The central idea of New Church theology - that which distinguishes it from every variant form of the Christian religion - is expressed by the phrase "Divine Human," - a phrase which, as it stands, presents an apparent contradiction of terms, much as if one should
speak of an infinite finite. And is not this an irreconcilable contradiction? For is not the Divine infinite, and the human finite? A finite can only become infinite by the removal of all its limits, in which case the finite, as such, ceases to be. And may not the same be said
of the human and the Divine? If the human of the Lord became Divine, as by glorification, whereby the human from the mother was put off, and the Divine of the Father put on, was not that which may fairly be called "human" eradicated? Could anything be left after such a process
save the abstract Infinite, the pure and unconditioned Infinite, which was before the world came into being, or men and angels were created? This putting of the case seems severely logical. Yet we note that the God whom we are called upon to worship by New Church doctrine and
ritual is not this limitless invisible, but instead the God-Man, called in the Writings the "Divine Human."
Granted that by glorification the human from the mother was put off, and the Divine of the Father put on; yet that which stood forth after the resurrection was not the primordial Infinite, as it was in and
from eternity, but Jesus Christ glorified. In other words, while the glorifying process made the human Divine, did it not also make the Divine Human? That is to say, were there not two modes involved in the glorification, - two movements, as it were, - the one whereby the Human
ascended to a Divine status, and the other whereby the Divine descended to Human conformation?
Of these two reciprocal movements in the process of the Lord's glorification, the last is especially important to our present argument. For if we only see the human ascending and becoming Divine, then is
our Lard lost to view in the Infinite, and we shall not know where or how to find Him. But if, on the other hand, we are given to perceive the Divine descending to human conformation, we behold a process of conditioning the Divine to finite reception, and so also to permanent
presence and visibility. Now the Divine, thus become Human, is the true Divine Human, and the process of its making is not only that first mode by which the Divine assumed a material human from the mother Mary, but specifically that later process of glorification whereby the
Divine by successive stages let Itself down into, and conformed itself to and with, the Human form; so that it is lawful to say that the Divine Human was in this way continuously born, and ever more fully conditioned to the Human structure, and therefore to visibility, becoming
in the process even as if finite, but never actually so.
It should be clearly seen that if glorification was effected by a single process, - a simple upward movement to a Divine status by a mere elimination, whereby the finite put off its parts and became
infinite; - if, in such manner only, the human became Divine, then there could be no other result than an unqualified return to the status quo ante; that is, to the abstract Infinite, to the invisible Divine, aforetime seen only through finite representatives. But if, on the
other hand, a counter process in glorification be recognized, if the Divine becoming Human be perceived in the way described, then may we see that a new and different conditionment of the Divine was provided for by the glorification, which gives us that which is so aptly called
in the Writings the "Divine Human," - the God become and remaining Man.
In speaking of those ancient divinings of men by which was foreshadowed one side of the Lord's glorification, Jane Harrison remarks that many men in ancient days ascended the ladder which led to Godhead,
but that in so doing they vanished from human sight; such vanishment being the inevitable end. She notes, however, that some of them, a few, were for some reason arrested on the way, and so retained a faint degree of visibility, becoming vague mythological personalities, gods
of low visibility.
Now truly these gods, one and all, were but prophetic forecasts of Him who was to be born into the world, only to re-ascend to the Father, and who, in His coming and going, was to present, not only the
idea, but also the fact, of man's becoming God, and of God becoming Man. But here note again, that if this Man became God, and this only, He thereby withdrew into the invisible Infinite, never more to be seen; but if, by a reciprocal process, the God became Man, and ever more
Man as glorification advanced, then the Divine thereby took to itself a form and presence even as a new and Human Divine of permanent presence and power, and this in the Person of a single individual, a Man, by whom and in whom the Divine was conditioned as never before.
