Jehovah God
A Simple Explanation in What The Lord's New Church Believes about the Lord, the Word and a life lived accordingly
By Rev. Paul Booth
A Simple Explanation in What The Lord's New Church Believes about the Lord, the Word and a life lived accordingly
By Rev. Paul Booth
Those who read the material written on this website may perhaps be familiar with the Lord's New Church. Others come just wanting to see what is said there. Of these some find that what is said interests them, others may not and reject what is written. Still others find there are many things of what is said there that they whole heartedly agree with and others that they are still not sure about. This lecture was originally written and given to explain the Lord's New Church's beliefs in a simple and clear way and has not the intention of persuading anyone against one's own believes. You must determine whether or not you wish to continue reading and you are the one who only knows why you do continue or not continue. The hope is that you choose to continue and that you come to understand and know what truths are taught in the Lord's New Church, not for your own sake, but for the sake of the truth itself. For, that is the higher purpose of learning and in knowing truths (especially religious truths) - so that you can acknowledge them - that you may live a good life.
While it is possible for a person of any religious faith to point out the differences between one's own and others the purpose of this lecture is not intended to use these differences as right or wrong. First, we believe the Lord accepts each person's faith and does not condemn him if his intention is pure and honest. The reason for this is that the state of mankind today is one in which his spiritual has been closed - the man today lives in the natural, the sensual and corporeal states and not as Adam and Eve did in the celestial state. If by reading this you are persuaded to see and to accept what is written here as the truth it will have not been our doing for you are in freedom to learning spiritual things or religious things or to reject them from your own rational understanding.
We begin with God, for He is the cause of all life and thus we call Him the Creator and Sustainer. Later on we will approach the subject of the Divine Word or the Truth and then, third, we will look at a life according to faith in what the Lord God says in His Word. Let us examine what is the faith of The Lord's New Church concerning Jehovah God and Jesus Christ who is our Lord and Savor. Let us learn what is meant by His Coming and later, what our concepts of the Holy Spirit and the Divine Trinity are. We will undertake the subject of the written Word, the Old, the New and the Third Testaments, the latter which we accept as the Word of the Divine Human, the Glorified Lord Jesus Christ who has the united the Divine within Himself with the Human. In these Testaments we will show that it has both a literal or external sense and an internal or spiritual sense.
In the Old Testament one learns that God is often called Jehovah and we see one was to worship Jehovah as God. Yet He was an invisible God at this time though with the following qualities: Omnipotent or all powerful, Omniscient or all-knowing and Omnipresent or is present every where. Because of this, we like other Christians say that He is infinite and eternal. Again, like all Christians we cannot adequately understand and know God's Infinity and Eternity. This is because man knows things and ideas in relation to space and time. Nonetheless, man can learn at least to some degree from God's Word of God's essence. We see this essence as two attributes - Divine Love and Divine Wisdom - though there is also a third, and that is Divine Use. These three are one with God. The question is what are the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom and Divine Use? Surely they are not limited by time and space having already said they are God's from eternity and are so are infinite. The Lord's New Church believes these have been given man that He has life, but how He has given them is seen in man being made into a vessel or containent in which these attributes (or God) may dwell as it were and are there for his use. In other words they are still the Lord's in man and when man follows them the Lord's Divine Use is present. A man can learn and become intelligent and he can from that intelligent come to love the neighbor. Both are needed - spiritual knowledge and charity for the neighbor - for a man's regeneration or salvation. In these the essential of faith is the things of love, which are the Divine's Love and Wisdom and in Use.
This leads us to believe that if love and wisdom comes from God and God's and are not ours then we have to accept the truth that the life we have is the Lord's and these with man constitute his life. Look at the characteristics of love and wisdom. Love wants to give its own to another, love wants others to receive its delights and joys. Love wants to receive reciprocally its own from another. However, love by itself is not 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 wife. "I love you" and do not evidence your love by your actions, then they are but mere words and will soon become meaningless. However, if you do something such as care for your mate in any number of ways, then that love has an existence. One can see that God is Esse and Existere, that is, He is both Being and Existence. (He is manifestation Himself.)
It is this nature of God - Divine Love and Wisdom - that creates mankind and the entire universe. It is the nature of Love to want to create in order that creation can reciprocate, and therefore all of creation is a recipient of His love and wisdom so that mankind may become a likeness and image of God and come one day enjoy the delights and joys of God's Divine qualities that are delights and joys.
The two essentials of God which are His Divine Love and Divine Wisdom flow forth from Him to mankind. Man being a recipient or a vessel in order to receive His Love and Wisdom therefore has been given a will and understanding, a will for His love and an understanding for His wisdom. It can be seen that man is made to receive God's good (goodness) and His truth if man wills or desires them for the sake of goodness and truthfulness, though not for the sake of one's self. From this one sees that this Divine influx is not forced for man to accept and that mankind is left in freedom to either accept or reject the truths that are written in the Old and New Testaments.
