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Название: Theosis

Автор: Группа авторов

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Религия: прочее

Серия: Princeton Theological Monograph Series

isbn: 9781621898078

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one . . . then shall you enter the kingdom” (Saying 22).29 Mystics often assert the unity of heavenly and earthly, inward and outward, rejecting commonly accepted distinctions as unenlightened. This “unitive mysticism”30 is typical of Thomas, but is not evident in the canonical Jesus.

      Of the three versions of the “kingdom within” saying, Luke 17 is the one that preserves inwardness most vividly; Thomas 3 diverts the message toward a mystical sameness of inner and outer. The emphasis in Thomas 113 is on the kingdom as “spread out,” and people as ignorant. Clearly, then, gnosticizing texts do not always have more inwardness than orthodox texts. These two Thomasine sayings move away from an emphasis on inwardness.

      The pattern of variations in the kingdom-within saying, the later ones being more gnosticized than the earlier ones, suggests Luke 17:21 as the initial source, and Gnostic imagination as influencing the later versions. This also indicates that the kingdom within was Jesus’ own idea. It was later used by Gnostics—and unfortunately abandoned or explained away by many of the orthodox.

      Conclusion

      Suggestions of the deification or divinizing of believers are found not only in a vivid Lukan saying on the kingdom within, a Matthean text commanding perfection (or perfecting), and a Johannine reference to people divinized by contact with revelation, but also in many texts that speak of the Spirit within, and of lives transformed by contact with Jesus. Further hints of divinization may be present in Markan records of people being “made whole” (Mark 5:34; 10:52 KJV) by faith, of Jesus imparting divine “power,” and of the kingdom of God coming “with power” (5:30; 9:1). Even more deification statements appear in the epistles.

      Transformation is strongly indicated in John: to all who believed, “he gave power to become children of God,” and they “will do greater works than these” (John 1:12; 14:12). This could be called the Christification of believers, as also in the letter: “when he is revealed, we will be like him” (1 John 3:2). How could anyone even approach this, unless divinized—transformed in character and attributes—by following Jesus? Even if human divinization can only be partial and limited, it comes from the transforming touch of God, and is a foretaste of more change to come (Phil 1:6; 3:21).

      Regarding this teaching, the believer can use the test that Jesus recommended for all teachings: “Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own” (John 7:17).

      1. See Finlan, “Can We Speak?” 68–80.

      2. Rush Rhees, in Abbott et al., “The Kingdom of God,” 12–13.

      3. Lyman Abbott, in ibid., 12.

      4. Dodd, Parables, 84 n.1.

      5. Roberts, “Kingdom,” 3, 6.

      6. Ibid., 8; e.g. Luke 12:31; 18:16; Mark 10:15; Matt 13:45.

      7. O’Neill, “Kingdom,” 141.

      8. Luke 11:37; 13:31; Acts 5:34–39; 15:5; 23:6–9.

      9. Bradford, Age of Faith, 31.

      10. This is the best translation of huios theou without the article. Further, a Roman soldier would be more likely to speak of “a son of God” than of a unique “God’s Son.”

      11. Harper, “Be Perfect,” 244.

      12. Matt 5:6; 6:33; John 6:27.

      13. Matt 9:11–13; 11:19; 21:31.

      14. Matt 23:26–28; 15:18; Mark 7:15–23.

      15. Harper, “Be Perfect,” 244.

      16. Albertz, History of Israelite Religion, 132.

      17. Abodah Zarah 5a. Neyrey says “Israel could be called god because deathless” (Neyrey, “‘I Said: You Are Gods,’” СКАЧАТЬ