For the doctrine is, that before the assumption and glorification God had not a Human of His own, or individual to Himself, but that afterwards He had. He indeed had an aforetime Human, called the Ancient
of Days, but this Human, while in Itself Divine, was not His very own; that is, it was not individual to Him. This ancient Divine Human was none other than the Divine as it was received and conditioned by the angels of the celestial kingdom. This in time, as we know, and with
the fall of man, became inadequate; and because of this, the necessity arose for a further conditionment, a more ultimate humanizing of the Divine, and this by a special individualization of it, to be in the world of men, and for a time a Man among men, but not thereafter as an
angel among angels. Instead, the risen, the glorified Lord transcended both earth and heaven; and yet, even in His transcendence, He maintained His intimate Human touch with both heaven and earth, by virtue of the fact that the Divine had become an individual Human, and as such
was competent to maintain that touch which is possible only to the human form and structure, that is, a touch with all the create planes of life, which involved, not only the full presence of the Divine Human on those planes, but also its visibility to the spiritual sight of
angels, and as well to the inward sight of those men who, like the angels, worship the Lord glorified.
If, by glorification, man became God, and if by the same token God procured for Himself an individual Human, which now stands in place of the ancient Divine Human, - the Divine, as conditioned by the
celestial angels, - then may we conclude that there is a marked difference, not only in the relation of this individual Human of God to men and angels, on the one hand, but also to the Divine Itself, on the other. And both of these conclusions are strictly borne out by the
teachings of the Writings.
This teaching is, that by the procuration of an individual Human, God not only drew nearer to man, but the Human procured also became more fully united with the Divine in se, or the Father, than was
possible to the former, the ancient Divine Human. This has a strange sound. But consider. The former Divine Human, while clearly Divine in Itself, was yet at all points involved in finite human relations, in that it was embodied in a multitude of angels, imperfect beings at
best, on which account that Divine partook, as it were, of the angels' imperfections, and was in that degree separate or apart from the Divine above the heavens, because of its being drawn down into so many incomplete forms of recipiency. It was because of this that the ancient
Divine Human, at the call of falling man, was found wanting, unequal to the need. However, its impotency became evident only when the need arose for the exercise of a greater power than that Human was capable of, under the circumstance of its imperfect angelic embodiment. Just
here it was that the individual Human of God, when procured by glorification, fulfilled the need by presenting a perfect medium, at once Divine and Human.
In this it is that Christ is more, inexpressibly more, than all the angels, since He in Himself provides a medium of competent contact and adequate power, - a Divine Human medium individual to God, and
therefore no longer dependent on angelic mediation, with its accompanying fallibilities. Hence the saying, and the truth thereof, that this new and individual Human could be, and therefore became, more one with the Divine Itself than was possible to the former Divine Human with
and among the angels. Necessarily so. For though the angels, in their integrity, received and conditioned the Divine of the Father, making it as if Human, yet such reception by them was always partial, broken, divided into many. Because of this fact, the Divine in and with
the angels did not and could not bring about the glorification of the heavens, that is, of the angels constituting heaven; but this was just that which came to pass with the individual Human assumed, namely, it was truly, fully, and clearly glorified.
The angels, though very good, were ever imperfect; though immortal, they ever remained finite. It was otherwise with our Lord, who, when a man in the world, received into his bosom the Divine fire of Love
and appropriated it to Himself, and was thereby glorified, so that even as to His Body He was exalted above the heavens. But here let me repeat, that in so doing, or in so becoming, He did not vanish from spiritual sight, was not lost to view in the primordial Infinite, but
that, in making His Human Divine, He at the same time, and by a reciprocal process, made His Divine Human, which now outstands as the very God of heaven and earth. This outstanding Human is now visible to every spiritual eye, is now competent to every human need, and equal to
every adaptation called for by human states of life; and this apart from, though of mercy joined with, angelic administrations. This, then, is that Divine Human of which the Scripture and the Writings bear testimony.
II.
