Day: July 10, 2014

THE PARABLE OF THE LAMB

THE PARABLE OF THE LAMB

A Sermon by Rev. James P. Cooper

Preached in Westville, South Africa July 19, 1992

“As the LORD lives, the man who has done this shall surely die!” (2 Samuel 12:5)

David was the greatest of the kings of Israel. It was David who alone could unite the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. It was David who had the strength and the military knowledge to capture the mighty city of the Jebusites and make it his capital, which he then named “Jerusalem,” meaning “possession of peace.” David was known as an able leader of men, a great military genius, a man of great religious passion, and a wise judge over his people. When David was performing his office as king of a united Israel, he, more than any other king in the whole of the Word, represented the royalty and power of God.

On the other hand, David the man was capable of great passion, great cunning, and great cruelty. No other character in the Word shows the contrast between a man and his office so powerfully as David. David first saw Bathsheba while he was walking on the roof of his palace and he saw her bathing on the roof of a neighboring building. Abusing his kingly powers, he commanded that she be brought to him. Later, when David discovered Bathsheba’s pregnancy, he first ordered her husband Uriah home from the battle so he could spend the night at home with her and so believe the child to be his own; but when he refused to spend the night in comfort with his wife while his men and officers were still in battle, David gave orders to put this valiant and loyal leader of men into the hottest part of the battle, and he ordered the other men to then withdraw from him, leaving him to his death. Ironically, Uriah’s sense of honor and respect for his comrades-at-arms was what made it necessary for David to kill him, and even worse, Uriah’s bravery and skill as a warrior were turned against him and used to destroy him. It was this deliberate deception and the use of Uriah’s own honor and virtue to destroy him that sets this crime apart.

David as king represented the Lord. In this context David had committed terrible sins, so we can know that David the man does not represent the Lord, but instead what is opposite to the Lord: a love of self so powerful that it can convince itself that it is above civil, moral, and spiritual law, and so full of the desire to rule over others that it wants to overthrow the Lord Himself and rule in His place. The love of self is seldom so fully developed in people still in the world, but with a little careful and honest self-examination, we all can recognize some degree of this love of self in ourselves.

Everyone comes into selfish states from time to time. The Lord knows this, for He knows our nature. The question is, how does the Lord provide for us to find our way out of these selfish states? How can order and equilibrium be restored to our lives without also destroying our spiritual freedom?

We can see how the Lord gently leads even our most hateful and destructive states in the way that Nathan the prophet brought David back into order. He does not accuse David. He does not threaten him. Nathan simply presented truth to David, and then let him judge himself in comparison to the truth. And so the Lord provides for our states. He has given us the Word in such a form that it does not intrude into our lives. The books lie passively on the shelf until we ourselves pick them up and open them, and even then, unless we read with a genuine desire to learn from the Lord, the Divine within them will be invisible. The Lord never forces Himself into our lives unbidden. We must invite Him in.

Also like the Word, Nathan spoke to David in a parable, a story that contained many hidden levels of meaning, but that did not accuse David of any crime or challenge his authority as a king in any way. The whole of the Word is written in parables, and the Lord Himself says that while in the world, He did not teach except in parables. A parable is a passive way of making a point; that is, the point will not be seen at all unless it is looked for.

Nathan told the story of a rich man who stole the ewe lamb of his poor neighbor so that he could have a nice dinner for a guest. The story was told so that obviously it was not just any lamb, but a family pet as well. The parable was carefully crafted to stir our sympathy for the poor man and his family, and inflame our anger for the cold-hearted rich man who could murder and eat a lamb that was practically a member of the family!

The doctrines tell us that the rich represent those who have many truths and goods from the Lord through the church but who do not put them to any use in their life. They disregard the things of the church. In comparison, the poor are those who, due to circumstances, do not have any good or truth, but still they long for them and wish to have them from the Lord. Those few truths that they do have they love and cherish and bring into their lives.

The image of the little ewe lamb contains many powerful images which are to lead us to think about the opposite of selfishness, that is, the complete and utter trust in the Lord and willingness to follow Him. While all lambs represent innocence (see AC 3994:3), a ewe lamb in particular represents the holiness of innocence (see AC 2720:6). More images were given to illustrate that we are to think about this in terms of the ideal state of our relationship with the Lord. The lamb was like the man’s own daughter, and a daughter represents goods. It ate his food, which represents that he gave it spiritual nourishment, that is, he gave it the things that it needed for spiritual life and growth. It drank from his own cup, that is, he gave the inmost truths that it needed. It lay in his bosom, which means it was conjoined to him by love and mercy.