This was first seen in the story of Adam and Eve where God's good and truth was rejected and instead mankind wanted to be wise from him self. Their fall from God's grace was willingly taken. In fact, their desired to be like God was from their own self, thus God's Divine within was thought no long to be God's, but one's own. One sees that before this fall good and truth flowed into man through an internal way, through his spirit and not from without, through his natural or senses, which was through an external way. In this The Lord's New Church believes man is both spiritual and natural. He lives in this world in his natural body while his spirit lives in the spiritual world and when his natural body dies he comes into his spiritual body and lives as a spirit either in heaven as an angel with God or as a spirit in hell in his evils.
However, the truth today is man is no longer in conjunction with God; his natural state has been separated from God and in fact it is seen in Genesis 6: 3 that Jehovah said "My spirit shall not always remain with you." Of course Jehovah's spirit is His love and Wisdom or His Goodness and Truthfulness, which the man had rejected and thereby closed the means by which he could be led to his regeneration and live with the Lord in heaven. Now all Christians are familiar with the promise that the Lord would come to redeem man. The Lord Jehovah would make a way possible for man to be saved. However the time had to be right in order for the Lord to come. Until that time the Lord was always present with mankind as attested to from the Lord's Word. This is seen first through the Word in a man's perception in the Garden of Eden; it was there that He was present in His internal spiritually in man's mind. Then at that time when man looked and saw all the things of nature, the trees and other plants, the birds and other animals, he was taught things about the Lord and about His Kingdom and Church on earth. When the man is in the Lord's Church He is with him, and this is when man loves the Lord and is obedient to His Word, both His internal or His Word that flows in or is insinuated from within or His external or written Word through the senses from without. Then this presence is through a man's will and understanding, though one is from within and the other is from without. The difference is: when man was in the presence with Jehovah God in the Garden of Eden man was present spiritually though he lived in the natural world and knew natural life but when man no longer lived in this state because of his sinning and saw all things only naturally and no longer in their spiritual sense the Lord's presence was not perceived and instead the Word became written by chosen men of God.
One sees that mankind had sinned and turned away from God and no longer loved the Lord but himself and the things of the world. Because of this he falsified the truth about God, believed the truth was his own through his own effort. Before when man was in the spiritually in an in the presence of Jehovah God the things he learned about God and heaven corresponded to nature, thus they were seen as representatives and significations. This was done through an internal way, through perception. Even after man's 'fall' those living then retained the truths that were earlier taught, though now he only could learn about these things through his senses from what the posterity of that Most Ancient Church recorded. Eventually these descendents came to their destruction, and we see that God rose up His Church again as represented in Noah and his sons. All the truths that the Lord God had taught were completely forgotten and turned into falsities and so their life became evil and ended. Those who were raised up as a new Church, the Ancient, in time came to their end too for they forgot what the truths were they had learned from their forefathers - Adam and Eve and their descendents - and like before turned to accept falsities in their place and from a worship to the Lord began worshipping things of nature or idols and to even sacrificing to them. This can be seen when Abram built an altar and offered a sacrifice. And, also because Terah, Abram's father served other gods as did Nabor the father of Lot. A new Church again was established through Abraham's son Isaac and through Jacob who became called Israel.
The presence of the Lord was now with the Israelites through the Commandments, which were given in a miraculous way. While the Church before understood the truths in a spiritual sense because they were passed down from Adam through representatives learned this Church (Israelitish) no longer understood representatives and only could know the Word literally or naturally. Their worship of Jehovah was external and came into representative in that worship only through their obedience to the Commandments. The worship and sacrifices of the Israelites were representatives of something internal about God, His Kingdom and His Church. One sees that all throughout Israelite's existence before the coming of the Lord that they were guided by miracles. It was in this way that Jehovah was with them and thus in externals; their internal was destroyed and they had rejected any thing spiritual. They understood the Commandment naturally and began to falsify them, for we find that Jesus Christ said, "You have made the laws of God of no effect" (Mark 7: 13).
The state of the Church on earth became such that if the Lord had not come into the world that mankind would perish. One might think. "Why didn't the Lord come sooner?" However had He the truth would have been profaned. And as we know the Israelites rejected the Lord who is the Word. Mankind had to descend into the depths of consummation before the Lord could come that He become victorious over the evils and so that they could attack Him as a human. In other words had He came sooner when there was any spiritual truth or good from the truth in man and put on the human of man the evils would not have been able to attack, for no evil can approach the Lord. Just the least spiritual remaining in a man the evils could attack and the Lord could redeem him for the man would have rejected the Lord God's Proceeding good and truth. However, in the Israelitish Church man had digressed or fallen to a state of consummation. Thus, when the Lord took on the human of mankind He could be tempted as is all mankind; He could fight against all hells onslaught. He could overcome them and therefore redeem man from the falsities and evils that are with him from hell.