It is not my purpose in this paper to inquire as to whether this individual Human of God, this personal Divine Man, requires some special physical basis in nature, some peculiar ultimate foothold, as in
the reliquiae of the former material body, in order to bind and hold the proprial Human in form and permanent standing, that is, to hold it back from relapsing into the invisible Infinite; or whether, on the other hand, the derivation and production from the infinite Divine into
the mold of the human organic was of such virtue, and carried with it such self-potency and permanency of form, as to enable it to maintain itself in the lines and flow, the function and service, of the Human form Divine, and this by virtue of its own inherent composition,
whereby it presents an outstanding Divine Human, not other than the Infinite, yet as a new issue thereof, derivative from the Infinite, and composed to finite human needs. To me this latter is unbelievable. But in any case we must acknowledge the Divine Human as a permanent
accommodation, an abiding conditionment of the Infinite to finite human reception. This is fundamental.
Certainly the ancient Divine Human was also an accommodation of the Infinite, and as such still holds, and will ever hold; that is, as long as the heavens endure and angels continue to be. But that Human
no longer stands alone. It is now sustained, around and about, beneath and above; for it is embodied within the individual Human of Christ the Lord, whose lifelines not only encompass the former Divine Human, but also infill and enclose total creation, spiritual and natural.
But is there here any differing from the original status of the former creative Divine, - the Word in the beginning? And did the glorifying of the Human of Christ make any change in and from the original
Divine? Did it result in any alteration in the modes of the primordial Infinite? For myself, I can only answer in the affirmative. It seems to me that twice within the range of the Infinite procession there came a change of mode. The first was when the lifelines of the pure
and continuous Infinite turned upon themselves as a result of the will to create, thereby producing circling foci in the primal Infinite, in image of the after finites, which foci became the initiaments of creation. And that once again there was given a change of mode when an
individual Divine Human was produced after the manner of man's regeneration, by infilling an individual human form and structure, from inmosts to outmosts, with Divine Life, which Life was thereby so accommodated and adapted, so conditioned by and to the original material human,
that the Divine thereafter maintained Itself as Human, that is, as a Divine Human in likeness to a natural man.
My point is, that the Divine Human of the personal advent, though one with the Infinite, by virtue of its nature and derivation, is not as that Infinite in its inscrutable Infinitude, but is in fact and
now a Human form Divine, in essence Infinite, and one therewith, but in its self-construction, and in likeness to perception as the finite form of man, by which form it was conditioned when by glorification the Divine became Human and the Human Divine. It will be observed that
my thesis turns upon a teaching not so often insisted upon, namely, that by glorification God became Man, - the Divine Human, - and the Infinite as if finite.
Now the Infinite is in the finite of its creation always and everywhere, though it bears no ratio thereto. Yet it may be said that, as the Infinite is thus in the finite, it is there so conditioned that
it may be therein as if finited. However, if once the finite be destroyed, the Infinite therein will resume its own Infinite status; that is, it will no longer be as if finited, but become again the pure continuous Infinite.
But let us suppose that on some occasion, on one occasion, by Divine miracle, there was given a process of Divining other than that of mere destruction of the finite, other than a simple process of
elimination, - namely, a process of glorification whereby the finite, even as the bush at Sinai, burned with Divine fire, and yet was not destroyed, and this because that finite, by a graded process of elimination and restoral, was so infilled with the Divine that, while it became
one therewith as to the substance thereof, it nevertheless retained its adaptation to finition. This is but a crude illustration of that which we may presume to have come to pass with the body of the Lord at its glorification, His finite body. And certainly that body was once
finite, and must needs have undergone a gradual change, - a change from material to Divine substantial, which enabled it me and more to meet, receive, and incorporate in itself the descending fire of Divine Love.
What shall we say of this process? What of the result? And what of the original finite organism which was the base of the operation?
The process in question was indeed one of elimination and restoral, so far as the body was concerned. The result in the end, however, was not a mere relapse into the abstract Infinite, but an outstanding
Divine Human, maintained as one with the Infinite, though this oneness was not a simple identity or sameness. This oneness was that of a body in perfect correspondence with its soul; only in this case there was an infinitely perfect correspondence (A. C. 1414), as of an
Infinite Soul with a body made Divine. This was a correspondence such as had never existed between the soul and body of any man or any thing, but only in the case of our Lord; for such an infinite and perfect correspondence could be given only between an Infinite Soul and a
Divine Body.
