The Doctrine of Redemption Concerning Jehovah God - Part 1
By Rev. Paul Booth
By Rev. Paul Booth
In a true religious life there is love to God and to the neighbor. And, that knowledge of God is found in His Word, and it is such knowledge that forms our faith when it is followed in act and lived accordingly. This is the first lecture in a series of three: First is of Jehovah God or the Lord God, the second is of The Divine Word of Truth. And, the third is of Life According to a Faith in God who is the Word.
Jehovah God
Let us begin with Jehovah God, for in the Word of the Old Testament we learn that God is called Jehovah and Jehovah God. In fact, the Israelites were to worship Jehovah as God. God was invisible and could not physically be seen by anyone. And to them He is Omnipotent, or all-powerful, and Omniscient, or all-knowing, and Omnipresent or everywhere. Christian religion teaches this also. Because of these characteristics or qualities, God is Infinite and Eternal. This is in contrast to man, who is finite and temporal and is powerless, who has very little knowledge and no wisdom, and whose presence is temporal and cannot adequately know or understand God's Infinity and Eternity. In truth, he only knows things and ideas in relation to space and time.
The Essence of God - Love and Wisdom
However, because the Word, that is, the Sacred Scriptures is from God, we can learn, to some degree what is God's essence or what is His essential part and inmost substance. This is what is called Jehovah and is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. (By Divine is meant Heavenly, Celestial, and Spiritual.) These two are God's essence and they are as one. The question often raised is what is Love and Wisdom? One can see that love and wisdom are not limited by time and space. They are eternal and infinite. Thus, they are not man's; they are God's. However, man has been given them as his life and they are for his use. We can all express love for others and we all can learn and become intelligent, which leads to wisdom. It is easily seen that when we have no love, we die.
The Nature of Love
If love and wisdom are accepted as being of and coming from God and as not ours, then we have to accept the truth that the life we have is from and are the Lord's. Thus, it is that Love and Wisdom constitute Life. Next, what are the characteristics of love and wisdom? First is Love. Love wants to give of its own to another, love wants others to receive its delights and joys. Love wants others to receive reciprocally its own from another, that is, it wants a mutual returned response. However, love by itself is not true love, unless from wisdom. As an illustration that love without wisdom is not love, consider this thought: If you only say to your husband or your wife or children that you love them and do not give any evidence of your love by some action, then they are mere words and will soon become meaningless. However, if you do something, such as caring for your mate in any number of ways, then that love has an existence. And, we can see that God is Esse and Existere, that is, that He is both Being or Love and Existence or Wisdom. Then, He is the manifestation Himself.
Life from God - Man is a Recipient of God's Love and Wisdom
Because of the nature of God, which was said is Divine Love and Wisdom, man was created, for how else can God be God? How else can God be love if He does not create man to be a recipient of His love so that man can become a likeness and an image of God? By recipient is meant one who receives and is as a receptacle for that love. Because man is made as a recipient, he can one day, come share the delights and joys of God's love in Heaven and can reciprocate His love. In that proceeding love from God there is His wisdom as we have shown, and they are one in God and proceed as one to us. Thus, in receiving love there is both truth and wisdom and, in fact, the man of today can actually receive love through the Word of Truth, though most are unaware that he can. You can understand that the man in paradise received God's love and that was his life and, it was only when man was spiritual that he realized he was a recipient of wisdom.
The Will and the Understanding
The two essentials of God - His Divine Love and Divine Wisdom - flow from God into man. Man was made a recipient, that is, a vessel for receiving the Lord's love and wisdom, thus, it is that we say that man has a will and understanding. Man is made to receive good and truth if he wills or desires them. Now, if the influx, which is meant either an inflow, an influent, which is, power or force, coming from God was forced upon man, he would then be as a robot or an android and without freedom of choice in all things, even things of religion, both natural and spiritual.
The Rejection of Good and Truth or God's Love
As a result, according to the story of Adam and Eve, man chose to reject the Good and the Truth that flows from God and choose instead to become wise from himself. The fall from the grace of God was man's will; he desired to be like God from his self or what is his own, that is, from his proprium and not from God. The good and truth flowing into man was through an internal way, through man's spirit and not through his natural or external mind. It was through an external way, through his senses. You see, the New Church believe man was made having both an internal and an external. Man lives in the world in his natural body, however when he leaves this world and goes to the next he will live in his spiritual body either there in Heaven or in hell depending on the reception or rejection of good and truth.
The Promise of Redemption
In Genesis Jehovah says, "My spirit shall not always remain with you" (Genesis 6:3). Now, we know man - Adam - rejected the Love of the Lord - His good and His truth - and in so doing this closed the means by which he could be led in his regeneration and live with the Lord in Heaven. Now, all Christians are familiar with the promise that the Lord, who was Jehovah, was to come to redeem man. Thus the Lord would come and make a way possible for man to be saved. However, the time had to be right in order for the Lord to come. Until such a time, the Lord was always present with man, present with man in his internal life, spiritually and celestially, in man's mind. Thus, when man looked out into the world and saw all the things of nature, the trees and other plants, the birds and other animals, he was taught immediately or directly things about the Lord and about His Church. Then, man was in the Church, and the Lord was within man. When man loves the Lord and is obedient to His Word, then the Lord is with man in his will and understanding. In this first Church, which was called the Most Ancient, in the Lord's presence with those first people of His Church, the Lord was with them not only spiritually, but naturally as well.
