redemption

The heart of Jesus’ message

The heart of Jesus' message

Rituals and imagery are important in helping us understand how the Lord works.
by Rev. Dr. Jonathan S. Rose; transcribed and edited by Chelsea Odhner

Scripture uses wonderfully tangible language to help explain abstract spiritual concepts with examples we know with our senses to demonstrate some very complex ideas. Blood is referenced quite often in the Bible because it is something with which we all have experience. We each live, breath, and have blood flowing through our veins, and so blood is something we recognize and understand. It is likewise with water. When someone describes something as fluid like water, we know what they mean because we visualize the properties of water. This type of scriptural imagery works to make the invisible become visible.

A problem arises when people take this imagery literally, when they believe the tangible element in the Bible is physically how a spiritual action occurs.

Baptism is an example, it stands for a repentance process that we go through. But because the ritual of baptism involves water, many believe it is actually the physical water that becomes holy and washes away their sins.

Then why have rituals or scriptural imagery at all? They are important in helping us understand how the Lord works in our lives. You can’t physically see your whole process of repentance, reformation, and regeneration; it’s interior and it stretches out over years and years. But we know about water. The ritual of baptism is a way for the Lord to communicate with us. He gives us something we can experience in a moment. We can say, “Oh, I get that, because I saw it with my physical eyes. I went there and they took water and there was a kind of washing motion.” It makes the invisible become visible. You can see there’s a washing. Does that mean that the ritual of baptism washes away sins? I submit that it doesn’t, for which there’s powerful scriptural evidence. It serves as a symbol, which we can see, of something otherwise invisible.

To demonstrate my point, let’s look at passages where blood is involved in the remission of sins. Remission is from the Greek word fidhmi meaning literally “to send away.” How do you send away sins? It both means the removal of them and also the forgiveness of them. How are sins remitted or forgiven? In Romans 3:25 we read about Jesus Christ “whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.” Here the blood is involved in not having to pay a penalty for your sins. In Ephesians 1:7 we read again about the Lord, that “in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” Alright, by now you would understandably think that His blood did something to redeem us and forgive our sins.

Colossians 1:14 also tells us that it is the Lord “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” We learn more in Hebrews 9:18-22: “Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.’ Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” A lot of people on the basis of these four scriptures have believed that Jesus’ physical blood was involved in the remission of our sins. However, in Matthew 26: 27-28, which is during the last supper, it says “Then He took the cup,” speaking of Jesus, “and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.’” Here the blood is something for the remission of sins and yet what did he hand them? A cup of wine, not blood! He hands them a cup of wine and he says “this is the blood that forgives your sins.” He’s trying to communicate with us in a language we will understand but also trying to lift our minds. He drives in a bit of a wedge into the literalists’ mindset by handing them a cup and saying, “This is my blood,” when it’s really wine.

In Acts we read that “the God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (5:30-31). That didn’t mention a cup, or wine, or blood! It said repentance! Is blood absolutely necessary if repentance will do it? Does it have to be blood? It said it had to be blood and yet there are these other passages that say it doesn’t have to be blood. So what’s going on?

The Lord has to use physical things that we understand. We don’t understand Divine Truth. We don’t even think it exists. If we think about it, it just seems like some abstraction when in fact it is the living force that fills the spiritual and physical worlds and creates everything. We don’t know anything about that, but we know about blood, so the Lord can describe his Divine Truth as blood.

If you understand blood as Divine Truth, and most specifically, that it’s the instructions for repentance on how to overcome things, that’s why blood has to do with remission of sins. It’s because the blood of the Word, the living blood is truth, but it is truth with a pump! It’s warm truth with a pump that’s serving some purpose. Love is driving this truth out. This is what blood really is—Divine Truth which is the Lord’s love saying, “Here’s the instructions on how to get out of hell; here’s how to overcome the problem that you have; here’s how to be transformed: by practicing repentance.” This is the blood that gives us forgiveness of sins. This is the blood that we have to drink. This is why blood is said to be involved in the remission of sins.

The Rev. Dr. Jonathan Rose is a pastor in Bryn Athyn, PA and works as a translator of Emanuel Swedenborg’s works.