The question is how did the Lord, who is Jehovah, come into the world? Not all Christians are aware that God Jehovah came down from Heaven and became Man. Some say He sent His Son who was in Heaven with Him. Yet, in John 1 we read, "The Word was with God, and God was the Word, and the Word became flesh." In the Old Testament the word Jehovah was used and the Israelites understood He was God in the form of man. In the New Testament the Word Jehovah was no longer use and instead the word Lord was used. Jehovah and the Lord are the same. We read in the Old Testament concerning the promise that Jehovah would come into the world and redeem man. "It shall be said in that day. Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him that He may deliver us; this is Jehovah; we have waited for Him; let us exult and be glad in His salvation" (Isa. 25:9). "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 (Isa. 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." (Zach. 2: 10, 11), besides many more.
It is taught in the Word of the New Testament that Jehovah Himself descended and assumed the human. This is evidenced from the Word in Luke where it is said: "Mary said unto the angel, how shall 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 comes from the father and the body from the mother. It is declared in this verse that the Most High, which is Jehovah God, is the Father, and therefore the Soul and Life or our Lord Jesus Christ. Jehovah 'put on' a body, a human, from Mary. All in Christendom say that the Divine, the Infinite and Eternal, cannot be divided. How can one that is Omnipotent, Omniscient and omnipresent be divided?
You can understand why the Lord called Jehovah God His Father, and why the Father, Jehovah God called Jesus Christ His Son. [The soul is not from the mother.] We believe the Son was born of the Father into the world and not born from eternity and then descended and assumed the human born to Mary. In the Word one read 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 doth 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 we say that God, who is one, descended and became Man in order to effect redemption.
You can read in 'Formula Concordiae' and the 'Athanasian Creed', which are believed and recited in services, that God is Man and Man God. If a Christian knows that in Christ, born of Mary, God is Man and Man God, then what else are the Father but the Soul of the Son and the Son the body of the Father who is Jehovah and the two are one. 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 man's redeemer and savior. What is a man's redemption? First, we need to understand that it was necessary for God to assume a 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, the body and its senses?
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 the evil, who have rejected good and truth and who have closed their minds to God's spiritual things and considered 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 things, which means in a natural body as a man. Because of this victory over the devil, the Word calls the glorified Lord the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. (Conf. Revelation 21: 6).
Earlier there was mention of God's essence, His Good and Truth and that they first flowed as it were into man by influx into his will and understanding. Then it was mentioned that because mankind had rejected the Lord's love, he had closed his mind to this influx the man became separated from Jehovah God. The Lord Jehovah's love through the man's internal, which was through an immediate way, was shut off. Life, that is, that influx from Jehovah now must come to man through a mediate way which is through the senses either from angels or from spirits and so receive good or evil accordingly. Since mankind fall he is called dead and is one who is separated from God. Thus we must be born again from the Lord.
Because of the New Testament we know that when the Lord came into the world He was called the Word, the Divine Truth. Since the Lord's life cannot be divided, He as the Divine Truth and the Divine Good that was in him became united as the Divine Human. Good and Truth or Truth separated from Good is neither good nor truth. Thus it is that we, those of the Lord's New Church believe that the Father is the Soul of the Lord who is the body; they are one, just as man has a soul and a body and is one person.
According to the New Testament the Lord came into the world to fulfill the Scriptures. We believe that He fulfilled them by and through His Human, the human He assumed from the mother. He did this by making it Divine, that is, by glorifying it. How does the Lord glorify Himself? It is by putting off the hereditary evil he had from the mother. As He did this He 'put on' or made His Human Divine. 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 and was the Divine Human. 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 the Lord Jesus Christ became Jehovah God.
This unition (union) was accomplished by the Lord when He lived on earth as a man according to Divine order. That order is that man must unite his spiritual with his natural through an external way; the Lord's truth must be united with the Father's or Divine Good. This union takes place by learning from parents and teachers and by reading the Word. As a man must unite his human or natural with his spiritual from the Lord, so also did the Lord. Paul, in the Epistles, said that the Lord was tempted as 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; He was fully united with the Father.
From this union He was able to make Himself righteousness and thereby become the Redeemer. 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). He restored to order the heavens and subjugated the hells under His authority.
So we know that man must live according to Divine order. Since the Lord had now redeemed mankind by subjugating the hells and since He Himself as a Man had learned the truth and obeyed it, He had united Divine Love and Wisdom in Himself while on earth. Now man, if he so desires and acts according to the Word by obeying the Commandments and Statutes written in the Word in an external way, through the senses such as mainly sight and hearing, can be conjoined in his will and understanding from the Lord and be united with Him and heaven. Such a man comes into the Kingdom of God.
