Doctrine Class
The Divine Human of the Lord Jesus Christ that has come from the Divine Within
by Rev. Paul Booth
Lessons: Old Testament - Genesis 46: 31, 32 | New Testament - James 2: 21, 22 |
Third Testament - Divine Love and Divine Wisdom 151 - 152
The Divine Human of the Lord Jesus Christ that has come from the Divine Within
by Rev. Paul Booth
Lessons: Old Testament - Genesis 46: 31, 32 | New Testament - James 2: 21, 22 |
Third Testament - Divine Love and Divine Wisdom 151 - 152
As New Church Christians the God that we believe in is the Divine Human who now abides within each person in the understanding and will having entered there through the spiritual or the internal of the man. Others in other religions do not recognize the Divine Human they therefore do not approach Him as their God.
Over the years as New Church believers we have come to understand that the God that most Christianity today and many other religions know and believe is not the same one we have come to know and to understand. Indeed, God is not 'out there' somewhere in a far distant place called 'heaven' ruling 'as it were'. He is not, even as many think, one with the universe. In fact, as New Church people see it, heaven can be in no place other then within one's mind, within the will and understanding when one lives according to the conscience (doing good or willing well) or as one would say 'living in charity to all (society) in every way'. This goodness or charity having come from what a man has heard, acknowledged, and believed from the Word and from where God is - in the inner most internal part of the understanding and will - within man. Today mankind may now have a 'developed' conscious through which he can become moral and civil and may be lead in civil and moral charity by which he can be spiritually raised up; yet still a man may choose not to and as such his spirit will remain closed to heaven.
All and everything which appears to any of the (person's) senses exists and is existence and so, is predicated of a person who has a conscience of good and truth, though not in those who are not in any good and truth, for they do not exist as such and are therefore as dead. The good or charity in a man's conscious is his very being (his very life), while the knowledge (or his rational) is his existing or his manifestation. These are in him from God, though they appear as the man's own.
In this natural universe (or world), in what exists there are spaces and times which are called properties of nature, but in one's mind where heaven and God is there are instead states as to being, and so spaces as to existing, and states as to times. Thus, in this life the good of life in man is the very being of a man because of his will, while the truth of faith of man is the affection of truth from willing truth, because it is true; and so is his existence there from because it is of the understanding and the understanding exists from the will.
Since it is that (the universe's) existence has always been and thus is infinite, for the Lord having from eternity created the universe, we would argue that it comes (that is, is created) from an Infinite God who is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom in other words the Divine Good and Divine Truth and thus is the essence of use and that truth is its form. But how that is possible one must understand that God not only is both Divine Good and Divine Truth, and also the Divine Esse or Being and the Divine Existere or Existence Himself. Thus, God exists in Himself and is thus God from whom all things are. From this one can understand that the Divine Himself is the esse (the being of the man) and of all things (in who is life), but that which proceeds from Him (or from the Divine) is the consequent existence (or manifestation) of all things - mineral, plant, animal and man - in this world or on earth. By the Divine Himself is His Immensity or Infinity meant as to His Essence and by His Eternity is meant His Immensity as to His Existence; both are in Him and are the Divine Itself who is God or the Lord Himself. However, the Infinite and Eternal from Itself is the proceeding Divine as the Lord or God in others created from Himself, and are thus in the external (or natural) of men as well as also in the internal or spiritual of men. Both these correspond to spaces and times of the natural existence - the universe - though in heaven or the spiritual world (within in a man's mind) they are only appearances of spaces and times as was show above.
Therefore, the universe and all things within it are receptacles for that Divine Life and is their existence or manifestation. Thus that Divine Love and Divine Wisdom 'as it were' flows into the natural world, into the natural universe creating and sustaining all things there. With a man the receptacle in him is the will and understanding in which God - the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom - resides. One sees here that there is also an internal or spiritual and celestial through which flow Divine Love and Wisdom or Divine Life and so, from the Divine Existence comes the natural man's manifestation. Nonetheless, God is not in man or any substances of either the natural world (animal, plant, mineral) or in the spiritual and celestial worlds. The question is: How should we understand this? The answer is: He (the Divine) fills all spaces (or properties of nature) of the universe apart from these spaces (or properties) and He is in all time (which is also a property of nature) apart from time. Again, He is in the spiritual world as well in the very affection of good and truth for the sake of good and truth which is in a man's spiritual or internal mind - though in a receptacle. This is the very essential form of man in which is the life from the Lord in the inner most of the understanding and will and which can inter the man's rational or his internal mind.
