Human nature is not as unchangeable as we often assume it to be; it is alterable, it is able to be transformed. It can become greater than what it was at its inception. It was never meant to be unchanging, to be stuck in the condition it found itself in at its beginning. There is no pure, unalterable nature given to humanity. Saying this is not intended to suggest that there is no such thing as human nature, as there is, but what we need to realize is that human nature is open-ended and so fluid. It changes and adapts over time. Its will, the way it engages others, helps establish such changes. What it does in each situation it finds itself in, what it welcomes or forbids entry into itself, likewise, influences its transformation. This is why, when it was assumed by the Logos, by the Son of God, it found itself in a new situation, a new context, one in which it is surrounded by the divine life of the Son. Humanity is called to participate in the divine nature, to be energized by it, so that through the divine energy shared to it thanks to the incarnation, humanity is now capable of its greatest transformation and become, as it were, a god by grace. This is one of the many things which we see revealed in the resurrection of Jesus, for Jesus, the first born of the dead, shows us what the new humanity can be like what it follows him into the glory of its resurrected (and so deified) form:
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord (Jn. 20:19-20 RSV).
In his resurrection appearances to his disciples, his disciplines sometimes wondered what it was they were seeing because of the way he appeared before them. Was he a ghost? In order to make it clear he was more than a spirit. Jesus indicated that he still had the same body which he had before his death, but now in its new resurrected mode of being, his body was transformed and had abilities associated with it which transcended the expectations and understandings which humanity had for their bodies. He was no longer bound by physical restraints, and so, in a sense, he was spiritualized, but he still contained all the physical attributes which he once had and could and would manifest himself with them when he so chose to do so, proving that he was not merely a ghost or some bodiless spirit. This is exactly what he did when he encountered the Apostle Thomas:
Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe (Jn. 20:26-29 RSV).
Jesus showed us a new modality of being, a new state of life, one which we can and will have in our resurrection from the dead in the eschaton. Humanity is not stuck in a certain way of being. It can and is meant to transcend itself, to grow and become greater than what it was in its original state of being. It is meant to be deified (even as it can be said, all creation is meant to be deified, and similarly be raised up and made greater than what it was at its inception). Human nature has within it the ability to change, but because it could and would change, in its history, it could sin and change for the worse. But, thanks to God’s grace, and the work of Christ, we do not have to be stuck in the condition which we established for ourselves; we can take in grace, find ourselves rising to our original purity and then, afterwards, find ourselves being transformed, becoming truly greater than what we were. What is important for us is to open ourselves up to receive the uncreated energy of God. Without it, we will be stumbling around, never attaining the glory meant for us at our creation. With it, with the new context given to us through Jesus’ resurrection, we truly have the opportunity to become like God.
We do not know the full extent of the transformation possible to us because we have yet to experience it in its fullness. Right now, we can and should experience it in part now. We should see some of that transformation in our lives, and through it, experience some of the joy that humanity was meant to have in its deified state. This should provide us ample indications for what is in store for humanity in the eschaton. Even if we have yet to see it manifested in our lives, we can look to the saints, just as we can look to Christ, and discern through them what is in store for us if we but follow the path of love established by Christ. They partook of the deifying grace and found themselves transformed by it, performing many great signs and wonders thanks to the grace they received in their lives. Every assumption we have of what is possible for humanity, for the limits which we place on the human condition, must be questioned; we must allow what we think is possible to change, because humanity itself can and should change in light of the grace of the resurrection.
The stories of the resurrected Christ, the stories of various saints who continue the work of God in the world, elevating and transforming the world around them, should be enough to tell us not to essentialize our own understanding of the world and how it works. What appears to be miraculous is often miraculous, but we often are wrong in the kind of miracle which took place. God is not acting deus ex machina; God, rather is, working with nature, with the world at large, elevating and transforming it from within so that its new mode of activity is greater than what it was before, giving it the ability to do things which we previously thought impossible. Christ’s resurrected body, which was truly the same body which he had before the resurrection, shows us the transformation which is meant to be all of us as we come to the glory of the resurrection and let it transform us inside and out. We will not be stuck with the way we think things are, even as Jesus was not stuck in the way we think things should be; he could appear and disappear at will, not because he was a ghost, but because all his humanity, including his body, had entered a new mode of being, a new way of life, one in which death itself has no power over because the limitations which allow for death were transcended.
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