Gospel of Thomas Saying 84

Saying 84

(84) Jesus said: When you see your likeness, you rejoice. But when you see your images which came into existence before you, which neither die nor are made manifest, how much will you bear?

R. McL. Wilson writes: "Like Irenaeus and some other Fathers, Thomas distinguishes between the 'image' and the 'likeness' in Genesis i. 26. Man on earth possesses only the likeness; the iamge (for Thomas) is his heavenly counterpart, the pattern on which he was made. Now we see only the likeness, as in a mirror (1Cor 13:12, 2Cor 3:18), but when Christ shall appear we shall be like Him (1John 3:2). Logion 24 speaks of the light that is in a man of light (cf. Matt 5:14, 6:22-23), logion 50 of the disciples (or the Gnostics) as coming from the Light…..Christ is the image of God (Col. 1:15 etc.), and Paul speaks of 'the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ' (2Cor. 4:4, 6). Colossians 3:3 speaks of our life as 'hid with Christ in god,' and we may also recall the Pauline formula 'in Christ.' Finally, the opening words of logion 83 may owe something to reflection on Romans 1:20 ff., the 'invisible things of God' being interpreted as the archetypal patterns, the 'images'." (Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, pp. 108-109)

Here Jesus is speaking about angels been our double see (Acts 12:15 Matt 18:10). Paul also says that people have heavenly bodies which are images of the heavenly man, bodies that will be donned after the resurrection and judgment (1Cor 15:35-49). The glory of the heavenly body differs from the earth in the same way that the illumination of the sun differs from the moon and the stars. As we have worn the image of the earthly Paul states, so also shall we wear the image of the heavenly. The heavenly image corresponds to the heavenly man who Paul identifies with Christ while the earthly with Adam who begot a son in his likeness and image (1Cor 15:48 and Gen 5:3). Thus from that time forward, the earthly bodies as images of the fallen Adam have been reproduced, while the heavenly bodies as images of the heavenly man, the Christ , must be put on after the resurrection (1Cor 115:53 2Cor 5:1-10)

The “likeness“ is man‘s likeness to the Elohim. When, therefore, Elohim said, "let us make man in our image;" and it is added, "male and female created he them;" it would seem that both the man and the woman were created in the image and likeness of Elohim. In this case, some of the Elohim are represented by Adam's form, and some by Eve's. so Our likeness is the image of the earthly man, which is only a type of the heavenly man 1Cor 15:45-49 Rom 5:14
Thus “likeness” is man‘s mortal body or body of soul compared to the image=man’s spiritual body or body of spirit, which will be after the image of the heavenly man.
First a moral regeneration than a corporeal regeneration (Col 3:10 Phil 3:20,21) than we will truly become the twin brothers of Christ the Thomas class or Christadelphians, the brethren in Christ. (Col 1:2)

“Which came in to being before you did“. The true believers have been chosen by God, before the foundion of the world to be made into the image and likeness of his son (Rom 8:29).
“They neither die nor are visible.” the Father is Invisible no mortal man can see him so in the age to come

84) Jesus said, "When you see your likeness [being projected unto the scriptures], you rejoice [because it suits you to see yourself and not God in them]. But when you see your images [recognize that it is you whom they are speaking of] which came into being before you [they were written before these things happened in your life], and which neither die [the Truth cannot die but only be covered up] nor become manifest [to those who do not recognize the law of the spirit in them], how much [guilt] you will have to bear ["in that day" of discovery]!"