Theologi-Keal

The Creatress?

2011-06-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

I just read a really fascinating number in Swedenborg's book Divine Love and Wisdom. The end of the number says, “Since we have been created to be recipients, then, and since we are recipients to the extent that we love God and are wise because of our love for God (that is, the extent to which we are moved by what comes from God and think as a result of that feeling), it therefore follows that the divine essence, the Creatress, is divine love and wisdom.” (DLW 33)

This is from the Dole translation, the New Century Edition of the Writings of Swedenborg. There is a footnote that follows the word 'Creatress.' In the note the translator says, "Swedenborg's use here of the feminine noun Creatrix, 'Creatress,' is striking. While it may be prompted by the fact that Essentia, 'essence,' is a feminine noun, there is no grammatical necessity for a noun to agree in gender with a noun with which it is in apposition. This feminine noun occurs again in [DLW] 262 and in True Christianity 178, in both instances in apposition with natura, 'nature'; in these instances, it is quite possible that 'nature' was visualized in female form."

In DLW 262, the translator translates the word as 'creatress,' but in that number it is obviously referring to the concept of 'mother nature' or nature as the source of everything in the universe as an appearance of truth or a false belief (similarly in TCR 178), while in DLW 33, the word 'Creatress' seems to be referring to the Lord, the Divine Love and Wisdom!

Most of the other translations of DLW 33 translate the Latin word Creatrix as "Creator." One translates Creatrix as "the creative cause." But there are other Latin words for "Creator": creator, genitor, conditor, plastes, aedificator, all of which are masculine words. But the Latin word creatrix, is a feminine word and according to William Whitaker's Words is properly translated as: "mother, she who brings forth; creator (of the world); authoress, creatress." So in many ways this NCE translation, while being perhaps a little controversial and confusing, is the most accurate translation of this particular portion of this passage. And I appreciate that.

However, as the footnote said, this is "striking." We are used to masculine language used in reference to the Lord. This is mostly because of the masculine image of Jehovah and Jesus presented in the Bible. But it does seem somehow fitting that in the book Divine Love and Wisdom, a discussion of the more philosophical side of what the Lord is, it would remind us that God is the source of both masculinity and femininity, with this striking reference to the "Creatress."

In a previous footnote in Divine Love and Wisdom, translator Jonathan Rose states that "The Latin original of this passage [DLW 18, a discussion of the fact that God is Human] contains no hint of God's being either male or female. Although the identification of Jesus in his transformed state as God is central to Swedenborg's theology, as is the related concept of God's humanity, Swedenborg seems stringently to avoid any indication of masculine or feminine gender in God. He consistently uses the neutral term homo, "a human," rather than a gendered term for God's humanity; and where he uses adjectives in the role of nouns as terms for God, such as "the Infinite," "the Divine," "the Divine Human," and "the Human," he casts them as neuter rather than feminine or masculine. (A possible exception to this rule is the use of Creatrix, a feminine noun for the creator; see note 31 below.) The present edition uses the pronoun "he" for God even though it introduces gender implications that are not present in the original, because (a) the text's strong emphasis on the oneness of God contraindicates the use of plural pronouns; (b) the English language has no established gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun; (c) the text's strong emphasis on the humanness of God contraindicates the use of "it"; and (d) the identification of Jesus with God would make any pronoun but "he" awkward." In other words, the complications of using the words "Them," "It," or "She," in reference to God, outweigh the complications of using the word "He."

I suppose one way of looking at this passage is that it is trying to point out that what most people think of as Mother Nature is actually the Lord. I think a liberal translation of this passage could be: “... it therefore follows that the divine essence, which is considered to be Mother Nature, is divine love and wisdom.” But that’s adding a lot of additional vocabulary that isn’t there in the Latin. The original Latin simply says: "sequitur, quod Divina Essentia, quae Creatrix, sit Divinus Amor et Divina Sapientia."

When it comes down to it, I like how this translation really shakes up the false assumption that we often aren’t careful enough with, which is that the Lord is somehow male. Jesus was male. But the Lord (The Divine Love and Wisdom, the Creator of Heaven and Earth) is not male. The Lord is the source of both masculinity and femininity. Both men and women are created in His image. "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:27)

Laying on of Hands

2011-06-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

In my devotional reading I just read this passage in Numbers: "And you shall bring the Levites before the tabernacle of meeting, and you shall gather together the whole assembly of the children of Israel. So you shall bring the Levites before the Lord, and the children of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites. ... After that the Levites shall go in to service the tabernacle of meeting." (Numbers 8:9,10,15)

Also in Secrets of Heaven: "It was similar with the laying on of hands when men were being consecrated, as the people did to the Levites, Num. 8:9, 10, 12, ... - the purpose being to confer power. And this is why in our own times the ceremonies of ordination and of blessing are accompanied by the laying on of hands." (AC 878.7)

I thought it was cool that the 'ordination' process for these Levites to work in the Tabernacle was accomplished by the laying on of hands from the congregation rather than from Moses or Aaron or the priests. Wouldn't that be a neat tradition for the ordination of our own ministers? To have members of the congregation lay their hands on the new minister.

God's Anger in the Bible

2011-03-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

In the New Church we know that God is never really angry (TCR 650), and that the places in the Bible where it describes the Lord being angry are describing an appearance. The analogy often given is that parents often appear angry to their children, when in fact the parents are acting out of love and a sense of protection. But to the children - from their natural selfish perspective - their parents' actions sometimes seems unfair and cruel.

I've been fortunate enough to grow up in the New Church with a solid sense that God is pure Love itself, as it says in 1 John 4:8,16. And so often times when I'm reading the Bible and I read passages that describe God's anger, I just sort of ignore them, and remind myself that it's just an appearance.

I have children of my own, and lately I was reading a story from the Bible to them. It was the story of the Golden Calf. God wanted to destroy the children of Israel! Moses was trying to intervene for the children of Israel, and to calm God’s anger towards them. (Exodus 32:7-14) I remember - as I was reading the story to them - I was wondering how they were going to take it. We had taught them very clearly that the Lord always loves us, and He never wants anything bad to happen to anyone. So what were they going to think about this?

They didn't bat an eye! Not a single question. And my kids are not afraid to ask questions when they don't understand something. Apparently it made sense to them!

So it got me thinking. It makes sense to children that God would get angry! After all, their parents get angry sometimes. And they themselves certainly get angry a lot of times. It's probably harder for them to grasp the idea of Someone never getting angry. Especially if they are taught that God is Human! I never thought about how important this image of God is for us. God is Somebody that can relate to the anger that we experience in our life.

And not only for children, I think the power in these passages in the literal sense of the Word is important for all of us. We know that we are created in God's image. Well, I experience anger. Where does that come from? As adults it's important for our emotional health to recognize that experiencing anger is a common human feeling. The experience of it is not good or evil in itself, it just is. It's what we do with it that can be good or evil. Maybe these passages about God's anger can remind us, as adults, that the experience of anger is very human. We are not flawed because we experience anger. We just need to learn how to deal with it in a healthy way. Once we do that, we can move away from Hell, and move towards God, who is Love itself.

The 'World of Spirits' in the Bible

2011-02-27T07:36:00.000-08:00

In the Bible one can clearly find the concepts of Heaven, Hell, and an after-life. What those things mean is debatable in different Christian circles. Is Heaven the place where angels live, or the place where good people go when they die? Or both? Is Hell the same as Sheol and Hades? Is it where evil people go, or where unbelievers go? Is the ‘resurrection’ that is spoken of a physical resurrection or a spiritual resurrection? What happens to us right after we die? Do we go to Purgatory, or some sort of ‘waiting place’? Do we sleep until the 2nd Coming? Do we get punished for our sins, or rewarded for our good deeds? Do we have a body after death? Is the after-life like this world or completely different? Unfortunately the answers to these question are not so clear from the letter of the Bible.

In the New Church we have the clear teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg which describe in great detail what happens after death. In general we know that after death we become a spirit in the World of Spirits, which is between Heaven and Hell, where we are greeted by angels. We then progress through stages of externals to internals for the purpose of uniting our inner loves and outer behaviors into one. If these are good, then our remaining evils and falsities are ‘vastated’ or emptied out, and we are instructed in the ways of heaven, and then led to our home in heaven. If our loves and behaviors are evil then the remaining good and true things in us are ‘vastated’ or emptied out, and we then find our home in hell.

But one of the repeated concepts that Swedenborg describes is that the doctrines for the New Church have their foundation in the letter of the Old and New Testaments. So are there any passages that describe this World of Spirits in the Bible? We know there are relatively few because very often people who die “do not know anything about life after death, heaven, or hell except what they have learned from the literal meaning of the Word” (HH 495). This paper will attempt to provide an overview of some of the passages in the Bible which illustrate the concept of the World of Spirits. It will not be a comprehensive study, but more of a survey, which I hope to continue at a later date.

The paper will be structured around an attempt to answer five questions: “What? Where? When? Who? and Why?” In other words: “What happens to us after death? What does the Bible say about it? What is it like? What happens there? Where is this World of Spirits? When do people find themselves there? Who goes there? Who lives there? Who can see it? and Why does it exist?

What?
What happens to us after death? What does the Bible say about it? Throughout the course of history readers of God’s Word have debated about whether there is a physical or spiritual resurrection after death. During Jesus’ day, the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection, while the Pharisees did. It could be that in both cases they were referring to the physical resurrection of the human body on this earth. Although the following passage seems to indicate that the Pharisees could have believed in a spiritual resurrection: “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection - and no angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess both.” (Acts 23:8) And while many Christians today believe in a spiritual after-life, many fundamentalist Christians believe in a physical resurrection at the end of times. From a New Church perspective, the passages in the Bible which refer to resurrection are referring to a spiritual resurrection into the World of Spirits, which is what Jesus meant when He said to the Sadducees, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they... are like angels of God in heaven.” (Matt 22:29-30) And the concept that the ‘resurrection’ is a spiritual thing is also supported by these passages:

But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?”... All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. ... So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. ... It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. ... However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. ... Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 15:35-50)

So if this is true that our resurrection is a spiritual one, then what is it like when we are resurrected? Do we go straight to Heaven or Hell, or is there an intermediate place first? Some parts of Christianity have believed in something called purgatory, which is not mentioned in the Bible. Swedenborg says that purgatory is a fictional concept (AR 784), however the ideas of purgatory that many Christians have today are strikingly similar to Swedenborg’s descriptions of the World of Spirits and the process of vastation. The following is taken from the Wikipedia page on purgatory: “Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven.” The main difference would be that while heaven-bound spirits are vastated in the World ofSpirits, they are not punished like devils in Hell are.

One of the possible Biblical foundations for the idea of the World of Spirits is in the concept of Hades or Sheol. Technically speaking ‘Hades’ in the New Testament and ‘Sheol’ in the Old Testament refer to the abode of the dead, rather than the abode of the damned (‘Hell’). This can be seen in the following passages:

“For You will not leave my soul in Sheol” (Psalm 16:10)
“For great is Your mercy toward me, And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.” (Psalm 86:13)
“And he said:“ I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, And He answered me. “ Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice.” (Jonah 2:2)
“The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works.” (Revelation 20:13)

The concept of fire and punishment are often associated with Hades/Sheol, which could be similar to the painful process of vastation in the World of Spirits described by Swedenborg. However in the following story Hades is associated with Hell.

A very common description of the after-life can be found in the well-known story told by Jesus of ‘The Rich Man and Lazarus’ (Luke 16:19-31). It is said that when Lazarus died, he “was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.” It is often thought that this refers to Heaven. When the rich man died, he was “in torments in Hades.” It is often thought that this refers to Hell. Then Abraham says that “between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” In the Writings of Swedenborg it says that this ‘great gulf’ is the World of Spirits (TCR 475).

Another common description of the after-life can be found in this passage in the book of Revelation: “When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.” (Revelation 6:9) The commonly understood concept here is that these are people who have died, but are being held in limbo, and not in either Heaven or Hell. The Writings confirm that this is a description of good people who were trapped in the World of Spirits by evil spirits before the Last Judgment (AR 325).

We know from the Writings that in the World of Spirits we are examined as to what our life was like, and what our loves are (AR 866-868). This concept is described in this passage from Revelation: “And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.” (Revelation 20:12)

Where?
Where is the World of Spirits? We’ve already shown how the resurrection is a spiritual one. This implies that the ‘place’ we ‘go’ to after we die, is a spiritual ‘place’ rather than a physical place. This can be seen from these passages:

"My kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36)
"The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20, 21)

Given that it is not a physical place, we also know from the story of Lazarus that the concept behind the World of Spirits is that it is an in-between ‘place.’ We know from the Writings that the World of Spirits is a place where the ways to Heaven and Hell open up to people (AC 3477, HH 534). This concept is illustrated in this passage:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matt 7:13,14)

One of the things that the Writings describe happening in the World of Spirits is a process called vastations, in which evils and falsities are removed from good spirits. This doesn’t happen ‘everywhere’ or ‘all the time’ in the World of Spirits, but only in certain stages or states. So there is a specific ‘place’ reserved for this state or process. The Writings say that in the Bible this is referred to as the ‘Lower Earth’ (AC 699, 1106, 2759, 4728, 7090, 8039 AR 552, 845, 856). Depending on the translation this may appear as the ‘lower earth,’ the ‘lower parts of the earth,’ the ‘lowest parts of the earth,’ the ‘depths of the earth,’ or even simply the ‘earth.’

