threads of the Old Testament to present itself as its fulfillment, the New Testament can hardly be understood without the Old. The New is the fruit growing from the ground of the Old. By His incarnation and Resurrection, the Christ reminds us (against certain Greek instincts) that it is eminently good to be incarnate, in this world and the next, thus grounding St. Irenaeus's famous saying that 'God's glory is man fully alive.' Without the penultimate word of the Old, the proclamation and reception of Jesus as the Christ is meaningless and the Eucharist, implemented by him in the context of a Jewish Pasch, identified by him with the priestly 'blood of the covenant' and the prophetic 'new covenant,' is incomprehensible. If the Christ is incomprehensible without the Old Testament, this must also be the case with theosis.”—Theosis, pages 17-18

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