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DAILY INSPIRATION

“The Ten Commandments contain, in brief summary, all things of religion. Through them, the conjunction of God with man and man with God takes place. There is nothing more holy.”

True Christian Religion 283

 

What does it mean to ‘take up our cross daily’?

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by Rev. Dr. Jonathan Rose

Many biblical passages are sometimes cited to support the common idea that the image of the cross refers solely to Jesus’ death on the cross and that this event took away our sins.

In Matthew, an angel appears to Joseph and tells him he must name the baby in Mary’s womb Jesus “for He will save His people from their sins” (1:21). In John 1:29, John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” In John 3, Jesus likens Himself to the brass serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness which cured anyone who looked at it: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14). He goes on to say, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (3:16). Some could interpret these and other passages to mean that Jesus took away our sins through His death on the cross.

Types of crosses

Take-up-our-cross-dailyBut in actuality, Scripture speaks of more than one type of cross. In Luke 9:22, Jesus tells His disciples what’s going to happen to Him at the end of His life: “The Son of Man must suffer many things,…and be killed, and be raised the third day.” Note that he says “killed,” not crucified. Jesus continues, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (9:23).

This interaction took place before Jesus’ death and resurrection. In this conversation, Jesus never told His disciples He was going to be crucified. Crucifixion was reserved for only the worst criminals. There is not a chance the disciples would believe that Jesus was going to be crucified. So what is this cross? Jesus invites us to follow Him in bearing it. He must not be referring to a physical cross, because the disciples had never seen him carrying one. And Jesus says we are to take up our cross daily. How many times can you be crucified physically? Not more than once. So what does it mean to take up our cross daily?

We must allow for two crosses: the physical cross that Jesus died on at the end of His life and some nonphysical “cross” that Jesus was already bearing every day when He made the statement in Luke, and which He invites us to bear as well.

How are we to bear our cross?

Paul says in Galatians, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another…. Those who practice [the works of the flesh] will not inherit the kingdom of God…. [While] those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:16, 17, 21, 24). This passage is talking about crucifixion not as a physical thing but as a spiritual thing, and not as something that Jesus alone went through, but something we have to go through if we are to follow Him. Bearing the cross is the pain of dealing with the burden of our lower nature and warring against its passions. We need Jesus, because we have no power against hell on our own. And yet we have to repent and cooperate in bringing our lower nature into order. That we can do daily.

Jesus’ death was not about redemption; rather, it was His life that redeemed us. Jesus makes this clear when He tells the Pharisees in Luke 13:32, “Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.” The time when he was casting out demons (meaning conquering sin) and performing cures was “today and tomorrow,” meaning during His life; His death, meant by the “third day,” was not about casting out demons; that was a process through which He was perfected and became fully Divine.

In John, Jesus prays to the Father saying He has “finished the work” the Father gave Him to do (17:4). He’s not dead yet, and yet He says He’s finished His work. Redemption is the work that He had finished, that He accomplished during His life. His work of redemption was conquering the hells through bearing His spiritual cross. It was the inner work He did every day of His life. This work gave Jesus the power to take away the sins of the world. We draw on that power when we practice repentance. By a life of repentance we take up our cross daily and follow the Lord.

The Rev. Dr. Jonathan Rose is a minister in Bryn Athyn, PA. He is the series editor and a translator for the New Century Edition of the Theological Works of Emanuel Swedenborg. For more information: jsrose@digitalwave.com.

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FIGHTING SPIRITUAL BATTLES

FIGHTING SPIRITUAL BATTLES
A Sermon by Rev. Thomas L. Kline
Preached in Bryn Athyn July 7, 1994

“Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil” (Luke 4:1,2).

Why do bad things happen? Why do bad things happen in our lives? One person recently made the comment that when he looked at the lives of all his friends, it seemed as if every person was dealing with some big problem or issue in his or her life, now or in the recent past. The problem could have been disease, a death in the family, marital difficulties, or emotional distress. But it seemed to him as if everyone had some big issue to deal with.

Another person made a rather cynical comment. That person worried, not about the people who had big problems in their lives, but about those who hadn’t yet faced a major crisis. The concern was that those who still believed that life was peaceful and free of problems would soon have that innocence taken away.

