The Lord as to His
Divine Human
Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel
Swedenborg
AC 5663.
[2] That the Lord was
meant in the Word by "God" and "Jehovah" the Jewish Church did not
know, nor does the Christian Church know it at this day. That the
Christian Church has not known it is because it has distinguished the
Divinity into three persons. But the Ancient Church which was after
the flood, and above all the Most Ancient Church which was before the
flood, understood by "Jehovah" and "God" no other than the Lord, and
Him indeed as to His Divine Human. They also knew about the Divine
Itself which is in the Lord, and which He calls His "Father" yet they
were not able to think about that Divine Itself which is in the Lord,
but about the Divine Human, and consequently could not be conjoined
with any other Divine; for conjunction is effected through thought
which is of the understanding and affection which is of the will, thus
through faith and through love. For if we think of the Divine
Itself, the thought falls as it were into a boundless universe, and
thus is dissipated, whence there is no conjunction. It is otherwise
when the Divine Itself is thought of as the Divine Human. And the
ancients knew that they could not be saved unless they were conjoined
with the Divine.
[3] Therefore it was the
Divine Human that the Ancient Churches worshiped; and Jehovah also
manifested Himself to them in the Divine Human. The Divine Human was
the Divine Itself in heaven; for heaven constitutes one man, which is
called the Grand Man, as has been heretofore shown at the end of the
chapters. This Divine in heaven is none other than the Divine Itself,
but in heaven it is as a Divine Man. This Man is what the Lord took
on and made Divine in Him, and united it to the Divine Itself as it
had been united from eternity; for from eternity there was a one.
He did this because mankind could not otherwise have been saved; for
it was no longer sufficient for the Divine Itself to be able, through
heaven and thus through the Divine Human Itself there, to flow into
human minds; wherefore the Divine Itself willed to unite the Divine
Human to Itself actually by the Human taken on in the world.
The one and the other is the Lord.
(from
Arcana Coelestia #5663 ~ Emanuel Swedenborg) |