We sang “Noel” as the entrance hymn during the procession at Mass this morning.
If your tree is still up after Epiphany or Theophany, whichever calendar you’re obeying, you’re in good company. The Church also refuses to “pack up” the Incarnation, because it is not merely a seasonal event on the calendar. It is eternal and timeless.
The Incarnation is eternal and timeless: Christ’s full human nature is hypostatically united to the divine Person of the Son from the moment He assumes it in the Virgin’s womb (not “pre-incarnate”). This union is indissoluble.
The Resurrection glorifies and completes this humanity, defeating death and corruption, making it incorruptible, deified, and fully eternal in its risen state. In God’s eternity, beyond sequential time, the Son is always the incarnate, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Lord. Thus, Old Testament theophanies, for example the Angel of the Lord, are appearances of this eternal, resurrected Christ: the same glorified humanity born in Bethlehem and seen in icons and hymns.
This eternalizes the good in creation, including our potential theosis, while sin and death remain defeated.
So the purpose of Adam before the fall, the whole point of him being created, requires the Incarnation to be true. Without it, the human vocation does not really make sense. That vocation is only possible because of the Incarnation. In that sense, Christ’s humanity is logically prior to Adam’s humanity, not in time, but as the archetype and goal. Adam’s humanity is a reflection of Christ’s humanity, theomorphic, so when you ask, “Is the Image Christ’s?” the answer is yes. And because Christ’s humanity is ascended and glorified, the usual spatial categories no longer apply to his humanity in the same way. Human nature remains created and finite, but in union with Christ it participates in his eternal life and is enlarged beyond its natural limits by partaking of him.
When St. John sees the twenty-four elders worshipping around God’s throne, twelve patriarchs and twelve apostles, he is, in a real sense, beholding himself among them. The fathers teach that in God’s eternal now, the future reality of the saints is already present.
So it is with us. Through theosis, becoming partakers of the divine nature by grace, we are drawn into the same timeless life Christ lives in His glorified humanity. We do not cease to be human or created, but united to the risen Lord, we transcend the limits of time and space. Our destiny is to stand eternally before the throne, fully alive in the unending Day of the Resurrection, sharing forever in the worship and joy of the Kingdom.
Paul says in Ephesians 2:6 that we are already seated with Him in the heavenly places. Not “we will be.” Not someday. Already. Which should unsettle us, because it means eternity has already taken its seat, even while we still insist on watching the clock.
If deification is real, then our humanity in Christ is eternal, which means the divine council has never been convened without already making room for us.
