The foregoing spells the as-of-oneself. That phrase is
unique to the Writings--but it means everything! It means, to wit,
that whereas man can do nothing whatever of or from himself, yet he
can understand, will, and do all things within the scope of creation,
if he knows how to do this from the Lord. All things are possible
to him that believeth (Mark 9:23). Particularly is it possible for
man to reach out for the gift of salvation: for he can examine himself
in the light of Revelation--thus as of himself; and he can repent of
his ways and of his prejudices: can think from the Word and act from
the Word, and so lead a new life; and he can fight the battle of
spiritual temptation by wielding the sword of truth against his
internal foes, the foes of his own household (Matt. 10:36) all as of
himself.
As stated in the Faith of the New Heaven and the New
Church man is to acknowledge that the Lord God the Saviour Jesus
Christ is the one God, and that there is no other saving faith than
faith in Him; that evil must not be done because it is of the devil;
and that good is to be done because it is of God; and that these
things ought to be done by man as of himself; but that he should
believe that they are from the Lord with him and through him (TCR 3).
That man thus acts from the Lord with him is clear;
but that the Lord thereby acts through him must be specially
understood. The Lord so acts only in one sense. Reflect on the good
act of man! What does it do? What does it accomplish? An act of the
hand--a word of the lips.... There is some physical effect, of course.
But what of the effect on the other persons spirit? That is, what of
the effect that endureth? There a man can accomplish nothing whatever,
save in the sense that the Divine Spirit which prompted our act or our
word, may also operate in the person who is the object of our act or
word. What came from us served as an agent. The Lord allowed man to
have a share in the kingdom of uses: His kingdom. Not that He cannot
operate upon our fellow without our agency; but that He gives us to
have a share for our sake, for it is only thus that our spirit can
live in Him. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it
abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me (John 15:4).
It was the Spirit, operating with our fellow, that gave the new
understanding, that kindled the warm affection, that gave the
blessing. We did not do that. We only passed on the vehicle--the act,
the spoken word--in which the Divine could be. As the doctrine has it:
The Holy, which is meant by the Holy Spirit, is not transferred from
man to man, but from the Lord through man to man (Canons of the New
Church, The Holy Spirit IV:5).
If we have understood this properly, then we have seen
that there is nothing Divine inherent in our act itself. or our word;
just as there is nothing Divine inherent in us, or as part of us. The
Holy Spirit, that is, the Divine Proceeding, never becomes mans, but
it is constantly the Lords with him (Canons, H. Sp. IV:3). It is only
that whatever is done or said from the Lord, has the Lord within it.
It is in fact in no other way that He is God-with-us:
God-with-the-man.
Keeping in mind, then, that what we do or say never is
or becomes Divine, we can understand why it is that the Writings
insist that in another sense the Lord does not act through man. Thus
it is not as though our act was the Lords act. What we do is too
limited, too pitiful, to compare even the most remotely with the Lords
own acts, namely those of the Holy Spirit.
Thus consider the following: When the Word is present
in any degree of fullness in the internal of a man, he then speaks and
acts of himself from the Word, and not the Word through him (TCR 154).
This teaching is given to illustrate the point that the Lord acts of
Himself from the Father, and not the reverse; and it thus gives a
direct link between the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine
of the as-of-oneself.
Of himself from the Word--that precisely is what the
as-of-oneself means. But not the Word through him! That is to say: Man
is called upon to draw for himself freely from the storehouse of
infinite power latent in all that the Lord has revealed, and is in no
way subjected to an overruling influence regardless of his consent.
And how this is indeed the Lord Himself and man working together--the
Lord operating out of Himself from the Father who is His Soul, and the
man responding as if of himself--is still further shown as we read on
in the same passage: It is the name with the Lord, because He Himself
is the Word; that is, the Divine truth and the Divine good therein.
The Lord acts of Himself, or from the Word, in and upon man, but not
through him, because a man in freedom acts and speaks from the Lord,
when he does so from the Word (TCR 154).
All of this establishes, once again, the truth that
the Lord operates as the Holy Spirit only in and out of His Word; only
as the Spirit and Life which is in all that proceedeth out of His
mouth. That is how the Holy Spirit becomes visible. That is how a man
may meet and work with his God--the Lord operating in and upon man,
giving enlightenment, enkindling affections; and the man speaking and
acting of himself from that which has been so awakened by his Lord and
his Master. This is speaking and acting, not from, yet as from
oneself--in perfect freedom and in agreement with ones reason.
The Scope of the As-of-self
We said that all things within the scope of creation
are open to the as-of-oneself. But let the Writings themselves clarify
this point: It is to be noted that although the Lord works all things,
and man nothing from self, yet His will is that man should work as if
from self in all that comes to his perception. For without mans
co-operation as if from self there can be no reception of good and
truth, thus no implantation or regeneration. For to will is the Lords
gift to man; and because the appearance to man is that this is from
self, He gives him to will as if from self. (AE 911:17).
It will be seen, then, how it is that the New
Christian Church is to be the crown of all the Churches that have
hitherto been in the world, because it will worship one visible God,
in whom is the invisible God as the soul is in the body (TCR 787). The
first Christian Church did not do that. It fell away. Instead of
preaching obedience to the Commandments, it set up for itself an
atonement that was vicarious. Instead of opening up the
understandingand the heart--of all, by showing the mercy of the Lord
the Saviour in calling upon man to act in his own freedom and in
agreement with his own reason, yet from the truth that makes free and
gives light, it gave the dogma of faith as alone saving; faith in the
memory, faith from the Hand Book of the Church, incomprehensible
faith, blind faith, external persuasive traditional faith, dead
faith--a faith destroying the Church, destroying the spirit of man.