The Father and the Son became united in the Lord Jesus Christ as the soul and body are united in one man. This process can be seen throughout the Word of the New Testament where the Lord is one time praying as separate from the Father and does the Father's will: "My God, My God, why hast Thou 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". "If you see me, you see My Father". These two states are - one of exinanition, of humiliation, that is, of emptying Himself and the other of glorification or of union. 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 all power over all flesh according to the Word written in John 17: 2. He had all power in both heaven and earth.
The order that man should obey is that he must prepare himself to be a recipient and an abode into which the Lord may enter and in which, as His temple, He may dwell. He must do this as from himself, but acknowledge that it is from the Lord God. This is the order that the Lord progressed through Himself to make His Natural Human Divine. A Man must pass through two states - 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 a man conjoins himself to God by a life lived according to the laws of God, God conjoins Himself to the man. In such obedience the Lord conjoins Himself to the Father; He fulfilled the law; He made Himself a receptacle of the Divine in all its fullness. Paul says, "That in Jesus Christ dwells all the fullness of the Divine bodily" (Col. 2: 9).
How is God the Father and the Son one? We believe that when the Lord was in the world He had a soul like every man and that soul was God the Father. Because of this, we say the Son was a Human conceived from the Divine of the Father and born of the Virgin Mary. From this it may be seen that in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ is the Father as the Soul and the Son 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 Thine and Thine are Mine", He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." We believe these sayings of the Lord mean the Father is in the Son and the Son 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. It may say the same of one's self because the soul is in my body. "If you see one self, you see my one's soul. We are one."
Next, we turn to the redemption as it relates to the Lord. Basically there are two offices belonging to the Lord: that of the Priest and that of the King. The name of Jesus refers to His priestly office and He is called Christ because of His Kingly office. You can see they are similar to the essence of God. The Lord acts from both these offices and both pertain to redemption. By the action of subjugating the hells and restoring order to heaven such action made the Lord the Redeemer. But let this be illustrated: An army of robbers and rebels invade a kingdom or city and set fire to the homes, plunder the people, and divide the spoils for themselves. If a lawful king fights against the rebels with his army, kills some, imprisons others, returns the booty, restores the people to their homes, establishes order and secures it against assaults, he would be a redeemer in that he had subjugated the robbers and rebels and brought order to the city to secure it. The Word said the Lord did this for His Church in that He over came the falsities and evils and thus conquered the hells. This is said in David - Ps. 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). In the book of Revelation the Christian Church is set forth when the judgment comes and the Lord subjugates the evils of such churches at His coming again into the spiritual world. Also, in that book the coming again of a New Church is seen.
Now, unless the Lord had subjugated the hells, no one could have been saved. Generally, all churches today agree on this, but still wait for His return and to set up His Kingdom on earth. In that a Christian believes he cannot do any good of himself, he knows that he is closely joined with evil from the celestial man having rejected Jehovah God. Therefore God's love and wisdom has been shut off to him and needs to be restored. This took the subjection of the evils in hell. The question is: how is this done since there is now no conjunction with Jehovah God with man because of his sin? Before man sinned, man received these goods and truths through perception (said before). Now a man is to receive them through an external way, through the senses and he is in freedom to be obedient to these truths and to follow them as if of him self. Yet, the evils with him to which he is born bring him delight and cause him to continue to turn away from God. Thus, it is that the Lord has to redeem man and this He did as is read in the Apocalypse. 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).
What were the combats the Lord fought in order to redeem man? Were they natural combats fought when He was in the world? I ask would subjugating all the evil men in the world stop others from desiring for themselves wealth, honor, and positions of authority for the sake of themselves and thus sin? No, of course it would not. We know that it is a spiritual battle for the heart and mind of man. The 'old man' that Paul talks about must die, and a new man from the Lord must be born again in man. A new understanding and will from the Lord must be received that man has a rational from the Lord. This is done only by accepting the Divine truth and this is done when truth is accepted through the will to do well. That good is the Lord's good in us as we proceed to believe these truths for the sake of good. Herein is the Lord's dwelling within us.