These images tell us that if we are willing to follow what the Lord teaches in the Word, He will nourish us with spiritual food, He will quench our thirst for spiritual truth, and eventually we will be conjoined with him to eternity in the life of heaven.

On the other hand, there is the symbol of the rich man, the man who has acquired many goods and truths in his lifetime but has hidden them away, as it were, and does not live according to them. Such a man will, when his crimes are discovered, be condemned, that is, he will go to hell.

It is interesting to note that there is an additional penalty upon him: he will also be required to restore the lamb fourfold because he had no pity. No one can replace such a loss, and what would four lambs be to a rich man? How could this add to his punishment when he has already been condemned to death? The only reason that this additional punishment is mentioned is for the sake of the internal sense, for it tells us something further about our own states. The lamb was to be restored fourfold because the man had no pity. On the other hand, the Lord has compassion for everyone, and He teaches that anyone who does not also have compassion for others cannot be conjoined with Him, for all conjunction is of love. You cannot be conjoined to someone if your loves are totally different (see AC 904:2). It is also true that those people who have been gifted with a sense of perception know that whenever they feel compassion toward another, they are admonished by the Lord and their conscience to render aid. In this we are reminded of the parable of the Good Samaritan (see AC 6737).

Another aspect of evil that is brought out by this parable is how the evildoer so often commits his evils so that they are obvious to many, yet he can convince himself that they are not known to others. It seems that in his own mind David actually believed that he could take Bathsheba from Uriah, have her become pregnant while Uriah was away at battle, and then order his soldiers to abandon Uriah so he would die in battle without anyone noticing this chain of events. How often does it happen that we do things that we think are secret when yet they are well known to our friends and family who, out of friendship or embarrassment, have simply declined to mention them? It’s likely that we have all known people who have practiced a vice in what they believed to be secret when yet it was obvious to all what they were doing. We will speak more about this in a few moments. This shows how powerful self-deception and self-justification can be.

David believed that he could hide his adultery by committing murder, but his foolishness and sinfulness were painfully obvious to all. It is true that some evils can be kept secret in the world, but when in the spiritual world, as spirits enter the second state, the state of their interiors, they no longer care what others think, and their behavior becomes one with their interior loves. In this way all spirits can see their evils, and those who are good can reject them. Eventually all sins, whether done in secret or openly, will be made known. “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36); also “For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops” (Luke 12:2,3).

We often find ourselves in a position like that in which Nathan the prophet found himself. We don’t know whether David and Nathan were friends, but Nathan was the chief prophet of the Lord, and so he would have a position of some respect in David’s court. He was no doubt free to come and go, and was frequently present to give counsel on important decisions. Also, in his office as a priest, Nathan was under a moral obligation to act as a watchman and condemn David for his open sin and call him to repentance. But, as a man, Nathan was afraid. David had already killed one important and powerful counselor because of his infatuation with Bathsheba. Was there not good reason to suspect that David might even kill the Lord’s prophet under these circumstances?

Do we not also find ourselves in a similar situation from time to time where we see a friend or loved one traveling on a course which we clearly see to be headed for disaster? We feel conflicting emotions. On the one hand we want to say something to make our friend stop doing what we know to be evil or foolish. On the other hand, we are reluctant to say anything that our friend will regard as critical because he or she may then be angry with us and say hurtful things. This puts us in a very unhappy state as we try to decide between two difficult paths. Our conscience will not allow us to let the evil go on, and our natural affection for our friend does not wish to say anything that might cause pain.

When we find ourselves in these circumstances, it could be helpful to follow Nathan’s example. As a priest, he had to condemn David’s sins. As a man, he feared for his own life. So he found a middle ground; he used the parable of the lamb to cause David to judge himself. The important principle that is illustrated here is that it is the truth that judges people, not other people. By presenting the truth to David, David judged himself in the light of that truth, and because he saw himself in the light of truth, there was no anger, no need for revenge upon Nathan.