Well then may these words again be applied to a Church
that has passed away: Ye made the commandments of God of none
effect by your tradition (Matt. 15:6); and well may these other
words again turn to a Church that is new: Henceforth I call you not
servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but I have
called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I
have made known unto you (John 15:15).
At this day He as it were repeats those words, for
even as in His first advent He revealed from the Father--from the
Divine within Him--all that they could then receive, so He looked to
His second advent, saying: I have yet many things to say unto you,
but yet cannot bear them now. The time cometh when I shall shew you
plainly of the Father (John 16:12, 25); which means revealing His
Divine in full glory. That is why that saying takes on a renewed
meaning by virtue of the giving of the Revelation of the Second
Coming--All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known
unto you. In His Human He speaks again from His Divine.
The Visible God and the As-of-oneself
I have called you friends--His friends know their
Lord. They see Him, worship Him, follow Him. He is the Lord God Jesus
Christ, standing forth in His glorified Divine Human in the internal
sense of the Word now laid open. He speaks out of the Word, which is
glorified with Him, and out of the Word He acts in man and upon him.
The Old and New Testaments have been made new, because they have been
opened. They speak in the language of the Writings. The whole
three-fold Word, as we now have it, yields nothing but the Heavenly
Doctrine--the Doctrine as known to angels, only clothed for us in a
language taken from the earth. It was the Son of man--the Lord as the
Word--who was glorified; and it is the Son of Man who reveals His
glory. They shall see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory (Matt. 24:30).
The truths of the Heavenly Doctrine are all truths
from good; Divine, eternal truths from Divine, infinite good. The
truths act in and upon the understanding. They shine forth--the man
being willing--from the Divine statements of Doctrine. And the good
within the truths, accommodated by means of a Divine transflux through
the heavens, thus through angelic spheres, acts at the same time in
and upon the affections of the will. Earthly language, angelic
spheres: these are the finite coverings, through which and out of
which the Divinely Human One, the Lord of the kingdom and upon the
understanding.
In and upon the thoughts of man; in and upon his
affections. My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher
than your thoughts (Is. 55:8, 9). He calls upon man to produce his
own thoughts, to give flow and direction to his own affections and
then to do his own acts and speak his own words. But all are to be
from the Lord with him. Then the acts of man and his spoken words
will, bear the testimony of the Lord to the neighbour; and as a mans
words and acts awaken thoughts and affections with the neighbour, so
the Lord acts in and upon the neighbour. It is in that sense the Lord
acts through a man; thus not because the words and acts of man are the
Lords acts and words, but because by virtue of Divine merciful
presence they are from the Lord.
It is very clear then, that there could be no
as-of-oneself, if the Lord had not made Himself visible. Ye in Me,
My words in you (John 15:7). Was there, therefore, no such thing
as the as-of-oneself before the Lord came into the world? The answer
is that the Lord has always been visible in some measure. (That is,
capable of being seen). But before His coming in the Flesh He could
not have been seen in the natural. Instead there could only be a
representation of Him in the natural. Thus He was envisioned but
vaguely, obscurely, as behind a curtain; as the Ark of the Covenant
was envisioned only by virtue of the protrusion of the carrying staves
into the veil that separated the holy of holies from the holy place in
the Tabernacle. The point is that men have always been able to form
some idea of God. Otherwise they could not have been free. They would
have had no as-of-self.
But before His coming into the world they could not
see Him rationally. For the rational, though turning heavenward, is
seated in the natural mind. In their internal mind they had a general
awareness of God; in the external, or natural, mind they learned by
experience the laws of nature. But what of the link between the two?
What of the true rational, that has its form from the natural and its
essence from the spiritual? There was no other link, save a fragile
one. In the natural, from the spiritual, there was but the
representation, but the effigy, but the remote reminder.
Now the veil has been rent in twain (Matt. 27:51). It
began when the Lord glorified His natural Human, and the hill
invitation to see was given when He revealed what He had glorified.
Hence John in Patmos could testify: And the temple of God was
opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the Ark of His
Covenant (Rev. 11:19).
Accordingly we are taught: The Lord before His coming
into the world was indeed present with the men of the Church, but
mediately through angels who represented Him, but since His coming He
is present with the men of the Church immediately for in the world He
put on also the Natural Divine, in which, He is present with men. The
glorification of the Lord is the glorification of His Human which He
assumed in the world, and the glorified Human of the Lord is the
Natural Divine.... Hence the angels know that the Lord alone, in the
whole spiritual world, is fully Man.... The Lord Himself, indeed,
appeared among the Ancients ... but because He was then only
represented, which was done by means of angels, therefore all the
things of the Church with them were made representative; but after He
came into the world those representations vanished: the interior
reason of which was that the Lord, in the world, put on also the
Natural Divine, and from this He illustrates not only the internal
spiritual man, but also the external natural; which two, unless they
are at the same time illustrated, man is as it were in the shade: but
while both are at the same time illustrated, he is as it were in the
day. (TCR 109).
The dayspring from on high hath visited us.... (Luke
1:78). That is how a new day breaks for the New Christian Church,
which is to be Christian in essence and reality and not only in name
(TCR 668, 700). To it the Lord speaks, saying: I am the bright and
morning Star (Rev. 22:16). To it He is visible as the Omega, the
End, the Last; and not only remotely as the Alpha, the Beginning, the
First. Because He is visible in His Natural Divine Human, therefore He
is visible in fullness. He is God-with-us as never before. He is God
with the as-of-self of man.
