Throughout his Gospel, St John focuses on this great pivotal truth: humans are truly helpless to make themselves whole. It is only through Christ, who is The Way, the Truth and the Life, that we can become who God intended when He created us – that we can fulfill what God said at creation: Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves (Genesis 1:26). According to John, no one came come to the Father except through the Word incarnate (Jn 14:6). This makes perfect sense if you accept that Jesus, the Christ, is the archetype of what humans should be like.

It is He, Christ Jesus, who gives us the power to become children of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. He, who is God’s Son by nature, through His Spirit released in fullness only when Christ died out of love for each of us, makes it possible for us to really become God’s children by grace (God’s help).

The Incarnation for John is never considered and afterthought of God that attempts to save something of God’s original plan which was frustrated through the sins of human beings. It is, rather, the culmination and visible peak of God’s self-giving, passionate love unto death for each of us. This is, therefore, the Way to reach integration and fulfill God’s plan for us, His children. The Word made flesh, true God and true man, pitches His tent among us only that we might accept His suffering, out-poured love, His Spirit, and receive in that infinite love the power to become children of God (Jn 1:12). This is the basis for our understanding of Theosis. God didn’t have to repair a plan that was botched up by humanity. His plan has always been to provide humankind with the opportunities to truly become His children, people in His likeness, by voluntarily imitating the model that He gave us in the Person of Jesus, the only-begotten