The Lord's Presence with all those of the Church
Because of man's fall, because of sin, man turned away from God and turned to love himself and to the love of the things of the world. And, so, man loved himself and the world more than God. The truth about God come from God became false with man; man began to believed truths to be from himself and not from God. When man was in the Most Ancient Church he learned what the things of nature corresponded to in Heaven. By correspondences the things in Heaven and on earth have communication between them and they were conjoined with them. In this way, it was that man was taught things about the Lord God and about Heaven. Remember, we had said that the first man - Adam - learned through an internal way and he could understand and know what the things in nature corresponded to in Heaven. Thus, even though Adam - man - had closed his mind to the internal influx of God's good and His truth, he had retained, for many years after, an understanding about spiritual things, although he now saw these things only representatively and not, as the man in the Most Ancient Church did, internally. By representative is meant in likeness or in place of.
The people who were descendents of the Most Ancient Church in time became call the Ancient Church. This Church also came to its end. The things they learned from their fore fathers about what nature corresponds to in the spiritual world were, in time, forgotten and truths with them turned into falsities. Mankind came to worship these things of nature as gods having make idols of them. The things that represented the Lord and His Kingdom became idols of worship to them and they began to sacrifice to them. We know this because, Tetah, father of Abraham, served other gods as did Nabor, the father of Lot. We learn this in the book of Joshua in the twenty-fourth chapter, second verse. It was through Abraham that the Lord established Israelitish Church after the Ancient Church came to its end.
The Israelitish Church - The Laws and Commandments
This Church was given the Commandments by Jehovah Himself in a miraculous way. However, this Church became so natural that they knew nothings of the spiritual world or Heaven. Their worship of God was only external worship. Thus, they were in representatives only, which were natural. They did not know what the things of nature represented in Heaven. In fact, the spiritual world was not even known of. All their worship and their sacrifices were representative of something about God, about His Church and His Kingdom. The nation of Israel was guided by miracles. It was, in this way that Jehovah was with mankind. He was with man in externals; their internal 'as it were' having been destroyed. This Church rejected the spiritual. They understood the Commandments only naturally, as we can, but they began to falsify them, for we find that later when Jesus came to this world He said; "You have made the laws of God of no effect" (Mark 7: 13).
The First Advent
The state of the Church became such that if the Lord or Jehovah had not come into the world, even mankinds natural life would have been destroyed and man would have been lost forever. You might think, "Why did not the Lord come sooner?" If He had, then man would have profaned the Word and rejected the Lord, even as the Most Ancient Church did. And the Word would have been of no effect. Though, beyond this, the Lord could not be approached and if not approached, then evils could not attack Him and He could have not been tempted or fight and become victorious over them. The hells cannot stand before God, just as no man can. So, if the Lord had come to mankind before man had become merely natural and sensual and had not the least spiritual thought remaining, He could not have redeemed man. Instead, man would have been damned to hell for rejecting Jehovah's proceeding influx or His good and His truth. However, now, the Church had digressed or had fallen to the state of consummation or to the end state of mankind. Thus, when the Lord took on the human of man, coming into this world, He could be tempted as is man; He could fight and overcome the onslaught of all the evils of hell. He could overcome them and, so, redeem man from the falsities and evils that rule mankind as they attacked Him.
Jehovah is The Lord
The question, now, is how did the Lord come into the world? All Christians are aware that God come down from Heaven and became Man. For we read, "The Word was with God, and God was the Word, and the Word became flesh" (John, Chapter 1). The word 'Jehovah', who the Israelites understood was God, is the word 'Lord' in the New Testament. Jehovah and the Lord are one and the same Person. We read in the Old Testament concerning the promise of redemption that Jehovah would come into the world and redeem mankind, "It shall be said in that day, lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him; let us exult and be glad in His salvation" (Isaiah 25: 9). And, "The voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah; make level in the wilderness a highway for our God, and all flesh shall see it together" (Isaiah 40: 3, 5). And, "Jehovah said, Sing for joy and be glad, O Daughter of Zion; for lo, I come to dwell in the midst of thee. Then many nations shall cleave to Jehovah in that day" (Zachariah 2: 10, 11).
The Assumption of the Human of Man by Jehovah
It is taught in the Word that Jehovah Himself descended and assumed, that is, He took on Himself the human of mankind, the Human, which is meant the Person of flesh and blood, thus the natural body. This is evidenced from the Word in Luke where it is said: "Mary said to the angel, how shall this come to pass, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; therefore also the holy thing that is born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1: 34, 35). What is the soul and life of a baby? The soul is from the father and the body is from the mother. It is declared in this verse that the Most High, which is Jehovah God, is Father, and therefore the Soul and Life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jehovah 'put on' a body - a human - from Mary. All in Christendom say that the Father, the Divine, the Infinite and Eternal cannot be divided. How can One that is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent be divided?
Jehovah Descended and Became the Son Born in the World
You can understand why the Lord called Jehovah God His Father, and why Jehovah God called Jesus Christ His Son. The New Church believes the Son was born from the Father into this world and was not born in eternity and, then, had descended and assumed the Human of man. In the Word one reads where Jehovah Himself is the Redeemer and Savior: "My people shall know My name; they shall know in that day that I am He that does speak; behold, it is I" (Isaiah 52: 6). "Am I not Jehovah; and besides Me there is no Savior" (Isaiah 43: 11). And from Psalms 130: 7, 8: "Let Israel hope in Jehovah: for with Jehovah there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." Thus, it is that the New Church says that God, who is One, descended and became Man in order to effect redemption.