At this point I refrain from calling the glorified Body of the Lord infinite, lest it be taken as abstractly infinite, and vanish from the sight of thought; but instead, I would speak of it as Divine and
also Human. For it seems to me that, by its glorification, the body maintained its as if finite form and quality, for the sake of its presence and address in and with the actual finite form of man; that is to say, the Divine Human retained that human conditionment called in the
Writings its "accommodation," which was insisted on by the infillment of the material human vessel with the Divine. Such infillment was the necessary mode by which the Divine took upon Itself the lines and structure of the Human Body, and, it seems to me, took them on in
perpetuity, and now and ever maintains that Human form Divine, even by a new flow and movement within and from the In- finite. It seems to me that, by virtue of this fact, our Lord may now present Himself in His own Divine Human form before the eyes of spirits and angels.
It may be held that a new movement, a different flow within and from the Infinite, is inconceivable, since the Infinite comprises all possible movements at all times. But this is an abstraction, from
which it may be dangerous to reason with severe logic, since to do so would not allow of that notable change in the movement of the Infinite which arose from the will to create. If it be held that there always was an ultimate will to create, it follows of necessity that
creation always was; and this is not tenable. We must assume a time when the will to create effected itself; for then, and not until then, creation arose, and this by virtue of a change of movement within the Infinite. And so also there was a time when the Divine willed to
take to Itself a human form create, and glorify it. This also involved a change of movement in and from the Infinite. And this I think we must allow, in the face of the truth that the Infinite is ever the same and changeless, from eternity to eternity.
But the things here said are of necessity according to the appearance, and, as it were, in a manner of speaking. The word "change" may not always have the same significance. Yet the fixed power of words
is great, and we can never be quite rid of their dominance, so as to reason from pure ideas; and even ideas are limited things, and more or less in the way. Also, there is ever the danger of too much abstraction, especially in our thought of the Lord and His Infinity. We are
warned that we cannot grasp the Infinite, and are admonished to direct our thought to the Divine Human.
Happily, we are given to see that Human in the New Testament, and the impression of Him there can never be effaced. We are also given in the Writings a revelation of the inner modes of His glorification,
and this revelation demonstrates His union with the Father, and thereby confirms the New Testament vision of His Person. And while this demonstration exalts His Humanity to Divinity, yet it does not permit His Person to vanish in the infinite void, but, on the contrary, gives a
counter - revealing of that Infinite in the Human form Divine, - a manifesting of the Father in the Son, whose glorious beauty and world-compelling love takes hold of the hearts of men with redeeming power. And this, because of the veritable Divinity made manifest in His Person, in
His Human so aptly called in the Writings the "Divine Human," - a phrase of seeming contradiction, indeed, but this to the end that men may by reflection grasp the fact that, if the Human by glorification became Divine, then it must needs be that by a reciprocal mode the Divine
also became Human. And if we have grasped this last, we shall, I think, have in mind that deep secret without which we may fail to comprehend, even in a general way, the essential virtue, and as well the especial purpose, involved in the fact and process of glorification.
The point in question has been stated with some iteration, because it involves the definition of a counter-process to that expressed in the almost invariable formula employed in the Writings, namely, that
"by glorification the Human was made Divine. This is the phrase everywhere current. It is also the outstanding fact of His progressive glorification; that is, we see Him at the beginning of His life, and outwardly, as human; at the end of His life, we perceive Him as Divine.
His obvious progression was, as it were, from the human to the Divine. Hence the constantly recurring phrase, that "by glorification He made His Human Divine. Only once, to my knowledge, is the other, the counter-process, which we have called the "Humanizing of the Divine,"
formulated concurrently with the first and usual formula. In Arcana Coelestia 2034, it is said that "when in the Lord the Human was made Divine, and the Divine Human, then was there given an influx of the infinite with man which could not otherwise have existed. In brief, when the
Divine was made Human, then was the Infinite accommodated, because by that means only could it be adapted to human reception. Note the confirmatory statement in Arcana Coelestia 6982, that "in order to be heard, the Divine must first become Human. This of old by passing through the
heavens, but now by virtue of the interrelation between the Divine and its own or proprial Human.