Not all of us face a crisis. And for some of us, the issues that we deal with in life are open and public; for others, the issues we deal with are more private and personal.

But back to the question: Why do bad things happen? One recent best seller was titled, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? And another best seller began with the sentence, “Life is difficult.”

Sometimes when a bad thing happens, we can explain it by reasoning that bad things are a necessary part of our spiritual journey. When bad things happen, it is part of that “refiner’s fire” that makes us into a stronger person. When a bad thing happens, there is a lesson to be learned, a victory to be won. And this is why the life that leads to heaven not only involves joy and comfort, but also involves pain and the anxiety of spiritual temptation. Spiritual temptation is part of our spiritual growth.

But sometimes things happen in people’s lives that are so bad that this explanation doesn’t seem to work. One person said over the tragic death of a loved one, “If there is some lesson that I am supposed to learn by something as tragic as this, I’d rather not learn it.” There are events of true tragic proportion: the untimely death of a loved one, terrible and painful disease, emotional disturbance and depression, the dissolving of a marriage, abuse, hunger and famine. If we come to believe that somehow the Lord allows or even causes these to happen so that we can learn some important lesson about life, we end up with a pretty terrible idea about God. One person made the comment about such an idea: “God is a bad teacher if He uses tragedy as His lesson plan.”

And so there is one other very important truth given to us in the doctrines of the New Church that helps us to understand tragedy: Bad things, terrible tragedies, are permitted by the Lord, not just so we can learn something new about life; they often happen simply because we are in the midst of a great war between heaven and hell. We happen to live on the battleground of a great war, and that war is taking place right now. It is a spiritual war between heaven and hell. It is the very war the Lord came on earth to fight. And sometimes we, or our friends and loved ones, are innocent victims of that terrible battle.

Imagine a physical war where a bombshell goes off near us, and we suffer pain and anguish, not because of anything we did, but because there is a battle going on and a bombshell went off. The same happens on a spiritual level. The hells do inflict pain and disorder upon us, and we suffer.

Think of a little child who has a painful disease. The disease itself, the pain and suffering, come from hell. That suffering is a physical manifestation of the hatred, anger, and vengeance of hell. And that little child has a painful and disabling disease not because the child was sinful, not because his parents sinned, not because there is some lesson to be learned (although there might be a lesson that is learned), but that child has a terrible disease because the hells are indeed powerful and they wish nothing more than to cause pain and disease and suffering. All bad things physical, mental and spiritual are a result of this great battle between heaven and hell.

We said that we are often innocent victims residing on this great spiritual battleground. This thought can make us feel kind of helpless. And this is why, rather than saying that we are “innocent victims” living on a great spiritual battleground, it is more accurate to say that we are actually “soldiers” who are called by the Lord to be part of the battle. We are soldiers who live on a large battleground, and we are called to fight in the name of the Lord. And this is one of the most important concepts we need to know about our lives, because it gives us a vision of hope and purpose.

We are in the middle of a great war. (Just look around you and within you.) We are soldiers who are part of this great battle between heaven and hell. Even that little child is a soldier, called into the army of the Lord.

When a bad thing happens terrible disease, a terrible death are we just to remain passive? Are we helpless? How can we fight if the terrible thing has already happened? If a little child dies, how can we be victorious over the hells that caused that death?

And here is another key : We fight the spiritual battle as an individual, but the consequences of our victory, no matter how slight, are global. When we, as individuals, fight a spiritual battle against the hells, we help countless millions throughout this world and the spiritual world who are affected by those same hells. When we are spiritually victorious over a particular hell, we lessen the power of that hell, not just for ourselves but for everyone. When tragedy happens take for example, the untimely death of a loved one we can still fight against those very hells that caused the death. And we do this by continuing on our personal spiritual journey of shunning evils as sins against God, by living the Word of God, by not giving up hope. In this battle we fight for all. And when we fight, we fight for all in the Lord’s kingdom now and in future generations.

Why can’t our life be free from pain, suffering, and the anguish of temptation? Why can’t life just be easy and enjoyable?

