I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
Our union with Christ is not only the goal of the Christian spiritual life, but it is also our salvation. We enter God’s Kingdom through Christ, through being united with Him. We live in this world as Christians by being united to Him. This is what theosis implies: we are united with Christ as He dwells in us. Fr John Behr gives us a hint about what this means and how we accomplish it:
As Origen puts it in the chapter from the Philocalia referred to above, the Word of God ‘eternally becomes flesh in the Scriptures’ so that he might dwell among us, or rather in us; but only if we recline on his breast, as did John, do we come to know the Word.
We must, Origen exhorts us, ascend the mountain, to see him transfigured, speaking with Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, about his ‘exodus’ in Jerusalem. If we stay at the level of the flesh, the letters, we will never come to contemplate the Word; but if we ascend the mountain with him, we ‘shall see his transfiguration in every [passage of] Scripture’.
And yet, tellingly, the Gospel of John has no event of Transfiguration; Christ appears as the divine Lord on every page, not as a ‘naïve docetism’, as Käsemann would have it, but as a theological account of the Lord given by the theologian. (John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel), Kindle Loc 1022-1030)
Spiritually, we must move from simply reading the pages of the Gospel, to living with Christ, ascending with Him on Mount Tabor, on the Cross, and in the Ascension. If we live with Him, He will live in us. If Christ remains a character in the pages of the Bible, He will not live in us. We have to spiritually invite Him into our lives and live with Him daily.
Fraternized 