The Fullness of Deity and the Economy of Salvation

Lord: 'you alone are most high over all the earth' (Psalm 53:6), saying 'alone' because of the one divinity. He called him Father of eternity, being the creator of the past agesause he was known by men much more through the temporal aspect of the economy.

Therefore, he called him Father, as a creator and not of uncreated nature; for one is the Father of the uncreated and consubstantial Son. And to demonstrate his divinity, he said something simple: 'there is no limit to his peace.'

And Jeremiah, or rather, for the book of Baruch is one of both, solemnly speaks about him: 'This is our God; no other shall be reckoned against him (Isaiah 42:8). He found every way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his child and to Israel, the one beloved by him; after these things he appeared upon the earth and walked among men.'

If, therefore, it is not conceived in a God-befitting manner that the present scripture was spoken thus because of the shared divinity of both the unutterable hypostases, it remains to say, effectively blaspheming, that the one who created is God and Father, but not our God, and is not comparable to his Son.

Thus, the word of those who slander has fallen away and spread, making the God the Word smaller and a subordinate. For how could another be incomparable to God, 'to whom no other shall be reckoned against him'?

And again: 'gods, who did not make heaven and earth, destroyed upon the earth; Lord, who made the heavens in wisdom, he is the living and true God' (Psalm 95:3), as if there were another divinity that is not true, except that of the genuine Son of God, through whom and from whom and by whom the heavens were also provided for the whole world.

And Paul, the preeminent of men, following the same sequence, gives words fittingly concerning him, writing to Titus: 'awaiting the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people of his own, zealous for good works' (Titus 2:13).

For through the being called 'the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ,' it is made manifest that he does not have a second-rank status in essence, and the distinction of the unoriginate toward the great God the Father.

For according to appearances it is possible to conclude that if the Son is small, how will the Father be great? If the Word God 'was when he was not' (John 1:1), he was when the name of the Father did not exist. Let it be gracious to us that we dare to say such things because of the ignorance of others. 'For piety is a beautiful habit', they say, 'for those using it'.

But through the saying 'of the one giving himself for us, in order that he might cleanse for himself a people of his own possession' (Hebrews 5:9)—not for another in order that he might cleanse a people—it follows what has been mentioned. For it signifies that he himself, the one single, self-possessing and good deity, who is the cause of all, has been determined. For it is a peculiar thing for a creator, indeed, not to surpass his own creation, if it must be said so of his own work; but for the deity of a beloved Son, having no difference from the Father, to acquire the people for himself.

And this great and true interpreter leads the argument to demonstrate that he is at once a philanthropic Savior God, and at once, as he himself veiled himself and did not show himself as superior in deity, to become with us as one of us, through a change and through sin, he asserts: 'When indeed the kindness and the philanthropy of our Savior God appeared, not because of the works which we ourselves did, but according to his great mercy, he saved us through the bath of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit'.

And he also reproaches the Colossians and makes a disparagement of the primary theology concerning him by the writings, as it has already been said in the chapter 'on the consubstantial': 'Why according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ Jesus? For in him dwells all the fullness of deity bodily' (Colossians 2:9), that is, essentially. For he also is by nature a fullness, the Father's deity existing in essence.

For 'being equal to God was not considered a robbery' (Philippians 2:6); but we received from the fullness because of his goodness. Which we by nature as slaves did not have, John saying: 'And from his fullness we all have received, and grace for grace' (John 1:16), that is, the grace of the rebirth instead of the grace which we were cast away from, striking at the first law given upon the single stock. 'For no longer,'