It is interesting to ask these questions about the Lord’s life. Why couldn’t the Lord’s life, when He was on the earth, just be peaceful? Why did He have to suffer continual temptations, as the Writings say, temptations from the beginning of His life to the very end? Why did He have to begin His ministry by being tempted by the devil for forty days in the wilderness? Why did He have to suffer the awful pain and anguish of the passion on the cross? Why couldn’t His life have been one of simple peace and joy?

When we ask these questions about the Lord’s life, the answer is obvious: He didn’t come here to have a life of peace and joy; He came here with a mission to be accomplished. He came here to fight against the hells. He came to fight for generations of men, women and children, generations yet unborn. He came to fight for all of us. There was a purpose to His life, a purpose greater than Himself.

And the same is true for us. We are here for our own regeneration, and we are here for a cause (a battle, if you will) greater than ourselves. And sometimes this battle will involve pain, hardship and temptation.

What one of us would not willingly go forth in the face of danger if it meant that we could spiritually benefit the global sphere of the whole earth? (It is interesting that some passages in the Writings suggest that just one person is all that is needed to effect the conjunction between this earth and all the heavens.)

Now this doesn’t mean that our lives are going to be plagued with tragedy every moment. No, there is a lot of joy, happiness, and peace in life. Jesus says that our yoke is easy and our burden is light. But we do need to keep in mind why we are here. We need to have more of a “war-time” mentality than a “peace-time” mentality on the spiritual level. And if we see why we are here, we can know why there is often a lot of pain and suffering in our lives and with those around us. A spiritual battleground is not a very peaceful place. If anything, the Lord gives us an oasis from the battle from time to time, time off from the battle, but the battle is our main purpose in life. In this context, it is useful to think of some of the teachings in the Writings about spiritual temptation.

First of all, we are told that a spiritual temptation is said to be an attack by the hells on some good love that we have. If you have some new, good love in your life, expect it to be attacked by the hells. And if you say to yourself, “Why, every time I have some new love in my heart, it is challenged,” you are not seeing the purpose of why you are here. There is a battle going; expect spiritual temptations.

Another teaching of the Writings: Are our temptations going to get easier or more difficult as we get older? The answer: they are probably going to get more severe. And if your reasoning is, “You mean I am going to have to fight greater battles as I get older? How can this be fair? Why fight now?” If that is your response, then you have missed the point of why you are here. There is a battle going on. You are called to be a spiritual soldier. As you grow stronger, more experienced, the Lord will give you greater challenges, greater battles to fight, because strong experienced soldiers are needed in some of the battles. The Lord is preparing you for great things.

Still another teaching: Spiritual temptations cause utmost despair and anguish. There is no such thing as an easy spiritual temptation. Sometimes you feel that you are going to “lose it” during a spiritual temptation. And again, if the response of your mind is, “Why do I have to have really bad temptations? Why can’t they be easy?” then you have missed the point of why you are here.

When Jesus began His ministry, He was baptized of John in the Jordan River. And then He went into the wilderness and was tempted by the devil for forty days. He hungered. He hungered so much that He was tempted by the devil to make bread out of the stones. And His hunger was deep within Him. He hungered for the salvation of the whole human race.

The devil took Him up to the pinnacle of the temple, and asked Him to throw Himself down. He was tempted to doubt His own power to save the human race.

And finally, the devil took Him up to a great and high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world. All this would be given to Him if He would just bow down and worship the devil.

And after all these temptations, it says that the devil left Him “for a time.” The temptations were to continue. They were to continue even to the passion of the cross. And by His victory over temptation, our redemption was effected.

Let us use His victory as strength in our lives so that we may face the challenges that lie before us with courage and strength. Amen.

Lessons: Psalm 91; Luke 4:1-15; AC 6829, 1690

Arcana Coelestia 6829

When a person is in temptation, he is beset round about by falsities and evils which impede the influx of light from the Divine, that is, the influx of truth and good, and then the person is as it were in darkness. Darkness in the other life is nothing else than this besetment by falsities, for these take away the light from the man who is in temptation, and thus the perception of consolation by truths. But when the person emerges from temptation, then the light appears with its spiritual heat, that is, truth with its good, and from this he has gladness after anxiety. This is the morning which in the other life follows the night.