“My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” (Psalm 139:15)
“Then I will bring you down with those who descend into the Pit, to the people of old, and I will make you dwell in the lowest part of the earth, in places desolate from antiquity, with those who go down to the Pit, so that you may never be inhabited; and I shall establish glory in the land of the living.” (Ezekiel 26:20)
“You, who have shown me great and severe troubles,Shall revive me again, And bring me up again from the depths of the earth.” (Psalm 71:20)
“So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him....Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time. Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. ... But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.” (Revelation 12:9,12,13,16)

When?
When does this happen? Do we go to the World of Spirits right after death? After some sort of ‘rapture’? After a long period of ‘sleep’? Do we go after the 2nd Coming or the Last Judgment? The Bible seems to indicate that we enter this phase pretty soon after death:

"After two days will He revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight" (Hosea 6:2).
"Today you will be with Me in paradise" (Luke 23:43)
“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Eccl. 12:7)
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” (Heb. 9:27)

If we don’t heed the Lord’s words about His kingdom not being of this world, then we might begin to take passages in the Bible too literally and assume that things like the Lord’s 2nd Coming and the Last Judgment will happen physically on this earth.

Who?
Who goes there? Who lives there? The existence of supernatural beings is very clear in the Bible from the common usage of such terms as spirits, angels, devil, satan, ghosts, souls, and demons. The question is: Does the Bible say whether these beings are people who have died, or are they non-human beings? In the New Church it is believed that all of these beings are people who have died. Does the Bible agree with this claim?

“The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection - and no angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess both.” (Acts 23:8)
King Saul spoke with the spirit of Samuel after he had died. (1 Samuel 28:13)
“Those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, ... are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection." (Luke 20:35-36)
“You have come to ... the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect.” (Hebrews 12:22-23)
Throughout the Bible, angels are referred to as ‘men’(human) (John Odhner)
"Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels" (Hebrews 13:2).
“And I fell at [the angel’s] feet to worship him. But he said to me, ‘See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus.” (Revelation 19:10)
"The measure of a man, that is of an angel" (Revelation 21:17).
“For our citizenship is in heaven.” (Philippians 3:20)

Who can see into the World of Spirits? There are numerous stories throughout the Bible of people on this earth being able to see and talk with spirits and/or angels, and have visions or dreams of heavenly things. Some of these include the men that appeared to Abraham and Lot, Jacob’s ladder, the angel that wrestled with Jacob, Joseph’s dreams, the angel that appeared to Samson’s parents, the angels that appeared to the women at Jesus’ tomb. Visions into the spiritual world were seen by many of the prophets, including John’s visions in the book of Revelation (AR 945). There are a number of places where the Bible explains that this is possible because of a person’s spiritual eyes being opened:

“Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the Angel of the LORD standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face.” (Number 22:31)
“And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:17)
“Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.” (Luke 24:31)
“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.... Then I turned to see...” (Revelation 1:10,12)

Why?
Why does the World of Spirits exist? Why not instant salvation or damnation? Why is there an intermediate state? The Writings of Swedenborg describe many reasons for this state which all seem to point back to the Lord’s eternal mercy. The Lord wants to give us every chance to choose Heaven over Hell.

But even so, it is better if we repent in this world, because in a general sense this is true: “If a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie.” (Ecclesiastes 11:3) Our life and loves after death continue as they did in this world (AC 8991, DP 277).

The Lord warns us in the Bible that we have an internal and external part of us, and that they can be different: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.” (Matt 23:25) And so there is a time in the World of Spirits for a person’s internals to be revealed (HH 507).

“For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.” (Luke 12:2,3)
“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)

The last stage in the World of Spirits, for people who are going to heaven, is a stage of instruction in which they are given truths, and in the Bible they are given white garments (HH 519).

“He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels” (Revelation 3:5).

There are many more passages from the Bible which can illustrate the concept of the World of Spirits. Hopefully this survey of some of them can be useful in seeing the Biblical foundation for the concept of the World of Spirits.

New Church Perspective

2011-02-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Check out my article entitled "What Do We Have In Common With Other Christians?" published on New Church Perspective.

Walking Blameless?

2010-12-27T11:38:00.000-08:00

Readings: Psalm 15, Matthew 5:43-48, AC 612.2, AE 799.7, AR 586.3

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this sermon, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

“Who may worship in Your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter Your presence on Your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives.” (Psalm 15:1,2, New Living Translation)

Sometimes it can feel like the Lord is asking for perfection in our lives. The opening words of this psalm might really speak to how we might sometimes feel inadequate, or like the life of heaven is unattainable. “Who could possibly live in the Lord’s tabernacle, or on His holy hill? Who is that good? How can I possibly live a blameless, or perfect life?”

But the truth is, “it is not as hard to follow the path to heaven as many people believe” (HH 359). But it does require learning some steps. It’s like walking up a long flight of stairs. If we focus on the fact that we have to get all the way up to the top, we can feel discouraged. But if we focus on one step at a time, it’s very manageable. This psalm goes into some of the steps involved in ‘walking blameless’ on the road to heaven. As it says in the Gospels: “With [us] it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27)

The Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg tell us that the main point of this psalm is essentially that “those who love the neighbor and God, will be of the Lord's church” (PP 265). This makes sense, because that’s what Jesus told us in the Gospels:
“ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22:37-40)

On the surface it’s pretty straightforward, but it can sometimes feel impossible. “Love the Lord with all of my heart, soul and mind? Is most of it OK? Do I have to love my neighbor the same amount that I love myself, or is ‘almost as much as myself‘ OK?” Taken as a whole it can feel like an impossible flight of stairs. This psalm attempts to break it down into small steps. Let’s examine those steps.

The psalm opens with describing that goal; the top of the long flight of stairs; that state of heaven. It describes it as living in the Lord’s ‘tabernacle,’ and living on His ‘holy hill.’ The Writings tell us that living in a ‘tent’ or ‘tabernacle’ represents living in the holiness of love (AC 414), or in the good of love (AC 10545:6). Love is holy because the Lord is Love Itself. When we live in love towards Him and our neighbor, we are living in His holiness. This is why the tabernacle in the Word represents the church and heaven because the church and heaven are essentially a life of love (AR 585:2) This is why in the book of Revelation, when John saw the Holy City New Jerusalem coming out of heaven, he heard a voice saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Rev 21:3).

This state of heaven is also described in the beginning of this psalm by living on the Lord’s ‘holy hill.’ Technically this is referring to Jerusalem, or Mount Zion, both of which were on mountains or hills. But the Writings tell us that in general a ‘mountain’ represents the good of love (AE 405:26), so once again this is describing the true state of the church or heaven as being a life of love. So how do we go about living this life of love? Let’s delve into the verses:

To get an overview: Verse 2 of this psalm contains a nice little progression of three things that we should do to live this life of love. Verse 3 contains a nice little progression of three things that we should not do to live this life of love. Verse 4 describes three ways that this can be tricky and confusing. Verse 5 begins by describing two ways that the hells can trap us, and then verse 5 ends with an incentive for working on living this life of love. Now let’s examine each verse:

Verse 2. “He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart.” This verse describes the trinity of end, cause and effect. Or we could think of it as 1. the source of love, 2. the intentions of love, and 3. the actions of love. The source of love is the Lord. This is why the beginning of verse two says “He who walks uprightly or blamelessly.” Different translations use different words to try to express this idea: Blameless, flawless, uprightly, perfect, in integrity. All of them capture this idea of something that feels unattainable. And yet this is the first thing we are commanded to do to live this life of love! This idea appears in other places in the Word: In Genesis: “walk before Me and be blameless” (Gen 17:1), in Deuteronomy: “You shall be blameless before the LORD your God” (Deut 18:13), and even in the Gospels: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt 5:48). How can the Lord expect this of us? How can I be perfect? The point is He doesn’t, and we can’t. The reason for statements like these is that we need to be reminded to be humble. We need to recognize that the life of love (which is blameless and perfect) is not our life; it’s the Lord’s life. The Lord is the only one who is blameless, flawless, and perfect. But He wants to give that life to us. And so if we turn to Him, and ask for His help, we can receive that perfect life. This is why it says in Samuel: “God is my strength and power, And He makes my way perfect” (2 Sam 22:33), and in Matthew “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (Matt 19:21).

The 2nd part of verse 2 says “He who... works righteousness.” This is about the intentions of love. Some translations say “He who... works justice.” The Writings say that ‘righteousness’ or ‘justice’ has to do with goodness (AE 799:7; AC 9263:9). If you look at the places in the Word where the word ‘righteousness’ or ‘justice’ comes up, you will find them associated with concepts like love, generosity (Deut 10:18), goodness (Psalm 33:5), lovingkindness (Psalms 36:10, 119:149), mercy, and compassion (Zechariah 7:9). If we think about someone who seeks justice in a healthy way, it is someone who seeks fairness for other people.

Now this concept can be twisted by us. We can engage in self-righteousness, and seek revengeful justice. But the Lord warns us that this isn’t true righteousness. In the Word this kind of righteousness is associated with being stiff-necked (Deut 9:6), seeking dishonest gain (1 Sam 8:3), being stubborn-hearted (Isaiah 46:12), and being a hypocrite (Matt 23:23).

So for us to truly work righteousness or justice in our life, we need to try to to have attitudes that are loving, generous, and compassionate.

The 3rd part of verse 2 says “He who... speaks the truth in his heart.” The Writings say that this could also be described as ‘judgment’ (AC 2235:4). The previous phrase was talking about goodness or justice, and this one talks about truth or judgment. Truth is the outer expression of goodness. The previous part described our intentions and attitudes, and this describes what we say and do. Notice that it doesn’t just say “He who speaks the truth,” but “He who speaks the truth in his heart.” Speaking the truth by itself can actually be hurtful. For example: “You know, you are really bad at saying ‘thank you’ when you receive gifts!” It may be true, but it’s not tactful and not a nice thing to say. We need to not only speak the truth, but speak it from the heart; from those attitudes of compassion, generosity, and kindness. When we do this, we are exercising good judgment.

So we’ve examined how verse 2 is describing three things that we should do: Humbly recognize that only the Lord is perfect, try to have good attitudes towards people, and exercise good judgment in what we say. Verse 3 describes a progression of three things that we should not do, so that we can live a good life. “He who does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend.”

In the first part, the word used for ‘backbite’ literally means ‘to spy-out.’ So this part of verse 3 is telling us that we should not ‘spy with our tongue.’ Essentially this is a poetic way of saying ‘don’t gossip.’ But it could be useful to think of it as ‘spying with the tongue.’ It could help us to remember how it might feel to that person who we are gossiping about.

The second part simply says not to do evil to our neighbor. This is a pretty broad suggestion. It could be useful to think of this as a reminder to obey the 10 commandments. If we want to ‘do no evil to our neighbor’ it means that literally we should not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie or covet. However on a deeper level, all of these describe various ways that we can hurt people.

The third part of this verse says that we should not ‘take up a reproach against our friend.‘ This isn’t the way we would say it these days. Today we might say, ‘we should not be critical of our friends.‘ This brings to mind teachings of Jesus such as “Judge not, that you be not judged.... And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” (Matt 7:1-3). And also “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first” (John 8:7).

If you look at the places in the Word where the word ‘reproach’ comes up, you will find it associated with concepts like scorn and derision (Psalm 44:13), shaking one’s head at someone (Psalm 109:25), showing contempt (Psalm 119:22), insulting (Isaiah 51:7), shaming or disgracing (Isaiah 54:4), taunting and cursing (Jeremiah 24:9), humiliating (Jeremiah 31:19), mocking (Ezekiel 22:4), and making arrogant threats (Zephaniah 2:8-10). We may have enough restraint to not do these things to someone’s face, but we really have to be careful that we don’t do these things behind people’s backs too.

So now we’ve examined how verse three is describing three things that we should not do if we want to live a life of love in the church and in heaven. Namely that we should not gossip, we should not hurt people with things like being deceitful, and we should not be critical of other people. These bad behaviors could come up in many places in our life. With our children or our parents, with our spouse, with our boss or coworkers, when speaking of political figures, when speaking of our teachers, our siblings, and even our friends. We are not truly a member of the church when we are engaged in doing these things.

Verse Four. This next verse is tricky. It begins by saying, “In whose eyes a vile person is despised.” This seems to go against everything that was just said in verse three! “I thought I was supposed to love my enemy, and not show contempt for people! And now this verse is saying I should despise evil people?” It really should be taken in context with the next part which says, “but he honors those who fear the Lord.” So we should despise evil people but honor good people? What does this mean? I like the way the New Century Version Bible translates this part: “They do not respect hateful people, but honor those who honor the Lord.” The idea here is getting at what the ‘neighbor’ really is. The ‘neighbor’ really is goodness (TCR 418). When we love or honor someone, if it is a genuine love and a genuine honoring, then we are honoring the goodness in them, which means we are honoring the Lord in them. And along the same lines, we should not love or honor the evil in another person. This is what it means to ‘despise a vile person.’ For example, we might have a friend who likes to tell dirty jokes. For the sake of the friendship we might be tempted to laugh at those jokes. But if we are trying to live in integrity, then we should not laugh at the those jokes. In our eyes, those jokes should be despised.

