Abiding in God: three conditions for union with him

ATONEMENT

Manete in me (Joh. 15); beatus vir qui in sapientia morabitur (Eccli. 14, 22). 'Abide in me,' says our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel; and the other text from the epistle says, 'Blessed is the man that shall continue in wisdom.' Both mean exactly the same thing. Mark then what is required of a man to dwell in him, i.e. in God. He requires three things. First, to renounce himself and all things, not cleaving to aught that is grasped by the senses within nor abiding in any creature existing in time or in eternity. Again, he must love neither this good nor that good: he must love good for good's sake, since nothing is good or desirable except in so far as God is therein. We ought to love things no whit more than just as much as we love God in them; nor is it right to love God for his heaven's sake nor for the sake of anything at all except the good he is in his own self. Whoso loves him for aught abides not in him, but abides in the thing he is loving him for. If then ye desire to dwell in him, ye must love him for naught but himself. Thirdly, he must take God not as good nor as right, but he must apprehend him in his pure and virgin substance where he is apprehending himself. Goodness and right are the garment of God which is covering him. Do thou then strip God of all coverings: discover him in his vestibule bare, just in his naked self. So shall ye abide in him.

Whoso abides in him thus has five things. First, betwixt him and God there is no difference at all, they are one. Angels are many, beyond number, they can do nothing without number; they are numberless because of their simplicity. The three Persons in God, who counts as three, they, again, have number. But betwixt man and God is not alone no difference but no multiplicity: nothing but one. The second is, that he is conceiving his happiness in that same virgin nature where God is conceiving himself and conserving himself. Thirdly, his knowledge is one with God-knowledge, and this knowing consists in co-operation and conscience in God's operation and science, to wit, the actual energy and gnosis at work towards the end that God may be ever being born in man.

How is God ever being born in man? Look you. Suppose a man hews out and brings to light the divine form which God has wrought into his nature, then God's image in him stands revealed. Birth must be taken in the sense of revelation, the Son being said to be born of the Father because he reveals the Father as father. So the more and the more clearly God's image shows in man the more evidently God is born in him. And by God's eternal birth in him we understand that his image stands fully revealed. The fifth thing is that this man is ever being born in God. How can a man be ever being born in God? Lo! by revealing this form in a man the man grows like unto God, for the form of man is the same as the image of God which is God in every respect. The more he is like God the more he is one. So man's eternal birth in God we understand to mean ideal man refulgent in God's image, which is God in form and matter, wherewith man is the same. This oneness of man and God is a matter of likeness of form, man being Godlike in form. So when we talk of man being one with God and take him to be one with God by nature, we refer to the exemplary element in him which is on a par with God, and not to his created nature. When we look at him as God we are blind to him as creature; remembering his deity we forget his creature-nature; withal this same oblivion must not be construed to mean the negation of his created nature, rather the affirmation of God in him whom we are regarding as God. Christ, for example, who is both God and man: what time we are considering his manhood we disregard his Godhead; not that we are denying him his Godhood, we simply ignore it for the nonce. And hence the explanation of St Augustine's dictum, 'What a man loves a man is.' If he loves a stone he is that stone, if he loves a man he is that man, if he loves God -- nay, I durst not say more; were I to say, he is God, ye might stone me. I do but teach you the scriptures. Man being all meet for God is conformed to, informed with and transformed into, the divine uniformity wherein he is one with God. All this man gets by abiding within.

Now mark the fruits borne by a man when he is one with God: together with God he is bearing all creatures and big with beatitude for every creature in virtue of being one with him.

The other text from the epistle says, 'Blessed is the man that continues in wisdom.' He says, 'in wisdom,' wisdom being a feminine noun and feminine nouns denote passivity. Now in God we posit both action and passion, for the Father is doing and the Son is suffering, this being characteristic of born natures. Eternal born wisdom, wherein all things stand distinct, is the Son, and that is why he says, 'Blessed is the man that continues in wisdom.' 'Blessed is the man,' he says. Now as I have often told you, there are two powers in the soul: one is the man and the other is the woman. He says, 'Blessed is the man.' The faculty of soul we call the man is the chief power of the soul, wherein God is a naked light; for nothing but God enters into this power and this power is ever in God: the man who has gotten all things in this power has gotten them not as being things, he has them as being in God. We ought to abide all the time in this power because in this power all things are the same. Thus abiding in all things alike and knowing them all in God as the same, man possesses all things; he has discarded their grossest part and has gotten them now in their good and desirable nature. In this wise he possesses them yonder for God in his own nature is unable to forbear, he is obliged to give thee everything he ever made and his own self to boot. Blessed is the man who abides all the time in this power, he is ever-abiding in God. May we abide at all times in God. So help us our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.