The Lord's New Church believes it is not the Lord's passion on the cross that redeems man. That was the last temptation the Lord underwent in order to glorify His Human, which was His uniting Himself with the Divine, becoming the Divine Human. Our redemption from hell consisted in the judgment and the subjugation of those who were in falsities and evils in the spiritual world and in bringing heaven back to order and in setting up a new heaven for those who accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as God of heaven and earth and who approaches Him at that judgment. We believe this took place in the spiritual world where is heaven, the world of spirits, and the hells. The subjugation of evil in this world with man merely attributes to the qualities of the Lord that a man has through following or his obedience to the truth for the sake of good and not for the sake of one's self. In so doing the Lord enters man with His goodness. Today, because hell is under subjugation all that now die and who followed the Lord in this world will enter heaven and those who did not know the Lord on earth will be taught the truth and upon coming into the world of spirits there will be no evil spirits to approach him coming when coming there with the intent to persuade them away from that Lord.
Amen.
While it is possible for a person of any religious faith to point out the differences between one's own and others the purpose of this lecture is not intended to use these differences as right or wrong. First, we believe the Lord accepts each person's faith and does not condemn him if his intention is pure and honest. The reason for this is that the state of mankind today is one in which his spiritual has been closed - the man today lives in the natural, the sensual and corporeal states and not as Adam and Eve did in the celestial state. If by reading this you are persuaded to see and to accept what is written here as the truth it will have not been our doing for you are in freedom to learning spiritual things or religious things or to reject them from your own rational understanding.
We begin with God, for He is the cause of all life and thus we call Him the Creator and Sustainer. Later on we will approach the subject of the Divine Word or the Truth and then, third, we will look at a life according to faith in what the Lord God says in His Word. Let us examine what is the faith of The Lord's New Church concerning Jehovah God and Jesus Christ who is our Lord and Savor. Let us learn what is meant by His Coming and later, what our concepts of the Holy Spirit and the Divine Trinity are. We will undertake the subject of the written Word, the Old, the New and the Third Testaments, the latter which we accept as the Word of the Divine Human, the Glorified Lord Jesus Christ who has the united the Divine within Himself with the Human. In these Testaments we will show that it has both a literal or external sense and an internal or spiritual sense.
In the Old Testament one learns that God is often called Jehovah and we see one was to worship Jehovah as God. Yet He was an invisible God at this time though with the following qualities: Omnipotent or all powerful, Omniscient or all-knowing and Omnipresent or is present every where. Because of this, we like other Christians say that He is infinite and eternal. Again, like all Christians we cannot adequately understand and know God's Infinity and Eternity. This is because man knows things and ideas in relation to space and time. Nonetheless, man can learn at least to some degree from God's Word of God's essence. We see this essence as two attributes - Divine Love and Divine Wisdom - though there is also a third, and that is Divine Use. These three are one with God. The question is what are the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom and Divine Use? Surely they are not limited by time and space having already said they are God's from eternity and are so are infinite. The Lord's New Church believes these have been given man that He has life, but how He has given them is seen in man being made into a vessel or containent in which these attributes (or God) may dwell as it were and are there for his use. In other words they are still the Lord's in man and when man follows them the Lord's Divine Use is present. A man can learn and become intelligent and he can from that intelligent come to love the neighbor. Both are needed - spiritual knowledge and charity for the neighbor - for a man's regeneration or salvation. In these the essential of faith is the things of love, which are the Divine's Love and Wisdom and in Use.
This leads us to believe that if love and wisdom comes from God and God's and are not ours then we have to accept the truth that the life we have is the Lord's and these with man constitute his life. Look at the characteristics of love and wisdom. Love wants to give its own to another, love wants others to receive its delights and joys. Love wants to receive reciprocally its own from another. However, love by itself is not 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 wife. "I love you" and do not evidence your love by your actions, then they are but mere words and will soon become meaningless. However, if you do something such as care for your mate in any number of ways, then that love has an existence. One can see that God is Esse and Existere, that is, He is both Being and Existence. (He is manifestation Himself.)
It is this nature of God - Divine Love and Wisdom - that creates mankind and the entire universe. It is the nature of Love to want to create in order that creation can reciprocate, and therefore all of creation is a recipient of His love and wisdom so that mankind may become a likeness and image of God and come one day enjoy the delights and joys of God's Divine qualities that are delights and joys.
The two essentials of God which are His Divine Love and Divine Wisdom flow forth from Him to mankind. Man being a recipient or a vessel in order to receive His Love and Wisdom therefore has been given a will and understanding, a will for His love and an understanding for His wisdom. It can be seen that man is made to receive God's good (goodness) and His truth if man wills or desires them for the sake of goodness and truthfulness, though not for the sake of one's self. From this one sees that this Divine influx is not forced for man to accept and that mankind is left in freedom to either accept or reject the truths that are written in the Old and New Testaments.
This was first seen in the story of Adam and Eve where God's good and truth was rejected and instead mankind wanted to be wise from him self. Their fall from God's grace was willingly taken. In fact, their desired to be like God was from their own self, thus God's Divine within was thought no long to be God's, but one's own. One sees that before this fall good and truth flowed into man through an internal way, through his spirit and not from without, through his natural or senses, which was through an external way. In this The Lord's New Church believes man is both spiritual and natural. He lives in this world in his natural body while his spirit lives in the spiritual world and when his natural body dies he comes into his spiritual body and lives as a spirit either in heaven as an angel with God or as a spirit in hell in his evils.