The parable of the lamb, and the circumstances that made it necessary, give us a complete and powerful picture of the love of self and the evil and cruelty it is capable of when allowed to run unchecked. As David himself said while unknowingly condemning his own actions, “The man who has done this shall surely die” (text). There can be no spiritual life for the person who puts himself above all things in the world, above the needs of all people in the world, and who in his heart wishes to pull the Lord down from His throne and rule in His place (for all these things dwell in the interior degrees of selfishness). Unless unless such a person is led to the truth in the Word to judge himself in its light; unless he can see his evils for himself; unless he prays to the Lord for help in removing them; unless he shuns them and begins to live a new life. Then he will not die. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat of the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isaiah 1:18-20). Amen.

Lessons: 2 Samuel 12:1-7, Mark 1:1-11, AC 904:2

Arcana Coelestia 904:2

The presence of the Lord is predicated according to the state of love toward the neighbor and of faith in which the man is. In love toward the neighbor the Lord is present, because He is in all good; but not so much in faith, so called, without love. Faith without love and charity is a separated or disjoined thing. Wherever there is conjunction there must be a conjoining medium, which is nothing else than love and charity, as must be evident to all from the fact that the Lord is merciful to everyone, and loves everyone, and wills to make everyone happy to eternity. He therefore who is not in such love that he is merciful to others, loves them, and wills to make them happy cannot be conjoined with the Lord, because he is unlike Him and not at all in His image. To look to the Lord by faith, as they say, and at the same time to hate the neighbor is not only to stand afar off, but is also to have the abyss of hell between themselves and the Lord, into which they would fall if they should approach nearer, for hatred to the neighbor is that infernal abyss which is between.

THE RESURRECTION

THE RESURRECTION

The Process of Resuscitation

Paul, in his famous but somewhat vague description of the resurrection, given in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (ch. xv) , imagined that the quick and the dead, on the sounding of the judgment trumpet, would all be changed and put on immortality “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” For Paul, in his youth, sat at the feet of Gamaliel, the celebrated Jewish rabbi, and he reflects much of the doctrine of the Pharisees, who believed in a last judgment day common to the living and the dead.28

In the Writings, however, it is revealed that the resurrection of man is individual, and that it occurs not in the twinkling of an eye but as a process, a gradual change of state. Death is indeed sudden, in the sense that there is a moment when the spirit’s departure is unavoidable. But the resurrection is a process—a gradual adjustment of the spirit to conscious, free life in the eternal world.

Death occurs when the two vital motions, the respiration of the lungs and the beating of the heart, cease, and the body, deprived of the life of the spirit, grows cold and begins to decay. But until the heart’s motion is entirely stopped the spirit continues in the body “for a short time.”29 And even after the body is apparently cold, life may with some persist as conscious thinking. The spirit can of course not have any sensation of its natural environment— since respiration has stopped—nor can it move even a particle of the gross matter of the body.30 The spirit, though definitely severed from the body, may still abide in it, by virtue of the “finest substances of nature” which are not affected by death but are retained by the spirit as a “limbus” which eventually “recedes” as a cutis-like covering.31 These substances would not leave the body until the “interior corporeals” grow cold. The thought here described would be tranquil and unaffected by the state of the body.32

Death is, in a manner, like sleep; for in sleep celestial agencies are at work to relax and restore man’s body and mind. But the celestial angels who attend man’s resuscitation are concerned with preserving the sense of the continuity of life. They are drawn to man on the faintest notion of the approach of death, or whenever the proprium of man is awe-struck with fear or paralyzed by uncertainty. Their presence is felt in the spiritual world as an aromatic odor, which causes evil spirits to flee.33 And it is due to their wise ministrations that the spirit of a dying man is held in the last thought which he entertains as he is expiring—a thought which is commonly about eternal life. The celestial angels have the effect of quieting all man’s own affections—all his anxiety, impatience, revenge, lust, and ambition. This the Lord accomplishes by temporarily cutting off any communication with the attendant spirits which man had himself invited while on earth, or with any societies in the world of spirits or in hell. Man thus becomes passive, as if in sleep. Indeed, these spirits then suppose that man is dead. For as the poets have noted, Death is but the somber sister of Sleep.34 And the angels breathe no accusation, no reproach, whatever man’s quality had been. For “they love every one,” seeing not his proprium, but the “remains” of celestial good with which the Lord has endowed every man from childhood.35

Thus man’s mind becomes docile as a babe’s. His thought, guided by angelic affections, is drawn out—vaguely but persistently—while a blissful feeling of security enwraps him. This single thought, sensed as a soothing monotone, is like a narrow bridge whereon the spirit is borne up without sense of time or self-consciousness, and is carried across the abyss which we call Death, into the land of Resurrection.