Arcana Coelestia 1690:3

All temptation is an assault upon the love in which the person is, and the temptation is in the same degree as is the love. If the love is not assaulted, there is no temptation. To destroy anyone’s love is to destroy his very life; for the love is the life. The Lord’s life was love toward the whole human race, and was indeed so great, and of such a quality, as to be nothing but pure love. Against this, His life, continual temptations were admitted, as before said, from His earliest childhood to His last hour in the world. The love which was the Lord’s veriest life is signified by His “hungering,” and by the devil’s saying, “If Thou art the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread,” and by Jesus answering that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:5-8; Matt. 4:2-4).

OUR WAY, OUR TRUTH AND OUR LIFE

OUR WAY, OUR TRUTH AND OUR LIFE
A Sermon by Rev. J. Clark Echols, Jr.
Preached in Denver, Colorado, on August 3, 1986

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”‘ (John 14:6).

Imagine yourself in a maze of corridors. There are many corners, and walking along, you quickly lose your sense of direction. You ask yourself, what is motivating me to walk at all? What gives me the ability to make the choices as to which hall to take, where to turn, where not to turn? Such a nightmare situation can leave only a sense of desperation, helplessness and even terror.

Now imagine a person living just before the Lord was born on earth. People lived such a nightmare in their spiritual lives. The hells could easily enter and confuse their thoughts about truth. Was hardly moving at all on the sabbath really helpful? Did the invisible, vengeful God really smell the odors of their sacrifices? Were blatantly dishonest fellow Jews nonetheless one’s neighbor over and above honest gentiles? The maze of regulations for the ancient Jew often led to confusion, doubt and an inner frustration.

And then Jesus came to the earth — God incarnate. Seeing what He did, believing what He said, had unbelievable effects. Confessing a belief in Him, and repenting and beginning a new life actually changed a person’s life. The maze was gone. It was as if a new light was in the heavens: not a light for the eyes, but a light for the mind that enlightened so many things that were then obviously true. And with the light came a warmth: not from the sun but from within, as if the heart could feel it rising from deep within.

The Lord’s redemption of all mankind has saved us from the anguish of the ancient Jews. But the turmoil and conflict still go on in our spirit. In fact, it was His redemption that makes possible our spiritual journey to heavenly happiness. For He opened men’s minds — all men’s minds, then and forever — to a new depth of understanding and feeling. A new light actually could reach into men’s minds. Our Creator’s love could be felt in a new way. Immanuel — God with us — walked the earth, and then rose from the tomb and established His Divine Human, whom we can all see with our mind’s eye, feel with our spiritual heart, and so know and truly love.

Our text proclaims that this redemption was the Lord’s sole objective in coming to earth. He, in Himself and by Himself alone, is the way, the truth and the life for us. We cannot come to know the Father — our Creator and Sustainer — except through His glorified Divine Human. “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Our text contains in a summary the whole process of our regeneration: to go the way of the Lord; to come to a true vision of that way by means of His truth; and thereby to receive His spiritual life.

The Lord called Himself the “way” because only His Human, established by His life on earth, can lead us to heaven. The Divine Human is a concept the finite human mind can fathom. He makes plain, before our sense as we read the New Testament, Jehovah the Father. The Divine Human communicates the Lord’s love and wisdom in a new way, reaching to our limited minds. This is how the Lord is the Word, for the Word is the principal means by which we come to know the Divine Human. It is our only source for our knowledge of the Lord and heavenly things, and the things of our own spirit.

To go the Lord’s way is to use the truth we discover. The Lord has done us a great favor in revealing Himself to us. It is up to us, however, to rely on His revelation of truth as a guide to our way. So we must find the doctrines that the Word teaches: the doctrine concerning the Lord, concerning true faith, concerning spiritual charity, and concerning the work we must do. Then, with an understanding of what the doctrines are — an understanding provided by the Lord, actually — we work to compel ourselves to obey them. Imagine again that maze of corridors. Any sense of desperation, all feeling of helplessness, will disappear when we realize that in our hands is a map — a detailed map setting forth the configuration of our spirit, the dead ends of selfishness, the darkened halls of falsity, the pitfalls of merely worldly advice. And the map, in a bold way, shows the right path, the path out to our promised land.

