Anglican Catholicism: Unchanging Faith In a Changing World by Fr Jonathan Munn OblOSB

Author:Fr Jonathan Munn OblOSB [Munn OblOSB, Fr Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780244239404
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2019-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

“… Whose kingdom shall have no end.”

This is the hope of all Christians – that our lives will be Eternally bound up with God in Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a reality and it is indeed ruled by Our Lord Jesus Christ:

And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.[409]

St Peter begins his second letter speaking about the reward of faith.

Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.[410]

He speaks of the Lord’s promises to us, one of which is becoming “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” We now understand that we are to be purged of corruption and reunited with our bodies to become pure in His sight for “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”[411] Yet, St Peter seems to be saying that we are to attain His Divine Nature. Is this really true?

In a similar vein St John says:

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.[412]

It seems that we shall be like God. St Athanasius makes an interesting, but often mistranslated point here:

As, then, if a man should wish to see God, Who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, he may know and apprehend Him from His works: so let him who fails to see Christ with his understanding, at least apprehend Him by the works of His body, and test whether they be human works or God's works. And if they be human, let him scoff; but if they are not human, but of God, let him recognise it, and not laugh at what is no matter for scoffing; but rather let him marvel that by so ordinary a means things divine have been manifested to us, and that by death immortality has reached to all, and that by the Word becoming man, the universal Providence has been known, and its Giver and Artificer the very Word of God. For He was made man that we might be made god; and He manifested Himself by a body that we

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