Body of formless light, rainbow body of glory

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The revelation of the Name unveils the body of uncreated, formless light, which is ineffable in as many different ways as there are divine names colouring its colourless luminosity as a rainbow body of glory.  ‘I AM’ is ineffable as formless radiance, so the body of light, too, is ineffable as a body of ineffable radiance.  But the Name above all names is not cut off from the radiance of God’s many names, so the body of glory is ineffably radiant like a rainbow of many colours, ineffably reflecting God’s many names, giving the hallowing Name a glory all its own, shimmering but translucent like a rainbow.  It is not that light resists glory but that light actually is glory ineffably embracing glory in manifold ways, because wisdom is manifold when it unveils the manifold glory of God’s many names, colouring uncreated light in many ineffable ways.  Rainbow vision is not an imaginal vision of rainbows any more than the vision of God is an inspection of a reified, notional god.  Rainbow light is the uncreated light of God’s ‘I AM,’ manifesting God in the light of his many different names.  But ‘I AM’ is beyond form and so void of all created characteristics, as revealed in the ‘I AM’ theophanies of the Name without predicates which Patristic wisdom received and transmitted through handling the ‘I AM’ sayings of the Gospel of John.

“Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58).  This ‘I AM’ saying reveals God in his Name beyond all predication, unveiled in uncreated light beyond all created characteristics.  But the seven Johannine ‘I AM’ sayings with predicates unveil God in his Name embracing many names, ‘I AM’ integrating God’s many names together with his Name above all names.  How the Name without predicates relates to the Name with predicates is the key to the mysteries of the body of glory as it reveals God in the mystery of a body of light.  The different kinds and degrees of divine ineffability are all unveiled here.  Scripture speaks of the body of resurrection as a body of light and as a body of glory, unveiling ineffable mysteries which Patristic wisdom handed on to elders in the desert and to saints, although not all forms of apostolic tradition were necessarily manifesting these manifold mysteries of glory.  Since they were always mysteries, they were hidden and so not part of the conventional tradition handed on by all to all.  They did not need to be deliberately concealed because such mysteries have always been self-concealing in their intrinsic ineffability.  Elders transmitted the mysteries of the Name and so also these mysteries of light and glory.  But the Spirit opens them as the Spirit wills, not as some sort of regulatory provision or arbitrary decision to hand them out, as if the body of light were some kind of external social provision.

The Name ‘I AM’ unveils a body of uncreated awareness which bears witness to mysteries of uncreated presence.  A body of uncreated awareness is a body of light which resurrects all who turn and see.  It is a body of resurrection when it opens to the mysteries of Christ resurrected and glorified.  It is a body of glory when Christ glorified shines forth as ‘I AM’ present and aware in the midst.  It says, “Not I, but Christ,” as radiance transfigures form, transforming external form into luminous translucence, form void of formal closure, permitting glory to shine through.  Self-emptying kenosis preserves the Name from being profaned but also glory from being desecrated by empty vanities, as when vainglory highjacks illumination.  When the Name is an embrace of God’s many names and theophanies, it becomes a radiance of rainbow light, empty but glorious, insubstantial but beautiful.  The wisdom that discerns this manifold glory is itself a manifold wisdom, a rainbow wisdom which is simply the radiance of the Name ‘I AM,’ but ‘I AM’ refracted in countless, ineffable ways.  God is one and his Name is one but God has many names and different qualities, so the radiance of his Name is a radiance of many colourful names and rainbow qualities.  It is not that we are dispersed and dissipated by multiplicity or distracted by the complexity of multiple choices, as if we were in a vast divine supermarket.  Rather, manifestation of God’s names by his saving Name is ineffably spontaneous, like a rainbow dance of love and freedom.  

The body of light is formless and transparent like ice or crystal but also ethereal like heavenly air.  It is ineffable in a different way from the body of glory, which is ineffably translucent like a rainbow, wedding heaven and earth.  It is not that we have to screw ourselves up to become ineffable like this but that the ‘I AM’ of glory is ineffable like this and all we do is let ‘I AM’ be what ‘I AM’ always is and always was.  The freedom is intrinsic to the Holy Name and releases every fixation that might somehow otherwise arise.  What we do is turn and see, leaving glory to do what glory does.  Glorification completes purification and illumination through the Name, offering ineffable completeness together with a body of manifold yet ineffable glory that completes our incompleteness.  A body of light purifies our material and psychic bodies into spiritual bodies of ineffable radiance that welcome glory as revelation of the Name, opening to all divine names, a glory that rejoices in the many ineffable theophanies of glory which complete glory’s revelation of completeness.  This ineffability is endless because completeness is radical openness, not closure and fixation on what has already been revealed.  Glory presses on to increasing glory without end.  Ineffability opens to expanding ineffability without shutting down.  The body of glory is radiance that ineffably mirrors the ineffability of God’s revelatory Name, together with the ineffability of God’s many revelatory names, imparting manifold rainbow glory, revealed to manifold yet ineffable wisdom, from glory to glory.