What is the first work of divine grace?

The first grace bestowed upon humanity is creation . God brought humans into being out of nothing, so we feel that we owe Him all our lives. He also bestowed upon us the grace of His image , by which we became able to experience the life of paradise, and to be aware of the mysteries of the knowledge of God; communicating with the Creator and becoming His likeness, seeing Him and living with Him immortally, forever.

St. Athanasius the Apostolic explains that it is the Word (Logos), the Creator, who grants us the grace of enjoying the image of God, and also restores that image in us by renewing our nature after it is corrupted. So, we focus our inner vision on God, and are thereby granted a familiarity with Him without shame; comprehending His mysteries and filled with joy. He also says, “[the man] having the grace of Him that gave it, having also God’s own power from the Word of the Father, he might rejoice and have fellowship with the Deity, living the life of immortality [without death] unharmed and truly blessed. For having nothing to hinder his knowledge of the Deity, he ever beholds, by his purity⁵⁵⁹ … and seeing the Word, it sees in Him also the Father of the Word, taking pleasure in contemplating Him, and gaining renewal by its desire toward Him; exactly as the first of men created, the one who was named Adam in Hebrew, is described in the Holy Scriptures as having at the beginning had his mind to God-ward in a freedom unembarrassed by shame … in that contemplation of things perceived by the mind which he enjoyed in the place where he was— the place which the holy Moses called in figure a Garden [Paradise]. So purity of soul is

556 Benjamin Drewery, Origen and the Doctrine of Grace (University of Michigan, 1960): p. 48.

557 St. Augustine of Hippo, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 3.9 (NPNF I/7:21) .

558 St. Basil of Caesarea, Concerning Baptism 1.2 (FOTC 9:357–358) amended.

559 He means the purity of the first creation within which He formed the human being.

sufficient of itself to reflect God, as the Lord also says, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’ (see Matt. 5:8).”⁵⁶⁰

St. Jacob of Sarug says, “Why did God create if He did not need (the creation); if not out of the grace whose operations surpass the (minds) of rational beings?”⁵⁶¹ He also says, “It was grace that established the world, and carries and preserves it, as if [the world] were suspended from something larger. It was written that He suspended the earth from nothing (Job 26:7). Consider it obvious that it is His grace that holds it.”⁵⁶²