When all things in the human mind are forms of affections and thoughts there form, which is of our will, and hence are perceptions and thoughts through the understanding and will, we are then spiritual and an internal person and in the case that we are still here on earth, it is said the Church (of God) is within us. As such our understanding is from the light of heaven, that is, we derive the general ground of our thought from there, otherwise we would pervert our lower or natural understanding in which are the external or corporeal memory and where there is no uniting of the will with the understanding or good with the truth nor is there any conjunction with God.
Now here is another question: how it is that God the Divine Esse (or Being) and Divine Existere (or that which proceeds forth), who is within man's will and understanding become human in the flesh on earth and has now since conjoined Himself with all mankind? Answer: From the Bible, the Word of God one reads of Jehovah or of that Love Itself for mankind, and from this the Israelitish people had understood that Jehovah was an invisible God though was human and was thought of as being a Divine Spirit, as being in the spiritual and celestial world or in heaven in some place as it were 'above' or beyond this natural world. Still, by the Israelites wasn't He (Jehovah) seen as having the properties of man (though invisible) and hadn't they believed they were made in His image and likeness; He even having at various times appeared to different people, though that worship became deteriorated as were other nation's worship. Man began worshipping animals and half animal-man as can be seen in the nations of Greece and the Romans. As we saw, in the earlier times the Divine's Spirit entered 'as it were' into certain men and they wrote down God's Word - which became the Old Testament.
At that time in history, the Divine Human of God was in the spiritual world and had not yet been manifested in the natural world and where He was to become the Divine Human in the flesh. This will be explained further on.
In the time the Scriptures of the Old Testament was written men spoke and wrote and understood in metaphor and analogy (or in representatives). So, naturally there is another, a different meaning to the words of the Bible or the Word of God then as can be literally understood today. Of course, it is obvious no one should literally believe everything written in the Bible, especially the things written in Geneses up to the 11th chapter where Abram and true history begin. The Word up to then was written in significations and representatives from man's mind. Up to the eleventh chapter of Genesis the mode of writing was expressed through the terrestrial and worldly things that men saw while they thought of the spiritual and celestial things which they represented. They expressed themselves by these representatives. They formed them into a kind of historical series in order that they might have more life. These are what later are called the "Dark sayings of old". Then, in the books of Moses and Joshua, Judges, Samuel and the Kings the style of writing was of true historical facts in the sense of the letter, but they also have an internal sense in them and thus contain representatives and significations. But by this time the people's knowledge of representatives became lost and they followed what was written not knowing that there was a representative sense within. Next, the prophetical style which was written also in representatives, though it is not in connection or historical as the first style was and is scarcely ever intelligible unless seen in its internal sense. The fourth style is that found in the book of Psalms of David and is intermediate between the prophetical style and that of common speech. Even Jesus in the Gospels often spoke in parables or proverbs and these we know have a different meaning then their literal sense. Therefore it is that a new understanding of what the things written in the Bible mean or represent and signify can bring a new and greater intelligence to a man through spiritual science which is of the affection of good and truth and from the science (the knowledge) of correspondences of the spiritual with natural things and their conjunction. A man today can be elevated in that knowledge and as he perfects his understanding he becomes rational from the Lord. This rational consists of both good and truth and enters into the natural (degree) of man. It is this rational entering into the man's natural mind that enables him the capability of thinking and willing and such thinking leads him into acting from good. But without this spiritual sense or light coming to the man through the Word it is easy to understand why a person may be lead into error.
Thus it may be understood that the Word was written in a style and in a way in which the people living at the various times could understand, but that over time they lost the ability to understand these representatives and significations that lay hidden as it were. Thus the science of correspondences was lost, ending the man's conjunction with the spiritual world; the Jews having come even to rejected what they once had learned and believe about Jehovah in the Old Testament, who is called the Lord in the Gospels and as having come to redeem (save) mankind. For it was Jehovah of the Old Testament who out of pure mercy draws all willing to follow to heaven, that is, to Himself by love and as was shown above is within a man's mind - in the will and understanding. By Jehovah spoken of in the Word (Bible) is meant the Divine Good, it being the Divine Itself (see above); while the Lord in the New Testament is called the Son of God as to Divine Truth, for it (or Jesus, the Christ as the son of God) proceeds from Divine Good as a son from a father and is also said is born. Thus it is the Lord the Redeemed who is meant by Jehovah in the Human who came in the flesh on earth that is spoken of in the Gospels. We as New Church members know the Lord is called the Word and this because the Word signifies Divine Truth or Divine Wisdom and is the Divine Truth itself or Divine Wisdom itself. One sees here that He was with the Divine from eternity.