The Lord, then, has provided us with a revelation, and has given us the ability to use it. As with everything in His creation, there are levels of understanding, and practice is needed. The child begins with the literal sense of the Word alone. The rules are simple, almost black and white. As the child’s mind develops, however, he is able to make interpretations and see the fine lines. Indeed, the literal sense, as understood by adults, is very flexible. The adult is able to interpret it according to preconceived notions. We can even look for wanted results and explanations that will cover for our weaknesses and our sins. The letter of the Word, we are told, can even be twisted by an evil person to confirm whatever he wants to believe.

And so the adult must turn to the internal sense of the Word for guidance in obeying the literal sense, as we are commanded to do. It is as if our map was so good that the maze, even though very complex, becomes ordered. The internal sense will do nothing for us if we don’t see it and feel it guiding our spirit to a certain external way of living. But as we do that, we become less dependent upon the things of our senses. We become less susceptible to external things ruling our spirit. We learn better, with more clarity, just what the Word is teaching us. We learn that we can handle the things that happen to us in this early life from a new perspective. What is truly God’s order for our individual life can be discovered. This is what is meant by discovering the Lord in our life. For the light, warmth, order and delight we feel are all His in us. As the Writings say, the doctrine we draw from the literal sense of the Word by means of the internal sense becomes living, active in every smallest part of our life.

The purpose of doctrine, then, is to lead us to a vision of the Lord that will prompt us to change our ways. Thus, He is the way. We are not born with this vision; we must work to acquire it. While the Lord created us all for heaven, to reach the finish of the maze successfully, hereditary evil and the influences of the hells lead us into dead ends and inescapable pits.

There is one warning the Word gives us about doctrine. Doctrine is drawn from the Word by people who prayerfully are trying to apply the Word to their situation, their age. And so there must be some assurance that whether the doctrine has been developed by oneself or by the church for its members to apply, it is genuine. It must promote our sight of the Lord. It must give us a clear and rational vision of our Creator and Ruler. A false or confused doctrine will destroy our vision of God so necessary to our salvation. The doctrinal confusion in the Christian world today is an example of what happens when the genuine doctrine is not known. In an effort to explain the incarnation and glorification in a politically expedient way, the priest of the Christian Church separated the persons of Father and Son. They left behind the picture given in the New Testament, as well as the experiences and beliefs of the early church leaders. The literal sense says that the Son must lead to the Father. How can the doctrine of separate persons agree with this?

Doctrine is to be drawn from the letter in accordance with the internal sense. Doctrine is thus really spiritual. It is matter of our understanding, not simply the written Word. Look what happens spiritually to the people and life of the church when such a false doctrine is believed. With the Son and Father separated, the visible God is separated from the essential God. Thus the knowable, lovable God given to us through the Divine Human is destroyed. Without a rational and concrete concept of what and who God is, there is no tangible, real foundation of truth for civil and moral law, much less spiritual law. This lack of a clear standard of truth is behind all the confusion we see in the Christian world today. Even good people are in darkness; they have lost their way, and the doctrine of the church provides no guidance. Doctrine may be apparently drawn from the Word, but it is no longer true.

The Writings make clear the distinction between the Divine truth and doctrine drawn from the Word by men. It is the Divine truth that gives doctrine its power in us. This is why the Lord said He is the truth. Not only does He show us the way, but His truth in us is His power to cast out evil spirits from us, reform our minds, enlighten us as to the truth, and judge us as to evil. It is the Lord who saves us. Not only does He show us the way through the maze, but He established the original path.

Ever since the spiritual fall of mankind we have been adding paths, dead ends, quagmires and deep pits to the original straight and even way to heaven. Our evil has even made the road to hell look broad and smooth and the road to heaven narrow and rocky. To realize that we have the power to make the truth seem harsh, demanding, judgmental and condemning is to see that the Lord did not create it that way. The Lord’s Divine truth, His order, the means of the creation of all things, did not make life a maze. Merely worldly interests and desires are a very broad and easy road to follow. The only way to see it for what it is is to use the Word as our guide. And while we are, in a sense, cursed with this situation from our birth, it need not remain that way.

