Personification

Personification
That's the name of the game
And each generation
You know they play the same.
--Bobby Darin

‘Personification’ is not exactly what Mr. Darin sang. He said 'Multiplication'. But personification is the name of the game for every generation. We are here, there, and everywhere all the time to personify God. For me, "God" is the consciousness of the Ineffable Being, the manifestation, the effulgence of the Ineffable Being's glory.

There is a cute dismissal of religion used by agnostics and atheists: "Man creates God in his own image; God is but the personification of good." The truth is that God creates man in His image to personify Him. It is right for us to emulate God because He was first, before us, and we are from Him for this purpose - to manifest, to personify Him. Maybe this is what all the Mosaic Law is about.

I pity the Christian, well, everyone, actually, who does not get to hear (from somebody) what C. H. Dodd says about the Logos in The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1968. Cambridge University Press). (DO NOT bother to get it if you do not know basic biblical Greek, for there is a massive amount of untranslated and even unreferenced Greek text in the book. Greek was a second language for Dodd and his students; knowing German, Hebrew, even Aramaic would help, too.) Dodd's work thoroughly explains the Hermetic view of the Oneness of God and the Gospel writer's understanding of how the Logos applies to that Oneness. That Oneness includes us.

What I have got from Dodd (not necessarily his intention) is that Christ is God's expression. Both the biblical and historical Jesus and we are thus to express God, to personify Him AS HIS WORD. His Word is SUBSTANTIVE. We are not mere representatives adjunct to the operation, we ARE the operation.

"As the Beginning, the Son of God creates the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1 Alexander, capitalization of Beginning - a Person - mine). The Son PERSONIFIED God as the Beginning, and He personifies Him as us today. It is what we are doing. Do it well. "Be therefore mature people, like your Father in heaven is Mature" (Matthew 5:48 Alexander; see also Philippians 3:1-16).

PS: It occurs to me that the "I am" of the Beginning in Genesis 1:1 could be, probably is the "I am" referenced in Exodus 3:14's "I am that 'I am.'" I.e., "His becoming."