However, one who is sinful, like the son of wickedness, cannot be termed a man of God, just as it cannot be said of those who are enslaved to sin: everyone who commits sin is a servant of sin (John 8:34). Once again, whoever is overcome becomes a servant to what overcomes them (2 Peter 2:19). Just as the transgressions of children do not affect the fathers, the faults of the fathers do not harm the children; rather, the soul that sins shall die—not through the obliteration of existence but through the loss of communion with Him who declared, "I am the life" (John 14:6). Moreover, He affirms: anyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die (John 11:26), and again: "Amen, amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he shall not see death forever" (John 8:51). Our lives are securely hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), and we will live when Christ, our life, is revealed in glory, fulfilling the scripture: "Amen, amen, I say to you, that whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life" (John 5:24). Regarding Balaam, when he says, "Let my soul die with the righteous" (Num. 23:10), he expresses his desire to die to worldly desires and sin and to join the righteous souls, whom Christ sustains as their life, and who can proclaim: "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living" (Ps. 114:9). For He is not the God of the dead but of the living (Matthew 22:32). If Balaam's name implies vanity, it is clear that the Gentiles, once steeped in vanity, wish to connect with the souls of the righteous—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—who are known as the upright. Thus, the book of Genesis bears their name.
THEOSIS