By JOHN YOUNG
“God became man that man might become God.” That’s a startling assertion. Should it be seen as similar to the lie told by Satan when he assured Eve that after eating the forbidden fruit, “You will be like God”? Is it an assertion that one might hear from a monomaniac who imagines he is God?
Actually the statement was made by fathers of the Church, and is perfectly and profoundly orthodox. In fact, it is implied by St. Peter’s statement that God has enabled us to “become partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 460, quotes St. Athanasius: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” This is followed by a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas: “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in His divinity, assumed our nature, so that He, made man, might make men gods.”
But what does this mean, since there is only one God and He is infinite, whereas we are finite creatures?
To get the meaning we need to remember that the human race has been given a supernatural destiny, which consists in seeing God face to face in Heaven. That destiny is one which no creature could possibly achieve by its own powers — and which no creature (not even the highest angel) could deserve. It means that when we are in Heaven, the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will be directly present to our intellect, with nothing in between.
By reason alone, without Revelation from God, we couldn’t even know whether such a thing would be possible. But God has revealed it. As St. Paul says, speaking of our destiny after death: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12).
This is made possible by sanctifying grace, which is a supernatural quality infused into the soul by God, and which elevates the soul to a higher level of being. It is as if I had a dog and had the power of elevating it to a level where it could act in a human manner above its canine nature. If I could do that, my dog could participate in my life in a higher manner than is naturally possible.
God gave sanctifying grace, also called supernatural life, to the first two humans, Adam and Eve, to be passed on to their descendants. But there was a condition: They had to resist Satan’s temptation in the Garden of Eden. They sinned, and as a result human beings from then on were conceived without grace in their souls.
Further, the human race had no way of regaining the supernatural life that Adam had lost. For reparation had to be made for sin and no mere man could do so. Sin is an offense against the Infinite God, so it could not be fully wiped out by the reparative acts of a mere human being, for his acts could only be finite.
There was only one way in which full reparation for human sin could be made. It would have to be made by a member of our human race, for it was the representative of our race, Adam, who had sinned initially, and we have continued to sin. But full reparation could be made only by a member of our race who was capable of performing an act having infinite value. God had the solution. He would become man.
So the Second Person of the Holy Trinity took on our human nature, and in that nature He suffered and died to atone for all the sins of all time, including those still to be committed. And that work of atonement has infinite value because it was done by a Divine Person.
At Christmas we celebrate the coming of our Redeemer as a baby — the only truly adorable baby. In the manger in Bethlehem He was already doing the work for which He had come into the world, offering His sufferings for our salvation.
It is impossible in the present life to fully appreciate the generosity of God as shown in the way we are redeemed. He is infinite, and needs no one for His happiness. Yet for love of us God the Son became a member of our race to open Heaven for us by His sufferings and death, and to show us how to live.
We can never be grateful enough for this generosity. Ideally our gratitude should lead us to shun every sin for the rest of our lives. We won’t, but we can at least intensify our gratitude by meditating on the Incarnation and all it implies, and so move closer to the lives we should be living.
Each Christmas we should feel ever more gratitude to the Divine Baby in the manger.
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