The Christian Church Believes God is Man and Man-God
You can read in the 'Formula Concordiae' and the 'Athanasian Creed' that God is Man and Man-God. If a Christian knows that in Christ who was born of Mary that God is Man and is Man-God, then what else is the Father, but the Son, and likewise, the Son is the Father. If one desires, he may confirm this from the Word, for the Lord said, "I and My Father are one. I am in the Father and the Father in Me." The question that begs an answer is: How is redemption effective? How did the Lord Jesus Christ redeem man and how can man be saved? We know that God not only created man and sustains him, but that He is also a man's Redeemer and Savior. Thus, what is a man's redemption? First, we need to understand that it was necessary for God to assume the human in order to effect the redemption of man. How else can God, who is the Most High, the inmost, pass over to the things most external, into the body and its senses, which are the ultimates?
Just as it is impossible for a King to fight against his enemies, unless he have an army, so too, it is impossible for the Lord to fight against evil, against those who have rejected good and truth, and have closed their minds to God's spiritual things and consider them as folly. Therefore, it is impossible for the Lord to restrain the devil and his fury and to tame his violence, unless He is in last or ultimate things, which means in a natural human body and in natural and sensual things. Because of this victory over the devil and over that old serpent, Satan, the Word calls the glorified Lord the First and the Last, "the Alpha and the Omega, and Beginning and the End" (Revelation 21: 6). In the Lord's glorification, He was raised up; He was sanctified and deified and, thus, He became the Divine Human.
Our Life Now Comes Through a Mediate Way Through the Senses
The essence of God, His Good and His Truth, was spoken earlier of and, it was mentioned that these flowed into man by influx into his will and understanding. It was further said that because man had rejected the Lord God's love, he had 'as it were' closed his mind to that influx. Thus, this resulted in man's separation from God. The Lord's love comes through this internal way from within, which was an immediate way or direct from God, was shut off, that is, a man was no longer aware of any spiritual and celestial life. Life, that is, influx from God, now, comes through a mediate way, either through angels or spirits good or evil. The Word calls those dead who become separated from God. Therefore, a man must be born again spiritually.
So, when the Lord came into the world, He was called the Word, the Divine Truth. Since the Lord's Life cannot be divided, the Divine Good was in Him not in measure. Good without truth or truth separated from good is either good or truth. Thus, it is that we, who are in the Lord's New Church, believe that the Father is the Soul of the Lord, who is the Natural Body. These two are one, just as man has a soul and a body and is one person.
The Scripture fulfilled in the Lord's Human
Now, according to the New Testament the Lord came into the world to fulfill the Scriptures. Thus, the New Church believes that the Lord fulfilled them by and through His Human - the human that He assumed or put on - from the mother. He did this by making this human Divine, that is, by glorifying it. How does the Lord glorify Himself: It is by putting off the hereditary evils He had from the mother. Note: By the good in Him from the Father, Jesus was able to put off the evil from the mother, thus a man, who has hereditary evil from both mother and father, cannot put off evil, but needs redemption. As the Lord put off evil, He put on good and made His Human Divine and one with the Father. The last act of the Lord's glorification was called the passion of the cross. Afterwards, the Word tells us that He arose from the grave and returned to the Father. The meaning is that He was now united with the Father as One, as body is united with the soul. When we read the account in the Gospels we learn that all power has been given to the Son. The Son who was in the world with man was, now, Omnipotent, and therefore He became Jehovah God, the Lord God Jesus Christ.
The Passion of the Cross - The Lord's Final Glorification
This unition or union was accomplished by the Lord when He lived on earth according to Divine Order. That order is that man must unite his spiritual with his natural through an external way - through the sense. So, the Lord's good must become united with His truths. This union takes place by learning from parents and teachers and by reading the Word. As a man must unite his human or natural life with his spiritual life from the Lord, so, also, did the Lord. Paul, in the Epistles, said that the Lord was tempted are we are, thus indicating the hereditary evil He had from the mother. The last act of glorification was the passion of the cross. He arose from the grave united that is, glorified as One with the Divine; Thus, He was fully united with the Father and arose above the Heavens.
The Redeemer and the Final Judgment
From this unity the Lord was able to make Himself righteousness and thereby became the Redeemer as well as Creator and Sustainer. In righteousness He was justice and good. It is when the Lord God, Jesus Christ, executed the final judgment, that He redeemed man. There, He separated the evil from the good or as the Word says, "the goats from the sheep" (Matthew 25: 33). Thus, He restored to order the Heavens and subjugated the hells under His authority. He overcame and conquered evil and, now, holds them in hell.
We know that man must live accord to order. Since, the Lord had now redeemed man by subjugating the evils in hell and since He Himself, as a Man, had learned the truth and had obeyed it; He united Divine Love and Wisdom in Himself while on earth. Man, now, if he desires and acts according to the Word by obeying the Commandments and other truths, through an external way, can be conjoined in his will and understanding from the Lord and be united with the Lord and Heaven. Such a person comes into the Kingdom of God.