However, we are not dependent for our knowledge of this Humanizing of the Divine upon the phrasing of a single number, for the principle thereof is clearly given in all that is said concerning the
glorification as a reciprocal process of union. The term "reciprocal" implies an advance to union on both sides. (A. C. 2004.) From the Infinite or Jehovah side, the advance was from good, while from the Human the advance was from truth. (A. C. 2005.) Approximation was
accomplished, however, by the Divine putting on something natural, and the Human putting on the celestial. (A. C. 2137.)
Another statement is, that the Lord continually implanted the Human in the Divine, in order that a reciprocal marriage might take place. (A. C. 2574.) And this union was effected on the part of the Human
by Truth, and on the part of the Divine by Good. (A. C. 2665.) Hence that which is called the Divine Human came forth from the Divine Good, and was born of the Divine Truth. (A. C. 3194.) It was not born of the Virgin. The Truth in the Human thus became receptive of the Divine
Love descending. (A. C. 6834.) And this progressively; for it was by virtue of the fact that the Human, in its development, formed itself into successive receptacles, into which the Father might enter. (T. C. R. 73.) And so it follows that the Human gradually "acquired" the
Divine. And it is stated that, when the Human had in this way "acquired so much of the Divine," the Lord could then unite the Divine Itself to the acquired Divine. (A. C. 2636.)
Here, then, we see as it were two Divines, - the one above, the other below, the one of the Infinite extense, the other in the Human form. And in that form the Divine was "acquired. These two Divines were
for a time as distinct, yet were to be united by glorification. The point to note is, that the "acquired" Divine stood as below in Human formation, - as the Divine Humanized. Moreover, we are given to believe that, when this lower Human Divine was reunited with the Supreme, it
was not thereby dehumanized, else it could never have been said that the Divine Human stood forth an Essence by Itself. And it is to be further noted that the bearing of many revealed teachings is, that the Divine Human did so stand forth to be and to become a perpetual
Mediator, without which the Infinite could not be accommodated to human reception. And hence the saying that no truth can pass to angels or men save by way of the Divine Human. (A. C. 2016, 2359, etc.)
This Divine Human is therefore a specialized Human conformation of the Divine, given in mediation; and so it is called the Lord's "proper Divine" (Ath. 119), His "Proprium Divine" (A. C. 4735), and as well
a Human "additamentum" (A. C. 1461), which, by virtue of its Divine self-potency (A. C. 2025), stood forth as an Essence per se (A. C. 3061), and which, as His own individual Human, made Divine, embodied within Itself, not only the Supreme, but also the former Divine Human,
established aforetime in and with the angels, but which is not now dependent in any degree for its virtue and potency upon any or all of the angels. This Divine Human is Infinite, because of its union with the Father. It is Human, because of its formation in the Person of the
Lord. It is Divine, because of its pure derivation, its clear out-drawing from the unknowable Infinite. It is Human, because this derivation fell into the Human of Christ the Man. This Divine Human, both by virtue of its derivation and its conformation, presents itself upon
all the planes of the human organic in creation, thereby making the Divine adaptable, visible, approachable and conjoinable, to and with the human race, and therefore competent to racial salvation.
How significant, then, is the phrase "Divine Human!" And how that phrase tells the story, not only of our Lord's outer life as a Man in the world, but also of His inner Divine constitution; of His outer
life, as it reveals the Man ascending to and at length becoming God, and of His inner constitution, as it defines the God continually descending and becoming Man; and both of these by and through the miracle process of glorification! And all this in fulfillment of the Divine
will that salvation should be brought within the reach of vast numbers of men who would otherwise be lost, which last was accomplished by the Divine bringing Itself by this means within the purview of men, making Itself visible, and thereby establishing contact, whereby was
opened the way of communion. For without this communion between man and His God, there is no salvation.