The Three Stages of Resuscitation

All those who die, whether good or evil, are received in the spiritual world as welcome guests.36 But their introduction is gradual, by orderly stages.

That he might learn something of these successive stages, Swedenborg was reduced into a state resembling that of a dying person.37 This occurred on the morning of March 1, 1748. His spirits then withdrew, thinking that he was dead, because his proprial affection was taken away. His heart beat was normal while his respiration became tacit; he became insensible of the world and yet remained conscious so that he remembered what occurred.

By means of this experience he was instructed how a spirit is prepared for his resurrection—how he is received first by celestial angels, later by spiritual angels, and finally by good spirits more akin to his own life; and how, “on the third day,” he awakens into the world of spirits, to take up his own life where he left it off.38

These three states of resuscitation precede his final awakening in the world of spirits which takes place “on the third day.”39There is need for such an introductory period and for a brief recapitulation of the spiritual history of his life. The Lord needs to reorient the spirit around the celestial and spiritual remains and surviving moral states which evil has not destroyed and which were the Lord’s own creations in his mind. Soon enough the spirit will resume control of his own life, follow the biddings of his proprial affections, and begin the journey towards the goal of his ruling love. But first the Lord needs to revive and integrate what is of the Lord’s own with man, and thus marshal the saving elements in the rising spirit. And this—the gathering and organizing of all “remains” and the removal and quieting of the trivial worries of natural life, must be done for the evil as well as for the good.

It is the Lord who is the Resurrection and the Life. (John 11:25) The resuscitation of man’s spirit is effected by the living and mighty attraction of the Lord’s mercy, who said, “And I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto Me.”40

The inmost “soul” of man is the abode of the Lord and the medium of His unimpeded influx by which He, by Himself, organizes and builds both spirit and body. He needs no angelic assistance in that work, or in the gathering of such “human internals” to Himself.41 Neither angel nor man is aware of His secret labors.

But the “spirit,” or mind, is formed in the sphere of angels and spirits. And in the order of its building, the celestial angels came first to assist. It is through them that the interiors of the minds of every man are furnished in infancy with those celestial “remains” which made a beginning for all that is orderly and rational and human in man. It is these same angels “of the province of the heart”42—who are now the first to assist in the reconstruction of the mind of the spirit from within, from the innocent states of infancy, for its adaptation to a purely spiritual environment.

With every one who dies, two celestial angels also generally appear seated near his head.43 These seem to be in meditation-communicating their thoughts without words or images, and by as it were “inducing their faces” upon the spirit; and when their thoughts are recognized as theirs, and not the spirit’s own, they know that the spirit can be withdrawn from the body.44 They maintain man’s final thought, however, lest man’s identity be lost in the transition. For in all change there must be an inner connective. And for all their own desire to hold the spirit in their sphere the celestials will nothing more than the freedom of man. And after a time the spirit begins to gravitate towards externals-unable to sustain the profound peace of innocence and selfless love.45

The celestial angels do not leave the resuscitating spirit, but act more remotely.46 But the spirit now requires something they cannot give. His first need was one of spiritual warmth, for a revival of that inmost motivation of innocence from which his infant heart had begun to beat. His new need is one for spiritual sight. And even as in each child and youth, the spiritual heavens superintend the storing up of spiritual “remains” of truth and intellectual sight, which intimately correspond to the societies of the second heaven,47 so now these remains must be revived for use in the new spiritual environment.

So far, in the background of the spirit’s thought, there was a dim idea that he was still living in the body.48 But when spiritual angels approach from the province in the Grand Man which answers to the tunics of the eyes, they seek to communicate by visual representations and thereby to give spiritual light—the light which reveals the spiritual world.49 The appearance to the spirit is as if they gently rolled off a tunic from his eyes, until dim light begins to show through — like the light of the newly awakened before the eyelids are opened; or like what took place with the blind man whom the Lord cured and who at first saw only “men, as trees, walking.”50 Various types of imagery present themselves as their vision clears—presaging a new sight which sees in concrete fashion that which man before had perceived only as abstractions. This is effected by a removal or sinking back of corporeal ideas.51Something seems to be unveiled from the spirit’s face — which represents his passing from natural thought into the type of thinking that is common to all in the after-life. And with this a new sense-perception is given by degrees. In some cases the spirit is enveloped by a golden light and he is given a feeling of happiness and gladness—a feeling of the commencement of a new life. And he is then told that he is a spirit!52 He can look about him and see spiritual things in the customary symbolism of his thought — as if they were natural.53 But the spiritual angels delight to inform him about eternal life and, if he had been in faith or at least in some external belief in heaven, they will show him the wonders of the heavenly mansions—as if in a prophetic preview.54