Verse four ends with, ‘he who swears to his own hurt and does not change,” or “he who promises to afflict himself and alters not.” The Writings say that this self-affliction means “the mastering and subjugation of the evils and falsities that rise up from the external [part of a person] into the rational [part of a person]” (AC 1947:6). So in other words, if we promise to people that we will work on our faults and problems (which is a painful process), but then we don’t, then we are not living the life of love that makes us a true member of the church. On the flip side, that number from Secrets of Heaven goes on to say that we should also not make a big deal about how painful spiritual growth is solely for the sake of gaining recognition and a sense of merit. As Jesus said in Matthew: “when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward” (Matt 6:16).

Verse Five. Then verse five contains two references to money: two references to doing something for the sake of reward: “He who does not put out his money at usury, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.” The Writings say that the first part is describing doing something good for the sake of reward, represented by lending money for the sake of earning interest on it (AC 9210:5). A true life of love doesn’t seek reward. Anytime we are thinking of reward, our actions are somewhat tainted with selfishness. This doesn’t mean that we won’t have mixed motives, and engage in mediate goods in which we find pleasure in reward for a good deed. These things can point us in the right direction. But the point here is that doing good for the sake of reward is not the end goal. The end goal is to do good without thought of reward.

And then the second part, “nor does he take a bribe against the innocent,” is describing doing something evil for the sake of reward. These ‘bribes’ come from evil spirits in hell. They want us to think that we will earn happiness and satisfaction if we hurt someone who we dislike. They might have convinced us to publicly point out an area where we are right and a friend is wrong. The bribe is that this will make us feel better. The bribe is also a lie. It may give us a short term buzz, but it won’t last, and it will be replaced by bad feelings. In Deuteronomy it says that taking a bribe like this “blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous” (Deut 16:19).

The psalm ends by saying, “he who does these things shall never be moved.” When we follow these steps and try to do these things in our life, then we start to become filled with the Lord’s strength. We gain protection against the onslaught of the hells. The hells are constantly bombarding us with negative thoughts and feelings; trying to knock us off our feet. But by living in the Lord’s life we begin to take on His strength, and so there is the promise that we will never be moved.

Taken as a whole, all of these things might feel like too much to remember, let alone apply to our life. There are a lot of steps that lead up to the the Lord’s holy hill. But what this psalm is pointing out, is that if we keep walking up those steps, we will eventually get there. The Lord isn’t asking us to be perfect from ourselves. But He is offering us a chance to live in His perfect life. He’s laid a stairway in front of us. If we take it one step at a time, we can get there. These steps are the steps of repentance. This is a life-long staircase. So today, just choose one thing that you want to work on. That’s one step closer to the Lord.

Amen.

Keeping Up With Esau

2010-12-27T11:25:00.000-08:00

Readings: Genesis 33:1-17. AC 4353.3, 4377

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this sermon, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

“Please let my lord go on ahead before his servant. I will lead on slowly at a pace which the livestock that go before me, and the children, are able to endure, until I come to my lord in Seir.” (Genesis 33:14)

Did you ever wonder why, in the story of Jacob reuniting with Esau, Jacob wrestles with an angel? Or why Esau isn't mad at Jacob? Or why Esau initially refuses Jacob's gift, but then accepts it? Or especially, why Jacob says he will follow Esau back to Seir, but then he snubs him and doesn't follow him? What does that mean? In this sermon we will examine those questions.

Like this story, sometimes it can feel like our spiritual journey through life is also really confusing and really difficult. For example, we might struggle with yelling at our children. “I really want to change, but in that moment when my kid has destroyed yet another wedding dish, I fall right back into yelling at them again. Why is it so hard to change, even when I want to change?” Or we might struggle with perfectionism: “I know that being a perfectionist is ruining my relationships with people. But in that moment, I still want to spend one more hour doing research, or making that project better than it is now. I know it’s not healthy, but I can’t help how I feel. How can I change that feeling?”

The Jacob and Esau story—like our own story—is about the difficulty of moving from trying to do what’s right to loving to do what’s right. And the only one that can accomplish this change is the Lord. Swedenborg’s book: Secrets of Heaven (AC 4337-4387) can help us to understand more about our own confusing and difficult spiritual journey, and how it is represented in the journey of Jacob.

But first let’s get a bit of recap: In this story we hear about Jacob and Esau meeting again. The last time they were together, Jacob steals the birthright and the blessing from Esau; essentially stealing his entire inheritance. As you can imagine this makes Esau very angry. Jacob then travels to Haran in Padan-Aram under the cover story that he needs to find a wife, but in reality he needs to get away from Esau who has promised to kill him as soon as their father Isaac has died. Jacob then falls in love with Rachel, is forced to marry Leah, has 11 sons and one daughter, becomes very wealthy working for Laban his father-in-law and uncle, then decides to sneak away from Laban and return to the Land of Canaan with all of his family and flocks. He is still on the east side of the Jordan when he wrestles with the Angel of God. This is what happens right before Jacob meets Esau again.

Then Jacob’s messengers tell him that Esau is coming with 400 men. You can imagine that Jacob would be really scared. This is why he sends a present of over 500 animals ahead to try to appease Esau. But Esau keeps coming. So he lines up his family with the least important in front, and the most important (Rachel and her children) in back, and he prepares for the attack. Then as Esau approaches, Jacob bows himself to the ground seven times. And then... Esau hugs and kisses him? I don’t think that’s what Jacob was expecting.

So then Esau says “hey, who are these?” and Jacob says “this is my family.” And then Esau says, “what’s up with all the animals you sent to me?” and Jacob says, “that was a present for you.” and Esau says, “thanks, but I really don’t need them, I have plenty of my own.” and Jacob says, “no really, I insist.” and Esau says, “OK.”

So then Esau says, “let’s travel together” and Jacob says, “I can’t keep up with you. You go on ahead, and I’ll catch up.” So Esau goes back to Seir on the East side of the Jordan, but Jacob doesn’t catch up with him. Instead, he goes across the Jordan into the Land of Canaan.

Let’s begin by looking at what these characters represent in our lives. In this particular story, Esau represents the Lord. Specifically he represents the feeling of the Lord’s goodness and love in our natural minds (AC 4336, 4340). He represents: actually loving to do what’s right, rather than struggling to do what’s right. We get that feeling only from the Lord. Jacob even calls Esau: ‘my lord,’ and calls himself: ‘your servant.‘

Why does Esau represent the Lord? You might remember that Esau was the older brother; he was born first. Jacob steals Esau’s birthright and pretends to be the firstborn. Goodness (Esau) is always the firstborn, the most important member of the family, even when it looks like we need to learn truths (Jacob) first.

In Secrets of Heaven it says that Jacob comes to represents the ‘good of truth’ (AC 4336-4337) in this part of the story. The ‘good of truth’ means the good that comes out of doing what’s right. The ‘good of truth’ is like the loving feelings that we can have towards people because we have practiced doing what’s right, and going through the motions of love to the neighbor. Before Jacob was the ‘good of truth’ he simply represented ‘truth.’ Truth in action. The mechanics of loving the neighbor. This is like treating someone with courtesy and politeness because we know it’s the right thing to do, even if we don’t actually feel like being polite to them. At first Jacob represented those times in our lives when we are ‘faking it till we make it.‘ But by the end of this story Jacob represents ‘making it,’ when we actually feel loving towards people, rather than simply acting loving.

Sometimes it can feel like simply doing the right thing is the end of the story. After all, Jacob is heading back to the Promised Land. Isn’t that all? “Look at how many wives, children and flocks I have. I’m doing good things for people. Isn’t that the life of heaven?” No. The final piece is that we need to actually feel loving towards people. But this isn’t something we can just change. This is something that the Lord changes in us. And this story describes how He does that.

Now back to the story: Jacob is scared, because his messengers tell him that Esau is coming with 400 men. Those ‘400 men’—like the ‘40 years’ that the children of Israel spent in the wilderness—represent a state of temptation, or spiritual struggle. Heavenly Secrets says that “temptations come when good starts to play the leading role” (AC 4341). So when we actually start to live a life of love, because we want to do what is right, then evil spirits are going to attack us. For example: we might have worked hard to learn how to be a better parent, or to learn how to not be a perfectionist. This may work for a while, until we find ourselves falling back into our bad habits. “But wait! I’m learning truth. I’m trying to do what’s right. Why isn’t it working? Why is God punishing me?” This is why it says that “Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed” (Gen 32:7) when he heard that Esau was coming with 400 men. It’s also why just before this story, Jacob wrestled with the Angel of God. We can get very scared and distressed when it seems like the life of religion that we are trying to live isn’t working. “I’m not feeling any different. I’m not seeing a change yet.” Evil spirits want us to think that the Lord is the enemy, just like Jacob thought Esau was the enemy.

But the problem isn’t the Lord. The problem isn’t Esau. The problem is with us, with our misconceptions of what life is all about. When we live our life based on love—even if at first we are just going through the motions of love—that begins to bring the Lord closer to us. But in the process of letting the Lord into our lives, the Lord’s love and wisdom shine a light on our imperfections and we see them more clearly, and that is painful (AC 4341.2)! We see that we’ve been living life from a sense of merit. We see that we’ve fallen into the trap of believing that if we just know enough truth and do enough good things—like Jacob accumulating wives, children, and flocks—then that will earn us a ticket to the Promised Land, a ticket to heaven, a ticket to happiness and peace. But this is not the truth. All goodness, all truth, all true feelings of love come from the Lord alone, and not from thinking that we’ve earned them.

Jacob was a pretty cocky guy. He tricked Esau out of the birthright and the blessing. He tricked Laban out of a lot of his flock. When we begin to live our life based on the truth, we can also get cocky, and think we’ve got our life under control. But thinking that we are in control doesn’t allow true goodness from the Lord to flow into our actions. We need to be humble, and recognize that Jesus is Lord—just like Jacob referred to Esau as ‘lord’—before we can be filled with His goodness (see AC 4347). And so we need to begin a process of bringing humility into our lives. This is represented by Jacob bowing seven times. This is what Secrets of Heaven describes as ‘truth being conjoined to good’ (AC 4345.5). For example, we might spend a day doing really well as a parent. We might be not yelling at our kids, and very intentionally expressing love for them. But if we think that that good behavior is coming from us, then we’ll think that it should earn us some happiness. But if we recognize that all goodness comes from the Lord alone, then we can continue loving our children, no matter how they treat us in return. This is peace. Being humble allows the Lord’s goodness and peace to flow into our lives, no matter what happens (AC 4347.2,3).

So Jacob humbles himself to Esau, and what does Esau do? He runs to him and gives him a big hug and a kiss! The Lord always loves us! He always wants to join with us and bless us with His love. And specifically the Lord wants to join His love with the truths that we have learned and put into action, which you could think of as our good habits. In Secrets of Heaven it says that “action comes first, then the desire for it in the person’s will follows” (AC 4353.3).

So now comes the part of the story where the Lord begins to actually fill us with His goodness; with the feeling of love for other people; the willingness and desire to do good things. This process is described by this strange little back and forth between Jacob and Esau: Jacob offers the gift to Esau, Esau refuses it, Jacob urges him to take it, and Esau accepts it. Now you might think, “If Esau is the Lord, and Jacob is us, then how does ‘Esau accepting a gift from Jacob’ represent the Lord giving us His goodness?” Isn’t that sort of backwards?

This is where we need to talk about affections: Secrets of Heaven says that “the Lord leads everyone through the agency of his [or her] affections” (AC 4364.2). So for example: Jacob was led to acquiring his wives, children and flocks by having an affection for those things, just like we are led to learning truths by having an affection for knowing what’s true. Like wanting to learn parenting skills. But our story doesn’t end with us simply knowing and loving the truth. Our affection needs to be changed into an affection for goodness, kindness and love, and that can only be done by the Lord being present with us. And this passage from Secrets of Heaven describes the mysterious way that the Lord often does this:
"One sometimes refuses an offer when in fact accepting it, to the end that affection may be instilled. That affection is also increased by such a refusal and so advances from the thought of what is good to the desire for it. [A person] is led by the Lord in the spiritual life by means of things that are virtually the same as those by which one leads others in everyday life. In everyday life it is quite normal to refuse an offer so that the one who makes it may do so with affection, thus not simply because he has thought of making it but also because he desires to do so. Should the offer not be accepted the ultimate intention would perish, and therefore that intention incites the one making the offer to think more intently about it and so to make it his heart's desire." (AC 4366)

It’s as if we start by saying, ‘OK Lord, here’s my life. As you can see, I’m trying hard, but it’s not working.’ And then we believe we hear the Lord saying, “I have enough my brother; keep what you have for yourself” (Gen 33:9). Almost as if we think He is saying that He has enough life, or enough people who love Him, and He doesn’t need us. Then something inside of us is taken aback, and we react with “But Lord, wait! What’s wrong with my life? Please show me how it can be better! Please! I really want to learn how to love You better. I really do want to stop hurting the people I love. You’re the only One that can help me!” And then the Lord says, “Now that’s the attitude I was hoping for. I will gladly accept that attitude.” We tend to want what we think we can’t have. The Lord can use this to change our attitude, and then fill us with His goodness.

So in that short, seemingly awkward exchange between Esau and Jacob, we are changed. We started off being someone who had an affection for truth for natural reasons: “I just need to learn something that will make me happier.” Now we begin to have an affection for truth for spiritual reasons: “I really want to stop hurting the people I love, and become a better person” (see AC 4368).

