Top Highlights

• “cruciformity is really theoformity or, as the Christian tradition (especially in the East) has sometimes called it, deification, divinization, or theosis.”92 That is, “to be one with Christ is to be one with God; to be like Christ is to be like God; to be in Christ is to be in God.”93
• becoming like God by participating in the life of God. More specifically, it is “transformative participation in the kenotic, cruciform character of God through Spirit-enabled conformity to the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected/glorified Christ.”96 For Paul, then, theōsis is cruciform theōsis.
• In Becoming the Gospel, the argument of Cruciformity is being brought to its logical, missional conclusion: “Participation in God’s new creation means… transformation…. To become the righteousness/justice of God [2 Cor. 5:21] is to be transformed into the image of God, which is to become like Christ by being in Christ.”100 Paul’s master story is a ...
• “theosis — Spirit-enabled transformative participation in the life and character of God revealed in the crucified and resurrected Messiah Jesus — is the starting point of mission and is, in fact, its proper theological framework…. [B]eing and act, life and mission, belong together both for God and for the church.”103