However, the truth today is man is no longer in conjunction with God; his natural state has been separated from God and in fact it is seen in Genesis 6: 3 that Jehovah said "My spirit shall not always remain with you." Of course Jehovah's spirit is His love and Wisdom or His Goodness and Truthfulness, which the man had rejected and thereby closed the means by which he could be led to his regeneration and live with the Lord in heaven. Now all Christians are familiar with the promise that the Lord would come to redeem man. The Lord Jehovah would make a way possible for man to be saved. However the time had to be right in order for the Lord to come. Until that time the Lord was always present with mankind as attested to from the Lord's Word. This is seen first through the Word in a man's perception in the Garden of Eden; it was there that He was present in His internal spiritually in man's mind. Then at that time when man looked and saw all the things of nature, the trees and other plants, the birds and other animals, he was taught things about the Lord and about His Kingdom and Church on earth. When the man is in the Lord's Church He is with him, and this is when man loves the Lord and is obedient to His Word, both His internal or His Word that flows in or is insinuated from within or His external or written Word through the senses from without. Then this presence is through a man's will and understanding, though one is from within and the other is from without. The difference is: when man was in the presence with Jehovah God in the Garden of Eden man was present spiritually though he lived in the natural world and knew natural life but when man no longer lived in this state because of his sinning and saw all things only naturally and no longer in their spiritual sense the Lord's presence was not perceived and instead the Word became written by chosen men of God.
One sees that mankind had sinned and turned away from God and no longer loved the Lord but himself and the things of the world. Because of this he falsified the truth about God, believed the truth was his own through his own effort. Before when man was in the spiritually in an in the presence of Jehovah God the things he learned about God and heaven corresponded to nature, thus they were seen as representatives and significations. This was done through an internal way, through perception. Even after man's 'fall' those living then retained the truths that were earlier taught, though now he only could learn about these things through his senses from what the posterity of that Most Ancient Church recorded. Eventually these descendents came to their destruction, and we see that God rose up His Church again as represented in Noah and his sons. All the truths that the Lord God had taught were completely forgotten and turned into falsities and so their life became evil and ended. Those who were raised up as a new Church, the Ancient, in time came to their end too for they forgot what the truths were they had learned from their forefathers - Adam and Eve and their descendents - and like before turned to accept falsities in their place and from a worship to the Lord began worshipping things of nature or idols and to even sacrificing to them. This can be seen when Abram built an altar and offered a sacrifice. And, also because Terah, Abram's father served other gods as did Nabor the father of Lot. A new Church again was established through Abraham's son Isaac and through Jacob who became called Israel.
The presence of the Lord was now with the Israelites through the Commandments, which were given in a miraculous way. While the Church before understood the truths in a spiritual sense because they were passed down from Adam through representatives learned this Church (Israelitish) no longer understood representatives and only could know the Word literally or naturally. Their worship of Jehovah was external and came into representative in that worship only through their obedience to the Commandments. The worship and sacrifices of the Israelites were representatives of something internal about God, His Kingdom and His Church. One sees that all throughout Israelite's existence before the coming of the Lord that they were guided by miracles. It was in this way that Jehovah was with them and thus in externals; their internal was destroyed and they had rejected any thing spiritual. They understood the Commandment naturally and began to falsify them, for we find that Jesus Christ said, "You have made the laws of God of no effect" (Mark 7: 13).
The state of the Church on earth became such that if the Lord had not come into the world that mankind would perish. One might think. "Why didn't the Lord come sooner?" However had He the truth would have been profaned. And as we know the Israelites rejected the Lord who is the Word. Mankind had to descend into the depths of consummation before the Lord could come that He become victorious over the evils and so that they could attack Him as a human. In other words had He came sooner when there was any spiritual truth or good from the truth in man and put on the human of man the evils would not have been able to attack, for no evil can approach the Lord. Just the least spiritual remaining in a man the evils could attack and the Lord could redeem him for the man would have rejected the Lord God's Proceeding good and truth. However, in the Israelitish Church man had digressed or fallen to a state of consummation. Thus, when the Lord took on the human of mankind He could be tempted as is all mankind; He could fight against all hells onslaught. He could overcome them and therefore redeem man from the falsities and evils that are with him from hell.
