Section 5

“I was dead, and behold, 1 am lving for the Aions of the Aions. AMLN This is from the Hebrew ahmain, “faithfulness.” The Eter¬nal Spirit both absolute and incarnate, is “the Amen." In the letter to Laodicea the Spirit speaks, and in speaking, says, “these things saith THE AMEN;” and in this first chapter, the Amen says, “I was dead.” But the Spirit never died; therefore, here it must be understood of the Logos speaking from a body, personal and corporate, with whom he had united in a resurrection thereof from the dead.

“His aspect as the sun shines in his power.” the words fi o^iq avrov , which I have rendered “his aspect,” are expressed in the Eng¬lish version by “his countenance.” In modem style, this is gener¬ally understood of the face. But John certainly did not mean this. He began his description at the hair of the head; and if he had meant the face he would doubtless have referred to it before he passed down to the breasts. What he had reference to, after finishing in detail, was the general external aspect of the whole figure.

A sword proceeding out of the mouth of a symbol indicates that the community represented is prepared for military operations. “YAH¬WEH,” saith Moses, “is a Man of War;” and that warrior is before us in John’s similitude of the Son of man.

In the tenth verse of this first chapter, John informs us, that the first thing that arrested his attention, when he came to be “in spirit,” was “a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last;” and in the fifteenth verse, he tells us, that the great voice was “as the sound of many waters.”

“His feet,” says John, “like incandescent brass, as if they had been glowing in a furnace.” We have here to consider the import of the feet; why they are symbolized by brass; in what sense they glow; and in what furnace the glowing is evolved.

The eye is the symbol of intelligence, for “the light of the body is the eye.” The nature of the intelligence in predominant activity is ex­pressed by the character of the symbol; hence an eye as a flame of fire, indicates intelligence in wrathful activity. The word for "ere” in the Hebrew also signifies “fountain;” because tears are welled up from the eye as water from a fountain or spring.

John says that the head and the hairs of the similitude he saw were “white, as it were wool, white as snow.” This appearance identifies it with Daniel’s Ancient of Days,” the hair of whose head was “like the pure wool.” Now, in regard to the head, Paul says, “I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God”—1 Cor. 11:3; and in Eph.

The “Perfect Man,” seen by John, was “clothed with a garment down to the Foot:” no elemental part of him was unclothed; but each had on his wedding garment, clean, and white, so that in this glorious Son of Man no nakedness could be discerned.

While Daniel informs us that the Spirit-Man he beheld, was “clothed with linen,” John states simply, that he was “clothed to the feet.” Now, this clothing is significant of the character and office of the per¬sons represented by the symbol. The holy garments of Aaron and his sons were of linen, “to cover their nakedness,” that when they ministered in the holy places, “they bear not iniquity, and die”—Exod. 28 : 42.

SON OF MAN is a title bestowed upon “the Perfect Man” to indi¬cate his origin. Son expresses the idea of emanation; hence, that seen in the midst of the lightstands, as their stem or shaft, as it were, was an emanation from the race of Adam— Son of Man.