But the story doesn’t stop there, because hey, it’s just not that easy. We may now have a genuine desire to change for the sake of the Lord and for the sake of the people we love, but we still feel like we get slowed down by our old habits. It’s like we just can’t keep up with the Lord’s goodness all the time. After Esau accepts Jacob’s gift, Esau says, “Let us take our journey; let us go, and I will go before you” (Gen 33:12). The Lord wants us to walk with Him on our spiritual journey. And ideally this would be the end of the story. We would just always walk with the Lord in whatever we do. But Jacob says, “I can’t. I’ve got little kids and baby animals. We won’t be able to keep up with you.” How often do we say this to the Lord?: “I can’t keep up.” It’s really quite simple: if we walk with the Lord, we will be safe, happy, and provided for. The Lord’s yoke is easy. But for some reason it’s hard for us to do this. We tend to forget about the Lord in the details of our daily life. The cares of this world drag us down and slow us down like Jacob’s many children and flocks. If you have children, or you own animals, it may even be actual children and animals that make it feel like you can’t keep up with your spiritual life. But whatever it is, there are things in our lives that make it feel like we can’t maintain the pace of always living and walking in the Lord’s love. We fall back into loving ourself and just wanting happiness and peace for ourselves. We haven’t completely received the Lord’s goodness yet (see AC 4377, 4378).

But we shouldn’t beat ourselves up about this. The Lord knows that this is our tendency. The Lord knows that we can’t keep up with Him. Esau’s meeting with Jacob represents the joining of good to truth in general in our life; in theory. We get it now; that we need to walk with the Lord. But the joining of good to truth in every single detail of our life takes more time. Each ‘child’ and ‘animal’ moves more slowly in our spiritual journey (AC 4379). We may have come to know and even embrace the concept that loving the Lord and the neighbor are the primary things of the church (just like Jacob embraced Esau). But how we apply that to each and every circumstance in our life may take some time (the flocks and children move slowly). Secrets of Heaven says that: “This is the way in which people who are being regenerated are led by the Lord, for they are endowed with general things having within them those which follow later, which also come forth successively, doing so in an order and sequence beyond description” (AC 4383).

Esau then says, “Let me leave some people with you to help you.” This represents the fact that because of this process we’ve been enlightened by the Lord about ourselves, about the Lord, about the spiritual journey. These truths that we now see are represented by the people Esau wanted to leave with Jacob (AC 4385). Jacob then responds by saying, “What need is there?” Almost as if it’s us saying, “Yeah, I see, I get it now” (see AC 4386).

And then the story ends with what seems to be Jacob snubbing Esau. Esua returns to Seir on the East side of the Jordan. But Jacob doesn’t follow him there like he said he would. Instead he crosses the Jordan into the land of Canaan. Why? It doesn’t seem to make sense on the surface. But the underlying meaning makes perfect sense. It was through Jacob’s interaction with Esau, through our meeting with the Lord on our spiritual journey, through our renewed desire for His help, that we are able to come into a more heavenly state, a state represented by the Promised Land (see AC 4388, 4394). We now have an affection for goodness, and enlightenment about how our mind works and how the Lord’s kingdom works. Jacob is now a more complete person because of meeting with Esau. He probably felt relief in the reconciliation. He probably no longer feared his brother. These are heavenly states. These states of peace are ones that we can experience on our journey if we meet with the Lord on the way.

So when you are struggling with trying to do what’s right, but not feeling any change, try to remember to meet the Lord on your journey. Embrace Him! Present your life to Him. And then keep walking. It may take a long time for us to learn how to walk with the Lord in every part of our life. And it may take even longer to actually feel loving. We won’t be able to keep up all the time. This is normal. The Lord knows this. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Have patience. Trust in the Lord. It may have taken Jacob a while, but he did eventually make it into the Promised Land. And if we embrace the Lord and try to keep up with the Lord in our life, the Lord promises that we can make it too.
Amen.

Avoiding Spiritual Drunkeness

2010-12-27T10:46:00.000-08:00

Lessons: Genesis 9:20-29; Matthew 7:1-5,12; AC 1079

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this sermon, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

“And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard.
Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent.”
(Genesis 9:20-21)

In Genesis chapter 9, Noah planted a vineyard and got drunk. Just like when a person gets physically drunk, we can have a tendency to get spiritually drunk. This can lead us to behaving irrationally, to not being able walk a spiritual straight line, to lashing out at people we love, to thinking we are invincible, and to endangering ourselves and others. So what are some examples of this sort of behavior? One example is that we might find ourselves talking about our friends or classmates behind their backs saying things like: “They are so mean; they talk about me behind my back all the time!” Another example is with political parties: Some of us may belong to a specific political party. Let’s ask ourselves: ‘How often do we speak well of people in other political parties?’ ‘How often do we criticize, mock, or even get angry at people from other political parties?‘ and say things like: “Republicans are stupid, or Democrats are dumb.” Another example is with people of different religions or churches, or even people in the same church: How often do we find ourselves thinking: “I know what’s right for them, and if they would only listen to me, then they would get their life straightened out!”? These are signs of spiritual intoxication.
The story of Noah getting drunk, and how his son Ham behaves, is a great example of what happens when we get spiritually drunk. The internal meaning of this Biblical story is explained in Swedenborg’s book: Heavenly Secrets (from numbers 1067 to 1105). Today I’m going to walk you through one way that this story applies to our lives.

Noah:
The story begins with Noah becoming a farmer and planting a vineyard. Noah represents a spiritual person. A vineyard represents the church, or “the spiritual things of the church” (AC 1069.3), in other words, our religion or faith. People who plant and work in a vineyard are people who work with the spiritual things of the church or their religion. So Noah as a vineyard farmer represents us as a religious or spiritual person, or someone who has faith.
This idea makes a lot of sense when we compare it with other places in the Word where a ‘vineyard’ is mentioned. In Matthew the Lord tells a parable of workers in a vineyard who all get the same amount of pay for working different amounts of time (Matt 20:1-16). It’s not hard to see that this is referring to people getting to heaven. And the means to heaven is the life of religion, which is represented by working in a vineyard. In John, the Lord said, “I am the vine” (John 15:5), because He is the source of Divine Truth for us, just as a vine is the source of grapes that become wine. This is why we drink wine in the Holy Supper. The wine represents the Lord’s Divine Truth; “the new covenant” (Mark 14:24) that He gave us. And drinking the spiritual wine of the Lord’s truth in His Word is what gives us our faith.
So as a spiritual person we like to drink wine. We like to learn truths. This is a necessary thing to do. This is why we plant a vineyard and work it. But as the saying goes: ‘everything in moderation.’ When our faith, our spiritual vineyard is plentiful and we drink too much wine (truth), then we can become spiritually intoxicated just as Noah did.
Why does this happen? The Lord designed it so that we are capable of understanding spiritual things. This is really an amazing concept. Our natural brain is capable of comprehending spiritual and heavenly things! A common phrase in our church is, “Now it is permitted to enter with understanding into the mysteries of faith” (TCR 508.3). But this doesn’t mean that we can completely understand every mystery of faith. After all, we have finite minds. We will never fully understand the mind of God and His infinite wisdom. “For spiritual and celestial things infinitely transcend human apprehension, and hence arises reasoning” (AC 1071). And just like spiritual and celestial things transcend human apprehension, too much alcohol transcends human digestion. We can take it in manageable doses, just like we can understand some spiritual and heavenly things. But we can’t consume too much of it. When we think that we can understand the truth completely, then we take everything into our mind and try to fit it into our own limited mental structures. And if it doesn’t quite fit, then we make it fit. This is the ‘human reasoning’ that we have to be wary of.
When we consume too much truth, what usually happens is that we begin to think that we know everything. We begin to think that we are more wise than other people because of what we know. It’s stimulating to think about all those truths. Just like with alcohol, it gives us a buzz. It makes us feel confident; often over-confident. Heavenly Secrets says that people like this “are called 'wise in their own eyes, and in their own sight intelligent' because people who [are like this] reason against truths of faith [and] imagine that they are wiser than everybody else” (AC 1072.5). And later in that passage it says that “people who are 'drunk' in this sense imagine that they are more alert than anybody else, yet they are in a deep sleep” (AC 1072.6).
So what happens next in the story? When Noah became drunk he also became naked. Clothes represent truths (see AC 1073). So thinking that we know everything really just points out how much we don’t know. We are actually lacking in truths when we think arrogant thoughts. The truths of the Word are for a specific purpose: the purpose of loving the Lord and loving the neighbor. So when we abuse those truths and use them for a different purpose, namely: loving our selves and despising others, then we actually end up not knowing anything at all, and we become spiritually naked.
This also happened to Adam and Eve when they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They thought they could know everything and be like God. Well, that just pointed out how naked they were, how lacking in real truths they were. Because the truth is that we are finite, and that involves a necessary attitude of humility.

Ham:
So getting spiritually drunk leads to a process where faith and charity are separated: We know the truth, but we are arrogant about it, which is not living in charity. This is where Ham enters the scene. Ham sees his father drunk and naked and tells his brothers about it. We might imagine that he was laughing while saying, “Hey! Dad’s naked!” The main character of the story now shifts to Ham. I want to stop and point out that all the characters in the Bible represent parts of us. Sometimes it’s confusing when there are multiple characters in a story, but it’s important to remember that they all represent parts of us. So in this case, as the story shifts, we are no longer represented by just Noah. Now we are Ham too. Ham represents faith separate from charity (AC 1076) and the kind of person that that creates. Without charity, without love, without thoughtfulness, we become critical, judgmental, harsh and mocking of others, just like Ham mocked his father Noah. Heavenly Secrets has a great description of when we are like Ham:
"Such people see nothing else but errors and perversities residing with a person.... With those who have no charity, a feeling of hatred is manifest in every single thing; they wish to try everyone and indeed to pass judgement on them. Their one desire is to discover what is evil in them, all the time having it in mind to condemn, punish, and torment." (AC 1079)

When we know what is true, it is very easy for us to see what is wrong with other people, just like it was very easy for Ham to see that Noah was naked. But what we do with that knowledge is what’s important here. Do we gossip about people behind their backs? Do we secretly laugh at other people’s faults and mistakes? If we do then we are being like Ham.

Shem and Japheth:
Ham’s brothers represent good parts of us that we can choose to act on. ‘Shem’ represents internal charity, and ‘Japheth’ represent external charity (see AC 1083, 1091). Shem represents thinking and willing good things for other people, and Japheth represents saying and doing good things for other people. These are the true brothers of faith. But unlike people in faith alone or truth alone, people in charity don’t like to point out what’s wrong with other people, as it says in Heavenly Secrets:
"Those who have faith that inheres in charity are different. They notice the goods, and if they do see evils and falsities they excuse them, and if possible endeavor with that person to correct them, as is said here of Shem and Japheth.... Those who have charity hardly notice the evil in another person, but instead notice all the goods and truths that are theirs; and on their evils and falsities they place a good interpretation. Of such a nature are all angels, it being something they have from the Lord, who bends everything evil into good." (AC 1079)

When we decide to excuse or put a good interpretation on what we see as wrong with other people, and focus only on the good in them, then that is like Shem and Japheth not looking while they put the garment (good interpretation) on their father (see AC 1082).

Noah:
Now the story shifts back to Noah, and we are once again represented by him. It says that “Noah awoke from his wine” (Gen. 9:24). This is where we spiritually come to our senses (see AC 1090). When we drink the wine of the Lord’s Divine Truth in the Word, and begin to be drunk with the arrogance of thinking we know everything, the nice thing is that we don’t usually stay drunk. The truths of the Lord’s Word work their way through our system. The Lord’s truth describes love and charity. So we eventually come to our senses and recognize that we haven’t been living in charity and thinking good things about other people. This truth that helps to wake us up is also represented by the garment that Shem and Japheth laid on Noah, which covered up his nakedness. When other people treat us well, we are reminded of the truths of charity that we already know.
This is all the more reason to excuse the evils and falsities in other people, because all people have this potential to awake from their ‘wine’ and come to their senses about what is good and true. We just need to give them time to discover for themselves the Lord’s love and wisdom. This is is like Shem and Japheth covering up their father and then leaving him in the tent to wake up for himself. We can present truths to people in a non-judgmental way, and we can treat people with loving kindness, both of which are like Shem and Japheth walking backwards with the clothes for Noah. But the story didn’t describe them staying in the tent and saying, “C’mon Dad, wake up!” The story describes Noah waking up on his own. When we believe that we know what is true, and we think that it could help someone who is spiritually naked, we need to be very careful about how we give them that truth. It’s not our job to slap them in the face with truth until they’re sober. It’s our job to leave people in freedom, just as the Lord leaves us all in freedom. That desire to help people is like Shem, and doing it tactfully is like Japheth. This is where the New Testament teachings of forgiveness come in. The Lord tells us to forgive people not seven times, but seventy times seven (Matt. 18:21-22). And in the Lord’s Prayer itself, we say “forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive those who trespass against us.” When we do this, we are being like Shem and Japheth.