This human existed from the Divine Itself, it being conceived and born from Jehovah. As such it is Jehovah's human natural and is of His quality and name. Thus the Divinity was united to the Humanity in the Lord (Jesus Christ) as the soul to the body is and is called the Divine Humanity. The human itself is merely a form recipient of life from the Divine; but the Lord's Human glorified or His Divine Human is not a form recipient of life from the Divine, but is the very esse of life; though what proceeds thence is life.
One sees that the Gospels show that the Lord Jesus Christ passed through two states while on earth - one of exinanition and the other of glorification. The first was His humiliation before the Father (the Divine) where He prayed to the Father, does the Father's will and ascribes all things that He did and said to the Father. The second, glorification, is a state of union. In this state He wrought miracles; was when He said He and His Father were one; that the Father was in Him and He in the Father and that all things the Father Has are His. When the union or glorification was fully complete He had 'power over all flesh' and 'power in heaven and earth.' It can be seen that the Lord's glorification was the glorification of His Human which He assumed in the world and thus the Lord's glorified human is the Divine Natural. So, indeed the Lord Jesus Christ became God Man and Man God. He also became the Divine Human in the Natural and not just in the Spiritual and is the Infinite Itself and the Eternal Itself that all things come. Before the Divine Human in the natural came on earth the Divine Human was Jehovah Himself flowing (proceeding) 'as it were' through the heavens (the celestial and spiritual or the internal mind of man) through which He spoke the Word to man on earth.
Of course, at the time His disciples did not understand this, but they did come to believe He was God Himself and so went about preaching salvation through Him. And, indeed their doctrine was soon distorted and used by the Roman emperors through the 'church' that was then and the world fell into the 'dark ages'.
Whether or not a person accepts this about the Word (Bible) or about the Lord as true he or she is left entirely in spiritual freedom. Yet, it is not easy to see in the literal or natural sense the truths without knowing what the representatives and significations are.
Within Jesus' mind was the Divine Itself, the very Love and Wisdom or Good and Truth in an understanding and will, and so His thoughts were not as those of any common person; He having been conceived when the Holy Spirit (the Divine Truth) and the power (Divine Omnipotence) of the Highest or the Lord's Divine Human (Divine Spirit) overshadowed Mary (who came under His protection against the falsities of evil). He was born of God as the Old Testament had taught. And, again everyone is in spiritual freedom to accept this as the truth or not.
We as New Church believers believe, that nonetheless a person may still live as the Lord (Jesus) taught in the Gospels - which is that of being charitable even though their belief or doctrine of God may be different than the spiritual or internal truths of the Word that we believe and teach. We believe that when a person comes into the next world from no matter what church or religion he was on earth he may still be taught the true doctrine providing he has not closed his mind against God and from doing the work of charity.
Amen.
Over the years as New Church believers we have come to understand that the God that most Christianity today and many other religions know and believe is not the same one we have come to know and to understand. Indeed, God is not 'out there' somewhere in a far distant place called 'heaven' ruling 'as it were'. He is not, even as many think, one with the universe. In fact, as New Church people see it, heaven can be in no place other then within one's mind, within the will and understanding when one lives according to the conscience (doing good or willing well) or as one would say 'living in charity to all (society) in every way'. This goodness or charity having come from what a man has heard, acknowledged, and believed from the Word and from where God is - in the inner most internal part of the understanding and will - within man. Today mankind may now have a 'developed' conscious through which he can become moral and civil and may be lead in civil and moral charity by which he can be spiritually raised up; yet still a man may choose not to and as such his spirit will remain closed to heaven.
All and everything which appears to any of the (person's) senses exists and is existence and so, is predicated of a person who has a conscience of good and truth, though not in those who are not in any good and truth, for they do not exist as such and are therefore as dead. The good or charity in a man's conscious is his very being (his very life), while the knowledge (or his rational) is his existing or his manifestation. These are in him from God, though they appear as the man's own.
In this natural universe (or world), in what exists there are spaces and times which are called properties of nature, but in one's mind where heaven and God is there are instead states as to being, and so spaces as to existing, and states as to times. Thus, in this life the good of life in man is the very being of a man because of his will, while the truth of faith of man is the affection of truth from willing truth, because it is true; and so is his existence there from because it is of the understanding and the understanding exists from the will.
