https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=mQqmfTexXS0
Now, I think that this continues on in the notion of the revelation in Scripture. So there is this movement from something like the name, from something like that which is invisible, that which is spiritual, into that which becomes visible and embodied. That is, of course, the very movement from the glory of God into the tabernacle itself. It is the same movement that I’m telling you about, how there’s this glimmer, this transformation of Moses as he comes down the mountain. But this gets taken up as revelation progresses and as God promises to fill the world with his spirit, to fill the world with his glory. So in the prophetic text, we start to see a very strange thing start to happen. So in the prophetic text, all of a sudden, this image of man starts to appear. And it’s very, very fascinating because what is going on in this question? So in the book of Daniel and in the book of Ezekiel, the prophets have this perception. They see on a throne, sitting next to God, let’s say, sitting. And it’s important to understand that the figure is sitting. The figure is not standing. If the figure was standing, we would understand that the figure is like an angel that is serving the king, right? It’s like a servant serving the king. But no, there is a throne there. And the figure that is there is sitting on the throne. And sitting on the throne, he becomes the one that is served, the one that has to be served by the angels. And what does, what do the prophets see? They see the figure, the image of someone like the son of man, of someone that has the image of the son of man. This is very fascinating, isn’t it? What’s going on? All of a sudden, the possibility of seeing this figure standing next to, sitting in the throne next to the throne of God, and also being, let’s say, in the glory of God. And so, this image that Ezekiel describes of the four cherubs, like these four wheels of a chariot that is like the earth itself, and above, sitting surrounded by a rainbow, on a throne is this image of the son of man. Now of course, most Christians will understand that what he’s seeing is the divine logos, but already the logos as in the figure of a man that is already Christ, as being the one who will, now I’m going to push you a little bit, who will restore the image of God in man. And so, this is what’s going on. That’s why he’s seeing a son of man, even before we know who that is, he’s seeing a son of man sitting on a throne next to God. Because that in some ways is the plan of God from the fall itself, is to restore, not even before that, even in the creation of man, the purpose of God was to instill his image into the world, and now it is to restore it in Christ. So this is what is going on. So it’s all kind of there in the thrust of Revelation, and we can understand it, like I said, as the very structure of Revelation itself, that is moving from heaven down to earth, moving from the invisible to the visible, moving from the invisible or glory to the space, and of course, I think also moving from name into image. And the idea in some of these polemical videos that the Christians at the early centuries had no concept of this at all, were not at all aware of any of, at least the thrust of this movement, I think is a little dishonest. So I’m going to read for you a text, an apocryphal text, and it’s an apocryphal text that is not in Scripture, but it’s an apocryphal text that was written between the first and the third century. It’s called The Life of Adam and Eve, and in this you get a sense that at least the Christians and the late Jews had an understanding of what it is that was going on, and the relationship between the fall of Adam and the second commandment. You know, it’s like, you always have to ask yourself, what is the second commandment for? What is its purpose? And so I’m going to read for you from the book of The Life of Adam and Eve, and so now it’s the devil speaking. The devil says, In the midst of the angels and for thee I was cast out in the earth. Adam answered, What dost thou tell me? What have I done to thee? Or what is my fault against thee, seeing that thou hast received no harm or injury from us? Why dost thou pursue us? The devil replied, O Adam, what dost thou tell me? It is for thy sake that I have been hurled from that place. When thou wast formed, I was hurled out of the presence of God and banished from the company of the angels. When God blew into thee the breath of life, and thy face and likeness was made in the image of God, Michael also brought thee and made us worship thee in the sight of God. And God the Lord spake, Here is Adam, I have made thee in our image and likeness. And Michael went out and called all the angels, saying, Worship the image of God, as the Lord God hath commanded. And Michael himself worshiped first. And he called me and said, Worship the image of God, worship the image of God the Lord. And I answered, I have no need to worship Adam. And since Michael kept urging me to worship, I said to him, Why dost thou urge me? I will not worship an inferior and younger being than I. I am his senior in the creation. Before he was made, I was already made. It is his duty to worship me. When the angels who were under me heard this, they refused to worship him. And Michael saith, Worship the image of God. But if thou wilt not worship him, the Lord God will be wrath with thee. And I said, If he be wrath with me, I will set my seat above the stars of heaven, and will be like the highest. This is of course the oldest version of the fall of Satan, not of falling before the creation of humans, not falling in this ancient, ancient way that is described in more recent texts, but falling because he did not agree to bow down to the image that God had put of himself in the world in Adam. Let’s say the late Hebrews and the early Christians, they had a sense that there was a direct relationship between the notion of the image in the fall of Adam and the notion of the image in the second commandment. I do believe so. And also not just that, but the movement in the revelation of how the son of man appears sitting on a throne next to God. Of course this will come to be fully kind of revealed in the person of Christ as being the image of the son of man, of this restoration of the image of God in man, the restoration of the place of man sitting on the throne next to God in the person of Christ. And the early Christian artists knew this very, very well. And so some of the very first, some of the earliest art that still, let’s say, survives iconoclasm, in it you will see that this is what they are representing. So this is an image of the ascension of Christ from the Rebulah Gospel, which is a Syrian Gospel from the 6th century. So in this image you see Christ as the ascension, but it’s the ascension represented as Christ being the son of man, Christ being on the chariot of the cherubim, represented in this particular way with the foreheads and the wheels and the eyes, and that this is the restoration, this is the full revelation of what is being hinted at, of what is being suggested in the book of Daniel and in the book of Ezekiel. And so the idea that it might have taken Christians time to fully understand the scope of what the story of Christ was bringing, of what the incarnation, the consequences of the incarnation for us is something that I can understand. And I think that pushing very hard to act as if the early fathers of the church were completely aware and hadn’t totally dealt with what the relationship between, what the consequences of all the consequences of the incarnation of Christ were, I am okay with accepting that, but it doesn’t change the thrust of what is happening.