Curse of Canaan:
So Noah finds out what Ham did to him, and so he curses... Canaan, Ham’s son? This sounds a little odd in the literal sense. What did Canaan do to deserve being cursed for his father’s faults? But it makes sense if we remember that all the characters in this story represent parts of us. So once again the story shifts to a different character, and we are now Canaan. Ham can’t be cursed because Ham represent faith, and we need faith to be the brother of charity. We need to learn truths that lead us to a life of religion. In Heavenly Secrets it says that the “truths of faith are the means by which this [gaining a conscience] is achieved, that is, by which a person lives according to the things faith teaches, its fundamental teaching being to love the Lord above all things and the neighbor as oneself” (AC 1077). So we can’t do away with ‘faith’ represented by ‘Ham,’ even when it has the potential to lead us to bad places if it is separated from his brothers Shem and Japheth which are ‘charity.’ But the son of ‘faith alone,’ represented by Canaan, can be cursed. Canaan represents a worship or a life in external things which are completely devoid of faith and charity (see AC 1091). Canaan’s descendants were the Canaanites who lived in the Land of Canaan, who had to be purged from the Land because they represent evils (AC 1573). The curse of Canaan is really a curse that we bring on ourselves. When we treat other people with contempt for the fact that they think differently from us, then we become cursed. “It is a person who brings the curse upon themselves by turning away from the Lord” (AC 1093). Since we’ve turned away from the Lord, who is the source of faith and charity, or truth and love, then we’ve opened ourselves up to being influenced by hell, and hell gets us to feel anger at other people. This is a curse. Anger is not a nice feeling. “With the Lord therefore anger is never present, only mercy” (AC 1093).
When our life is devoid of charity, charity being the whole point of the spiritual church, then we end up worshipping false gods; gods like ourselves. We think we know more than others and that it is our job to save other people from their sins. Wrong. It’s the Lord’s job to save people. He is the only Savior (AR 279). We are worshipping the false god of Self when our life is devoid of charity. This is the merely external worship represented by Canaan (AC 1094.2). Heavenly Secrets says that we are like this when we
"do nothing from charity and conscience, and yet very strictly [we] keep up the external things of the Church, and even condemn those who do not do the same. But because no charity and no conscience exist with [us], and [we] make worship consist solely in external things devoid of internal, [we] are 'slaves' in the Lord's kingdom." (AC 1103)

Canaan’s curse said that he would be a slave to Shem and Japheth. We feel like a slave when it feels like love and charity are really hard work that we would rather not do.

Blessings:
However, if we do live a genuine life of charity--in our hearts and minds, and in our words and actions--then those good parts of us, represented by Shem and Japheth, become blessed. But they are only blessed because we recognize and acknowledge that the life of charity we are living is not from ourselves but from the Lord. “The member of the internal Church ascribes to the Lord all the good he [or she] does and all the truth he [or she] thinks” (AC 1098). We become blessed by living a life of charity because, “It is in charity that the Lord is present” (AC 1096.2). And the Lord’s presence in our lives brings us all the blessings and joy of heaven. If we become arrogant like Ham, and worship the false god of ‘Self’ like Canaan then we are turning away from the Lord. Heavenly Secrets says, “Where there is no love, the chain is broken and the Lord not present” (1096.3). But if our attitudes and actions include humility, forgiveness, kindness, and love towards others--which is dwelling in the tents of Shem and Japheth--then we are opening ourselves up to the Lord and His love and wisdom. Only then do we become truly spiritual and religious people.

So the next time you interact with someone and you think that they are ‘spiritually naked,’ try to stop yourself from being judgmental, or criticizing, or mocking them like Ham did. Instead, present them with the truth as you understand it, and leave them in freedom to ‘awaken from their wine.‘ Only say what is kind, true and useful. Try to look for the good in what they are saying or doing. Forgive them. This is what the angels do. And as this story points out, it is really the main character (our self) who is naked and drunk. And we would want people to forgive us for our mistakes. So as the Lord taught in the Gospels, “whatever you want people to do to you, do also to them” (Matt 7:12).

Amen.

The Role of Music in Worship

2010-12-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this paper, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

As a musician, and a minister-in-training, the subject of the ‘role of music in worship’ is near to my heart. This paper will be a reflection on three things: 1. A reflection on the chapter entitled ‘Music in Worship’ in the Liturgics Notes compiled in the 1970s by Martin Pryke, for the Academy of the New Church Theological School. 2. A reflection on the current role of music in some of the various worship services around the General Church of the New Jerusalem today, and 3. My own reflections on what I think the role of music in worship is or should be based on my understanding of the Word. Past, present and future.

Music is first mentioned in the Bible in reference to Jubal, “He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute” (Genesis 4:21). The Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg tell us that at least as far back as the Ancient Church, there was music involved in worship (see AC 8261). And we know from many places in the Old Testament that music and musical instruments were involved in worship. These facts have led to the continuation of music being used in Christian worship and in Swedenborgian worship.

It’s interesting to note that dancing is also referred to as being used in worship in both the Ancient Church (AC 8339) and in the Bible; for example: David dancing before the ark, (2 Samuel 6), and also: “Let them praise His name in the dance, let them sing psalms to Him with timbrel and harp” (Ps. 149:3; 150:4). And yet these days--and especially not long ago--dance tends to be a much more controversial aspect of worship than music. Maybe it’s because of its visual and sensual nature, or maybe it’s because it is an art that focuses more necessarily on the performer than music does.

But with dance, as well as with music, and with any of the arts, we should examine what the Word says about them, and that should ultimately trump any traditions that we have. “'Dancing' is mentioned in the Word, [because it means] the glad feelings that belong to affections for truth, or to faith grounded in good or charity” (AC 8339) Raymond Pitcairn said in a 1920 article in New Church Life that, “Power resides in ultimates, and through correspondence the two are one. The forms of art are ultimates, and they are powerful. ... The truth is that all the arts are gifts of God, intended primarily to be the hand-maidens of religion” (Christian Art and Architecture for the New Church, p. 612).

In the past, it has been thought that one of the only styles of music appropriate for worship was classical music. Maybe this was due to the fact that Bach devoted all of his music to God. But there is plenty of classical music which was not created for a religious purpose, such as Mozart’s music. When it comes to instrumental music that is used for worship we can take one of two approaches: We could say that the only instrumental music appropriate for worship is that which has been created for religious purposes, or we could say that all music is a tool, which can be used for various purposes including worship. My belief is in the the second approach. But that still leaves us with the problem of association. If a piece of music is used for both secular and sacred purposes, then many people find that hearing that music used in worship can bring up secular associations for them. This is a valid concern, and one that needs to be dealt with carefully and with compassion.

“Heavenly songs are nothing else but voiced affections, or affections expressed and varied in musical tones. For as thoughts are expressed in spoken words, so affections are expressed in the singing of songs. Angels perceive the subject of the affection from the balance and flow of the musical variations” (CL 55). Music is a wonderful part of worship because it so wonderfully arouses our affections. And it’s almost indescribable as to how it works. Why does one particular progression of notes arouse feelings of praise, while another progress inspires feelings of humility? Why does one particular rhythm or tempo arouse feelings of joy, while another inspires feelings of peace? The Writings of Swedenborg say that angels can perceive the specific subject of a song simply from the melody, even without the words. We can do this too, to a lesser extent, when we perceive that a song is either sad or happy from the music and not the words. But all of this simply points out that music is effective at arousing our affections and emotions. So why is that important in worship? In our church it is said that the three main elements of worship are humility, praise and instruction. Humility and praise are attitudes, affections, and feelings. Music has the ability to arouse these. And the arousal of affection is even needed for instruction: “Every implantation of truth or good in a person, as well as every joining of them to him, is effected by means of affection. The truths and goods which a person has learned but for which he has no affection do indeed enter the memory, but they are lodged there as insecurely as a feather on top of a wall which is blown off by the slightest puff of wind” (AC 4018) Music is something which can help to inspire the affections that help those 'feathers' of truth stick to the 'wall' of our mind.

But we need to remember that the external forms, rituals and traditions of worship are not identical to--or necessarily conducive of--true internal worship. External worship by itself is not the same as internal worship and therefore it is not what saves us or regenerates us. So it’s far less important what those external forms look like. The only thing we really need to be concerned about is how effective they are at expressing true internal worship, namely: love to the Lord and the neighbor (See page Liturgics Notes; External worship page 3). This is why we need to continually examine, and be prepared to change our worship rituals and customs. I recently heard someone say that Sunday morning worship should really just be a celebration of the internal worship that (hopefully) went on all week in people’s hearts, minds, and useful lives. “Songs were for the sake of exalting the life of love and the joy derived from it” (AR 279) Does our worship music help us celebrate that life? Is it effective in arousing an affection and joy for spiritual things? Both clergy and laity need to ask themselves this question, and be ready to change if the answer is no.

Unfortunately, because music is so closely tied to our affections, it is often the part of worship service that people feel the most strongly about, especially when there is a suggestion of change. The Writings of Swedenborg talk about how natural harmony is representative of spiritual harmony. In a musical choir, the music only sounds good when people work together, don’t do their own thing, and follow the conductor as one (see AC 3350). Spiritual harmony is the beauty of when people work together, submit their own selfish wishes to a greater cause, and follow the Lord as one. It’s sadly ironic that the subject of ‘music in worship’ is something which can cause spiritual discord in societies, rather than spiritual harmony. It’s important, both in internal and external worship, that we submit our own wishes to a love for our fellow congregants and their wishes, and of course to the Lord as a group. It’s a tall order, but if we can do this, I think arguments about music in church societies would begin to fade away. But just like it takes practice and effort to sing a difficult piece of choral music, it also takes practice and effort to ‘sing’ a difficult piece of spiritual harmony such as: exercising charity in regards to other people’s musical taste. And just like not everyone sings the same note in a natural choir, in a spiritual choir not everyone needs to have the same musical taste for there to be spiritual harmony in a church society.

So in general we know that there can be variety in the music of worship. But what are some of the specific things we can examine in the role of music in worship? Making music match with concepts is a challenge, but an important thing in worship. How do we make a melody inspire humility or praise or curiosity? It’s the challenge of every songwriter. I think in the past there has been a worry that some styles of music have the power to manipulate our emotions too much, and that if a song was too upbeat and joyful it would be inspiring only a natural or secular kind of joy, and not a spiritual joy. This points out the curious nature of our spiritual journey. To some extent, we need to ‘fake it, until we make it.’ We need to go through the motions of love to the neighbor before the Lord can fill us with the true feeling of love to the neighbor. I think this is true for external worship as well. I think songs that inspire even just a natural sense of joy, can be used by the Lord to fill us with spiritual joy. And when we have songs that inspire joy, with lyrics from the Word, used in a worship service, then those songs can hopefully leave us with a good and spiritual association. The Lord wants us to eventually have our externals be conjoined to and express our internals, but He also knows that the journey there can be a little awkward sometimes. So I think that it’s not a bad thing that we use songs in worship which express joy that we may not currently be feeling. When we “make a joyful noise to the Lord” (Psalm 100:1), that is a form that can eventually hold a truly spiritual joy, which then matches those externals. “Gladness of heart and joy of mind produce singing and joyful shouting” (AC 4215).

This paper is primarily about the role of music in external worship. But I want to briefly discuss the concept of the role of music in internal worship. If we think about the uses of our daily life as an expression of religious charity, which is internal worship, then what does that say about the role of music in internal worship? How can music help us to live a life of love and charity throughout the week? AE 376:13 talks about how in Ancient times it was a custom to sing in the vineyards and the winepresses. People today also often listen to music while they’re working. This is why I like the concept of religious music being created and used in non-church settings as well. The Christian world as a whole has done a good job of developing it’s own styles and genres of music for use in everyday life as well as worship (Christian rock, Christian rap, etc.). I hope that we can continue to do the same thing in our Swedenborgian cultures and organized religions for the sake of our internal worship. And I also think that--when the lyrics are not contrary to our doctrines--it is appropriate and even useful for us to use music from other denominations, religions and spiritual practices in our daily lives, as a way of inspiring internal worship. Not to mention the unity and charity it can help us feel towards other Christian denominations, when we value their music.

Musical instruments are mentioned frequently in the Bible. Among the instruments mentioned are the harp, horn, flute, lyre, pipe, trigon, kithara, bagpipes, psaltery, coronet, dulcimer, organ, trumpet, oboe, shofar, bells, cymbals, sistrum, tabret, drums, and tambourines. And these vary depending on the translation. And of course a biblical harp, horn, flute, organ, trumpet, oboe, and cymbals would have looked almost nothing like the ones you would see in a modern orchestra. If our worship is drawn from the Bible, then all of these instruments should be appropriate for worship. And yet not everyone would necessarily agree. I think the subject of instruments points out how we should be using the Word in worship. Namely that in the New Church we believe that the spirit of the Word gives life to the letter of the Word. Not many would argue that we should only use biblical instruments such as the kithara in worship. But on the other hand some would argue that an electric guitar is not keeping with the spirit of a biblical stringed instrument. I think someone who truly understands the Writings would acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with using an electric guitar in worship, because worship is not about external things. However a minister should be sensitive to the internal things of worship, namely: affections that could be negatively or positively stirred by the use of an electric guitar in worship. The Writings of Swedenborg talk about what various instruments represent, but like with many things, these are not meant to be taken as prescriptive of how we should form our external worship, but rather they are prescriptive of how we should form our internal worship.

It was interesting to note that in Bishop W. F. Pendleton’s time, by common consent, the pipe organ was considered the most appropriate instrument for worship (see page 132 of the Liturgics Notes). This is not common consent anymore. And--as it should--what is considered appropriate music for worship has changed and developed from generation to generation.

