Are there limits to the growth of the work of grace?

For our sake, it was said of the Lord Jesus Christ: “And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40), and, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52). And as the scholar Origen says, “He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7) ... And by the same power by which He emptied Himself, He also bestowed growth [on others].” Thus, He accompanies us on the path of continual growth in unending grace. For grace is God’s work within us; continuous, dynamic, unceasing.

560 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Against the Heathen 2.2–4 (NPNF II/4:5).

561 See Behnam Sony, Man in the Teaching of St. Jacob of Sarug (1995): p. 114.

562 See Behnam Sony, Man in the Teaching of St. Jacob of Sarug (1995): p. 115.

563 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Four Discourses Against the Arians 2.18.41–42 (NPNF II/4:370–371) amended.

564 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Holy Spirit 1.12.131 (NPNF II/10:110).

St. Athanasius the Apostolic says, “Of the body then is the advance; for, it advancing, in it advanced also the manifestation of the Godhead to those who saw it. And, as the Godhead was more and more revealed, by so much more did His grace as man increase before all men. For as a child He was carried to the Temple; and when He became a boy, He remained there, and questioned the priests about the Law.[”]⁵⁶⁵

St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “for to those who await it with eager patience there comes the trustworthy and unambiguous enjoyment of the grace that is hoped for.”⁵⁶⁶ And also: “ Neither, moreover, does the one who is mounting up ever cease to promote one starting point into another, nor does the starting point of ever-greater things find fulfillment simply in itself . For the desire of the soul that is ascending never rests content with what has been known. In turn mounting upwards by way of one greater desire toward another that surpasses it, that soul is always journeying toward the infinite by way of higher things.”⁵⁶⁷