The Arcana Coelestia reveals concerning the dying, that “scarcely a day intervenes after the death of the body before they are in the other life.”55 And on the cross the Lord said to the penitent robber, “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.”56 Perhaps this refers to the paradises which the spiritual angels show to the rising spirits! In one case Swedenborg may have been present with other angels at this stage of the resurrection process. For he tells that he spoke to Eric Brahe twelve hours after the latter had been executed.57

When a spirit is informed by the spiritual angels that he is a spirit, this does not seem to cause him any surprise. His state seemingly is still passive—as man is in a dream. But with the consciousness of life there usually comes also “self-consciousness”— with a revival of old desires. Even instruction about heaven wearies him eventually, and so he withdraws himself from the spiritual angels.

Next, he finds himself in a society of good spirits—presumably angels of the natural or lowest heaven, where truths are taught by representations. The spirit man seems to himself to be in the flower of his youth and riding a horse which, strangely enough, cannot move a step although he is directing it towards hell!58 He then dismounts and walks—being instructed that his reasonings would lead him astray unless he was guided by knowledge which distinguishes between right and wrong. The good spirits among whom he now is, do not at first know his quality.59 But they delight to show him every kindness—evoking so far as possible the states of moral good and the virtues which he had made his own.60

But actually the spirit is sinking back towards the state of life in which he was when death overtook him. The process of resuscitation is not complete until he has returned into his customary sphere of thought, and “associates himself with those who are in full agreement with his former life in the world, among whom he finds as it were his own life… .” “. .. After sinking back into such a life, he makes a new beginning of life. . . .”61

Resurrection on the Third Day

The Lord’s death and resurrection are often taken as a model of man’s transition. The Lord suffered a violent death on the cross at about three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and rose from the sepulchre in His glorified Human at dawn on the following Sunday; thus after about thirty-eight hours had elapsed. This period is referred to in the expressions “on the third day” and “after two days.”62 The Hebrews sometimes used the phrase “three days” counting each part of a day as one day; and, in a hyperbole, the Lord once predicted His abode in the tomb as lasting “for three days and three nights”—the significant number “three” being emphasized to indicate completeness.63

It might be observed that the apostle Peter states that the Lord, being put to death in the flesh, was “quickened by the Spirit; by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.”64The implication is that “when He rose again” He descended “into the lower regions” of the world of spirits and liberated these captive souls.65 The Lord may have been present spiritually and indeed visibly with them even during His sojourn in the tomb. No such activity is shown by the spirit of man during the process of his resuscitation. For man is then in a state of passivity.

The consistent doctrine of the Writings is that man rises into the world of spirits on the third day. All that befalls before this is a preparation. And of this preparation, described above, we read in the work Heaven and Hell:

“This opening (exordium) of man’s life after death does not last more than some days. . . .” “I have talked with some on the third day after their death, and then those things which were described above (nos. 449, 450) had been accomplished.” The spirit’s entrance into the world of spirits “takes place shortly after his resuscitation, as described above.”66

The separation of the spirit from the body is said to be completed mostly “on the second (altero) day after the last agony,” and thus most are introduced into the spiritual world “after a period of two days,”67 or “on the third day after he has expired.”68The spirit, on the third day, thus awakes into the state of his corporeal memory, and it appears to him as if he was still in the body and “that the time elapsed since death has been only as a sleep,” with lingering memories of dreams beyond recapture.69

He now begins to attract to himself such spirits, good or evil, as agree with his own affections or cupidities. He has forgotten the premonitory instructions of the angels.70 His corporeal memory of earthly events becomes again active in a brief revival. This is necessary in order that death may be shown to be a continuation of normal life and thus assure the continuity of his personality. He begins his own life de novo by taking up the pattern of his memory as it existed at the moment of his death.71 Thus “every one, in the first days after death, knows no otherwise than that he lives in the same world in which he was before. For the time since passed is as a sleep, from which, when he is awakened, he does not perceive otherwise than that he is where he was.”72