These are transcripts from a spoken lecture. The audio is attached to this lesson. If there is any confusion from reading the transcript, please refer to the audio for clarification.
So last time I upset our expectations, right? I had promised that we were going to talk about this notion of participation, and how do we enter into the work of Christ and participate in it? And then I threw you a curveball, and I let you know that that’s not what we were going to talk about. We’re going to talk about one further aspect of Christ’s redemptive work. So we talked about his descent into Hades, Holy Saturday. We talked about the ways in which Christ enters into the realm of the dead. He, being the light of the world, dispels the darkness of Hades. He who is life itself brings life to the dead. He binds Satan and liberates those held captive in his house. He breaks the gates that hold humanity captive to death, and he liberates all.
This time, what we want to talk about now that we’ve talked about the work of Christ, we talked about two sessions back. We talked about the way in which the Creator God enters the corrupted creation. He sends us back to dissolution and to death, unmaking us so that we might be remade. But the need is that the soul is converted, lest in our remaking, we become corrupt again. And we talked about the ways in which the Incarnation itself enacts this unmaking and this remaking, that the Creator God Himself reorders our nature, and puts the passions back in the right place. He lifts the soul back up to God. He energizes it, he joins it with divine life, and ultimately communicates incorruptibility and immortality to it, to the whole human person, body and soul, in the resurrection from the dead. And we also added to this Holy Saturday, that that work is not just on the cross and in the resurrection, but in the days between as he brings life to the dead and liberates those held captive.
So now we actually will talk about participation. How is it that we enter into this? Now consistently, I’ve mentioned that the Eastern fathers have a balance, a balance that’s mentioned in Scripture, that Christ has saved all, everyone is saved. You’re saved. I’m saved. And the reason is because his redemptive work is in humanity. Humanity has a common nature. My nature is your nature, your nature is your neighbor’s nature. And when Christ takes on humanity, he takes on our nature, he heals our nature, our nature has been healed, whether you want it or not, whether you like it or not, whether you have any interest in it or not, whether you know it or not.