The Lord's Two States while He was in the World - Humiliation and Glorification
The Father and the Son became united in Jesus Christ as the soul and body are united in one man. This process of glorification can be seen throughout the Word of the New Testament where the Lord Jesus is praying as being separate from the Father and does the Father's will: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Matthew 27: 46 Mark 15: 34). Again, in another place He is speaking as being one with the Father: "I and My Father are one" and "If you see Me, you see the Father." These two states are, one of exinanition or humiliation, that is, of emptying Himself and the other of glorification or of union with His Father. That He emptied His soul, even to death is explained in Isaiah 53: 12. However, in the state of glorification He did miracles. He was transfigured before His disciples. When the union was complete, He had power over all flesh according to the Word written in John 17: 2. He had all power in both the Heavens and on earth.
Man's Part - Acknowledge - Believe, and Act from Self - Obedience - And Accept God's Good and His Truth - Be a Receptacle of His Life
Now, the order man should obey is that he must prepare himself to be a recipient and an abode into which God may enter and, in which, as His temple, God may dwell. He must do this 'as if' from himself, but acknowledge that it is from God. This is the order that the Lord progressed through to make His Natural Human Divine. So too, man must pass through two state, one of humility and obedience and the other, he must be his own master and exercise his own will and understanding. This order is as follows: so far as man conjoins himself to God by a life lived according to the laws of God, God conjoins Himself to man. In such obedience the Lord conjoins Himself to the Father; He fulfilled "That in Jesus Christ dwell all the fullness of the Divine bodily" (Col. 2: 9).
The Father and the Son in One - The Lord Jesus Christ
soul and the Son are as the body. The two are each not a person in Himself, for that would mean they are separate, and how can the soul be separate from the body or how can God be separate from His Truth? There are many places in the Word that speak of this. The Lord said, "I and My Father are One." "I am in the Father and the Father in Me." "Father, all Mine are Yours and Yours are Mine." "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." In this saying one sees the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. That they are one and, thus, that there is one Person. The Divine of the Father belongs to the Human of His Son and the opposite. Therefore, in Christ God is Man and Man God. They are one as soul and body are one. I may say the same of myself because the soul is in my body. "If you see me, you see my soul; we are one".
The Lord's Part in Redemption
We now need to understand the Lord's part as it relates to man's redemption. There are two offices belonging to the Lord: that of priest and that of king. In the Word of the New Testament the Lord is called Jesus Christ. He is called Jesus because of His priestly office and Christ because of His kingly office. You can see they are similar to the essence of God. The Lord acted from both of these offices and both pertain to redemption. You have heard that the Lord subjugated evils in hell and that He restored order to the Heavens and that this action made Jesus Christ, the Lord, the Redeemer. In order that you may understand this as the Lord's redemptive work listen to this illustration: An army of robbers and rebels invaded a kingdom or city and set fire to the homes, plundered the people, and divided the spoils for themselves. If a lawful king fights against the rebels with his army, kill some, imprisons others, returns the booty, restores the people to their homes, establishes order and secures it against assaults, he would be their redeemer in that he had subjugated the robbers and rebels and brought order to the city to secure it. The Word says the Lord did this for His Church. The Lord has conquered the hells. This is said in David (Psalm 45: 3-7) and in John, "Now is the judgment of the world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (12: 30). However, more of such acts of redemption are written of in the book of Revelation. There, the life of the first Christian Church is set forth, the Lord is shown to come again, to subjugate the hells, and to form a new angelic Heaven, and to establish a New Church from the faithful of that Christian Church. Thus, the New Church is Christian.
The Hells Subjugated - The Truths Learned and Obeyed Through the Senses
Unless the Lord had subjugated the evils in hell no one could have been saved. On this, all Christians Churches agree. For in the Word we read that man can do nothing of good of himself, because his spirit is so closely joined with evil from his rejection of God's love. Man 'shut off' God's love and wisdom 'as it were'. This could only be restored by the subjugation of the hells. Man can now be obedient to the Commandments 'as if' of himself. Today, the delights of evil into which everyone is born causes man to continue to turn away from God. The Lord thus had to redeem man and as we can read in the Apocalypse that He did. Man's only refuge from damnation is the Lord. "Abide in Me, and I in you; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so you can do nothing" (John 15: 4).
Combats
Now, what were the combats the Lord fought in order to redeem man? Were they natural combats fought here in this world? I ask you, would subjugating all the evil men in the world stop any others from desiring for themselves wealth, honor, and positions of authority? No, of course, it would not. We know that it was a spiritual battle for the mind of man, thus, for his will and understanding that a battle was fought. The 'old man', that Paul talks about must die, and a new man from the Lord must be born anew in man. A new understanding and will from the Lord must be received in man. And, this is done through the Divine Truth, the Word of God as man acts accordingly. For no devil can stand against the Truth. If we have the truth, that is, the Lord, dwelling within us, then we are saved.
Hells Influence Has Now Been Subjugated Under the Lord's Authority
We believe that it was not the Lord's passion on the cross alone the redeemed man. The passion of the cross was only the last temptation that the Lord underwent in order to glorify His Human, which was His uniting Himself with the Divine. Our redemption from hell consists in the subjugation of the evils in the hells and in the bringing of Heaven into order again. This took place in the spiritual world as you may read in the book of Revelation. John had been raised into the spiritual world. There, he saw the subjugation of evil in hell. The subjugation of the evils in the natural world merely attributes to the Lord natural qualities and, we have indicated before that the Lord had glorified His human. He has made it spiritual and Divine. Now, because hell is under the Lord's control, all who now die will not be subject to the evil persuasion from those from hell, which no one could overcome except from the Glorified Lord, that is, the Divine Human.
