The Christian Universalist Association affirms the following in our statement of faith:
| We believe every person is the divine offspring of God, created in the image of the Heavenly Parent of all; and that every person is destined to be raised up from imperfection to maturity according to the pattern of the archetypal Christ, the Son of God, the Perfect Human in whose image all humanity shall be transformed. |
The cornerstone of the original Christian faith is the belief in Jesus Christ as the Divine-Man, the perfect example of what it is to be truly and fully human. Christ is the one who empowers other people to rise out of their sinful, imperfect condition and become divine (Rom. 5:18-19, 1 Cor. 15:22). The idea of Jesus as the "Son of God" was intended not only to show his special status as the Messiah, but also the fact that all people are God's children, who may inherit with Christ as "sons" of God all the good things God has prepared for those who seek Him and love Him (Rom. 8:16-18, Gal. 4:1-5). If we desire to conform ourselves to Christ, the archetypal pattern of divinity in human form, we are thereby divinized in his image (John 12:36, 17:22-24, 2 Cor. 3:18, Eph. 1:3-6). This enables us to fulfill our original potential when we were first created in the image and likeness of God, according to Genesis, and later fell away into sin.
In the early Greek church, divinization through the pattern of Christ was called theosis (literally: becoming godlike or one with God), and was a very important concept for many Christians until the religion was hijacked and perverted by Rome. Early Christians understood salvation not merely as escaping hell, but as a total transformation of one's being in conformity with the divine image (Eph. 4:13,15, 5:1-2, Col. 1:25-28, 1 John 3:1-3). We today in the Christian Universalist Association share this greater understanding of salvation, based on a recognition of the essentially divine nature of human beings and therefore our divine potential which was manifested in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Bible makes it clear that God should be regarded as the Father of all people (Mal. 2:10, Mat. 6:9, Eph. 4:6); that all human beings, both male and female, are created in the divine image according to God's own likeness (Gen. 1:26-27), which therefore encompasses both genders (Isa. 66:13, Mat. 23:37); that the Light or Spirit of God is within us (Job 33:4, Ps. 51:10-11, Mat. 5:14, Mark 1:8, Luke 11:35-36); that we are literally God's offspring (Acts 17:28), and in a sense are "gods" (Ps. 82:6, John 10:34); and that someday we will actually be able to manifest the powers of gods, as Jesus was already able to do (Mat. 17:20, Luke 6:40, John 14:12, 1 Cor. 6:2-3).
This is the glorious destiny of all people! No one is excluded from this amazing divine plan. In the fullness of the ages, God will become "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28), meaning that all beings will manifest the attributes of God to their fullest possible potential. Life -- in whatever form it may take in our spiritual journey -- is about striving and advancing toward ever-greater levels of divine manifestation, until every trace of selfish separation is purged from us and we are transformed, made anew, as Christ already was from the foundation of the world.
