One should not ask where the Son, equal to the Father, abides, since no one has yet found a place where He is not. If anyone wishes to seek, let him rather seek how he may be with Him. Not everywhere where He abides, but wherever He Himself may abide.
For when He said, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise" (Lk 23:43), according to His human nature His soul was to be in Hades that very day, and His flesh in the tomb. But according to His being God, He certainly abides in Paradise.
Thus the soul of the thief, released from former crimes and already blessed by His mercy, could not be everywhere Christ is. Yet that same day it could be with Him in Paradise, from which He, Who is everywhere, had never withdrawn.
Therefore it was not enough to say, "I desire that where I am, they also may be." He added, "with Me." To be with Him is the greatest good. The wretched can be where He is, because wherever they are, He also is there.
But only the blessed are with Him, because only through Him do they become blessed. Is it not truly said to God, "If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I descend into Hades, Thou art there also" (Ps 138:8)?
And is not Christ the Wisdom of God, which, by reason of its purity, passes through and penetrates all things (Wis 7:24)? And "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (Jn 1:5).
Let us turn to a visible example, though the likeness is only remote. Even if light shines where a blind man is, he does not perceive the light at all. It is truly absent for him.
So also, if an unbelieving or impious man, or even a believing and pious man, is not yet ready to behold the light of wisdom, he cannot be where Christ is not. Yet he still cannot be with Christ so as to see Him.
There is no doubt that the true believer abides with Christ by faith. For this reason He says, "He who is not with Me is against Me" (Mt 12:30).
But when He said to God the Father, "I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me," He meant only that vision by which we shall see Him as He is (1 Jn 3:2).
The Lord Jesus encouraged His faithful with a great hope, than which there can be none greater. Hear and rejoice, possessing hope. Since this life deserves not love but endurance, you may be patient in tribulations (cf. Rom 12:12).
Hear, I say, and attend to the object toward which our hope must hasten. Christ Jesus speaks. The Only-begotten Son of God speaks, coeternal and equal to the Father.
He speaks Who for our sake became man, yet did not become a liar like every man (cf. Ps 115:2). The Way, the Life, and the Truth speaks (cf. Jn 14:6). He Who has overcome the world speaks (cf. Jn 16:33).
He speaks concerning those for whose sake He conquered. Hear what He says, believe it, hope in it, thirst for it: "Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me."
Who are those of whom He says that they have been given Him by the Father? Are they not those of whom He said elsewhere, "No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him" (Jn 6:44)?
If we have already advanced in understanding this Gospel, we know how He Himself, together with the Father, does what He says the Father does.
These, then, are those whom He received from the Father. They are those whom He Himself chose out of the world, that they might no longer be of the world, as He Himself is not of the world.
Yet they were to be the world that believes and knows that Christ was sent by God the Father. He came to deliver the world from the world, so that the world reconciled to God would not be condemned with the world that remained hostile to Him.
For He says at the beginning of that prayer, "Thou hast given Him authority over all flesh," that is, over every man, "that He should give eternal life to all whom Thou hast given Him" (Jn 17:2).
Here He reveals that He received authority over every man. Thus, as the future Judge of the living and the dead, He may deliver whom He wills and punish whom He wills.
At the same time, the Father gave Him all those to whom He will give eternal life. For He said, "that He should give eternal life to all whom Thou hast given Him."
Accordingly, those to whom He will not give eternal life were not given Him. Yet authority over them was given to Him, to Whom authority over all flesh, that is, over every man, was given.
Therefore the reconciled world will be delivered from the hostile world. He will exercise His authority over the hostile world, sending it to eternal death. He will make the reconciled world His own, granting it eternal life.
For this reason the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:11) promised this reward to all His sheep. The great Head promised it to all His members: that where He is, we also should be with Him.
What the almighty Son declared as His will to the almighty Father cannot fail to be fulfilled. For there is also the Holy Spirit, likewise eternal and likewise God, the one Spirit of the Two, and the substance of the will of Both.
Indeed, when the Passion was drawing near, we read the words, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt, Father" (cf. Mt 26:39). These words sound as if the Father had, or would have, one will, and the Son another.
They are the echo of our weakness, though it is a believing weakness. Our Head reflected it in Himself when He bore our transgressions. But piety must believe that the will of the Father and the Son is one.
Their Spirit is also one, and in this unity we recognize the Trinity, even if weakness does not yet permit us to understand it.
Since we have already said, as the brevity of this discourse allowed, to whom He promised this, and how sure the promise is, let us now consider, as far as we can, what He judged worthy to promise.
He said, "Those whom Thou hast given Me, I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me." In relation to the creature in which He began to be of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom 1:3), He was not yet where He intended to be.