Since it is that (the universe's) existence has always been and thus is infinite, for the Lord having from eternity created the universe, we would argue that it comes (that is, is created) from an Infinite God who is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom in other words the Divine Good and Divine Truth and thus is the essence of use and that truth is its form. But how that is possible one must understand that God not only is both Divine Good and Divine Truth, and also the Divine Esse or Being and the Divine Existere or Existence Himself. Thus, God exists in Himself and is thus God from whom all things are. From this one can understand that the Divine Himself is the esse (the being of the man) and of all things (in who is life), but that which proceeds from Him (or from the Divine) is the consequent existence (or manifestation) of all things - mineral, plant, animal and man - in this world or on earth. By the Divine Himself is His Immensity or Infinity meant as to His Essence and by His Eternity is meant His Immensity as to His Existence; both are in Him and are the Divine Itself who is God or the Lord Himself. However, the Infinite and Eternal from Itself is the proceeding Divine as the Lord or God in others created from Himself, and are thus in the external (or natural) of men as well as also in the internal or spiritual of men. Both these correspond to spaces and times of the natural existence - the universe - though in heaven or the spiritual world (within in a man's mind) they are only appearances of spaces and times as was show above.
Therefore, the universe and all things within it are receptacles for that Divine Life and is their existence or manifestation. Thus that Divine Love and Divine Wisdom 'as it were' flows into the natural world, into the natural universe creating and sustaining all things there. With a man the receptacle in him is the will and understanding in which God - the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom - resides. One sees here that there is also an internal or spiritual and celestial through which flow Divine Love and Wisdom or Divine Life and so, from the Divine Existence comes the natural man's manifestation. Nonetheless, God is not in man or any substances of either the natural world (animal, plant, mineral) or in the spiritual and celestial worlds. The question is: How should we understand this? The answer is: He (the Divine) fills all spaces (or properties of nature) of the universe apart from these spaces (or properties) and He is in all time (which is also a property of nature) apart from time. Again, He is in the spiritual world as well in the very affection of good and truth for the sake of good and truth which is in a man's spiritual or internal mind - though in a receptacle. This is the very essential form of man in which is the life from the Lord in the inner most of the understanding and will and which can inter the man's rational or his internal mind.
When all things in the human mind are forms of affections and thoughts there form, which is of our will, and hence are perceptions and thoughts through the understanding and will, we are then spiritual and an internal person and in the case that we are still here on earth, it is said the Church (of God) is within us. As such our understanding is from the light of heaven, that is, we derive the general ground of our thought from there, otherwise we would pervert our lower or natural understanding in which are the external or corporeal memory and where there is no uniting of the will with the understanding or good with the truth nor is there any conjunction with God.
Now here is another question: how it is that God the Divine Esse (or Being) and Divine Existere (or that which proceeds forth), who is within man's will and understanding become human in the flesh on earth and has now since conjoined Himself with all mankind? Answer: From the Bible, the Word of God one reads of Jehovah or of that Love Itself for mankind, and from this the Israelitish people had understood that Jehovah was an invisible God though was human and was thought of as being a Divine Spirit, as being in the spiritual and celestial world or in heaven in some place as it were 'above' or beyond this natural world. Still, by the Israelites wasn't He (Jehovah) seen as having the properties of man (though invisible) and hadn't they believed they were made in His image and likeness; He even having at various times appeared to different people, though that worship became deteriorated as were other nation's worship. Man began worshipping animals and half animal-man as can be seen in the nations of Greece and the Romans. As we saw, in the earlier times the Divine's Spirit entered 'as it were' into certain men and they wrote down God's Word - which became the Old Testament.
At that time in history, the Divine Human of God was in the spiritual world and had not yet been manifested in the natural world and where He was to become the Divine Human in the flesh. This will be explained further on.
In the time the Scriptures of the Old Testament was written men spoke and wrote and understood in metaphor and analogy (or in representatives). So, naturally there is another, a different meaning to the words of the Bible or the Word of God then as can be literally understood today. Of course, it is obvious no one should literally believe everything written in the Bible, especially the things written in Geneses up to the 11th chapter where Abram and true history begin. The Word up to then was written in significations and representatives from man's mind. Up to the eleventh chapter of Genesis the mode of writing was expressed through the terrestrial and worldly things that men saw while they thought of the spiritual and celestial things which they represented. They expressed themselves by these representatives. They formed them into a kind of historical series in order that they might have more life. These are what later are called the "Dark sayings of old". Then, in the books of Moses and Joshua, Judges, Samuel and the Kings the style of writing was of true historical facts in the sense of the letter, but they also have an internal sense in them and thus contain representatives and significations. But by this time the people's knowledge of representatives became lost and they followed what was written not knowing that there was a representative sense within. Next, the prophetical style which was written also in representatives, though it is not in connection or historical as the first style was and is scarcely ever intelligible unless seen in its internal sense. The fourth style is that found in the book of Psalms of David and is intermediate between the prophetical style and that of common speech. Even Jesus in the Gospels often spoke in parables or proverbs and these we know have a different meaning then their literal sense. Therefore it is that a new understanding of what the things written in the Bible mean or represent and signify can bring a new and greater intelligence to a man through spiritual science which is of the affection of good and truth and from the science (the knowledge) of correspondences of the spiritual with natural things and their conjunction. A man today can be elevated in that knowledge and as he perfects his understanding he becomes rational from the Lord. This rational consists of both good and truth and enters into the natural (degree) of man. It is this rational entering into the man's natural mind that enables him the capability of thinking and willing and such thinking leads him into acting from good. But without this spiritual sense or light coming to the man through the Word it is easy to understand why a person may be lead into error.
