![](sc-pic/i6839.jpg "e is Jesus Christ in His human nature, with human will and action, according to Chalcedon Dogmat. In His glorious Might, He also exhibits Himself as Man. Only as "Sitteth on the Throne" He manifests Himself as God")
He is the principal personage in the Apocalypse, to wit:
"Оur God which sitteth upon the throne" (7:10).
As God He is mentioned in the Revelation fifty odd times, as "The One who sits on the throne" fourteen times.
At once, a howling contradiction arose with the entire context of the Holy Write, which says:
Our God is an invisible God!
"No man hath seen God at any time" –
the Gospel of John declaims (1:18).
Which is most forceful, provided one agrees with the ecclesiastical tradition averring that St. John the Evangelist wrote both Revelation and Gospel, and, moreover that the Apostle wrote Gospel later. St. Justin the Philosopher, who lived in Ephesus at the start of the second century and who was personally acquainted with many of the disciples of St. John the Theologian ("the Divine"), clarifies:
"The Holy Write asserts that God appeared to Abraham, Moses and other Blessed of the Old Testament. Yet he was not God the Father, insofar as God the Father was ever
higher than the heavens, never appeared to anyone and did not converse with anyone face to face."
Yet St. John tells us that he saw God! In that selfsame image God appeared before to the Prophet Daniel who named Him "The Ancient of Days" (Dan. 7: 9, 13, 22).
The Ancient of Days or the One who sits on the throne is the Lord God the Pantocrator: yet He is not God the Father. Provided we adhere to biblical reality and do not reduce the grandeur of the Epiphany to allegorical scenes, we shall be constrained to conclude that He who revealed Himself to St. John the Theologian and to the Prophet Daniel was Jesus Christ in His divine nature.
Having told this, we already entirely have appeared in the realm of holy fathers theology, with its three dogmas: about the Holy Trinity, about the two natures of Christ and about the icon-worship.
The issue mooted is how it is possible to see by the human eyes Jesus Christ as God. The Holy Trinity is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit; not three Gods but One God; not one Person but three. Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are of one nature: if the Father is not to be seen, hence the Son is not to be seen and the Holy Spirit is not to be seen.
Now Jesus Christ is God's Son, in Whom
“dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col.2:9).
So how can we affirm that He was seen by both St. John and Daniel?
After the dogmat of icon-worship won a victory in the eighth century, it was stated that only what could be seen by the human eye could be depicted. Since Daniel had seen the Ancient of Days, hence He could be depicted on icons. And He was indeed often and profusely thus portrayed. Besides the captions of "The Ancient of Days" and "Jesus Christ" encountered as synonyms on one and the same icon. Moreover Byzantine theologians identified the Ancient of Days and, consequently, Jesus Christ as God, with Whom Israel know as Yahweh:
I AM THAT I AM Ex. 3:14
What then of the invisibility of God?
The matter remained not fully clear until there emerged the teaching of the Divine Energies, associated with the name of St. Gregory Palamas, the great fourteenth-century Byzantine theologian.
For centuries Eastern Christian monks practiced the transfiguration of their nature similar to the Transfiguration which Jesus Christ manifested on Mount Tabor. Prayers bodies began to emanate a radiation from within, and there was no question but this light was of a divine nature that did not exist in the created world.
The need to evolve a theological explanation for this practice had led St. Gregory Palamas to evolve in detail that inherently biblical creed of the Divine Energies. Rather was he constrained there to due to the emergence of the false allegation as if the light on Mount Tabor was of natural origin similar to the luminous aura of the Hindu yogi.
According to the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, which the local councils of Constantinople had confirmed, God by His very nature is invisible, undepictable, incomprehensible. Which St. John the Evangelist implies when he says:
"No one has ever seen God" (1:18),
and which is why Moses forbade the representation of God.
However God is alive and operating. Actions, for which the Greek is "energies", of the Holy Trinity is that selfsame divine nature emanating from itself, pouring out. In its quality of energy Divine nature is visible, depictable, comprehensible and, moreover may penetrate from inside and fill human nature.
Hence, we may now understand how God could become visible. Set of the energies of the Holy Trinity forms the eternally uncreated Divine "body" which can be visible to the human eye. In this eternal embodiment of His, the One God is Jesus Christ, He is also Yahweh, He is the Ancient of Days and the One who sits on the throne. In Paradise, Adam saw Him and conversed with Him. And hence, we, employing our erroneous terms, could say that God had revealed Himself to Adam in His "human image". It would be correct though to say that man is created "in the image and likeness" of God, of Jesus Christ in His Divine body.
