Every year North Park Theological Seminary hosts a Symposium on Theological Interpretation of Scripture. In 2017 that symposium was on the topic of Participation in and with Christ, and the presentations were printed (as with each symposium) in Ex Auditu (vol 33). It was a great conference with voices from a variety of perspectives–biblical, historical, and contemporary.
My piece extends some of my work on Paul and theosis by means of a conversation with Irenaeus (with my book Christosis) to include here a wider perspectives on the story of the Bible as a whole, particularly with a focus on glory as a biblical theme. Here is a list of all the essays.
Introduction – Stephen J. Chester
You Become What You Worship: Theosis and the Story of the Bible – Ben C. Blackwell
Response to Blackwell – Cynthia Peters Anderson
The Old Testament and Participation with God (and/in Christ?): (Re-)Reading the Life of Moses with Some Help from Gregory of Nyssa – Brent Strawn
Response to Strawn – J. Nathan Clayton
Cruciform or Resurrectiform? Paul’s Paradoxical Practice of Participation in Christ – Michael J. Gorman
Response to Gorman – Markus Nikkanen
Union(s) with Christ: Colossians 1:15–20 – Grant Macaskill
Response to Macaskill – Constantine R. Campbell
Why Bother with Participation? An Early Lutheran Perspective – Olli-Pekka Vainio
Response to Vainio – Stephen J. Chester
The Geography of Participation: In Christ is Location. Location, Location – Julie Canlis
Response to Canlis – Mary Patton Baker
Jews and Gentiles together in Christ? The Jerusalem Council on Racial Reconciliation – Ashish Varma
Response to Varma – Hauna Ondrey
Letting the Music Play (Matthew 22:34–40) – Cynthia Peters Anderson
Dunelm Road 
Friday, 15 February 2019 at 12:30 pm
[…] Placing this discussion of becoming gods in terms of creation fits his rhetorical purpose, but it also frames the nature of continuity in almost all discussions of theosis, that is, the creator of the world is also its savior. Thus, others often place their discussion of deification in terms of creation. Theophilus is unique among other patristic writers because he does not use Psalm 82:6 to ground his reading. However, the outcome is exactly the same since when Irenaeus and others discuss Psalm 82:6, they always narrate it according to mortality at the fall and the hope of immortality. However, Irenaeus also places this within his larger salvation-historical narrative in which Christ is the one through the Spirit who restores immortality to humanity. I explore the importance of theosis for helping capture the “story of the Bible” in an e… […]
Friday, 22 February 2019 at 12:28 pm
[…] whole story of the Bible. (In case you are interested, I spell this out further in a recent essay: “You Become What You Worship: Theosis and the Story of Bible,” Ex Auditu (2017): 1–20.) For patristic theologians, it also incorporated their cosmological framework, in that […]