In the fullness of truth, Christ reveals the image of the Father through His qualities and Humanity. St. Athanasius writes, “He [The Word] was made man that we might be made God; He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father. ” As our words reveal our thoughts, the Word of God exists eternally, indicating the thought of God within creation. Without the Word, we would not be able to perceive the Father, nor would we be able to have any relation with Him, remaining Fatherless within the cosmos.
Through the Word, we also have our identity; our individuality remains eternally in God’s mind. We read in Proverbs, “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth…”, describing God’s idea of us is found in His first acts, and since St. Thomas says in question 3, article 7 of the Summa God is one eternal act we can deduce that this verse along with Jeremiah 1:5, “before you were in your mothers womb, I knew you” that the idea of whole being existed before creation. God so loved the idea of us as individuals that His plans for us have existed before time.
The concept of the puzzle pieces of creation existing within Christ has been described at length in the works of St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and Gregory Palamas and is known as Logos and Logoi theology. St. Cyril explains that “The Logos, being the image of the Father, was able to create all things according to the pattern of His form, as if painting the world as a portrait of Himself.” St. Maximus writes, “In accordance with this divine forethought, there pre-existed in the Logos himself the principles (logoi) of all creatures, by which he intended to bring into being both the whole world and its individual parts.” And finally, Gregory Palamas, “For the divine Logos, who once for all was made flesh, is forever the hypostasis of the logoi implanted in the universe.” In the unified Logos, our Lord exists the many brushstrokes that reveal the unseen God.
In Jesus Christ is the reality of all that exists, to where He leads creation towards perfect unification with the Divine and consummation of the one and many, the singularity and multiplicity. St. Gregory confirms this notion by saying, “For it is evident that God will in truth be ‘in all’ when there shall be no evil in existence.” This excerpt also leads us to understand the gravity of evil and sin. As pieces of the revelation of God as the supreme reality, we are given the choice to cooperate in the form of the Logos. If we didn’t have this choice, we would be unable to participate in Divinity.
Therein leads to the possibility of sin. If sin is the deviation from the plan of the Logos for cosmic reality, then our sin quite literally deforms the image of God within creation. Therefore, If Christ is the ultimate and singular form of God within creation, then when we sin, we also disfigure the body of Christ. This fact brings an entirely new light to His passion.
As the Incarnation was meant to reveal the logos, the incarnate Logos also gives tangible form to the effects of sin. When we sin with our flesh that was intended to demonstrate the Godhead, with our free choice, we flog the logos, ripping the flesh from His bones and distorting His image in the cosmos. When we use our minds to serve our egos or to take advantage of others, we pierce the head of the Logos with a crown of thorns. When we use our hands and fit to act contrary to the divine plan, we nail Him to the cross, restraining Him from working in us to reveal His face in creation, thus placing the cosmic wounds on the most Holy body of the eternal Logos.
While our sin casts a haunting image of our mistakes, it is vital to understand the gravity of sin. Not only this, but we must be aware of what we reject when we sin. This realization should serve, through the knowledge of Christ’s cosmic reality, as a motivator to always seek the Will of the Divine Logos and call His operation into everything that we do, even the most mundane, so that the face of God may be revealed and the kingdom of God may further establish itself on earth.