"Оur God which sitteth upon the throne" (7:10).
As God He is mentioned in the Revelation fifty odd times, as "The One who sits on the throne" fourteen times.
At once, a howling contradiction arose with the entire context of the Holy Write, which says:
Our God is an invisible God!
"No man hath seen God at any time" –
the Gospel of John declaims (1:18).
Which is most forceful, provided one agrees with the ecclesiastical tradition averring that St. John the Evangelist wrote both Revelation and Gospel, and, moreover that the Apostle wrote Gospel later. St. Justin the Philosopher, who lived in Ephesus at the start of the second century and who was personally acquainted with many of the disciples of St. John the Theologian ("the Divine"), clarifies:
"The Holy Write asserts that God appeared to Abraham, Moses and other Blessed of the Old Testament. Yet he was not God the Father, insofar as God the Father was ever
higher than the heavens, never appeared to anyone and did not converse with anyone face to face."Yet St. John tells us that he saw God! In that selfsame image God appeared before to the Prophet Daniel who named Him "The Ancient of Days" (Dan. 7: 9, 13, 22).
The Ancient of Days or the One who sits on the throne is the Lord God the Pantocrator: yet He is not God the Father. Provided we adhere to biblical reality and do not reduce the grandeur of the Epiphany to allegorical scenes, we shall be constrained to conclude that He who revealed Himself to St. John the Theologian and to the Prophet Daniel was Jesus Christ in His divine nature.
Having told this, we already entirely have appeared in the realm of holy fathers theology, with its three dogmas: about the Holy Trinity, about the two natures of Christ and about the icon-worship.
The issue mooted is how it is possible to see by the human eyes Jesus Christ as God. The Holy Trinity is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit; not three Gods but One God; not one Person but three. Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are of one nature: if the Father is not to be seen, hence the Son is not to be seen and the Holy Spirit is not to be seen.
Now Jesus Christ is God's Son, in Whom
“dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col.2:9).
So how can we affirm that He was seen by both St. John and Daniel?
After the dogmat of icon-worship won a victory in the eighth century, it was stated that only what could be seen by the human eye could be depicted. Since Daniel had seen the Ancient of Days, hence He could be depicted on icons. And He was indeed often and profusely thus portrayed. Besides the captions of "The Ancient of Days" and "Jesus Christ" encountered as synonyms on one and the same icon. Moreover Byzantine theologians identified the Ancient of Days and, consequently, Jesus Christ as God, with Whom Israel know as Yahweh:
I AM THAT I AM Ex. 3:14
What then of the invisibility of God?
The matter remained not fully clear until there emerged the teaching of the Divine Energies, associated with the name of St. Gregory Palamas, the great fourteenth-century Byzantine theologian.
For centuries Eastern Christian monks practiced the transfiguration of their nature similar to the Transfiguration which Jesus Christ manifested on Mount Tabor. Prayers bodies began to emanate a radiation from within, and there was no question but this light was of a divine nature that did not exist in the created world.
The need to evolve a theological explanation for this practice had led St. Gregory Palamas to evolve in detail that inherently biblical creed of the Divine Energies. Rather was he constrained there to due to the emergence of the false allegation as if the light on Mount Tabor was of natural origin similar to the luminous aura of the Hindu yogi.
According to the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, which the local councils of Constantinople had confirmed, God by His very nature is invisible, undepictable, incomprehensible. Which St. John the Evangelist implies when he says:
"No one has ever seen God" (1:18),
and which is why Moses forbade the representation of God.
However God is alive and operating. Actions, for which the Greek is "energies", of the Holy Trinity is that selfsame divine nature emanating from itself, pouring out. In its quality of energy Divine nature is visible, depictable, comprehensible and, moreover may penetrate from inside and fill human nature.
Hence, we may now understand how God could become visible. Set of the energies of the Holy Trinity forms the eternally uncreated Divine "body" which can be visible to the human eye. In this eternal embodiment of His, the One God is Jesus Christ, He is also Yahweh, He is the Ancient of Days and the One who sits on the throne. In Paradise, Adam saw Him and conversed with Him. And hence, we, employing our erroneous terms, could say that God had revealed Himself to Adam in His "human image". It would be correct though to say that man is created "in the image and likeness" of God, of Jesus Christ in His Divine body.