But He could say, "where I am," so that we might understand that He would soon ascend into heaven. Thus He spoke as already being where He was shortly to be.
He could also speak as He had earlier spoken to Nicodemus: "No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man, Who descended from heaven, Who is in heaven" (Jn 3:13).
There also He did not say "was," but "is," because of the unity of the Person in Whom God is man and man is God.
Therefore He promised that we shall be in heaven. For there the form of a servant (Phil 2:6), which He received from the Virgin, was taken up and set at the right hand of the Father.
In hope of this good the Apostle said, "God, Who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead through trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by Whose grace we are saved.
He raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:4-6).
Thus the Lord's words may be understood in this sense: "that where I am, they also may be with Me." While He said of Himself that He was already there, He said of us that He desired us to be there with Him.
He did not affirm that we are already there. Yet what the Lord expressed as His desire that it should happen, the Apostle spoke of as though already accomplished.
He did not say, "He will raise us and seat us in the heavenly places," but, "He raised us and seated us in the heavenly places." He did not say this casually, but with assurance.
He declares as already done what he did not doubt would come to pass.
But with respect to the form of God (Phil 2:6), in which He is equal to the Father, if we wish to understand in this form the words, "I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me," let our mind reject every image of bodily form.
Whatever comes to mind as long, broad, thick, colored with any bodily color, spread through any space, or infinite, let the mind turn the sharpness of its gaze and attention away from all this, as far as possible.
Let no one ask where the Son, equal to the Father, is. No one will find any place where He is not present. But if anyone wishes to attain this, let him rather strive to be with Him.
He will not be everywhere as He is, but wherever he himself may be. For He said to a man enduring punishment and confessing unto salvation, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise" (Lk 23:43).
According to His being man, His soul was to be in Hades that same day, and His flesh in the tomb. According to His being God, He was certainly in Paradise.
Therefore the soul of the thief, freed from former crimes and already blessed by His gift, could not be everywhere as He is. Yet it could be with Him that same day in Paradise.
From there He, eternally present everywhere, did not depart. Therefore it was not enough for Him to say, "I desire that where I am, they also may be." He added, "with Me."
For to be with Him is a great good. Even the unworthy can be where He is, since He is everywhere, wherever and whenever they may be. But only the blessed are with Him.
They cannot be blessed except through Him. Was it not truly said to God, "If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I descend into Hades, Thou art there also" (Ps 138:8)?
Or is not Christ the Wisdom of God, which by its purity penetrates everywhere (cf. Wis 7:24)? But "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (Jn 1:5).
For this reason, let us take an example from visible things, though it is very far from the matter. A blind man, even if he is where light is, is nevertheless not with the light.
He is without it, though it is present. So too an unbelieving and impious man, or a believing and pious man who is still unable to receive the light of wisdom, cannot be where Christ is not.
Yet he will not be with Christ, at least in reality. There should be no doubt that a man who believes piously abides with Christ by faith. For this reason He said, "He who is not with Me is against Me" (Mt 12:30).
But when He said to God the Father, "Those whom Thou hast given Me, I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me," He was certainly speaking of that reality in which we shall see Him as He is (cf. 1 Jn 3:2).
Let no one draw a mist of contradiction over the clarity of understanding. Let the words that follow confirm the words that precede. For when He said, "I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me," He immediately added the reason.
He said, "that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me, because Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." He said, "that they may behold," not "that they may believe."
This is the reward of faith, not faith itself. For if faith is rightly defined in the Epistle to the Hebrews as "the assurance of things unseen" (Heb 11:1), why may not the reward of faith be defined likewise?
It is the contemplation of what was hoped for in faith. When we see the glory which the Father gave the Son, we may understand that this place speaks not of the glory given to the equal Son by begetting Him.
It speaks of the glory given Him after the death of the Cross, when He had become the Son of Man. Yet when we see this glory of the Son, then the judgment of the living and the dead will certainly occur.
Then the impious man will be removed, so that he may not behold the glory of the Lord (cf. Is 26:10). What is that glory, if not the glory in which He is God?
For "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8). But the impious are impure in heart, and therefore they shall not see Him.
Then they will go away into eternal punishment, for then the impious man will be removed, so that he may not see the glory of the Lord. But the righteous will go into eternal life (cf. Mt 25:46).
And what is eternal life? "That they may know Thee," He said, "the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent" (cf. Jn 17:3).
Certainly this is not as those knew Him who, though impure in heart, will still be able to see Him pronouncing judgment in the form of a servant (Phil 2:6), filled with glory.
THEOSIS