Thus, those spiritual qualities from the Lord in man overcome evil as they come to dwell, that is, live in man who acts accordingly, that is, who shuns them and does well or good. In this, the Church in him becomes a spiritual Church.
End.
Jehovah God
Let us begin with Jehovah God, for in the Word of the Old Testament we learn that God is called Jehovah and Jehovah God. In fact, the Israelites were to worship Jehovah as God. God was invisible and could not physically be seen by anyone. And to them He is Omnipotent, or all-powerful, and Omniscient, or all-knowing, and Omnipresent or everywhere. Christian religion teaches this also. Because of these characteristics or qualities, God is Infinite and Eternal. This is in contrast to man, who is finite and temporal and is powerless, who has very little knowledge and no wisdom, and whose presence is temporal and cannot adequately know or understand God's Infinity and Eternity. In truth, he only knows things and ideas in relation to space and time.
The Essence of God - Love and Wisdom
However, because the Word, that is, the Sacred Scriptures is from God, we can learn, to some degree what is God's essence or what is His essential part and inmost substance. This is what is called Jehovah and is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. (By Divine is meant Heavenly, Celestial, and Spiritual.) These two are God's essence and they are as one. The question often raised is what is Love and Wisdom? One can see that love and wisdom are not limited by time and space. They are eternal and infinite. Thus, they are not man's; they are God's. However, man has been given them as his life and they are for his use. We can all express love for others and we all can learn and become intelligent, which leads to wisdom. It is easily seen that when we have no love, we die.
The Nature of Love
If love and wisdom are accepted as being of and coming from God and as not ours, then we have to accept the truth that the life we have is from and are the Lord's. Thus, it is that Love and Wisdom constitute Life. Next, what are the characteristics of love and wisdom? First is Love. Love wants to give of its own to another, love wants others to receive its delights and joys. Love wants others to receive reciprocally its own from another, that is, it wants a mutual returned response. However, love by itself is not true love, unless from wisdom. As an illustration that love without wisdom is not love, consider this thought: If you only say to your husband or your wife or children that you love them and do not give any evidence of your love by some action, then they are mere words and will soon become meaningless. However, if you do something, such as caring for your mate in any number of ways, then that love has an existence. And, we can see that God is Esse and Existere, that is, that He is both Being or Love and Existence or Wisdom. Then, He is the manifestation Himself.
Life from God - Man is a Recipient of God's Love and Wisdom
Because of the nature of God, which was said is Divine Love and Wisdom, man was created, for how else can God be God? How else can God be love if He does not create man to be a recipient of His love so that man can become a likeness and an image of God? By recipient is meant one who receives and is as a receptacle for that love. Because man is made as a recipient, he can one day, come share the delights and joys of God's love in Heaven and can reciprocate His love. In that proceeding love from God there is His wisdom as we have shown, and they are one in God and proceed as one to us. Thus, in receiving love there is both truth and wisdom and, in fact, the man of today can actually receive love through the Word of Truth, though most are unaware that he can. You can understand that the man in paradise received God's love and that was his life and, it was only when man was spiritual that he realized he was a recipient of wisdom.
The Will and the Understanding
The two essentials of God - His Divine Love and Divine Wisdom - flow from God into man. Man was made a recipient, that is, a vessel for receiving the Lord's love and wisdom, thus, it is that we say that man has a will and understanding. Man is made to receive good and truth if he wills or desires them. Now, if the influx, which is meant either an inflow, an influent, which is, power or force, coming from God was forced upon man, he would then be as a robot or an android and without freedom of choice in all things, even things of religion, both natural and spiritual.
The Rejection of Good and Truth or God's Love
As a result, according to the story of Adam and Eve, man chose to reject the Good and the Truth that flows from God and choose instead to become wise from himself. The fall from the grace of God was man's will; he desired to be like God from his self or what is his own, that is, from his proprium and not from God. The good and truth flowing into man was through an internal way, through man's spirit and not through his natural or external mind. It was through an external way, through his senses. You see, the New Church believe man was made having both an internal and an external. Man lives in the world in his natural body, however when he leaves this world and goes to the next he will live in his spiritual body either there in Heaven or in hell depending on the reception or rejection of good and truth.
The Promise of Redemption
In Genesis Jehovah says, "My spirit shall not always remain with you" (Genesis 6:3). Now, we know man - Adam - rejected the Love of the Lord - His good and His truth - and in so doing this closed the means by which he could be led in his regeneration and live with the Lord in Heaven. Now, all Christians are familiar with the promise that the Lord, who was Jehovah, was to come to redeem man. Thus the Lord would come and make a way possible for man to be saved. However, the time had to be right in order for the Lord to come. Until such a time, the Lord was always present with man, present with man in his internal life, spiritually and celestially, in man's mind. Thus, when man looked out into the world and saw all the things of nature, the trees and other plants, the birds and other animals, he was taught immediately or directly things about the Lord and about His Church. Then, man was in the Church, and the Lord was within man. When man loves the Lord and is obedient to His Word, then the Lord is with man in his will and understanding. In this first Church, which was called the Most Ancient, in the Lord's presence with those first people of His Church, the Lord was with them not only spiritually, but naturally as well.
