Christ is Born! Glorify Him! Merry Christmas!
By Georges Florovsky
St. Athanasius writes that the Logos [Word] became man, similar to us in all respects.
[…] By virtue of its union with the Logos, “because of the Logos, which was in a body,” the body was freed from its weakness and subjection to decay.
[…] The Logos was not bound by the body but freed the body from its limitedness and its inclination to sin.
By the strength of the unchanging Logos, the mutable human nature in Christ became immutably good, and all delusions were powerless over it.
“The works proper to the Logos were achieved through the body.” The flesh was deified by serving the works of God, and the humanity in Christ was without sin.
The Lord “became our brother through the likeness of the body,” and his flesh “was saved and liberated before the others.”
Since we “share in his body,” we also are saved, and our life is renewed “because our flesh is no longer earthly but has been made identical with the Logos by the Divine Logos himself, who became flesh for our sakes.”
[…] St. Athanasius clearly emphasizes both the unity of Christ the God-Man and his unmerging two natures. Christ has a divine nature by, which he is consubstantial with the Father and also a human nature by, which he is similar and related to us.
For this reason, he is the Saviour, the Logos, and the Second Adam all at once. The Logos became man so that we could “become divine,” “in order to deify us in himself.”
Deification is adoption by God, and “human sons have become the sons of God.” We are “received by the Logos and are deified through his flesh” by virtue of the Incarnation.
Born from the Virgin, the Logos was not united with only one man, but with the whole of human nature. Therefore, everything that was achieved in the human nature of Christ is immediately extended to all men because they have a body in common with him.
There is no coercion involved here. Men are more than similar to Christ — they are truly participants in the human nature of the Logos.
Christ is a vine and we are the branches, “united with him by our humanity.” In the same way that the tendrils, which grow from a grapevine are consubstantial with it, so are our bodies consubstantial with the body of the Lord, and we receive what he has accomplished.
His body is the “root of our resurrection and salvation.” Everyone is renewed, anointed, healed, and exalted in Christ, for “he has taken everyone on himself.”
~Georges Florovsky, https://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/georges-florovsky-st-athanasius-on-the-incarnation-of-the-logos/.