The question is how did the Lord, who is Jehovah, come into the world? Not all Christians are aware that God Jehovah came down from Heaven and became Man. Some say He sent His Son who was in Heaven with Him. Yet, in John 1 we read, "The Word was with God, and God was the Word, and the Word became flesh." In the Old Testament the word Jehovah was used and the Israelites understood He was God in the form of man. In the New Testament the Word Jehovah was no longer use and instead the word Lord was used. Jehovah and the Lord are the same. We read in the Old Testament concerning the promise that Jehovah would come into the world and redeem man. "It shall be said in that day. Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him that He may deliver us; this is Jehovah; we have waited for Him; let us exult and be glad in His salvation" (Isa. 25:9). "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 (Isa. 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." (Zach. 2: 10, 11), besides many more.
It is taught in the Word of the New Testament that Jehovah Himself descended and assumed the human. This is evidenced from the Word in Luke where it is said: "Mary said unto the angel, how shall 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 comes from the father and the body from the mother. It is declared in this verse that the Most High, which is Jehovah God, is the Father, and therefore the Soul and Life or our Lord Jesus Christ. Jehovah 'put on' a body, a human, from Mary. All in Christendom say that the Divine, the Infinite and Eternal, cannot be divided. How can one that is Omnipotent, Omniscient and omnipresent be divided?
You can understand why the Lord called Jehovah God His Father, and why the Father, Jehovah God called Jesus Christ His Son. [The soul is not from the mother.] We believe the Son was born of the Father into the world and not born from eternity and then descended and assumed the human born to Mary. In the Word one read 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 doth 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 we say that God, who is one, descended and became Man in order to effect redemption.
You can read in 'Formula Concordiae' and the 'Athanasian Creed', which are believed and recited in services, that God is Man and Man God. If a Christian knows that in Christ, born of Mary, God is Man and Man God, then what else are the Father but the Soul of the Son and the Son the body of the Father who is Jehovah and the two are one. 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 man's redeemer and savior. What is a man's redemption? First, we need to understand that it was necessary for God to assume a 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, the body and its senses?
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 the evil, who have rejected good and truth and who have closed their minds to God's spiritual things and considered 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 things, which means in a natural body as a man. Because of this victory over the devil, the Word calls the glorified Lord the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. (Conf. Revelation 21: 6).
Earlier there was mention of God's essence, His Good and Truth and that they first flowed as it were into man by influx into his will and understanding. Then it was mentioned that because mankind had rejected the Lord's love, he had closed his mind to this influx the man became separated from Jehovah God. The Lord Jehovah's love through the man's internal, which was through an immediate way, was shut off. Life, that is, that influx from Jehovah now must come to man through a mediate way which is through the senses either from angels or from spirits and so receive good or evil accordingly. Since mankind fall he is called dead and is one who is separated from God. Thus we must be born again from the Lord.
Because of the New Testament we know that when the Lord came into the world He was called the Word, the Divine Truth. Since the Lord's life cannot be divided, He as the Divine Truth and the Divine Good that was in him became united as the Divine Human. Good and Truth or Truth separated from Good is neither good nor truth. Thus it is that we, those of the Lord's New Church believe that the Father is the Soul of the Lord who is the body; they are one, just as man has a soul and a body and is one person.
According to the New Testament the Lord came into the world to fulfill the Scriptures. We believe that He fulfilled them by and through His Human, the human He assumed from the mother. He did this by making it Divine, that is, by glorifying it. How does the Lord glorify Himself? It is by putting off the hereditary evil he had from the mother. As He did this He 'put on' or made His Human Divine. 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 and was the Divine Human. 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 the Lord Jesus Christ became Jehovah God.
This unition (union) was accomplished by the Lord when He lived on earth as a man according to Divine order. That order is that man must unite his spiritual with his natural through an external way; the Lord's truth must be united with the Father's or Divine Good. This union takes place by learning from parents and teachers and by reading the Word. As a man must unite his human or natural with his spiritual from the Lord, so also did the Lord. Paul, in the Epistles, said that the Lord was tempted as 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; He was fully united with the Father.
From this union He was able to make Himself righteousness and thereby become the Redeemer. 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). He restored to order the heavens and subjugated the hells under His authority.
So we know that man must live according to Divine order. Since the Lord had now redeemed mankind by subjugating the hells and since He Himself as a Man had learned the truth and obeyed it, He had united Divine Love and Wisdom in Himself while on earth. Now man, if he so desires and acts according to the Word by obeying the Commandments and Statutes written in the Word in an external way, through the senses such as mainly sight and hearing, can be conjoined in his will and understanding from the Lord and be united with Him and heaven. Such a man comes into the Kingdom of God.
The Father and the Son became united in the Lord Jesus Christ as the soul and body are united in one man. This process can be seen throughout the Word of the New Testament where the Lord is one time praying as separate from the Father and does the Father's will: "My God, My God, why hast Thou 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". "If you see me, you see My Father". These two states are - one of exinanition, of humiliation, that is, of emptying Himself and the other of glorification or of union. 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 all power over all flesh according to the Word written in John 17: 2. He had all power in both heaven and earth.