The Lord is the truth. His order, taught us in the literal and internal senses of the Word, defines the straight path to happiness forever. This must be simply an article of faith with us at first. But as we experience it, we will discover that the truth can give us an idea of what the Lord wants us to be. The whole purpose and end to which truth looks is the revealing of what is evil and what is good so that we can learn the distinction. To be in the truth is to be part of the Lord’s stream of Providence, always carrying us through the maze of conflicting ideas and desires. The truth’s work in our spirit is to order and mold us into vessels receptive of the Lord’s love. That is the truth’s real job, not to be a harsh taskmaster or source of guilt and condemnation. The Divine truth shows us the Lord’s love. It is the Son through whom we can come to see the Father: the Lord’s love and constant care for our spiritual progress.

This leads us to see why the Lord called Himself “the life.” Yet this proclamation runs right against all appearances. Don’t we have life? Are we not in control of our life? We never feel it coming into us from somewhere. However, we must ask, what is the source of this appearance, this feeling of ours? Is it to be trusted? In fact, the feeling that we have life in ourselves is manufactured by our senses. As science has shown us, our senses can be easily fooled. What is more important, our senses cannot see around the corners of life. They are blind to spiritual con-sequences of our actions. Their view of our life is full of fallacies and mere appearances.

The whole Word urges us to cast off all belief that we live from ourselves. Certainly the appearance is there: the Lord created the human that way! This is why we are totally free and able, of ourselves, to really choose whether we will love and follow the Lord or not. The Word further tells us — exhorts us — to believe that all life is from the Lord, and that we are totally dependent upon Him. Our benefit will be true freedom. No longer will selfishness, greed and external things enslave us; no longer will low self-esteem and guilt incapacitate us. The Lord is in us, and we have all in Him! The way becomes clear, the truth living, and His love a warmth deep within us. There is little we can know about how the Lord flows into us and gives us life. It is a miracle. Yet our faith in that miracle becomes a living faith when we live our lives in accordance with it. And then, because it is part of us, this hardest of all truths to believe will bless us in unforeseen and greatly delightful ways. That He gives us life means that we don’t have to save ourselves, a task we have found impossible. And it means that we have found the motivating force in our walk through the maze. We have found that the Lord gives us the ability to make the choices before us, to decide which way to turn. What a relief! What a burden off our shoulders! The fact that we have many hard choices to make in our life is no longer depressing. The Lord has provided for our eternal happiness. The choices, though difficult and sometimes painful, are for our progress, and are not Divinely provided roadblocks, dead ends or trap doors created for the sake of our frustration.

Our goal of seeing our way through the confusing, conflicting choices we have to make is reached when the way, the truth and the life are established in our minds. The Lord will dwell in us. When we acknowledge the doctrines of the Word as the rules for our life, the Divine truth is revealed to us and we come to know our God. He is then visible before us, directing our steps to heaven. When we love the Lord, when we wish to do His truth, He can come into us with spiritual life, opening our minds to an ever-deepening understanding of Him and love for Him. Then the Lord is our way, our truth, and our life. Amen.

Lessons: Psalm 25, John 14:1-20, AC 2531:21 3

Arcana Coelestia 2531:21 3

That it may be further known how the case is with the doctrine. of faith as being spiritual from a celestial origin, be it known that it is Divine truth from Divine good, and thus wholly Divine. What is Divine is incomprehensible because above all understanding, even the angelic; but still this Divine, which in itself is incomprehensible, can flow in through the Lord’s Divine Human into man’s rational; and when it flows into his rational, it is there received according to the truths which are therein, thus variously, and not with one as with another. Insofar, therefore, as the truths with a man are more genuine, so far the Divine which flows in is received more perfectly, and so far the man’s understanding is enlightened.