The Lord's Presence with all those of the Church
Because of man's fall, because of sin, man turned away from God and turned to love himself and to the love of the things of the world. And, so, man loved himself and the world more than God. The truth about God come from God became false with man; man began to believed truths to be from himself and not from God. When man was in the Most Ancient Church he learned what the things of nature corresponded to in Heaven. By correspondences the things in Heaven and on earth have communication between them and they were conjoined with them. In this way, it was that man was taught things about the Lord God and about Heaven. Remember, we had said that the first man - Adam - learned through an internal way and he could understand and know what the things in nature corresponded to in Heaven. Thus, even though Adam - man - had closed his mind to the internal influx of God's good and His truth, he had retained, for many years after, an understanding about spiritual things, although he now saw these things only representatively and not, as the man in the Most Ancient Church did, internally. By representative is meant in likeness or in place of.
The people who were descendents of the Most Ancient Church in time became call the Ancient Church. This Church also came to its end. The things they learned from their fore fathers about what nature corresponds to in the spiritual world were, in time, forgotten and truths with them turned into falsities. Mankind came to worship these things of nature as gods having make idols of them. The things that represented the Lord and His Kingdom became idols of worship to them and they began to sacrifice to them. We know this because, Tetah, father of Abraham, served other gods as did Nabor, the father of Lot. We learn this in the book of Joshua in the twenty-fourth chapter, second verse. It was through Abraham that the Lord established Israelitish Church after the Ancient Church came to its end.
The Israelitish Church - The Laws and Commandments
This Church was given the Commandments by Jehovah Himself in a miraculous way. However, this Church became so natural that they knew nothings of the spiritual world or Heaven. Their worship of God was only external worship. Thus, they were in representatives only, which were natural. They did not know what the things of nature represented in Heaven. In fact, the spiritual world was not even known of. All their worship and their sacrifices were representative of something about God, about His Church and His Kingdom. The nation of Israel was guided by miracles. It was, in this way that Jehovah was with mankind. He was with man in externals; their internal 'as it were' having been destroyed. This Church rejected the spiritual. They understood the Commandments only naturally, as we can, but they began to falsify them, for we find that later when Jesus came to this world He said; "You have made the laws of God of no effect" (Mark 7: 13).
The First Advent
The state of the Church became such that if the Lord or Jehovah had not come into the world, even mankinds natural life would have been destroyed and man would have been lost forever. You might think, "Why did not the Lord come sooner?" If He had, then man would have profaned the Word and rejected the Lord, even as the Most Ancient Church did. And the Word would have been of no effect. Though, beyond this, the Lord could not be approached and if not approached, then evils could not attack Him and He could have not been tempted or fight and become victorious over them. The hells cannot stand before God, just as no man can. So, if the Lord had come to mankind before man had become merely natural and sensual and had not the least spiritual thought remaining, He could not have redeemed man. Instead, man would have been damned to hell for rejecting Jehovah's proceeding influx or His good and His truth. However, now, the Church had digressed or had fallen to the state of consummation or to the end state of mankind. Thus, when the Lord took on the human of man, coming into this world, He could be tempted as is man; He could fight and overcome the onslaught of all the evils of hell. He could overcome them and, so, redeem man from the falsities and evils that rule mankind as they attacked Him.
Jehovah is The Lord
The question, now, is how did the Lord come into the world? All Christians are aware that God come down from Heaven and became Man. For we read, "The Word was with God, and God was the Word, and the Word became flesh" (John, Chapter 1). The word 'Jehovah', who the Israelites understood was God, is the word 'Lord' in the New Testament. Jehovah and the Lord are one and the same Person. We read in the Old Testament concerning the promise of redemption that Jehovah would come into the world and redeem mankind, "It shall be said in that day, lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him; let us exult and be glad in His salvation" (Isaiah 25: 9). And, "The voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah; make level in the wilderness a highway for our God, and all flesh shall see it together" (Isaiah 40: 3, 5). And, "Jehovah said, Sing for joy and be glad, O Daughter of Zion; for lo, I come to dwell in the midst of thee. Then many nations shall cleave to Jehovah in that day" (Zachariah 2: 10, 11).
The Assumption of the Human of Man by Jehovah
It is taught in the Word that Jehovah Himself descended and assumed, that is, He took on Himself the human of mankind, the Human, which is meant the Person of flesh and blood, thus the natural body. This is evidenced from the Word in Luke where it is said: "Mary said to the angel, how shall this come to pass, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; therefore also the holy thing that is born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1: 34, 35). What is the soul and life of a baby? The soul is from the father and the body is from the mother. It is declared in this verse that the Most High, which is Jehovah God, is Father, and therefore the Soul and Life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jehovah 'put on' a body - a human - from Mary. All in Christendom say that the Father, the Divine, the Infinite and Eternal cannot be divided. How can One that is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent be divided?
Jehovah Descended and Became the Son Born in the World
You can understand why the Lord called Jehovah God His Father, and why Jehovah God called Jesus Christ His Son. The New Church believes the Son was born from the Father into this world and was not born in eternity and, then, had descended and assumed the Human of man. In the Word one reads where Jehovah Himself is the Redeemer and Savior: "My people shall know My name; they shall know in that day that I am He that does speak; behold, it is I" (Isaiah 52: 6). "Am I not Jehovah; and besides Me there is no Savior" (Isaiah 43: 11). And from Psalms 130: 7, 8: "Let Israel hope in Jehovah: for with Jehovah there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." Thus, it is that the New Church says that God, who is One, descended and became Man in order to effect redemption.
