Friday, October 13, 2023

D. Charles Pyle on theosis and 2 Corinthians 3:18

In [2 Cor 3:18] we are told:

 

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

 

In the Greek text of this above quoted verse of scripture, we find the following important component phrases therein:

 

·       Beholding as in a glass is represented by the Greek κατοπριζομενοι, which indicates ones looking into a mirror or ones seeing reflected (as in a mirror). We thus will see, as if looking into a mirror, the glory of the Lord reflected from us, changing into the same image. This particularly is important in light of the declaration of 2 Corinthians 4:4, regarding Christ being the image of God, as well as in the light of Hebrews 1:3 (another scripture we will consider later). The reason that this is occurring is because of the change indicated by the Greek: την αυτην εικονα μεταμορφουμεθα.

·       την αυτην is an attributive, intensive pronoun that intensifies the noun that follows. It means the same.

·       εικονα, the noun following, from εικων image

·       μεταμορφουμεθα we are being transformed (into). This word indicates an inward and outward transformation from one state to another, i.e., a metamorphosis.

 

In other words, we are being transformed, or changed, into the very same image represented by Christ, whom we would mirror, who is himself the image of God because he is so like the Father. As this occurs, looking at ourselves in the mirror will be like looking at the Lord himself! This very transformation from glory to glory will continue, until we reach that “measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” mentioned by Paul in Ephesians 4:13—conformed to his image.

 

D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye Are Gods: Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament (Revised and Supplemented) (North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2018), 45-46