Silence: A User's Guide, Volume Two by Ross Maggie;

Author:Ross, Maggie; [Ross, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532612084
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2018-01-08T08:00:00+00:00

Second Corinthians explores theosis in terms of the effects of divinization in ordinary life. For example:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort by which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. (2 Cor 1:3–7)

Second Corinthians 2:14 speaks of the fragrance, or aroma, of the knowledge of God that is spread through the disciples as they realize their shared nature with God:

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. . . . [I]n the sight of God, we speak in Christ.

Or again in 3:2–3, using the metaphor of writing:

You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Later in chapter 3, Paul makes one of his tortuous comparisons between the glory in the face of Moses and the unveiled glory of those who are proceeding “from glory to glory.” This is the context of the “one degree of glory to another” passage quoted above; the NRSV translates it as follows:

Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.