“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

Irenaeus of Lyon

The Father’s Son united himself to us by becoming fully human.  The Spirit of the Father’s Son joins us to the Son so that we are in him as he is in us.  We are one with Christ and he is one with us. We are so very deeply one with Jesus that we are never to think of ourselves as isolated from him in any way. Martin Luther says,

“by faith you are so cemented to Christ He and you are as one person, which cannot           be separated but remains attached to Him forever and declares:  ‘I am as Christ.’               And Christ, in turn says, ‘I am that sinner who is attached to Me, and I to him’”.

In this living union, we are not deified, as if our humanity were now mixed or intermingled with Christ’s deity.  No, in union with Jesus, we remain fully human with our humanity lifted up into the life of God and filled with the life of God.

In union with Jesus, we are actually more authentically human because we  become the humans God always intended us to be. God always wanted to be in relationship with others who would be united to Him sharing in his own life.  And so, as we live in union with God in Christ by the Spirit, we become more authentically human.  We become the humans that He intended all along.  Humans in union with the human fully alive in God, with God, to God and for God.