In the Esoterics there's the idea of the Primordial Man.
Now... I don't like that term, because it's most primarily associated with the darker, occult side of things.
But the idea is still there.
The Primordial Man is the idea of Man.
When I say, think of what Man really is -- what humanity is.
What image pops into your mind? What exemplary person do you imagine?
Perhaps a figure of toil? Perhaps a creature which strives?
If you are a proper Christian, then the answer should easily be Christ -- the Son of Man, Jesus.
See... That's where things get problematic as it pertains to the term "Primordial Man."
If, when I ask you to think of Man you think of anything other than the Christ, our Savior Jesus, then you are instead thinking of Man in his Fallen State -- in the state of the Primordial Man and not in the Perfect Form which is the Incarnation of God.
I'm splitting hairs here for some of you, I know...
But it's an important distinction.
How might we say that Christ is the Perfect Example of what a Man is supposed to be, yet not envision Jesus in our Mind's Eye when asked to think of our inner-most interpretation of the Man Creature?
Yeah... That little distinction tests your faith right hard, doesn't it?
If you don't see Jesus in your mind, then what takes his rightful throne in your Mind?
Is it something like Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man?
Or just some featureless gray blob in a relatively human shape?
Perhaps your self?
You probably can't think of any one thing in particular, which is expected as well.
Personally, I've been trying my best to refactor my vision into the very beautiful interpretation of The Son of Man in Revelation 1:12-16
12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man,[a] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
Particularly, I see him similarly to that, but in a much more subtle way.
I see him bathed in light. Rather, more like he is a lamp himself, glowing brilliantly in a white light that's not exactly white. It's more of a calm glow -- bright but it doesn't scorch the eyes. It's more like a pearlescence, like the inside of a clam shell. The light comes from within him, so it almost looks like you see through him at times. Waves pulsing through his limbs with the beat of his heart as though shifting with mercurial tides.
He moves slowly, but with purpose. Almost as if he is frozen still in time and moving in haste simultaneously. His hair flows like it was underwater, but it leads the current rather than being moved by it, like a conductor waves his baton before the choir.
When he walks you see an image of him taking the steps before his body does. He telegraphs his every move with a silhouette of himself, intentionally done as to not startle you with his fluid motion. When he moves his hands and feet, the world bends around them, like he were dragging space and time like a thin blanket around his form.
From his hands, feet, brow and side there emits a strikingly brilliant scarlet light -- brighter than white, yet still noticeably red in hue. The beams of light themselves seem to have a mind of their own and dance around like a pen in a writer's hand.
From his brow scatter the most numerous beams of light in a dizzying display, forming a faint crown of rays emanating from each puncture.
When he speaks his tongue sends out a wave of light connected from his tongue to his heart in the most vibrant gold, in the form of an electrical arc. Anything caught in its path is cleaved cleanly in two like a vorpal blade split it. That is the Sword of Truth -- the Tongue of Man, and the Word of God, the Most High. It strikes like a double-edged blade because what it wounds with the Word of Truth cannot help but be severed such that it may never heal on its own.
His tongue rends Fallacy itself in twain.
That's my vision of the Christ, the Lord, and it is not an easy thing to see. I hold back tears in His splendor every time.
But there is more to it than just a vision.
Jesus is the Perfect Man.
That means, like all other things, it is the ideal of its kind.
How many men must be born before one among them can be counted as perfectly exemplary in all ways? How many must live and die before one is not tainted by sin? How many must be gone through until one stands where the others bend the knee?
Jesus is like the white cloth which is drawn through the mud and grime of the world only to breech the filth and come out clean on the other side. How many times might you drop a towel in a mud pit before, upon picking it up, you find not even a single spec of dirt managed to give it blemish?
That is the Truth in the Son of Man -- he is like the cloth that cleans all from one's body while never requiring itself to be cleaned. Imagine such an article before you; something that cleans all stains yet never shows blemish upon itself!
Only the Blank Slate of Potentiality itself can hold that power.
Many say such a thing is an impossibility, that the odds shall never be in its favor.
Such is the state of the True Primordial Man. The Man, First among Men.
You see, there is a difference between being the First Man and the First Among Man.
The First Man is simply Adam, the first of his kind.
The First Among Man is the Man which is the rule by which all others are measured.
That's the duty and role of the Son of Man -- not only to be a figure by which we strive to emulate, but as a figure which defines the rule.
How long is a ruler? A foot? Whose foot?
Jesus is like the foot by which the rule is figured. We all compare ourselves to his Rule and all are left wanting -- all come up short.
