THE LORD'S PRAYER
AND
THE CREATION WEEK
By The Rev. Erik Sandstr m, Sr.
(Lesson 8)
8. Deliver Us
from Evil
Real purity pertains to no man.
Not even the angels of heaven are pure before God, that is, in relation to the
Divine that is with them. In any will there are countless affections; and for
perfect purity to exist, not one of these affections must be anything less than
perfect. This is impossible with created man, for his affections are always
limited in their scope, even as his wisdom or understanding, by which his
affections operate, is so limited; and beyond the borders of his reach, however
wide, there is always the perfection far beyond him, far above him. That
perfection, or that absolute purity, is Divine. It is infinitely in the Divine
love and wisdom, and it proceeds and is within all creation from that love and
wisdom.
Nevertheless, we speak of the
purification of man, and the Writings so speak, as if the meaning were, making
man pure. Also we sing: Unworthy I have been; O make me pure within, Lead me
above (Liturgy, p. 442). But absolute purity is not meant. Rather, the
expression is designed to mark the difference between the will that is against
the Lord and the will that is for Him. We must be purified from the former will.
Yet the latter will, even if it rise to the celestial heaven, is as nothing
compared to infinite love and has no worth whatever from itself. Its one
redeeming feature is that it is willing, nay, that it loves to be led. In that
loving willingness lies its relative purity; for although it has nothing of
purity of its own, yet its every affection turns to the Lord as a blossom to the
sun, and is touched and as it were lifted up by the Divine purity that is
constantly inflowing.
Since neither the unregenerate
nor even the regenerate will is pure it is therefore clear that we can speak of
purification in two quite distinct ways. First there is the will that has within
it the horrible filth of being turned against all things of life. Then there is
the entirely different will which has nothing of that filth, but only the
imperfection that is inherent in the finite, and which is therefore in need of
being perfected to eternity without ever reaching, or even approaching, either
perfection or purity. For however much the angels grow in wisdom and love, the
Infinite is ever infinitely above them: and it is well that it is so, for
otherwise man would in the end cease to be man; would indeed, cease to be
anything, for he could not be God.
Purification of the first kind
is what is completed on the sixth day of creation; but purification of the
second kind belongs to the seventh day and is never completed, for that day is
an eternal one. We are concerned here with the first kind of purification.
What God created on the sixth
day appears from the description of it: And God said, Let the earth bring forth
the living soul after his kind, the beast and the thing moving itself, and the
wild animal of the earth, after his kind . . . And God said, Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness (Genesis 1: 24, 26). This is the new will. It is
called man because it is in the image of God-man and is born of Him. The
animals of the earth presently called the wild animal of the earth, the beast,
and everything that creepeth on the ground are the affections of higher and
lower degrees which belong to that will. They are first mentioned in ascending
order, from lower to higher forms, and then in descending order, to signify that
there is a gradual building up of this will until it is established as the
dominant force in the mind, when it again descends through all its affections in
governing all things of the mind (AC 47). By the formation of this new will the
Lord has completed His labor, for on the seventh day He no longer meets
resistance. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had
made (Genesis 2: 2).
But the sixth day itself
involves great resistance: more so, in fact, than any previous day. The reason
is that on that day the old will must finally give up, hut in so doing it first
fights for its life. The Lord describes this crucial struggle, saying:
Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life
for My sake, the same shall save it (Luke 9: 24). The Writings call this battle
temptations as to the will and with particular reference to the sixth day
conflict they say: Man s spiritual life is delighted and sustained by such
things as belong to the knowledges of faith and the works of charity . . . and
his natural life is delighted and sustained by those things which belong to the
body and the senses; whence a combat arises, until love gains the dominion, and
he becomes a celestial man (AC 12). Only in the end of that day does tumult
subside after its night; for the sixth day, even more than the earlier stages of
the new birth, is finally crowned with the morning state. And the evening and
the morning were the sixth day.
The delightful things
belonging to the body and the senses are the weapons or arguments by which the
native will tries to win the battle and so preserve its life. These delights are
not evil in themselves, but the will is evil in itself and it revels in external
pleasures of all descriptions, persuading itself with all its might that life
consists in these. And it is cunning, too, for it usually succeeds in masking
its ugly face before the world by making it appear as if it had pleasure
likewise in truth, duty and decorum. It is a fierce enemy, and no man could
overcome it. Only the all-revealing and uncompromising Divine truth is stronger.
For did not He who speaks in righteousness, mighty to save, say: I have
trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with Me ? (Isaiah
63: 1, 3). In this warfare man s part is to apply the sword of truth; and he
suffers when that sword, as in the case of Mary the mother, pierces through his
own soul in order that the thoughts of his heart may be revealed (Luke 2: 35).
But although the suffering is his, the victory is not. He must take the
medicine, but the cure is the physician s. And, indeed, the Divine Healer is
mighty to save.
We know that it is a long
struggle, for we know that the things of heaven are not naturally delightful to
us. It is the enchantments of the body that have appeal. We know that it is only
by self-compulsion that it is possible to keep the natural will, the natural
tendency, under control What, then, when the old delights must cease even to be
delights: when, through a long life-and-death struggle they are in the end to be
regarded with aversion and horror? Not that there are no external delights
pertaining to heaven; these indeed exist, and are incomparably greater than
before. But they are no longer external delights from the natural; they are, one
and all, from the spiritual into the natural; and although they have many
external manifestations in common, they are therefore entirely new delights.
That entirely new outlook can
be accounted for in only one way the existence of another will than before.
