THE LORD'S PRAYER
AND
THE CREATION WEEK
By The Rev. Erik Sandström, Sr.
(Lesson 9)
9. For Thine
is the Kingdom
Foretelling His second advent,
and the judgment then on the first Christian Church, the Lord says: “And then
shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes
of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of
heaven with Power and great glory” (Matthew 24: 30). This evidently means that
His power and glory were to be revealed and known at that time; not that His
omnipotence was to become more omnipotent, or that His glorification on earth
was to receive new glory. He said Himself concerning His power: “All power is
given unto Me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28: 18): and concerning His
glorification and work of salvation: “it is finished” (John 19:30). What the
Lord did in the world in His Human was fully completed. He rose from the grave
as God-man, the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending . . . who is, and
who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1: 8). It was not that He
was to have more power and glory, but that these were to be attributed to
Him and acknowledged by His kingdom. This acknowledgment was not given to
Him after His first advent, except in a small measure and for a short time; for
the Church was not ready, although the Lord was. Therefore He spoke a parable,
as we read, because “they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately
appear”; saying, “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for
himself a kingdom, and to return” (Luke 19: 11, 12). Not until then, at His
return, was it possible to testify: “And His wife hath made herself ready”
(Revelation 10: 7).
All this is echoed in
Invitation to the New Church, as follows: “The whole of the Lord’s Prayer,
from beginning to end, has respect to this time, that is, to the time when God
the Father will be worshiped in the Human Form” (no. 37). In a word, the
“kingdom” spoken of in the closing words of the Lord’s Prayer is the kingdom to
be established in His second advent: for in the former Christian Church the Lord
was never really acknowledged as more than a “nobleman”; but He has now returned
to receive His kingdom, that is to say, to be acknowledged as King. Hence the
resounding proclamation in the world of spirits after the works setting forth
His second advent had been completed: “The Lord God Jesus Christ doth reign” (TCR
791).
This is the seventh day of His
new creation week. For the spiritual kingdom initiated after the fall of the
celestial or Adamic Church is established in its fullness and excellence only by
the revelation of the power and glory of the Divine Human of the Lord. The mark
of that kingdom is that it is built in the understanding of man, so that a new
will is created there in place of the fallen will that cannot be regenerated.
This new creation began when for the first time the understanding was capable of
separation from the will, that is, when it became possible for man to understand
truth despite the lusts of the will. Indeed the separation itself took place by
means of the prophecy spoken at the time of the fall, that the seed of the woman
should bruise the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15); for the understanding was held
in expectation by looking to the promised Messiah who was to be born of woman on earth and thus dwell among us, and who was to be wounded in His heel by the
deceiver himself, evil itself with man, but was at the same time to crush its
power by bruising its head. Yet the separation of the understanding, and the
provision thereby that there should be something salvable with man, was not in
itself the completion of the new kingdom. It was only the beginning. There is
completion when the “seed of the woman” is no longer a promise but a reality,
and when that reality has been set forth so fully as to invite acknowledgment.
The head of the serpent cannot be really bruised until then: for how can we
combat and overcome evil except by having it exposed before us? And who can
expose it except the One who is without it? The vision of the Lord in glory and
power is regarded in hell as the great and terrible enemy, for in that vision
hell is searched out and made naked. Evil is stripped of its essential power,
for it can no longer deceive. Thus, at long last, is the kingdom to come into
its own.
“And on the seventh day God
ended His work which He had made: and He rested on the seventh day from all His
work which He had made” (Genesis 2: 2). This, in the new age, is the return of
the tree of life to the midst; but planted now in the city, not in the garden,
and yielding its fruit every month and having leaves for the healing of the
nations (Revelation 22: 2). “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of
God and of the Lamb shall be in it [the city]; and His servants shall serve Him”
(ibid v. 3).
There is a long way to go. In
one and the same prayer we say. “Thy kingdom come,” yet acknowledge also that it
has come already: “Thine is the kingdom.” And so it must be! For although it is
true that the Lord has come in power and glory, He is as yet acknowledged by
few; and even by these but in feebleness of faith, for they are slow to follow
Him. But He is preparing constantly for the spread of His reign, and perchance
He is also extending it in the mind of each of His little flock. His kingdom has
both come and is coming. And it will ever be so, for even after it has embraced
the earth it must continue to grow. “The New Church,” we read. “is the crown of
all the Churches, and will endure forever” (Inv. 39). It will always be new,
that is, be renewed, even as the “Lord’s mercy is forever.” When the Lord said,
“Behold, I make all things new,” He did not mean that He would make a new thing
once and for all, and then leave it to become fixed in its form. The kingdom of
the Lord is like the body, which is renewed by each beat of the heart. With the
Lord Himself, life is perfection; life in His creations is not perfection but
growth and development. The New Church will always be a new church.