Thus it may be understood that the Word was written in a style and in a way in which the people living at the various times could understand, but that over time they lost the ability to understand these representatives and significations that lay hidden as it were. Thus the science of correspondences was lost, ending the man's conjunction with the spiritual world; the Jews having come even to rejected what they once had learned and believe about Jehovah in the Old Testament, who is called the Lord in the Gospels and as having come to redeem (save) mankind. For it was Jehovah of the Old Testament who out of pure mercy draws all willing to follow to heaven, that is, to Himself by love and as was shown above is within a man's mind - in the will and understanding. By Jehovah spoken of in the Word (Bible) is meant the Divine Good, it being the Divine Itself (see above); while the Lord in the New Testament is called the Son of God as to Divine Truth, for it (or Jesus, the Christ as the son of God) proceeds from Divine Good as a son from a father and is also said is born. Thus it is the Lord the Redeemed who is meant by Jehovah in the Human who came in the flesh on earth that is spoken of in the Gospels. We as New Church members know the Lord is called the Word and this because the Word signifies Divine Truth or Divine Wisdom and is the Divine Truth itself or Divine Wisdom itself. One sees here that He was with the Divine from eternity.
This human existed from the Divine Itself, it being conceived and born from Jehovah. As such it is Jehovah's human natural and is of His quality and name. Thus the Divinity was united to the Humanity in the Lord (Jesus Christ) as the soul to the body is and is called the Divine Humanity. The human itself is merely a form recipient of life from the Divine; but the Lord's Human glorified or His Divine Human is not a form recipient of life from the Divine, but is the very esse of life; though what proceeds thence is life.
One sees that the Gospels show that the Lord Jesus Christ passed through two states while on earth - one of exinanition and the other of glorification. The first was His humiliation before the Father (the Divine) where He prayed to the Father, does the Father's will and ascribes all things that He did and said to the Father. The second, glorification, is a state of union. In this state He wrought miracles; was when He said He and His Father were one; that the Father was in Him and He in the Father and that all things the Father Has are His. When the union or glorification was fully complete He had 'power over all flesh' and 'power in heaven and earth.' It can be seen that the Lord's glorification was the glorification of His Human which He assumed in the world and thus the Lord's glorified human is the Divine Natural. So, indeed the Lord Jesus Christ became God Man and Man God. He also became the Divine Human in the Natural and not just in the Spiritual and is the Infinite Itself and the Eternal Itself that all things come. Before the Divine Human in the natural came on earth the Divine Human was Jehovah Himself flowing (proceeding) 'as it were' through the heavens (the celestial and spiritual or the internal mind of man) through which He spoke the Word to man on earth.
Of course, at the time His disciples did not understand this, but they did come to believe He was God Himself and so went about preaching salvation through Him. And, indeed their doctrine was soon distorted and used by the Roman emperors through the 'church' that was then and the world fell into the 'dark ages'.
Whether or not a person accepts this about the Word (Bible) or about the Lord as true he or she is left entirely in spiritual freedom. Yet, it is not easy to see in the literal or natural sense the truths without knowing what the representatives and significations are.
Within Jesus' mind was the Divine Itself, the very Love and Wisdom or Good and Truth in an understanding and will, and so His thoughts were not as those of any common person; He having been conceived when the Holy Spirit (the Divine Truth) and the power (Divine Omnipotence) of the Highest or the Lord's Divine Human (Divine Spirit) overshadowed Mary (who came under His protection against the falsities of evil). He was born of God as the Old Testament had taught. And, again everyone is in spiritual freedom to accept this as the truth or not.
We as New Church believers believe, that nonetheless a person may still live as the Lord (Jesus) taught in the Gospels - which is that of being charitable even though their belief or doctrine of God may be different than the spiritual or internal truths of the Word that we believe and teach. We believe that when a person comes into the next world from no matter what church or religion he was on earth he may still be taught the true doctrine providing he has not closed his mind against God and from doing the work of charity.
Amen.
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