Might we also then divide that foot by twelve, and then halves, fourths, eights, etc? We, Children of God, are the fractions whose only hope of adding up to his Rule is to come together that we may conquer our shortcomings. Where many are gathered in his name, there he is among them.
How long, therefore, might we say is the Son of Man?
Such a thing is a silly question. Jesus is the Long. He isn't just the single unit among all others, he is the full bounds by which every imaginable unit is housed. The immensity of his Spirit is so massive as to be beyond compare. His presence extends to the bounds of Known Creation such that even a single utterance by him is enough to shatter the barriers between what is knowable and what has yet to be known. He speaks and the container of the Universe shatters and reforms to suit his Will -- such that his Will is the Will of the Universe.
For, the Universe was made to fit him like a well tailored suit.
This is the Christ, which can bear any weight and store any charge.
Like a battery with no limits, as its limit is the full energy of the entire Universe. For, the Universe is the One Word -- which rides upon His Breath as the Breath of the Almighty God.
What was breathed into Adam was the full Breath of God, but what was breathed into Jesus was the full Word of God which rides upon the Breath, just as music rides upon the reverberations of the material world.
This is the Perfect Man. This is what full vitality and ambition given unto an unblemished lamb takes as its form.
God Incarnate.
A body whose even slightest whisper levels mountains and fills valleys. He need not even lift a finger to do so. He whispers with Love and in Love the mountains and valleys; the sky and seas; the Alpha and the Omega bend to his will not out of fear but out of the fear which extends from respect of a Loving Father willing to die the most painful death possible for the good of his children. As a ransom for others.
What he says shall be Truth, Amen! What he wills, shall be done, Amen!
A Mover of all things with Word alone. To take that which is High and bring it Low. To take that which is Low and bring it High.
The last first. The first last.
Such is the Promise of the Lord, whose Love for us is beyond measure.
Ah, and there is the Truth beyond the Truth.
Jesus is beyond measure, because he is Love, and Love is beyond measure; beyond bounds; beyond comprehension. That is the only Foundation upon which Our God may rest his Holy Spirited Mantle. The realm of Love is the only thing which may contain him, because it is the only thing which also stems out into infinity.
The Christ is the Ideal Man -- the Man which we should all strive to be despite our coming up short. None other than Jesus had ever been through the filth and come out Perfectly clean on the other side. As to be the definition of Perfect itself.
A Perfect tool is one which fulfils its purpose fully to the intent of the Master who crafted it. So, too, has God determined his Only Son, with whom he is well pleased, is Perfect above all others. If a hammer is need to forge a hammer, Jesus is the hammer by which all others may be forged.
This is the Principle of the Christos, the Perfect Man who fulfills the prophecies, for it is He whom the prophecies had spoken of. Jesus preceded them, because he is the Word whose tune they play in harmony between all ages, just as a measure of music may resolve with a predictable tone.
Christ is King. King of Kings; Lord of Lords; First among the First yet Servant to All!
I see a healthy, innocent, not-yet-repressed-and-neurotic child, or (rare) an equally healthy adult -- and so did Jesus, if we believe the Gospels. That's my interpretation, anyway. See the verses after the commentary in the next three paragraphs:
Revelations has much of interest but the personality of Jesus in Revelations is very different from that of the Gospels; when reading Jesus' quoted words straight thru the NT (a Bible with His words in red is really helpful here) brings a hard jolt when Jesus first speaks in Revelations -- it is NOT the same person, IMO. Yes, I know many will disagree, but seriously: if you actually do as I suggest, I can't imagine you won't feel the same way when you first encounter Jesus in that final book of the Bible (yes, I know there are other "missing" books, and so on).
I don't know what to think of Revelations, really. It just seems psychedelic to me. /u/sleepydude, you seem to connect with it, and I appreciate that you do; your take on it is electrifying, as is much of the text of Revelations itself. I find it often inspiring but more symbolic than literal. In the Gospels, Jesus is mostly talking about ordinary humans, and I believe His words on that subject are the most important. Just my take on things.
I don't believe the human mind can accurately envision or conceptualize God, frankly, just as we cannot visualize an eleven-dimensional object. We can only see or imagine what our human minds can handle. My own rough understanding of God isn't even as an individual being but rather as a universal consciousness underlying the universe itself, bringing the material world into being, with individual humans being -- or containing -- temporarily dissociated bits of the overall consciousness. (see The Idea of the World: A Multi-Disciplinary Argument for the Mental Nature of Reality, and yes, how's THAT for . . . different?).
On to Jesus' comments on us humans in the four books of the Gospels:
Matthew: 18:1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
18:2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
18:5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Mark: 10:13: And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.
10:14: But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
10:15: Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
Luke: 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
John: 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.