The Christian Church Believes God is Man and Man-God
You can read in the 'Formula Concordiae' and the 'Athanasian Creed' that God is Man and Man-God. If a Christian knows that in Christ who was born of Mary that God is Man and is Man-God, then what else is the Father, but the Son, and likewise, the Son is the Father. If one desires, he may confirm this from the Word, for the Lord said, "I and My Father are one. I am in the Father and the Father in Me." The question that begs an answer is: How is redemption effective? How did the Lord Jesus Christ redeem man and how can man be saved? We know that God not only created man and sustains him, but that He is also a man's Redeemer and Savior. Thus, what is a man's redemption? First, we need to understand that it was necessary for God to assume the human in order to effect the redemption of man. How else can God, who is the Most High, the inmost, pass over to the things most external, into the body and its senses, which are the ultimates?
Just as it is impossible for a King to fight against his enemies, unless he have an army, so too, it is impossible for the Lord to fight against evil, against those who have rejected good and truth, and have closed their minds to God's spiritual things and consider them as folly. Therefore, it is impossible for the Lord to restrain the devil and his fury and to tame his violence, unless He is in last or ultimate things, which means in a natural human body and in natural and sensual things. Because of this victory over the devil and over that old serpent, Satan, the Word calls the glorified Lord the First and the Last, "the Alpha and the Omega, and Beginning and the End" (Revelation 21: 6). In the Lord's glorification, He was raised up; He was sanctified and deified and, thus, He became the Divine Human.
Our Life Now Comes Through a Mediate Way Through the Senses
The essence of God, His Good and His Truth, was spoken earlier of and, it was mentioned that these flowed into man by influx into his will and understanding. It was further said that because man had rejected the Lord God's love, he had 'as it were' closed his mind to that influx. Thus, this resulted in man's separation from God. The Lord's love comes through this internal way from within, which was an immediate way or direct from God, was shut off, that is, a man was no longer aware of any spiritual and celestial life. Life, that is, influx from God, now, comes through a mediate way, either through angels or spirits good or evil. The Word calls those dead who become separated from God. Therefore, a man must be born again spiritually.
So, when the Lord came into the world, He was called the Word, the Divine Truth. Since the Lord's Life cannot be divided, the Divine Good was in Him not in measure. Good without truth or truth separated from good is either good or truth. Thus, it is that we, who are in the Lord's New Church, believe that the Father is the Soul of the Lord, who is the Natural Body. These two are one, just as man has a soul and a body and is one person.
The Scripture fulfilled in the Lord's Human
Now, according to the New Testament the Lord came into the world to fulfill the Scriptures. Thus, the New Church believes that the Lord fulfilled them by and through His Human - the human that He assumed or put on - from the mother. He did this by making this human Divine, that is, by glorifying it. How does the Lord glorify Himself: It is by putting off the hereditary evils He had from the mother. Note: By the good in Him from the Father, Jesus was able to put off the evil from the mother, thus a man, who has hereditary evil from both mother and father, cannot put off evil, but needs redemption. As the Lord put off evil, He put on good and made His Human Divine and one with the Father. The last act of the Lord's glorification was called the passion of the cross. Afterwards, the Word tells us that He arose from the grave and returned to the Father. The meaning is that He was now united with the Father as One, as body is united with the soul. When we read the account in the Gospels we learn that all power has been given to the Son. The Son who was in the world with man was, now, Omnipotent, and therefore He became Jehovah God, the Lord God Jesus Christ.
The Passion of the Cross - The Lord's Final Glorification
This unition or union was accomplished by the Lord when He lived on earth according to Divine Order. That order is that man must unite his spiritual with his natural through an external way - through the sense. So, the Lord's good must become united with His truths. This union takes place by learning from parents and teachers and by reading the Word. As a man must unite his human or natural life with his spiritual life from the Lord, so, also, did the Lord. Paul, in the Epistles, said that the Lord was tempted are we are, thus indicating the hereditary evil He had from the mother. The last act of glorification was the passion of the cross. He arose from the grave united that is, glorified as One with the Divine; Thus, He was fully united with the Father and arose above the Heavens.
The Redeemer and the Final Judgment
From this unity the Lord was able to make Himself righteousness and thereby became the Redeemer as well as Creator and Sustainer. In righteousness He was justice and good. It is when the Lord God, Jesus Christ, executed the final judgment, that He redeemed man. There, He separated the evil from the good or as the Word says, "the goats from the sheep" (Matthew 25: 33). Thus, He restored to order the Heavens and subjugated the hells under His authority. He overcame and conquered evil and, now, holds them in hell.
We know that man must live accord to order. Since, the Lord had now redeemed man by subjugating the evils in hell and since He Himself, as a Man, had learned the truth and had obeyed it; He united Divine Love and Wisdom in Himself while on earth. Man, now, if he desires and acts according to the Word by obeying the Commandments and other truths, through an external way, can be conjoined in his will and understanding from the Lord and be united with the Lord and Heaven. Such a person comes into the Kingdom of God.
The Lord's Two States while He was in the World - Humiliation and Glorification
The Father and the Son became united in Jesus Christ as the soul and body are united in one man. This process of glorification can be seen throughout the Word of the New Testament where the Lord Jesus is praying as being separate from the Father and does the Father's will: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (Matthew 27: 46 Mark 15: 34). Again, in another place He is speaking as being one with the Father: "I and My Father are one" and "If you see Me, you see the Father." These two states are, one of exinanition or humiliation, that is, of emptying Himself and the other of glorification or of union with His Father. That He emptied His soul, even to death is explained in Isaiah 53: 12. However, in the state of glorification He did miracles. He was transfigured before His disciples. When the union was complete, He had power over all flesh according to the Word written in John 17: 2. He had all power in both the Heavens and on earth.
