What to do in order to inherit eternal life (to come into possession of the Gift of deification, to become a hypostasis of the Church)? According to the testimony of Jesus Christ, one needs: to believe in the Son of God, to know Him, to be one with Him, and this is achieved in the Divine Eucharist, when we eat Christ and He abides in us, and we in Him!
No one comes to the Father except through the Son, and the Son reveals the Father to whom He wills and as He wills41. For the communion of creaturely hypostases to the fullness of Being, the Lord established the Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, in which the revelation and knowledge of the Father (the fullness of Divine Trinitarian Life) occurs. In the Divine Eucharist, consuming the Son, we gain access to the Father42. Where can one consume the Son? – In the Church, that is, in the community of the faithful, which has gathered for the Eucharist!
The creaturely world reaches its completion, perfection, bliss in the Church, that is, in Divine unity: “that all may be one…”, and in this Trinitarian unity be Happy, Be Blessed. Lord Jesus in Himself united the creaturely and uncreated natures hypostatically (without confusion, without change, indivisibly and inseparably) – the entire creaturely nature (cosmos) exists Divinely. Now it remains for the creaturely hypostases to enter into this Hypostatic unity, to accept this Gift of deification and live according to the “nature” (which exists Divinely in the Hypostasis of the Son), that is, Divinely, Hypostatically (to become a hypostasis of the Church – the Theanthropic reality).
Therefore, the Church is that which does not depend on creaturely hypostases, – It exists as a given, as a Gift of deification, resurrection (the possibility of gaining access to the Father). This Sacrament of the Church (the Hypostatic unity of the Theanthropic reality and the Hypostatic Trinitarian Divine Life) can only be partaken of, one can only become a participant in this Sacrament of Eternal Life, but it cannot be invented or created – it is not from men and angels (“With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”), it is a Divine Gift, which cannot be earned, nor prayed for, nor begged for, but only accepted in the Eucharist (from Greek, gratitude, blessing-giving). A Gift is accepted only in a state of blessing-giving (= eucharist, gratitude). Gratitude, blessing-giving (the proper response to a gift) – is the only state in which a hypostasis is able to accept and assimilate the Gift. Therefore, the essence of the Church, whose main task is to attach creaturely hypostases to Eternal Life, to help them accept the Gift of Deification, Resurrection, – the Sacrament of the Eucharist (acceptance in blessing-giving of the Gift of Salvation, acquisition of the Holy Spirit).
The Church was born at the Annunciation (when “the Word became Flesh”, the Body of Christ was formed), and at Pentecost the first creaturely hypostases – the Most Holy Theotokos and the assembly of apostles (on the day of Pentecost, in this Sacrament of baptism by the Holy Spirit the Theotokos became a hypostasis of the Church – that is, she resurrected, was deified, completely (wholly, catholicly) accepted the Gift of Eternal Life, became a “full-fledged” participant in the Life of the Most Holy Trinity). Before attaching the creaturely hypostases to the Body of the Church (before the Sacrament of baptism by the Holy Spirit), the Lord first proclaimed them. He appeared to the disciples for forty days and spoke to them about the mysteries (primarily about the Eucharist) of the Kingdom of God (= the Church), and then baptized (immersed in the depths of Divine Hypostatic Trinitarian Life) them by the Holy Spirit (birthed them into the Church, grafted them onto the Body of the Church). Further, Christ’s disciples, living the Eucharistic (= Church) life, were to grow into the Body of Christ, to grow to the measure of the stature of Christ, to become a hypostasis of the Church. This is a long and painful process of kenotic self-denial of sinful individuality-egoism and the acquisition of a personal mode of existence as God-Trinity. Sin does not automatically disappear in baptism – the apostles, for example, after Pentecost sinned: Paul and Barnabas quarreled and parted (see Acts), Peter dissembled (see Gal.), and the apostle John the Theologian even says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, or elsewhere it is said: “we sin much.” And sin is not necessarily something “terrible”, it is also incompleteness, and ignorance, not to mention ordinary “slips” – “not unto death.”
In the first part, we discussed “The Church” and “the church”. By “the church”, we agreed to understand the human component of the Theanthropic reality, the Body of Christ (= The Church), that is, those who have grafted themselves (through the Sacrament of Baptism and Chrismation or, if they have fallen from the Church, through the Sacrament of Penance and Confession) to the Body of the Church and have begun the process of assimilating to God (becoming akin to God, by blood, as their own) and absorbing the Gift of Eternal Life, the Grace of the Holy Spirit (to incarnate this Theanthropic reality – the fullness of divinity by grace, which the created nature lives in the Hypostasis of Christ; to completely incarnate, assimilate the two natures Human and Divine by Grace). We do not speak of two churches, as two different substantial realities (as modern Nestorians do – a heresy that claimed that Christ had two persons – an earthly Christ and a Heavenly, who briefly joined and separated at Golgotha) – there is the “heavenly church”, true, holy, and the “earthly church” of sinners, striving to reach the “heavenly church”, oriented towards it. The Church is one, unique! It is the Theanthropic Mystery (Eucharist), to which one can partake, of which one can dynamically be a member, and from which one can fall away! The Church is the Mystery of Hypostatic Trinitarian Life, a reality of absolute freedom, where there is no shadow of statics, mechanicalness, or magicality. Being a member of the Church, a communicant of the Eucharist, is a dynamic act, not a one-time affair. The Lord said: he who will eat (not just once eat) My Body and drink (not just once drink) My Blood (= Me; will abide in My memory in the Kingdom of God; will abide in Me, and through Me in the depths of the Holy Trinity), he will have Life (Eternal) in himself, will be a source of Living Water, the Holy Spirit (will become “the owner” of Divine nature by grace; will become a source of grace!), will be Blessed. Therefore, it is said: not ate and drank Christ, but: eats and drinks – thus indicating an ongoing process with a certain rhythm. Just as we need to eat and drink regularly to exist biologically in phase II: ate – assimilated, ate – assimilated… similarly, to live the Life Eternal, to be a member of the Church, one needs to eat Christ (Heavenly Bread, the Bread of Eternal Life) in the Eucharist – in phase II partake of the Eucharist regularly over a certain period of time (at least once a week on Sunday and “preferably” no more than once a day – Food needs to be assimilated, and this requires time in phase II!).