In the last issue I was setting forth some ideas about use AT-ONE-MENT as the Eastern Christian approach to redemption and salvation. I ended by sharing what Athanasius of Alexandria wrote about God’s Son, namely that He became man that we might become God. As you will recall, this is the primary premise of Theosis the Eastern Christian understanding of why God became man.

Slightly later in the fourth century, St. Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzen), one of the Cappadocian   Fathers, coined a shorter expression, theosis, which became more common among the Greek Fathers to designate the believer’s incorporation into the life of God. This persuasion, or this mode of expressing it, became standard during the period of the great Christological controversies. (You will recall that these took place in the early fourth century before the Council of Nicaea).

It was largely through the Latin translations of St. John Damascene and Pseudo-Dionysius in the Middle Ages that the equivalent deification (i.e. deification) gradually became a more acceptable idea in the West. Still to this day, however, Western Christians find it difficult to translate the work of Christ in these terms.

The word atonement, then, came include redemption’s full effect in the human being – that is, man’s              deification, his transfiguration in the glory of Christ. At-one-ment is, perhaps, one of the best words to express what Christ accomplishes for us.

There is still another understanding of the word at-one-ment. Atonement enjoys the added merit of expressing the cosmology of redemption, that is the reconciliation of the whole universe, its “re-heading” in Christ. Atonement conveys everything Paul meant when he wrote that it pleased the Father, through Christ, “to reconcile all things to Himself, through Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”

Christ’s reconciliation embraces “all things”. The glory of the transfigured Christ transforms the entire universe; heaven and earth are full of His glory.

I am sure that many may wonder about this statement and ask: How did God becoming man change the entire universe? By God become a part of His creation, that is by His incarnation, He revealed that it is His life-force which animates all things. The abundance of life that we encounter in the universe (e.g., animals, plants) is none other than God sharing His own life to bring all things into existence.
Think about this!