Traditionally there have been four types of song used in General Church worship; the hymn, the chant, the anthem, and the Psalm. A hymn is a religious song in which the lyrics have been composed by a songwriter. The writing of hymns is a great opportunity for the laity to get involved in religious expression in worship. Hymns are usually easy to learn because they are fairly repetitive; but this is also one of their negative sides. Another downside is that older hymns which are still used because of tradition and affection, can sometimes contain lyrics which are hard to understand such as the beloved: “O Precious Sign” (#915 in 2005 liturgy) which contains the lyrics “a perfect union, all the dross consuming,” which the average person will probably not understand unless it is explained to them. My wife and I have actually re-written the lyrics to this hymn to make it clearer and more understandable. But there are some who would be horrified at the thought of changing such a beloved hymn in any way. Perhaps a middle ground is to have the minister explain the meaning of certain hymns prior to having them sung. Modern contemporary hymns are much easier to understand, however some people don’t like their style or the fact that they are often sung in unison as opposed to harmony. But songs sung in unison are still a kind of harmony (see page 124 of the Liturgics Notes).

Another kind of song used in worship is the chant. Chants are songs which take their lyrics directly from the letter of the Word, but are fit to music in a loose sort of way so that they emphasize the words more than the music. The music itself is often very simple and some would say boring. Some people like this style of music, however it is a much older style, and often doesn’t appeal to (arouse the affections of) younger generations. So for that reason the use of chants should be considered carefully. One kind of chant called the antiphon (meaning ‘opposite voice’) has developed into some more modern styles of worship music which involve call and response singing and can be sometimes found in African or Gospel music. The Liturgics notes encourage the use of this style of music in worship because it can represent the ‘call and response’ that takes place between the Lord and us. If this style of singing requires a minister who can sing, it can be problematic, and so it should never be required, but when it’s possible I like the idea of the minister getting involved in the leadership of the music in worship.

Another kind of song used in worship is the anthem. Anthems are like a combination of hymns and chants in the fact that anthems are usually direct quotes from the Bible, but they are carefully fit to melodies. Anthems used to be very complex and somewhat hard to sing. These days (especially thanks to songwriters such as John and Lori Odhner) we have many anthems which are easier to sing and also very catchy. A prime example of a modern anthem in the Church today is Heather Childs’ “The Lord’s Prayer.”

Some anthems were written in the original languages of Hebrew and Greek. Personally I dislike this, because I don’t like the idea of singing something I don’t understand. It seems like a step backward into a time when the ritual of worship was considered to have magical or supernatural powers beyond human understanding. I understand that Hebrew is a language that is close to the language of angels, but I still think that internal worship is better inspired by a person truly understanding the words of what they are singing.

Another kind of song used in worship is the Psalm. In the General Church we were fortunate enough to have a member of the church put many of the Psalm to music, with careful thought put into their internal sense meaning. However, these Psalms are very long and complex pieces of music. While the older generations of the church think fondly of them, the younger generations tend to not like them. I would love to see a modern composer put some of the Psalms to modern music.

On page 133 of the Liturgics Notes it describes two functions that an organized choir can fill in worship. One function of a choir is to lead the singing during the worship service. Another function is to provide special music for preludes, interludes, and postludes. I would suggest a third function which is to introduce new worship songs to the congregation which could be learned and incorporated into the worship service.

Many things have changed with the role of music in New Church worship over the years. Many societies use guitars where once it was only organ or piano. Many societies use multiples styles of music, where once it was only classical. Many societies have visible vocal soloists where once that was considered inadvisable (see page 134 of the Liturgics Notes). Many societies use upbeat music where once it was only soft and peaceful. The introduction of new types of music used in church camps like Laurel, which spilled over to contemporary services, have led to ground-breaking and controversial changes in the role of music in worship as evident in things like New Church Live and the Jazz Vespers at the Ivyland New Church. People are beginning to use more modern and upbeat music in their wedding services. Who knows, maybe we will start using dixieland jazz bands in our funeral services? Personally I think all of this is wonderful, but many people don’t. So how do we maintain spiritual harmony and charity in all of this? Can we have unity in internal worship while having variety in external worship? I believe we can.

So what is the role of a minister in regards to the role of music in worship? I think the role of a minister involves maintaining the soundness of doctrine in the lyrics of songs chosen for worship. (Contrary to what was said on page 133 of the Liturgics Notes, it don’t think this has to mean that the minister is always the one who selects the hymns and incidental music.) I think it involves the minister reminding the congregation what spiritual harmony is. I think it involves the minister explaining older musical traditions to younger generations, and modern musical traditions to older generations. I think it involves the minister reminding people that the externals of worship are less important than the internals, and to encourage charity in the discussion and practice of the variety of external worship rituals. I think it involves the minister being sensitive to the often conflicting affections people have about music in worship. I think (if the minister has an interest in it) it can involve the minister getting involved in leading the music in worship when possible. And I think it involves the minister encouraging the congregation to participate in the music in whatever way they feel they can, and (if they have an interest) to get involved in the leadership and production of music for the society’s worship services.

The character of Voldemort

2010-09-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a description from Swedenborg's book Divine Love and Wisdom, which reminded me of a character from Harry Potter. "What an earthly-minded person is like whose spiritual level has been completely closed. The spiritual level is closed in people who are focused on evil in their lives, especially if they are engaged in distortion because of their evils. It is rather like the way our little nerve fibers contract at the slightest touch of anything unsuitable, as does every muscular motor fiber and every muscle and the whole body, at the touch of something hard or cold. This is how the substances or forms of the spiritual level within us react to things that are evil and to the distortions that result--they are unsuitable. The spiritual level, being in the form of heaven, is open only to things that are good and to the truths that result from what is good. These are congenial to it, while evils and the falsities they give rise to are unsuitable.
This level contracts, and closes by contracting, especially in people who are caught up in a love of being in control for selfish reasons in this world, since this love is the opposite of a love for the Lord. It is also closed, though not as firmly, in people who because of their love for this world are caught up in a mindless craving to acquire the assets of others. The reason these loves close off the spiritual level is that they are the sources of our evils.
The contraction or closure of this level is like a coil twisting back on itself, which is why this level deflects heaven's light once it has been closed. This yields darkness in place of heaven's light. Accordingly, the truth that is found in heaven's light becomes sickening.
For these people, it is not just [the spiritual] level itself that is closed. It is also the higher area of the earthly level, the area called "rational." Eventually, then, only the lowest area of the earthly level stays open, the area we call "sensory." This is right next to the world and to our outward physical senses, which thereafter constitute the basis of our thinking, talking, and rationalizing. In the spiritual world, earthly-minded people who have become sense-centered because of their evils and consequent distortions do not look human in heaven's light. They look grotesque, with flattened noses. The reason they have these concave noses is that the nose corresponds to a perception of what is true. They cannot bear a single ray of heaven's light, either. The only light in their caves is like the light of embers or smoldering charcoal. We can see from this who the people are whose spiritual level has been closed, and what they are like." (DLW 254)

What makes a good minister?

2010-08-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

Having completed one year of theological school, I have learned many many things. Sometimes the many things I've learned can seem unrelated to each other. I find it useful to try to think about how each thing I've learned, each class I've taken, each experience I've had could make me a better minister. So with that in mind I've made lists of each of the classes I've taken this past year, along with thoughts I've had from each class about what makes a good minister. This is a work in progress.

The Torah - A good minister is someone who is very familiar with the literal sense of the Bible; both the ‘forest’ and the ‘trees.’ A good minister is someone who appeals to people’s affections (represented by the Levitical priests cutting up animals), reads the Word to people (represented by reading the Law), and counsels people in determining what is healthy and unhealthy in their lives (represented by determining what is clean and unclean).

New Testament Themes - A good minister is someone who models their life and ministry on Jesus. A good minister is someone who preaches the Good News, tries to heal the spiritually sick, uses stories or parables to convey truth, and practices what they preach.

Instructional Design - A good minister is someone who can be the ‘guide on the side’ as well as the ‘sage on the stage.’ A good minister is a spiritual teacher who creates a safe learning environment and adapts to different learning styles.

Conversations on Marriage - A good minister is someone who forms good relationships with people, so that if trust is formed they can ask for help when it’s needed. A good minister is someone who does not spiritually judge other people. A good minister is someone who recognizes that past mistakes don’t condemn people, but rather a love of evil condemns people. A good minister is someone who conveys the reality of the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy.

Men’s Initiative - A good minister is someone who creates spaces where people feel comfortable sharing their deepest struggles and emotions. A good minister is someone who opens the door of the church for everyone. A good minister is someone who can lead meditations and small groups. A good minister is someone who doesn’t offer unsolicited advice. A good minister is someone who can share his own struggles. A good minister is someone who uses humor to connect with people.

Pastoral Business - A good minister is someone who is a good facilitator rather than a dictator. A good minister is someone who is good at being a manager and a leader, though not necessarily a self-proclaimed leader.

Systematic Theology - A good minister is someone who sees the big picture of doctrine; someone who sees and can explain how it all fits together. A good minister is someone who leads to the good of life by means of truths. A good minister is someone who encourages people to be regenerated on this earth, and to strive for the highest heaven.

Doctrine of Education - A good minister is someone who attempts to understand and meet the needs of multiple generations of people.

Latin - A good minister is someone who seeks to be accurate with the truths of the Lord’s Word. A good minister is someone who continually attempts to understand and convey the Lord’s truth despite the limitations of natural language.

Pastoral Orientation - A good minister is someone who is familiar with and competent at all the aspects of his responsibilities.

The Incarnation - A good minister is someone who is familiar with the life of the Lord, and exactly how it is a model for our spiritual growth. A good minister is someone who has thought about the mysteries of the Lord’s coming and is able to answer people’s questions, or point them in the right direction.

Human Development - A good minister is someone who has familiarity with the psychology of human development and can use it in their pastoral and ministerial duties. A good minister is someone who understands children.

New Church Live - A good minister is someone who is willing to think outside of the box when it comes to styles of worship, and is willing to try new things for the sake of his congregation. A good minister is someone who attempts to show how the truths and life of religion are accessible to everyone. A good minister is someone who attempts to bring religion into everyday modern life. A good minister is someone who attempts to encourage a community of people who give back. A good minister is someone who is not afraid to “make a joyful noise to the Lord!” A good minister is someone who does not see anyone as a stranger. A good minister is someone who can confidently articulate a clear vision. A good minister is someone who is approachable and has a calming un-anxious presence.

Frank Rose - A good minister is someone who supports people in their spiritual journey. A good minister is someone who reaches out to everyone. A good minister is someone who is a captivating preacher.

Tom Rose - A good minister is someone who speaks from the heart. A good minister is well prepared for extemporaneous preaching. A good minister is engaging. A good minister is pleasant, warm, knowledgable, affected, excited, real, genuine, loving, interesting, friendly, a servant of the Lord, conversational, and reverent. A good minister is a good storyteller.

The Last Judgment - A good minister is someone who is aware of the dangers of the doctrines of faith alone, and the trinity of Persons. A good minister is someone who is familiar with the history of Christianity, and is also familiar with the family of modern Christianity. A good minister is someone who is familiar with falsity for the sake of defusing falsity. A good minister is someone who believes the world is getting better not worse. A good minister is someone who is familiar with the storyline of the book of Revelation. A good minister is someone who encourages people to think of their lives as a process. A good minister is someone who reminds people that the Lord doesn’t judge us, we judge ourselves. A good minister is someone who encourages people to repent. A good minister is someone who discourages judgmental thinking about other churches and denominations.

Counseling - A good minister is someone who is sensitive to people’s internal state. A good minister is someone who respects confidentiality. A good minister is someone who is a good listener. A good minister is someone who respects people’s emotional boundaries, and teaches people to do the same. A good minister is someone who non-judgmentally confronts people with the potential consequences of their behavior. A good minister is someone who remembers that their understanding of the truth is not perfect. A good minister is someone who is comforting and offers people hope. A good minister is someone who inspires people with an affection to learn the truth for themselves. A good minister provides people with safety, humility, objectivity, compassion, good listening, understanding, hope.

Speech - A good minister is someone who is a good public speaker. A good minister is someone who makes the Word of God and sermons interesting to listen to. A good minister is someone who shares their excitement about the truth in the way that they read aloud. A good minister is someone who does not sound like they are reading.

Education - A good minister is someone who inspires affection for the stories of the Word. A good minister is someone with educational experience. A good minister is someone who uses visual aids. A good minister is someone who is warm and accessible but authoritative. A good minister is someone who believes in other people. A good minister is someone who respects other people. A good minister is someone who is flexible. A good minister is someone who inspires curiosity and is fun. A good minister is someone who encourages application to life. A good minister is someone who appeals to other people’s affections.

Evangelization - A good minister is someone who seeks to lead people to a relationship with the Lord God Jesus Christ. A good minister is someone who helps people feel the Lord’s presence. A good minister is someone who helps to define culture. A good minister is someone who encourages relationships, understanding, and spiritual growth. A good minister is someone who thinks of the truths of the church as the leaves of the Tree of Life, which are for the healing of all the nations. A good minister is someone who strives for church growth for the sake of serving others and spreading the Good News. A good minister is someone with a vision and a mission.

Cathedral Usher - A good minister is someone who greets people with a smile. A good minister is someone who can make small talk for the sake of 'big' talk.

