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Christ’s Two Natures And The Mystery Of Human Deification

Christ’s Two Natures And The Mystery Of Human Deification

Last updated on: October 20, 2026 at 2:51 pm by Henry Karlson

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Christ’s Two Natures And The Mystery Of Human Deification 2026-10-20T14:51:44-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Our deification does not undermine but elevates our humanity, as Christ showed us at the Transfiguration. Photo by Point12345: Church of the Transfiguration at the Community of Jesus / Wikimedia Commons

The teaching of the incarnation is at the heart of the Christian faith. God became one of us, sharing with us the poverty of them human condition so that he can lift us up and experience the glory of God, the glory of the divine life, for ourselves. It is through the teaching of the incarnation we are also given the revelation of the Trinity. That is, we have learned that God not only is one, and simple, and undivided, without parts, but God is also mysteriously three, that is, we find there are three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each of them acting in and with the other two, so that they are always united together, never to be separated as if they are parts of God. We learn, moreover, how God can be said to be love, because we learn that the three persons of the Trinity engage each other in an eternal act of love, an act which them has them express that love in the act of creation.

The teachings of the incarnation and the Trinity go together; they are two parts of one whole, and without one of them, the other will easily become misconstrued. The revelation of the Trinity shows us how Jesus, the God-man, can be a man, a man like us, acting as a man should, including giving deference and reverence to God, in a way which is not self-referential or narcissistic, for he can be responding to and addressing God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The teaching of the incarnation tells us about Jesus; it tells us that he is both God and man. Even as he became man, he remains God, he remains one with the Father and the Spirit, and so he continues to act us God, in accordance to his divine nature. However, as he became man, he also lives the life of a man; he does what is expected out of any human person, and he fulfills those expectations to perfection. His humanity is our humanity, so that in and through him, in his humanity, what God wants for humanity, what God expects out of humanity, is accomplished. In his assumption of human nature, Jesus on our responsibilities for us. All our burdens are put on his shoulders. He walks with us, taking us by the hand, helping us as only he can. In this way, we can begin to understand how he saves us, for he takes his connection with his, his unity with us, as a means to act in and with us, to do what we can’t do ourselves. But Jesus does much more than that. The point of the incarnation was not just our salvation; it was about our deification, giving us the grace we need so that we can participate in the divine life. What God is by nature, we are called to experience in and through grace. When we partake of that grace, it becomes a part of who we are, making us gods by grace:

True God became perfect man. For this reason He became man which before He was not, in order to make man a god which he had never been before. Since He is not divisible, He has deified and made us god by His divinity, and not by His flesh alone.[1]

What Jesus did in his flesh is important, that is, what he did in relation to his humanity is important, and not to be dismissed; but we must remember he is one person, and both of his natures work together, so that in in and through his humanity, in and through his human activity, we can also see the work of his divinity. The two are not the same, but they work together. His human nature acts in coordination with the divine nature; it acts in a perfectly human fashion, so Jesus does human things like eat and sleep, but in and through his human activity, God is also at work, engaging the world, providing it grace. The two natures, and the actions which come from them, work together and are united in his person while remaining distinct. His humanity is not absorbed by his divinity, nor do they come together to from a third nature. In his humanity, we find the way that grace not only perfects nature, but elevates it, and glorifies it. This is what was revealed to us, not only through the miracles he performed, but also at his transfiguration. Deified humanity remains human even as it transcends its natural limitations thanks to grace. This is important, because, when we talk about deification, we must not think our union with God leads to the absorption of our being, or person, into God. We are elevated by grace, become god by grace, but we remain by nature human, just as the rest of creation, in the way it receives grace and is deified by it, does not lose its particular nature:

Another extremely important point is that in this mystical union, Creator and creature do not become fused into a single being that swallows us up in the deity. The Eastern Church insists that we, however closely linked to God, retain our full personal integrity. We, when deified, remain distinct (though not separate) from God. Nor do we cease to be human. [2]

Deification, theosis, becoming gods by grace, is what we will experience in the eschaton; and because the eschaton has been immanentized, thanks to the incarnation, we can experience it, at least in part, during our lives. Not everyone will experience it the same way or level. Indeed, not everyone will experience it in ways they understand. If we don’t, we shouldn’t give up hope. We can believe we are receiving eschatological graces which we will be able to better appreciate and perceive once they have transformed us and opened up our spiritual senses. If, however, we do perceive the work of the immanent eschaton and the eschatological kingdom in our lives, if we experience it in part, we must remember, it is but a foretaste of what is to come. Similarly, it is vital that we remember deification is by grace, and it is always on the level of grace and not nature. We can never be equal to God, and certainly, we can never become God’s equal; when we understand this, we can understand the distinction between what Scripture tells us Satan promised (or promises) us by saying we can be God’s equals, and what Christianity teaches us concerning deification. Satan would have us look to the divine nature, and assume what God is by nature, we can become. Christianity says we will never be what God is by nature, but rather, we will share in the glory of God, in the glory of God’s nature, in the love which is found in it, apprehending it so that it becomes a part of us, while never comprehending it because God is, by nature, incomprehensible. Christ, being the God-man, will always differ from us in this regard: “For we, too, were called gods according to grace, but the Son of God is not God in this way, rather he is God according to nature and in truth, even though he was made flesh.”[3] That is, Jesus not only has in him deified humanity, he is also God, God by nature, something which we shall never be.

Satan knows God wants us to share in the divine life, to partake of the divine nature, and so Satan makes us think we can become what God is by nature, setting us up to become God’s rivals. We see this presented in Scripture in the way Satan tempted Eve, telling her that by partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she can become like God. Christ shows how wrong this is, for in him, we find his humanity, while deified, remains what it is, human. If we will not accept that we can become God’s equal, sometimes Satan suggests we are to become like God by being absorbed by God, so that our union with God leads to God taking us in and leaving nothing but the divine nature in return. That is, Satan suggests our deification is not a process by which we are constantly being made greater by grace, but a process by which we, in some fashion, can be said to be annihilated by our contact with God, causing us to be afraid of our union with God. We were not made in order to be destroyed. We were not made in order to be absorbed by God. We were made so that we can truly experience the divine life, to share with the rest of the Trinity, the love which they share, taking it in and giving it back in a purely human fashion. We are called to experience the divine life, the life of the Trinity, the life of love; when we have it, we will find grace is being shared to us, raising us up, making us greater and greater, while never making us equal to God, nor having us lose who we are in the process. False forms of theosis either end up misconstruing who we are, who God is, or both, while the proper teaching affirms the distinction and difference between God and humanity, a distinction which is affirmed in the way Jesus’s two natures remain distinct while united as one in and with his person.

[1] St. Symeon the New Theologian, The Ethical Discourses. Vol. 2: On Virtue and Christian Life. Trans. Alexander Golitzin (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), 45-6 [Fifth Ethical Discourse].

[2] George Maloney, SJ, God’s Exploding Love (New York: Alba House. 1987), 71.

[3] St. Cyril of Alexandria, “Letter 1” in Letters 1-50. Trans. John I. McEnerney (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1985), 20-1 [To priests and deacons, fathers of monks, and solitaires].

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