This will be so because of the
revealed glory and power of the Lord. For His “glory” is the truth of the
internal sense of the Word, by which He makes Himself known as He is in heaven (TCR
780); and His “power” is His good, His mercy and love, operating by means of
that truth. For we read: “All Divine power is through the truth which proceeds
from the Lord” (AC 8200); and again; “All power is in truths from good, and none
in truths without good: and also there is all power in good through truths, and
none in good without truths. Power comes forth from the conjunction of both” (HH
232). This is summarized as follows: “All power is in truths from good” (AE 376:
22).
Now there is much more in this
than may appear at first sight. We are inclined to say within ourselves that it
is self-evident that our God has glory and power—and then think nothing more of
it. We are prepared also to accept in a like spirit the statement that He has
these things by means of good and truth. But the whole burden of the teaching
becomes very different when it is realized that a man may know certain truths
without being affected by them in his heart and in his way of life, and that he
will not be affected unless he becomes aware of the good in them. We know this
even from worldly experience. For if we were given a wonderful machine, but did
not know what it could do and had no means of knowing, it would not stir our
imagination or inspire us to do any work with it. It would become like a museum
piece in our collection; we might take some pride in its possession, but there
our joy would stop. Or if we owned many bottles of different medicines, but did
not know what diseases they could cure, they would be of no value when illness
overtook us, for we would not be able to use them. So is it with truth. If we do
not know, or do not see, what it wants to do, it is like a wonderful machine or
many bottles on the shelf; none of which things are of any use to us. But when
the good of the truth is seen the story becomes quite different; then, for
the first time, we can use it. The difference is not in the truth. The machine
is not different and does not look different after its use has been discovered;
the medicine in itself is the same whether it is used for healing or not; the
only difference is that after the use has been discovered, the latent capacity
which was there all the time can become actual. Hence truth has power with man,
that is, its power is released and becomes operative, only when his affection is
awakened by its good. That is what is meant by power belonging only to truth
from good, and not to truth without good.
The effect of that power is the
“kingdom.” This when we acknowledge: “Thine is the kingdom and the power, and
the glory,” we speak of the glory of revealed truth, the mercy and saving love
that operates by means of that truth, and the new kingdom of the Lord that is
thus built. The “glory” and the “power” are the Divine proceeding contained in
the bosom of Divine Revelation—“The words that I speak unto you are spirit and
are life—and the “kingdom” is what the Divine creates as it proceeds.
Beyond these three things—the
kingdom, the power and the glory—there is nothing except hell, which is derived
from the denial of them. They constitute whatever lives life in itself, and life
from life. The kingdom is what receives and responds; the glory and power are
what give. The one is creation in its fullness: the other is the Creator, or
what proceeds from Him. lnmostly, these three things are the Divine Trinity
itself. For the Lord’s kingdom, as to its very soul, is the Divine proceeding
that makes it—the life of our God going forth which is called the Holy Spirit;
the glory is His wisdom or truth, which in the New Testament is named the Son;
and the power is His good, which is mercy and love itself, and which bears the
relation of fatherhood to whatever exists. It is like saying: All things are
Thine, and we own all in Thee.
Thus is the creation week
fulfilled, the new creation week. For thus is the creative, Divine prayer
fulfilled, and thus shall the Lord again have rest in all the work that He has
done. Yet in resting He is not idle! His operative power is released more than
ever in His kingdom. But the constant flow of His renewing life has rest in the
peace of reception.
The angels,
too, say the Lord’s Prayer daily (AR 839). They are in a perpetual
acknowledgment that all things are from the Lord, and they are in His kingdom
and constitute it. Yet they, too, have need of saying, not only “Thine is the
kingdom,” but also, “Thy kingdom come.” This is life eternal.
TO CONTINUE :
Beginning -
Lesson - 2 -
Lesson - 3 -
Lesson - 4 -
Lesson - 5 -
Lesson - 6 -
Lesson - 7 -
Lesson - 8 -
Lesson 10 -
v v v |
