The Grace of Deification: Becoming One With Jesus

So many people think that the goal of Christianity is to follow Jesus. That, in itself, of course, is a wonderful thing. But that is NOT the goal of being a Christian. Per the Church and the Bible, the goal of life is to become, through grace, one spirit with Christ, where He abides in us, and we in Him. In short, the Christian life is not just fire insurance to keep us from hell. Rather, it is much more; it is for us to become, by grace, one with Him in mind and spirit, and He to become one with us. To my knowledge, the only person who ever fully achieved this status on earth was his mother Mary; but St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist probably came very close to that as well. For the rest of us, it is something to strive for while we are on earth. For sure, it is something that the saved will achieve in heaven. And THAT is something certainly worth sacrificing for now, while we struggle in this valley of tears below.

The Mass

During the Holy Mass, the unbloody re-presentation of Calvary through time and space, the priest says, while mixing water and wine:

“May we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

Most Catholics will remember that sanctifying grace is how we are saved, because it is a share in divine life, and it inclines us to become more like God than worldly humans. The more sanctifying grace we receive, the more like God we become. We get this sanctifying grace as a free gift when we receive the sacraments and attend Mass. And since the Mass is the holiest of all prayers here on earth, it is where we receive the MOST grace (The Mass is the one sacrifice of God for man, re-presented through time and space, enabling the participation of all generations. Just like a composer writes a great song and it is replayed over and over again by orchestras throughout the world, the Mass was composed by Jesus at the Last Supper. After the crucifixion, it was replayed for the first time at Emmaus, and since then re-presented to all future generations for our spiritual benefit).

When we receive the Eucharist at Mass, we are receiving the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? Well, it means that we have the actual blood of Jesus flowing in our veins after receiving the Eucharist in a state of grace. And while this is achieved in a spiritual manner, it is no less genuine, because the Spirit of God is certainly real, and not symbolic. No longer do we have to be physical descendants of Jesus through our natural birth mothers. Now, with the New Covenant, we become the sons and daughters of Jesus through His bloodline, by partaking of the Eucharist.  This means that we are indeed one body and spirit with God  after each and every properly received Holy Communion (in the state of grace). The more often we receive the Eucharist, the more we become like God (deified).

The Bible

The Bible does have things to say about this, so let’s take a look.

Leviticus 17:11: For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life.

This pronouncement by God that the life in all of us is due to our blood should be self-evident – no blood, no life (in the natural sense). But when you consider the supernatural sense of this statement, it takes on a whole new meaning as a type of the Eucharist: Our life in Christ is dependent on our drinking the supernatural blood of Christ, so that we can have eternal life (John 6:48).

1 Corinthians 6:17: “But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”

This is one of the most underrated verses in the entire bible. Here St. Paul lets us know that deification – our being one with Jesus – is what Christianity is all about. Most people want just to follow Jesus, or to look upon Jesus as having already done all for our salvation, and therefore all we have to do now is to just “believe” that. But St. Paul tells us that we should be totally united with him. This, of course, means that we too have to pick up our cross and imitate Him as best we can, through partaking in the sacraments (especially confession and the Eucharist) voluntary suffering, good works, showing our love of God and neighbor, etc.

John 6:56: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

We become totally united to Christ by partaking of the Eucharist, which means that He lives in us, and we in Him.

John 17:22-23: The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one. I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me, even as we are one.

In His High Priestly Prayer from John 17, Jesus says that His glory is now OUR glory, and that we are one with Him. This means that there is no doubt that we are one body and blood with him because of the Eucharist, which is how He gives us His glory. The fact that we now have the exact same glory of Jesus Christ should make us all shudder whenever we are tempted to sin.

2 Peter 1:3-4: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.”

St. Peter tells us that we are to be partakers in the divine nature of God,  by crucifying our lust for the things of this world, and thereby enjoying deification in the next life. And while this is certainly easier said than done, it is something we should pray for every day – that is, to pray to overcome the carnal enticements of this world and to strive for the everlasting glory of God in heaven.

Jesus the Bridegroom

Over and over again, in the Bible, Jesus says that He is the bridegroom. The bridegroom of what? He is the bridegroom of His Church. We, the laity, are the body of Christ in His Church, which means that we are the bride of Christ. And we all know, that in the eyes of God, a sacramental marriage means that the two become one flesh, as it says in Ephesians 5:31. To be totally one flesh, body and soul, with God, is the greatest gift of all time!  All of the great things of this world – money, pleasure, leisure, fancy cars, great music, beautiful nature, sex, etc., are like a bright shiny penny in comparison to the unlimited wealth of being totally united to our Creator in heaven. There, we won’t just be the person we were on earth with a glorified body; rather, we will be that AND we will be united with the spirit of God. Just as Jesus is 100% truly God and 100% truly man, in heaven, we will be truly man and totally one with God. This, of course overcomes the lie of the devil in the Garden of Eden, who told Adam and Eve that they would be like God if they ate the forbidden fruit. Instead, we will be totally united to God by eating the Eucharist, the fruit of the tree of life known as the cross. While we won’t be another person of the blessed Trinity, we will be spiritually united to it, forever!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.” (CCC 1)

“The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God. “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.” (CCC 460)

Here the Catechism tells us that we are to become the adopted children of God, through the sacraments, and that we will become “gods” (obviously a metaphor for total unity with God. This explains how saints in heaven can hear our prayers – they have become like God.)

The Words of the Saints on Becoming Like Jesus

“Christ was made man that we might be made God.” – St. Athanasius of Alexandria

“He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man might become the son of God.” – St. Irenaeus of Lyons, against Heresies

“He who aspires to divine realities willingly allows providence to lead him by principle of wisdom toward the grace of deification. He who does not so aspire is drawn, by the just judgement of God and against his will, away from evil by various forms of discipline. The first, as a lover of God, is deified by providence; the second, although a lover of matter, is held back from perdition by God’s judgement. For since God is goodness itself, he heals those who desire it through the principles of wisdom, and through various forms of discipline cures those who are sluggish in virtue.” – St. Maximos the Confessor

“When I first came to know you, you raised me up to make me see that what I saw is Being, and that I who saw am not yet Being. And you gave a shock to the weakness of my sight by the strong radiance of your rays, and I trembled with love and awe. And I found myself far from you ‘in the region of dissimilarity’, and heard as it were your voice from on high: ‘I am the food of the fully grown; grow and you will feed on me. And you will not change me into you like the food your flesh eats, but you will be changed into me.” – St. Augustine

“Realize, O Christian, your dignity. Once made “a partaker of the divine nature,” do not return to your former baseness by a life unworthy of that dignity. Through the sacrament of baptism you were made a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” Do not drive away such a dweller by your wicked actions and subject yourself again to servitude under the devil.” – Pope St. Leo the Great

“For the food is not changed into the one who eats it, but it turns the one who takes it into itself, and so this is a food capable of making man divine and inebriating him with divinity.” – St. Thomas Aquinas

Conclusion

So what all of this means is that you and I are becoming like God every time we receive sanctifying grace in the sacraments. Now the question becomes, “Are we daily striving to do the will of God in thought, word and deed, or are we indistinguishable from the worldly who worship money, power, and sex?”  It certainly is something to pray for!