The order that man should obey is that he must prepare himself to be a recipient and an abode into which the Lord may enter and in which, as His temple, He may dwell. He must do this as from himself, but acknowledge that it is from the Lord God. This is the order that the Lord progressed through Himself to make His Natural Human Divine. A Man must pass through two states - 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 a man conjoins himself to God by a life lived according to the laws of God, God conjoins Himself to the man. In such obedience the Lord conjoins Himself to the Father; He fulfilled the law; He made Himself a receptacle of the Divine in all its fullness. Paul says, "That in Jesus Christ dwells all the fullness of the Divine bodily" (Col. 2: 9).
How is God the Father and the Son one? We believe that when the Lord was in the world He had a soul like every man and that soul was God the Father. Because of this, we say the Son was a Human conceived from the Divine of the Father and born of the Virgin Mary. From this it may be seen that in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ is the Father as the Soul and the Son 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 Thine and Thine are Mine", He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." We believe these sayings of the Lord mean the Father is in the Son and the Son 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. It may say the same of one's self because the soul is in my body. "If you see one self, you see my one's soul. We are one."
Next, we turn to the redemption as it relates to the Lord. Basically there are two offices belonging to the Lord: that of the Priest and that of the King. The name of Jesus refers to His priestly office and He is called Christ because of His Kingly office. You can see they are similar to the essence of God. The Lord acts from both these offices and both pertain to redemption. By the action of subjugating the hells and restoring order to heaven such action made the Lord the Redeemer. But let this be illustrated: An army of robbers and rebels invade a kingdom or city and set fire to the homes, plunder the people, and divide the spoils for themselves. If a lawful king fights against the rebels with his army, kills some, imprisons others, returns the booty, restores the people to their homes, establishes order and secures it against assaults, he would be a redeemer in that he had subjugated the robbers and rebels and brought order to the city to secure it. The Word said the Lord did this for His Church in that He over came the falsities and evils and thus conquered the hells. This is said in David - Ps. 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). In the book of Revelation the Christian Church is set forth when the judgment comes and the Lord subjugates the evils of such churches at His coming again into the spiritual world. Also, in that book the coming again of a New Church is seen.
Now, unless the Lord had subjugated the hells, no one could have been saved. Generally, all churches today agree on this, but still wait for His return and to set up His Kingdom on earth. In that a Christian believes he cannot do any good of himself, he knows that he is closely joined with evil from the celestial man having rejected Jehovah God. Therefore God's love and wisdom has been shut off to him and needs to be restored. This took the subjection of the evils in hell. The question is: how is this done since there is now no conjunction with Jehovah God with man because of his sin? Before man sinned, man received these goods and truths through perception (said before). Now a man is to receive them through an external way, through the senses and he is in freedom to be obedient to these truths and to follow them as if of him self. Yet, the evils with him to which he is born bring him delight and cause him to continue to turn away from God. Thus, it is that the Lord has to redeem man and this He did as is read in the Apocalypse. 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).
What were the combats the Lord fought in order to redeem man? Were they natural combats fought when He was in the world? I ask would subjugating all the evil men in the world stop others from desiring for themselves wealth, honor, and positions of authority for the sake of themselves and thus sin? No, of course it would not. We know that it is a spiritual battle for the heart and mind of man. The 'old man' that Paul talks about must die, and a new man from the Lord must be born again in man. A new understanding and will from the Lord must be received that man has a rational from the Lord. This is done only by accepting the Divine truth and this is done when truth is accepted through the will to do well. That good is the Lord's good in us as we proceed to believe these truths for the sake of good. Herein is the Lord's dwelling within us.
The Lord's New Church believes it is not the Lord's passion on the cross that redeems man. That was the last temptation the Lord underwent in order to glorify His Human, which was His uniting Himself with the Divine, becoming the Divine Human. Our redemption from hell consisted in the judgment and the subjugation of those who were in falsities and evils in the spiritual world and in bringing heaven back to order and in setting up a new heaven for those who accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as God of heaven and earth and who approaches Him at that judgment. We believe this took place in the spiritual world where is heaven, the world of spirits, and the hells. The subjugation of evil in this world with man merely attributes to the qualities of the Lord that a man has through following or his obedience to the truth for the sake of good and not for the sake of one's self. In so doing the Lord enters man with His goodness. Today, because hell is under subjugation all that now die and who followed the Lord in this world will enter heaven and those who did not know the Lord on earth will be taught the truth and upon coming into the world of spirits there will be no evil spirits to approach him coming when coming there with the intent to persuade them away from that Lord.
Amen.
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