Group Dynamics - A good minister is someone who gives people spiritual food, without expecting them to eat; gives people spiritual drink, without expecting them to drink; welcomes people, without expecting them to stay; gives them spiritual clothes, without expecting them to put them on; and visits them, without expecting to free them or cure them. (See Matt 25:44) A good minister is someone who can always be interrupted. A good minister is someone who is a good role model. A good minister is someone who understands group dynamics. A good minister is someone who builds a leadership team. A good minister is someone who helps people feel like they belong. A good minister is someone who seeks to build consensus. A good minister is someone who seeks to make people happy, but doesn’t depend on it. A good minister is someone who helps people move from disorder into order. A good minister is someone who doesn’t think of themselves as the ‘moral police.‘ A good minister is someone who seeks for win/win situations. A good minister is someone who is a good communicator and who knows when to respect transparency and when to respect confidentiality. A good minister is able to be a good mediator.

Homiletics (Sermon-Writing) - A good minister is someone who is a good scholar of all Divine Revelation. A good minister is someone who seeks to unlock the hidden meanings of Scripture. A good minister is someone who remembers that enlightenment comes from the Lord alone. A good minister is someone who provides the means for other people to be enlightened by the Lord. A good minister is someone who is thorough in their studies. A good minister is someone who leads people to the truth. A good minister is someone who clarifies misconceptions about doctrine. A good minister is someone who accommodates truth to the understanding of the receiver. A good minister is someone who thinks of themselves as a servant.

New Church History - A good minister is someone who knows the history of the church, for the sake of hopefully not repeating it’s mistakes. A good minister is someone who knows the history of the church so that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. A good minister is someone who understands the origins of controversies in the church. A good minister is someone who understands the difference between doctrine and tradition. A good minister is someone who is a good judge of actions, but never judges a person’s will. A good minister is someone who points out the Lord for people to see themselves. A good minister is someone who has humility, and is open-minded. A good minister is someone who seeks unity in charity, rather than division because of doctrine.

Divine Providence - A good minister is someone who respects people’s freedom and rationality. A good minister is someone who doesn’t say anything unless it is kind, true, and useful, and encourages others to do the same. A good minister is someone who reminds people that the Lord never wants harm to come to anyone. A good minister is someone who has a love for the salvation of souls, no matter how that comes about. A good minister is someone who doesn’t think in absolutes, and remembers that everything is a matter of degrees. A good minister is someone who sees the good in all religions. A good minister is someone who is not worried about people’s salvation, but about their happiness. A good minister is someone who keeps the doors wide open, who doesn’t spiritually judge, who builds good relationships, who doesn’t try to change people without their consent, who always gives people hope and a way out, and who doesn’t micromanage people’s lives. A good minister is someone who teaches people the truth, not the truth to people. A good minister never seeks to punish. A good minister is empathetic and compassionate.

Liturgics (The Ritual of Worship) - A good minister is someone who leads, provides and explains meaningful religious rituals. A good minister is someone who offers instruction in the truths of the Word, and who encourage people to have humility, and to express praise to the Lord. A good minister encourages love to the neighbor through ritual. A good minister encourages internal worship as well as external worship.

Church Camps - A good minister is someone who tries to build a culture and community of people who love the Lord and their neighbor. A good minister is someone who encourages people to have spiritual practices. A good minister is someone who can offer spontaneous prayers. A good minister is someone who seeks to guide people to a better understanding of themselves, for the sake of serving others.

Trees and Perceptions

2010-08-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

“Genesis 2:9. ‘And Jehovah God caused to sprout from the ground every tree desirable in appearance and good for food, and the tree of lives in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.‘ A tree symbolizes perception; a tree desirable in appearance, perception of truth, and a tree good for food, perceptions of goodness. The tree of lives symbolizes love and the faith it leads to; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes faith based on evidence from the senses, that is, on secular knowledge.... People today have no idea what perception is. It is an inner feeling for whether a thing is true and good - a feeling that can come only from the Lord - which was very familiar to the people of the earliest church. The sensation is so clear for angels that it gives them awareness and recognition of truth and goodness, of what comes from the Lord and what from themselves. In addition, it enables them to detect the character of anyone they meet simply from that person’s manner of approach or from a single one of his or her ideas.” (Secrets of Heaven 102,104)

I had a very enjoyable time at Laurel Camp this summer. The theme for this year was ‘trees’ and how they symbolize us, especially as to our perceptions. It’s not hard to see that trees in the Word represent us: “The trees once went out to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, 'Reign over us.' (Judges 9:8), “And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12), “And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 17:24), “The tree you saw, which grew and became strong... it is you, O king, who have grown and become strong.” (Daniel 4:20,22), “He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon,” (Hosea 14:5), “What are these two olive trees on the right and left of the lampstand?... These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” (Zechariah 4:11,14), “And he looked up and said, ‘I see men, but they look like trees, walking.’” (Mark 8:24). There are many more passages like those that illustrate the clear symbolism in the Word of trees representing us. It’s a little less obvious that trees represent us as to our perceptions, but a careful study and comparison of passages in the Bible brings that out as well. But the analogy comes out clearly when we take the time to think about the function of trees as compared with the function of perceptions. We spent a good deal of time exploring this analogy at Laurel, and I would like to share some of my thoughts, and other people’s thoughts on the subject.

First of all, what is perception? Perceive comes from the Latin word percipere which means to ‘understand, seize or grasp.’ Broken down, it actually means to ‘take entirely;’ per meaning ‘entirely,’ and capere meaning ‘to take.‘ (We can compare this to other words with that same root, like reception, conception and preconception. Receive literally means to ‘take back.‘ Conceive literally means to ‘take together.‘) So someone who is perceptive is someone who is open to taking in truth entirely. Taking truth in entirely means getting ourselves out of the way. Often times we think we already know something and so we hinder our ability to learn something new. Open yourself up, humbly admit that without the Lord you know nothing. Eat of the tree of life, not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil could be called the ‘tree of I’m really smart, and I know more than you.’ When reading the Word or talking with other people remove any preconceptions and listen entirely. This is perception.

Roots: Starting at the bottom of the tree with the roots. If we think of ourselves as trees, then what are our spiritual roots? What is it that grounds us in a spiritual way? It is our foundation in the Word, and in the church. Our roots reach deep into the Word and draw out truths represented by water. Our roots also reach deep in the church and find connection and stability in the common ground of shared ideas from the Word. I think of the Lord telling us to build our house on the rock in the Gospels, and I think about the idea of a tree being firmly planted in the solid ground, rather than loose sand. Also, if the ground is too wet, a tree is less stable. So there is a limit to how much truth we need for our foundation. Too much truth will be more than we can handle or remember, and we could be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it. I think about the few large roots spreading out from the trunk.
What are the 5 or 7 main truths that you find foundation in? My 5 large roots are:

1. There is One Human God who is Love and Wisdom Itself. That God came to earth as Jesus Christ. The 2nd Coming of Jesus Christ has been, and is being achieved by the Lord being born again in our hearts and minds, based on an enlightened understanding of the truth in His Word.

2. We find happiness and become good people by acknowledging that all goodness comes from the Lord, by loving the people around us, by being useful, and by turning away from evil and selfishness, as described in the 10 commandments.

3. The Bible is the Word of God, and as such it was written symbolically in parables with deeper meanings, which are revealed and explained in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

4. After we die, we are free to become angels in Heaven or devils in Hell depending on whether we chose to be good or bad people in this life.

5. True love - in the marriage of one man and one woman - can last forever in heaven. Marriage itself is a manifestation of the dual nature of what is good and true in the universe.

These are my roots; my perceptions of the truths of the Word and the church.

Trunk: The trunk is what gives the tree its structure and stability. It’s mostly dead; only a thin ring is actually living. Maybe this is a good way to remember that we are not life, we merely contain life from the Lord. By ourselves, we are dead. We have life only because of the Lord.

The trunk of the tree is hard and offers protection for the life inside. Swedenborg’s book Secrets of Heaven says that perceptions are like our conscience. (AC 104). Our conscience serves as our spiritual compass or guide. We rely on it as being the core that gives us stability. We may get confused by other people’s opinions, by conflicting ideas or misunderstandings; but our conscience that has grown from a tiny fragile sapling when we were babies, is now a strong trunk that we can depend on for keeping us upright when the spiritual storms of the world try to blow us over.

Our conscience is also something that continues to grow. The rings of a tree trunk offer evidence that growth is continual. Despite the fact that we need our trunk to be stable, we also need it to be flexible. We need to maintain the humility that allows us to learn new truths from the Lord; that allows us to bend and not break when the winds of change come; and that allows us to grow new wood when we have been broken.

Branches: The branches of a tree literally reach upwards towards heaven. They mirror the spread of the roots. The symmetrical image of a whole tree is a great illustration of the fact that we exist in a duality. We live between two worlds: the ground and the sky, earth and heaven, the Lord’s external influence through the Word and people and the Lord’s internal influence through heaven and angels. We need our foundation in the cold hard facts of the Word. But we also need to reach towards heaven and be open to receiving direct enlightenment from the Lord. This is where true perception and understanding comes from. There are really two kinds of truth that enter us from different directions. The cold but nourishing water is the truth from the Word that we physically read, and commit to memory. But that is just a container. We also need the light that enters the leaves that combines with the water and creates the sugars that the tree needs to grow. Without light a tree will die. We can’t depend on water alone. We can’t depend solely on memorized knowledge of the truths of the Word. We need to constantly be reaching towards the Lord, praying, asking Him to tell us what it all means. And He will.
It won’t be constant enlightenment. There are days and nights, and seasons. But the Lord will always enlighten us if we continue to read His Word, and ask Him to explain it to us.

Sometimes a tree becomes unhealthy because there are too many branches vying for the light. The canopy becomes too crowded. Branches need to be pruned. Sometimes there are too many things we’re doing in life, or too many things we are thinking about, and we need to cut something out. “I really want to read that book, but if I do I will be ignoring my children.” It may be a good branch, but it’s keeping other branches from getting light.

Leaves: This is where we actually interface with the light; the truth of heaven. We are spiritual beings after all. We are built to understand spiritual truth, not just natural truth. But we are also designed so that we go through seasons. Our leaves turn colors, die, and fall to the ground in the Autumn. We go through cold times, dark times, where we get confused and lost, and feel disconnected with the Lord and heaven. But then the Spring comes and we get new leaves. Maybe this is because our perceptions have life-spans. Maybe a specific perception of truth that we have runs its course and needs to be replaced by a new updated perception of truth. Sometimes we get stuck in one way of thinking, and we need to go through cycles where we give up the old ideas and grow new ones.

In the last chapter of the Bible it says that the leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations. The Lord’s ideas are truths that heal people. And because we are created in the Lord’s image, and especially when we consciously try to live in the Lord’s image, our leaves can also be for the healing of the nations. Our perceptions of truth are meant to serve us spiritually, but they are also designed to serve others. This comes about in many different ways. Leaves can literally be taken off of a tree and used to create medicine. We might share an idea with someone that can actually comfort them in their spiritual pain. But leaves also give off oxygen (another form of truth) that can affect other people. I think of this as being like a person’s sphere. We are affected by the sphere that other people put off. We shouldn’t underestimate the affect that our sphere can have on other people. Apparently, “the net cooling affect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.” (U.S. Department of Agriculture) Our sphere can have a large impact. What is the ‘oxygen’ that you are giving off to the world?

The other day I sat on my porch and “watched” a storm coming in. I noticed that the only way that I knew that a storm was coming at all was because of the trees. The trees were swaying in the strong wind. And I could only hear the wind because of the leaves in the trees. Before I could see the lightning and hear the thunder, the trees were the only way that I could “see” or “hear” the storm coming. Our perceptions serve us by letting us know what’s coming before we “know” what’s coming. My wife might not say she’s mad at me, but I can perceive that she is. There is more than one way to take in truth.

Flowers, Fruits and Seeds: There is a purpose for us being perceptive people. We are designed to give back. We are designed to grow flowers, fruits and seeds. Our fruits are the actual things we do to serve our neighbor. They are the kinds words we say, that helpful things we do, performing our jobs honestly, etc. And contained at the center of all of those things are seeds that have the potential to grow into a new tree. Every good deed contains within it the ability for someone else to see it and copy it.

Shelter: What kind of tree we grow into determines what kind of birds and animals will find shelter in us. Birds represent our thoughts, and animals represent our affections. Are my perceptions full, open, and well grounded, and therefore home to good thoughts and feelings? Or are my perceptions hard, turned inward, barren, and dead, and therefore home to bad thoughts and feelings? Are my perceptions likely to be a good home for beautiful birds, and shelter for pleasant animals, or are my perceptions likely to be the home of vultures, snakes, and bugs?

There were many other wonderful ideas about trees and perceptions that were shared during my week at Laurel. I wish I could remember them all. If anyone has any additional thoughts about trees and perceptions, feel free to leave a comment about them.

My World View

2010-08-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

Based on the book Divine Providence, by Emanuel Swedenborg.

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this paper, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

Is there a God, and who is He?

There is one God, and He is Human. He is the Lord, Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah. He is the Trinity in one Person. He is Divine love and wisdom united. He is Life itself. He is the infinite and eternal. He is the Creator of the universe, and our own personal Savior. His hand is the hand of Divine Providence. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. (see DP 3, 46)

What is creation, the world, the universe?