Through temptation this will has been delivered. It is said to be purified, for
it is purified from the former will, which now becomes quiescent. The former
will was evil; the new will is delivered from that evil.
We pray, Lead us not into
temptation, although these words, at face value, are in conflict with spiritual
truth on at least two points. First, the Lord leads no one into temptation;
second, we must have it. But the Lord in mercy taught us to say so, for He
desires that the words of our lips shall be expressive of our state. His purpose
is to bend that state, not to destroy it; to take hold of its delights, and to
change and infill them with untold blessings, not to scatter them to the winds.
And who does not fear temptation? What man of the church, then, knowing that the
Lord is omnipotent, would not reflect in the midst of conflict and suffering
that He would be able to take it away, and wish that He would do so?
There are two combatants
in temptation, and they are both within man. One is the natural man; the other
is the spiritual, which is called conscience. The Lord fights through the
spiritual man, the devil through the natural; and in the midst, torn between the
two, is the man. From his natural he calls out, Lead us not into temptation!
But the Lord fights for him, and from his spiritual man he adds, with
inexpressible hope and trust, but deliver us from evil. Thus these two
phrases, close-linked parts of one and the same petition, mark the tide of
victory in the battle. Man is in the process of passing from one kingdom to
another, from death to life.
The sixth day temptation is not
the first that man has encountered. He has had many anxieties of the mind
before. But whatever he has experienced in his earlier development must appear
to him as of little significance when his interior motives themselves are
ultimately at stake. This is why temptation is not spoken of until the sixth
petition, for the testing of the will itself is also temptation itself. This
appears also from the circumstance that it is only then that he is delivered
from evil itself. His previous anxieties were at first merely natural fears or
worries. They constituted no spiritual temptation at all. Not even in the state
of repentance was there any real spiritual temptation; for although he fought
against his evils he yet had little anxiety, feeling instead rather proud of
himself because of the progress he supposed he was making. In that state man
feels that any change for the better is of his own making, and he has yet to
learn the lesson that of himself he is poor and insignificant. Only on the fifth
day, the day of reformation, does he encounter the first form of spiritual
temptation. He then reflects that he has learned many things from the Word of
the Lord and from experience, but there is no certainty that any of these things
will remain with him after death. Thus he comes into the first internal fear for
his salvation. That is when he awakens to his need of forgiveness and also when
he humbles himself in relation to his neighbor, being himself more ready to
exercise forgiveness than before. And yet his external delights are still more
dear to him than the things of heaven. The ultimate test, the real temptation,
is yet to come; for the previous internal conflict was but a test of his faith,
not of his will or love itself.
But throughout his preparation
he has prayed, as he has been taught, Lead us not into temptation. And as he
has so prayed the Lord has insinuated internal truths into these words. As we
read: Nevertheless, such forms of speech are able to serve as general vessels
in which spiritual and celestial things may be contained, for into them it may
be insinuated that all things are from the Lord; then that the Lord permits,
but that evil is wholly from diabolical spirits; afterwards that the Lord
provides and disposes that evils should be turned into goods; and at last that
nothing but good is from the Lord. Thus the sense of the letter perishes as
is ascends and becomes spiritual, then celestial, and at last Divine (AC 1874).
[Italics added]
How this is can be understood
only if it is known how the written Word of the Lord comes into existence. The
inspiring force is the proceeding Divine, the Holy Spirit. This alone is the
Word in se the very content, message and burden of the Word. The agent is
the mind of the prophet, evangelist, or humble philosopher. Therefore the
inflowing Divine takes on forms from the minds of the agents, selecting and
molding these forms in such a way that they are directed toward heavenly and
eternal things. Thus, in the case of temptation, it appears to man as if the
Lord did lead into it, for temptation cannot arise unless the evil that is with
man feels the intense discomfort and disturbance caused by the drawing near of
the Divine. This is the sword that the Lord sends on earth, by which it is
revealed that a man s foes shall be they of his own household (Matthew 10: 34,
36). That sword is more merciful in its purpose than the surgeon s knife. But it
certainly is a sword, in the hand of infinite love. What man must learn is that
the sword is there, not because it desires to pierce, but because there are
things in the mind that must be pierced.
So the Lord takes hold of man s
fear in temptation, his dread of radical change, and suffers that fear to have
its own voice Lead us not into temptation. Yet He does not it leave it to
stand alone, but bends it. He insinuates immediately that the evil in
temptation is not from Him, for He at once causes the man to add, but deliver
us from evil. And thereby He completes the picture, for He has thus caused both
the state which is to be delivered and the deliverance itself to be described.
Purity is only in the
proceeding Divine, and impurity is in the receiving vessel in the natural mind,
the impurity of filth, and in the spiritual mind the impurity of imperfection.
Descending into the mind, the Lord, in infinite mercy, suffers His purity to be
clothed and surrounded with impurity in order that His presence may initiate
the formation of an image of purity. This process is what is reflected in the
language of the written Word. There is gradual removal of what is contrary, so
that man may first learn that all things are from the Lord ; then that the
Lord permits ; afterwards that the Lord provides and disposes ; and at last
that nothing but good is from the Lord. This last lesson is the actual
reception of good from the Lord: and in that good the creation week, and the
creative petitions, are finished. For the Divine good itself, present within
man s newborn love, his charity, is the only deliverance from evil. Evil which
was at last dug out to its secret hiding place, cannot stand in its presence.
TO CONTINUE :
Beginning -
Lesson - 2 -
Lesson - 3 -
Lesson - 4 -
Lesson - 5 -
Lesson - 6 -
Lesson - 7 -
Lesson - 9 -
Lesson 10 -
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