Perfect God and Perfect Man

CHRIST IS BORN!  A Nativity Epistle from Archimandrite Justin Popovich

God is born on earth, and moreover He is born as a man: perfect God and perfect man--the unique God-man. And He has forever remained as the God-man both on earth and in heaven. Indeed, the God-man is the first perfect man on earth. Perfect man? Yes, because only in the God-man is man without sin, without evil, without death, totally filled with God, and thereby with all divine perfections. The God-man has demonstrated and proved this most convincingly: man is only a true man when he is completely united with God, and in everything and every way completely lives in God, thinks in God, feels in God, acts in God, is virtuous in God, is immortal in God, is eternal in God. Only and solely in God is man a man, a true man, a perfect man, a man in whom all the fullness of the Godhead lives. We can analyze this fundamental, evangelic, Divine-human truth about man. The soul of man?--Only and solely as the Divine Soul in the God-man does it become and forever remain sinless, immortal, God-like, holy, perfect eternal. The mind of man?--Only and solely as the Divine Mind in the God-man does it become and forever remain sinless, immortal, God-like, holy, perfect, eternal. The heart of man?--Only and solely as the Divine Heart in the God-man does it become and remain sinless, immortal, God-like, holy, perfect, eternal. The conscience of man?--Only and solely as the Divine Conscience in the God-man does it become and remain sinless, immortal, God-like, holy, perfect, eternal. The will of man?--Only and solely as the Divine Will in the God-man does our will become and forever remain sinless, immortal, God-like, holy, perfect, eternal. The body of man?--Only and solely as the Divine Body in the God-man does the body become and forever remain sinless, immortal, God-like, holy, perfect, eternal. The life of man?--Only and solely as the Divine Life in the God-man does our life become and forever remain sinless, immortal, God-like, holy, perfect, eternal. Everything that man is, and everything that is of man perfectly lives, works, thinks, feels, is human, immortal, divine, and eternal only and solely in the God-man and through the God-man. Only through the God-man Christ is man divine majesty and the highest value next to God in all worlds. For this reason God became man, and has remained the God-man for all eternity. With the God-man Christ, all that is God's has become man's, human, ours, so that each of us individually and all of us assembled together in the Divine-human body of Christ, the Church, might become god-men, having at tained "to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:12-13). Therefore Christmas, the day of the birth of the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the greatest and most important day in the history of all the worlds in which man moves and lives. Truly this is "great joy"--truly the only true joy, the only eternal joy of a human being in all worlds. The God-man?--This is the most important Event of all the worlds of man: the Ultimate Event. The God-man?--This is the most important Justice of all the worlds of man: the Ultimate Justice. The God-man?--This is the most important Love of all the worlds of man: the Ultimate Love. The God-man?--This is the most important Good of all the worlds of man: the Ultimate Good. The God-man?--This is the most important Man of all the worlds of man: the Ultimate Man. The God-man?--This is the most important God of all the gods of man: the Ultimate God.     On account of all this, the Nativity is our only eternal Joy: the Ultimate Joy. The Joy of all joys, the Joy above all joys. Therefore, again and again: Christ is born! The God-man is born! Our deification is born! Our divine human transformation is born! The Archimandrite Justin Popović (in Cyrillic Serbian, Јустин Поповић) (1894-1979) was a theologian, a champion, a writer, a critic of the pragmatic church life, a philosopher, and archimandrite of the Monastery Ćelije, near Valjevo. Source: http://www.sv-luka.org/library/perfectgod_jp.htm