In his 1869 Phanerosis: An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, Concerning the Manifestation of the Invisible Eternal God in Human Nature, Christadelphian founder John Thomas (1805-1871) wrote the following about the identity of the “Ancient of Days”:
The first place where “Cherubim” occurs is in Gen. 3:24, which we
translate thus: — “And He
caused to dwell at the east of the Garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the flame
of destruction (lit. of the sword) turning itself to guard the way of the tree
of the lives”. From this and the context we learn that the dwelling place of
the Cherubim was eastward in Paradise and contiguous to the tree of lives, to
which none could approach who were unfaithful and disobedient. This is the
teaching of Moses, who, though acquainted with the Egyptian dogma of “immortal
souls” in the mortal bodies of all men, women and babes, taught that there was
no immortality for faithless and wicked men. In this, Moses and all the
prophets, Jesus and the apostles, are all agreed. Men must become Cherubim,
they must dwell in Paradise and there eat of the tree of life, as the condition
of an interminable existence. All others are obnoxious to the “flame of
destruction”, styled by Daniel “a fiery stream that issues forth from before
the Ancient of Days; in whose presence minister thousand thousands, and then
thousands times ten thousand stand”. In this, Daniel exhibits the allegorical
signification of the Mosaic narrative respecting the devouring flame. It issues
and comes forth from before the Ancient of Days and his thousands at which
time, Daniel testifies, “the judgment sits, and the books are opened”. The Eden
Cherubim, and Daniel’s Ancient of Days and company, are doubtless allegorical,
the former of the latter; for Moses wrote not only of the literal, but of that
in such a way that he intended something else than is contained in the words
literally taken. His writings are therefore both literal and allegorical; and
to understand them in their allegorical sense we must pay strict attention to
their literal significance, which is “the form of the knowledge and the truth”.
The literal narrative is “the form”; the “knowledge of the truth” and allegorical
signification of that form.
Daniel’s Ancient of Days and the ten thousands that surround him
in judgment are equivalent to “the holy messengers of the Lamb”, in Rev. 14:10, where we find fire and brimstone before
them tormenting their enemies—the full allegorical development of the Eden
Cherubic flame that guarded against all approach to the “tree of the lives” by
the unfaithful and disobedient. “Whosoever was not found written in the Book of
Life, was cast into the lake of fire and burning with brimstone.” (John Thomas,
Phanerosis and Other Writings [Birmingham: The Christadelphian, 1954], 68-69, emphasis in bold added)
“HIS BODY WAS LIKE THE BERYL”
Daniel next informs us concerning the Spirit-man—“the Man of the
One”—that “His body was like the beryl”. The “body” here is the “One Body” of
which Paul speaks in his epistles; as “The Ecclesia which is his body, the fulness
of him (the Spirit) who perfects all things in all (saints).” When the fulness is brought in the body will
complete Rom. 11:25; Eph. 1:23); and it will then be “like a beryl”. The original
word in Daniel for this precious stone is Tarshish. It is said to have
been so called because it was brought from Tarshish; but the learned are not
agreed as to what particular gem is meant. The Greeks called it bēryllos; hence
the word in the English version beryl; and Pliny says it was rarely
found elsewhere than in India, the Tarshish of the Bible. The prevailing
opinion is that its colour is a bluish or sea-green. But the interpretation of
the original depends upon the teaching in connection with the word, not upon
the colour of the gem.
“His body was like a Tarshish.” This word occurs in six other
places in the original. In the first two it designates one of three precious
stones in the fourth row of the Aaronic breastplate of righteousness, and
answers to the tribe of Dan, which signifies “judge”; and of Dan’s
career in the latter days, Jacob prophesied, saying “Dan, as one of the tribes
of Israel, shall avenge his nation. There shall be a Judge, a serpent in the
way, an adder in the path, biting the heels of the horse, so that its rider
shall fall backward. I have lain in wait for thy salvation, O Yahweh!” (Gen.
49:16-18; Heb. 2:7). That is, Jacob, who was about to die when he uttered these
words, foresaw that he would sleep in the dust until Dan, as a lion’s whelp, should
leap from Bashan (Deut. 33:22); that then, “in the latter days”; would be the
era of deliverance, when he would himself be saved, and all the tribes would do
valiantly, and the Judge of Israel would avenge his nation, to the overthrow of
their oppressors (Deut. 32:29-43).
Here then is a destroying and conquering power associated with the
tarshish or beryl in the breastplate of judgment. It is similarly
associated by Ezekiel with the wheels of the Cherubic chariot. He says, “the
appearance of the wheels and their work was at the aspect of the tarshish”; and
their felloes were full of eyes, and so lofty, “that they were dreadful”. And “the
Spirit of the Living One was in the wheels”. Hence they are styled, in Dan 7:9,
“The wheels of the Ancient of Days”, whose description identifies him with “the
Man of the One”, and the apocalyptic “Son of Man”; “His garment white as
snow, and the hair of his head as pure wool; his throne flames of fire, his
wheels a consuming fire.” The eighth foundation gem (answering to the priestly
tribe of Levi) of the wall of the golden city on which the name of an apostle
is engraved in a tarshish or beryl. We conclude then, from these
premises, that the tarshish-like body of the Spirit-Man seen by Daniel, is a
priestly body or community, in which is incarnated the spirit of the Eternal;
and that in the latter days, it will eventuate the great salvation in concert
with the tribes of Israel, as a destroying and conquering power. This
God-manifestation “is a consuming fire”. (Ibid., 82-84, emphasis in bold
added)