In the Lord’s Word are truths themselves, but in its literal sense are truths which are accommodated to the apprehension of those who are in external worship; whereas in its internal sense are truths accommodated to those who are internal men; that is, to those who are angelic as to doctrine and at the same time as to life. Their rational is enlightened therefrom to such a degree that their enlightenment is compared to the brightness of the stars and the sun (Dan. 12:3, Matt. 13:43). Hence it is plain how important it is that interior truths be known and received. These truths may indeed be known, but by no means received, except by those who have love to the Lord or faith in Him; for as the Lord is the Divine good, so He is the Divine truth; consequently He is doctrine itself, since whatever is in the doctrine of true faith looks to the Lord, and looks also to the heavenly kingdom and the church, and to all things of the heavenly kingdom and the church. But all these are His, and are the intermediate ends through which the last end, that is, the Lord, is regarded.

Imputation of the Merits and Righteousness of Christ Impossible

Imputation of the Merits and Righteousness of Christ Impossible

That it may be known that the imputation of the merit and righteousness of Jesus Christ is impossible, it is necessary to understand what His merit and righteousness are. The merit of the Lord our Saviour is redemption, and what this was may be seen above in its appropriate chapter. It is there described that it was the subjugation of the hells, the establishment of order in the heavens, and afterwards the institution of a church; and thus that redemption was a work purely Divine. It was also there shown that by redemption the Lord put Himself in power to regenerate and save the men who believe in Him and do His commandments; and that without that redemption no flesh could have been saved. Since then redemption was a work purely Divine, and of the Lord alone, and this is His merit, it follows that this cannot be applied, ascribed, and imputed to any man, —any more than the creation and preservation of the universe. (TCR n. 640)

As the merit and righteousness of the Lord are therefore purely Divine, and things purely Divine are such that if they were applied and ascribed to man he would instantly die, and, like a stock cast into the naked sun, would be consumed, so that scarce an ember of him would remain; for this reason the Lord with His Divine draws near to angels and men by light attempered and accommodated to the capacity and quality of every one, thus by light that is adequate and adapted; and in like manner by heat. In the spiritual world there is a sun, in the midst of which the Lord is; from that sun He flows in by means of light and heat into the whole spiritual world, and into all who are there; all the light and all the heat there are from this source. From that sun the Lord also flows in with the same light and the same heat into the souls and minds of men. That heat in its essence is His Divine love, and that light in its essence is His Divine wisdom. This light and this heat the Lord adapts to the capacity and quality of the recipient angel and man; which is done by means of spiritual auras or atmospheres which convey and transfer them. The Divine itself immediately encompassing the Lord constitutes that sun. This sun is distant from the angels,—as the sun of the natural world is from men,—in order that it may not come into naked and therefore immediate contact with them; for thus they would be consumed, as was said, like a stock cast into the naked sun. From these considerations it must be evident that the merit and righteousness of the Lord, since they are purely Divine, cannot possibly be induced by imputation upon any angel or man; nay, if any the least thereof should touch them, not being thus modified as was said, they would instantly writhe as if struggling with death, and with feet cramped and eyes distended would expire. This was made known in the Israelitish church, by the declaration that no one can see God and live. The sun of the spiritual world, as it is since Jehovah God assumed the Human, and to this added redemption and new righteousness, is indeed described by these words in Isaiah: “The light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah shall bind up the breach of His people” (xxx. 26). This chapter, from beginning to end, relates to the Lord’s advent. It is also described what would be if the Lord should descend and draw near to any wicked man, by these words in the Revelation: “They hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Hide us from the face of Him that sittetli, on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (vi. 15). It is said the wrath of the Lamb, because the terror and torment when the Lord draws near so appear to them. This may, moreover, be manifestly concluded from the fact that if any wicked person is introduced into heaven, where charity and faith in the Lord reign, darkness comes over his eyes, giddiness and insanity over his mind, pain and torment into his body, and he becomes like one dead. What then if the Lord Himself with His Divine merit, which is redemption, and His Divine righteousness, should enter into man? The apostle John himself could not endure the presence of the Lord; for we read that when he saw the Son of Man in the midst of the seven candlesticks, he fell at his feet as dead” (Rev. i. 17). (ibid. n. 641)

It is said in the decrees of the councils, and in the articles of the confessions to which the Reformed swear, that by the merit of Christ infused God justifies the wicked; when yet not the good of any angel can even be communicated to a wicked man, still less conjoined with him, but it is rejected and rebounds like an elastic ball thrown against the wall. (ibid. n. 642)