Man's Part - Acknowledge - Believe, and Act from Self - Obedience - And Accept God's Good and His Truth - Be a Receptacle of His Life
Now, the order man should obey is that he must prepare himself to be a recipient and an abode into which God may enter and, in which, as His temple, God may dwell. He must do this 'as if' from himself, but acknowledge that it is from God. This is the order that the Lord progressed through to make His Natural Human Divine. So too, man must pass through two state, one of humility and obedience and the other, he must be his own master and exercise his own will and understanding. This order is as follows: so far as man conjoins himself to God by a life lived according to the laws of God, God conjoins Himself to man. In such obedience the Lord conjoins Himself to the Father; He fulfilled "That in Jesus Christ dwell all the fullness of the Divine bodily" (Col. 2: 9).
The Father and the Son in One - The Lord Jesus Christ
soul and the Son are as the body. The two are each not a person in Himself, for that would mean they are separate, and how can the soul be separate from the body or how can God be separate from His Truth? There are many places in the Word that speak of this. The Lord said, "I and My Father are One." "I am in the Father and the Father in Me." "Father, all Mine are Yours and Yours are Mine." "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." In this saying one sees the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. That they are one and, thus, that there is one Person. The Divine of the Father belongs to the Human of His Son and the opposite. Therefore, in Christ God is Man and Man God. They are one as soul and body are one. I may say the same of myself because the soul is in my body. "If you see me, you see my soul; we are one".
The Lord's Part in Redemption
We now need to understand the Lord's part as it relates to man's redemption. There are two offices belonging to the Lord: that of priest and that of king. In the Word of the New Testament the Lord is called Jesus Christ. He is called Jesus because of His priestly office and Christ because of His kingly office. You can see they are similar to the essence of God. The Lord acted from both of these offices and both pertain to redemption. You have heard that the Lord subjugated evils in hell and that He restored order to the Heavens and that this action made Jesus Christ, the Lord, the Redeemer. In order that you may understand this as the Lord's redemptive work listen to this illustration: An army of robbers and rebels invaded a kingdom or city and set fire to the homes, plundered the people, and divided the spoils for themselves. If a lawful king fights against the rebels with his army, kill some, imprisons others, returns the booty, restores the people to their homes, establishes order and secures it against assaults, he would be their redeemer in that he had subjugated the robbers and rebels and brought order to the city to secure it. The Word says the Lord did this for His Church. The Lord has conquered the hells. This is said in David (Psalm 45: 3-7) and in John, "Now is the judgment of the world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (12: 30). However, more of such acts of redemption are written of in the book of Revelation. There, the life of the first Christian Church is set forth, the Lord is shown to come again, to subjugate the hells, and to form a new angelic Heaven, and to establish a New Church from the faithful of that Christian Church. Thus, the New Church is Christian.
The Hells Subjugated - The Truths Learned and Obeyed Through the Senses
Unless the Lord had subjugated the evils in hell no one could have been saved. On this, all Christians Churches agree. For in the Word we read that man can do nothing of good of himself, because his spirit is so closely joined with evil from his rejection of God's love. Man 'shut off' God's love and wisdom 'as it were'. This could only be restored by the subjugation of the hells. Man can now be obedient to the Commandments 'as if' of himself. Today, the delights of evil into which everyone is born causes man to continue to turn away from God. The Lord thus had to redeem man and as we can read in the Apocalypse that He did. Man's only refuge from damnation is the Lord. "Abide in Me, and I in you; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so you can do nothing" (John 15: 4).
Combats
Now, what were the combats the Lord fought in order to redeem man? Were they natural combats fought here in this world? I ask you, would subjugating all the evil men in the world stop any others from desiring for themselves wealth, honor, and positions of authority? No, of course, it would not. We know that it was a spiritual battle for the mind of man, thus, for his will and understanding that a battle was fought. The 'old man', that Paul talks about must die, and a new man from the Lord must be born anew in man. A new understanding and will from the Lord must be received in man. And, this is done through the Divine Truth, the Word of God as man acts accordingly. For no devil can stand against the Truth. If we have the truth, that is, the Lord, dwelling within us, then we are saved.
Hells Influence Has Now Been Subjugated Under the Lord's Authority
We believe that it was not the Lord's passion on the cross alone the redeemed man. The passion of the cross was only the last temptation that the Lord underwent in order to glorify His Human, which was His uniting Himself with the Divine. Our redemption from hell consists in the subjugation of the evils in the hells and in the bringing of Heaven into order again. This took place in the spiritual world as you may read in the book of Revelation. John had been raised into the spiritual world. There, he saw the subjugation of evil in hell. The subjugation of the evils in the natural world merely attributes to the Lord natural qualities and, we have indicated before that the Lord had glorified His human. He has made it spiritual and Divine. Now, because hell is under the Lord's control, all who now die will not be subject to the evil persuasion from those from hell, which no one could overcome except from the Glorified Lord, that is, the Divine Human.
Thus, those spiritual qualities from the Lord in man overcome evil as they come to dwell, that is, live in man who acts accordingly, that is, who shuns them and does well or good. In this, the Church in him becomes a spiritual Church.
End.
| About |
| Doctrine
Site Content Copyright 2001 by The Lord's New Chapel All Rights Reserved
Site Concept and Creation Copyright 2001 by Stealth Media Solutions All Rights Reserved