The universe was created by - and out of - the Lord, and not out of nothing. Because it was created out of the Lord, it is necessarily a reflection (an image and likeness) of His Divine love and wisdom. Because the Lord is life, and creation has no life of itself, everything in creation is a vessel or container for the Lord’s life and His Divine love and wisdom. Creation only has life because the Lord is in it. (see DP 1) We are closer to the Lord the more we reflect the conjunction of love and wisdom, and we are further from the Lord the more we reflects their separation. (see DP 7-9)
The Lord created the sun of the spiritual world out of Himself, and by means of the substance of that sun He created everything in the universe. This means that the spiritual sun is the first and only true substance, which all things in creation come from. It is the “particles” of that sun that we would see if we could use a spiritual microscope on matter. But contrary to what might be believed, this basic substance is not more simple than the creation that is made from it, but rather it is more full and complex, since it is closer to God who is infinite. (see DP 5, 6)
This natural universe is governed by the laws of time and space. Time and space are the finite versions of eternity and infinity. Eternity and infinity are properties of God and not of creation. Our understanding of the natural world is based on time and space, but our understanding of God cannot be based on time and space because He is outside of them and bigger than them. (Even the terms ‘outside’ and ‘bigger’ imply spatial thought which we humans have a hard time breaking from) (see DP 48-51)

What is humanity?

Humans were created by the Lord, in the image and likeness of the Lord. (see DP 27) “In short, we are because God is.” (DP 46) Spiritually we are a ‘will and understanding,‘ which means that we have the ability to intend things, and we have the ability to know things. (see DP 15). Another way of describing this human duality is that we are ‘freedom and rationality.’ (see DP 72) We are the ability to choose, and the ability to figure things out with our minds. Ultimately these abilities mean that we can be vessels for the Lord’s love and wisdom. It is possible (and necessary) for our will and understanding to be at odds with each other; for us to know what is right, and intend what is evil, or to think what is false, and intend what is good. This is when our will and understanding are separated. This is necessary for our freedom. But when we know what is right, and intend what is good, our will and understanding become conjoined and we become closer to God. (see DP 16)
We are born into a sort of paradoxical life. We are given the ability to feel like life is our own, while at the same time we are given the ability to know that life is not our own, but is the Lord’s. Because we are born into the feeling that life is our own, without any knowledge that life is the Lord’s, we begin life focussed on ourselves and on what we know only from our senses. This means that our ‘will’ is not born heavenly, but earthly. As we learn about heaven with our understanding, we can be given a new ‘will’ which is heavenly, and which is truly capable of loving others and the Lord.
Humans are alive because “love is what constitutes our life.” (DP 13) The Lord’s love is what gives us life in general, and our specific loves are what drive our life. Without love, we would not be alive, and we would not be driven to live our lives. Our life therefore is defined by our thoughts and feelings. (see DP 50) And yet, we are not the source of our own thoughts and feelings. Our thoughts and feelings come from either heaven (goodness) or hell (evil), and we have the ability to choose to make them our own. (see DP 308) We are also immortal beings because since we are vessels capable of holding God’s life, our spirits can live forever after the death of our bodies. (see DP 324:3) But despite that fact that we are vessels for God’s life, we will never become God. We are, and always will be finite, and the Lord is, was, and always will be infinite. (see DP 32, 57) We will never completely comprehend the infinite wisdom and love of God, but we can begin to, and we can continue to grow in love and wisdom forever.

Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?

Because God is pure love, He naturally wants to love others. So, the reason we are here is so that we can become angels in heaven, and experience the Lord’s love forever. This means that if we accept the Lord’s love, we will become wiser, happier and more fully alive to eternity in heaven. This relationship with God is what heaven is. (see DP 27) The reason we are here on earth is because we can’t truly be happy in heaven unless we’ve freely chosen the Lord’s love for ourselves. And we can’t freely choose it for ourselves unless we have freedom, and are given the opportunity to refuse the Lord’s love. And we won’t have that opportunity unless we live in a world where good and evil seem equally desirable, and the existence of God is not provable. (see DP 129)
This earthly life is the training ground for heaven. Hell exists because people truly are free to reject God’s love. But heaven is the Lord’s goal for everyone, because He is love itself, and we are created in His image. (see DP 322) We become trained for heaven when our ‘understanding’ accepts that there is a God, and our ‘will’ accepts that we should love other people. The Lord provides that every religion and culture is capable of teaching people these basic things, so that everyone has the opportunity of getting to heaven. (see DP 322)

How do we attain our goals? How to we achieve happiness?

We are born with a will that tends to love ourselves and believe only our five senses. Because of this it takes some major changes to become people who have a will to love others and a belief in spiritual ‘unseen’ things. Mercifully, the Lord gives us the whole span of this early life to make those changes. We can’t be changed into angels instantly. We have to gradually become angels. (see DP 331). We do this by a process called regeneration (see DP 83, 92). ‘Regeneration’ means our spiritual rebirth. We are ‘born again’ when we have been given a new will to love other people and the Lord. This transformation is accomplished by the Lord alone, but it can only be done if we cooperate with the Lord. Our part of this process comes in two parts. First: we need to choose to have the Lord in our lives (often called ‘faith’). Second: we need to resist evil thoughts, feelings and actions because they are opposed to the heavenly life we wish to receive from the Lord (often called ‘charity’). This resisting is often called repentance, and it is possible because we have the ability to feel like life is our own, the freedom to choose between good or evil, and the rationality to see why evils are bad for our spiritual health. (see DP 102) When we begin this process, the Lord can reform and regenerate us.

What is knowledge? How do we acquire it?

All knowledge comes from the Lord. The Lord places knowledge in the world by means of Divine revelation. This revelation has been available to everyone to varying degrees depending on the freedom of the people who use it and pass it on. But the basic knowledge that allows us to get to heaven - the belief in a God and a belief in a life of love and not evil - is available to everyone. (see DP 325-328) The Lord’s divine truth comes to us both externally through the knowledge in the world that stems from the Word (Divine revelation), and also internally, directly from the Lord by enlightenment. (see DP 154). In both cases we receive truth directly from the Lord, because the Divine truth everywhere is the Lord.
Since we are free beings, we are capable of taking a truth from the Lord and twisting it into falsity. Because of this, we can be misled by the false understandings of ourselves and other people. For this reason, we should use our freedom and rationality to only accept truth from the Lord by means of what we see as His revelation, and what we see as enlightenment directly from Him. We should not accept truth from other people, unless it agrees with our understanding of truth from revelation and enlightenment. (see DP 129)

Where do good and evil come from?

The Lord is the source of all goodness, because He is Love itself. The Lord is not the source of evil. (see DP 286) Evil comes about because we are free to reject the Lord’s goodness. When we reject goodness, evil is created. Evil is really just the absence of the Lord’s goodness. Evil appears to have power on its own because when people and spirits around us choose evil (or when we choose evil for ourselves), that can have an effect on us. However it can never harm our souls, because our souls belong to the Lord alone. (see DP 19) People who are able to maintain happiness and love throughout something horrible - like suffering from cancer, or losing a loved one in an accident - are people who recognize this truth.

How much can we know of the future?

We can’t ever know the future for certain, because everyone is free to make their own decisions. And the Lord will never tell us the future, because He doesn’t want us to feel boxed in by a sense of predestination. (see DP 175) If we had true foresight, we would lose the abilities to hope and trust, which are essential driving forces in our spiritual growth. (see DP 178)

How much does the Lord know of the future?

The Lord knows the future; He has Divine foresight of everything. But this does not mean that we are predestined to Heaven or Hell. (If we were to be considered ‘predestined’ to anywhere it would be to Heaven, because the Lord wants us to be happy. See DP 329) We do actually have free will, and we are able to choose our spiritual path. But the Lord also knows what choices we will make. This may sound paradoxical. How can the Lord know where we will end up, and yet we are not predestined? Part of the problem is that we tend to think of God in the context of time. And yet God is outside of time. For Him, all time is the present. So it’s not that He knows what we will choose in the future, it’s that He sees all the choices that we make from a perspective outside of time, and therefore He is omniscient. (see DP 333)

Why do things happen the way they happen? Why do bad things happen to good people?

Every tiniest detail of our lives, and in all of creation, is governed by the Lord’s Divine Providence. (see DP 287) Nothing that happens is outside of the Lord’s jurisdiction. Everything that happens, happens for a reason that fits into God’s plan. We just don’t always see what that Divine eternal plan is. (see DP 175) But we can begin to get a sense of it, when we remember that the Lord’s goal is: a heaven from the human race. (see DP 27) Sometimes we can look back on something bad that happened in our life, and see the good that came out of it; the way that we learned a hard lesson, or the surprising benefits that came from going through a really hard time of life. This is all part of the Lord’s providence.
The Lord governs the world by means of five basic laws: 1. We have the spiritual ability to act from freedom according to reason. 2. We have the ability to resist evil in us, because we have been given the feeling that our life is our own. 3. The existence of God can’t be proven, because that would take away our freedom. 4. The Lord has provided that the truths of the Word, the means of salvation, are available to everyone. 5. We can’t see or understand the workings of Divine Providence, except in hindsight. (see DP 71-190)
Bad things can happen to good people because everyone is free to choose evil. So when some people choose evil, other people can get hurt. We might ask: ‘If the Lord is pure love, why doesn’t He stop that evil from happening?’ The Lord never wants bad things to happen. But if He didn’t allow them to happen, He would be removing people’s freedom. But the good thing is that the Lord only allows bad things to happen if good can come out of it. (see DP 296:8)
Our goal tends to be: ‘What will make me happy now?’ The Lord’s goal is: ‘What will make people eternally happy?‘ The Lord will allow our (often selfish) natural happiness to be sacrificed for our eternal happiness. (see DP 234) It’s like a parent that prevents their child from running out into the street. The child thinks that they will only be free and happy if they can run out into the street. The parent is thinking of their long-term freedom and happiness. But the child doesn’t understand that, and they feel like their parent is restricting their freedom and making them unhappy. Similarly we often don’t understand the Lord’s providence. The Lord also allows bad things to happen because unless we were free to see evils in ourselves and others, we would not be free to choose to reject it. (see DP 276)

Is There Such a Thing as Luck or Chance?

Because the world is governed in such a way as to preserve our freedom, it can often appear like things happen by chance or luck. But even what appears to be chance or luck, is really Divine Providence. (see DP 212)

Conclusion:

God is Love. The Universe was created by that God. All life is from God. God is “outside” of time and space. Humans were created by God so that they could become angels in Heaven and experience His love eternity. Humans have free will, and the ability to reason. Humans are vessels made for God’s life and love. We get closer to God, love, and happiness through a process of freely rejecting evil and choosing good. Everyone is capable of finding the knowledge they need for this process. God is the source of all goodness, but is not the source of evil. Evil was created by humans. The potential for evil was allowed by God in order for us to be free. God always intends good for everyone, and only allows evil if good can be brought out of it.

The Dread Parent Roberts

2010-08-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

When parenting, sometimes it seems that there are two people inside of us, fighting for control. Using the brilliant archetypes of The Princess Bride, we’ll call one “the Parent Buttercup,” and one “the Dread Parent Roberts.” ‘Buttercup’ is our unconditional patient love, and the ‘Dread Parent Roberts’ is our authoritarian need for control, which lashes out when our boundaries are crossed. ‘Buttercup’ is that sensitive part of us that gets pushed around and bullied by our children’s irrational self-centered behavior. The ‘Dread Parent Roberts’ is the part of us that gets calloused and tough as a matter of sheer survival. Sometimes ‘Buttercup’ gets captured by bandits or even the ‘Dread Parent Roberts’ himself. Sometimes the ‘Dread Parent Roberts’ gets so angry that he forgets that he is face to face with the ones he loves the most. I image a conversation between them (inside of me) going something like this:

Parent Buttercup: “I know who you are. Your cruelty reveals everything. You’re the Dread Parent Roberts, admit it!”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “With pride! What can I do for you?”

Parent Buttercup: “You can die slowly, cut into a thousand pieces.”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “Hardly complimentary, Your Highness. Why loose your venom on me?”

Parent Buttercup: “You killed my love.”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “It’s possible, I kill a lot of things. What was this ‘love’ of yours?”

Parent Buttercup: “My ability to love my children no matter how impossible they are. But when the kids are behaving badly your ship attacked, and the Dread Parent Roberts never takes prisoners!”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “I can’t afford to make exceptions. I mean once word leaks out that a parent has gone soft, children begin to disobey, and it’s nothing but work, work, work all the time!”

Parent Buttercup: “You mock my pain!”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “Parenting is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

Often times I feel like the Dread Parent Roberts has kidnapped my love. Often times I believe what he tells me; that parenting is pain. It may be that the Buttercup in me needs to push the Dread Parent Roberts down the hill. And strangely enough, the Dread Parent Roberts is really just a twisted form of the Parent Wesley, who is supposed to be married to the Parent Buttercup. We do need something that will protect our love for our children; something that looks at the Fire Swamp of parenting and says, “The trees are actually quite lovely.” As parents, there is a strange and adventuresome relationship between love and authority is us. Love without authority is like a princess captured by bandits. Not a very effective parent. Authority without love is like a cruel pirate. Not a very compassionate parent. We need both in the proper balance; the proper marriage. But getting to that marriage is often harder than we first think. Sometimes we have to go through periods of internal fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases and escapes. Sometimes it seems inconceivable that we could find peace and joy in parenting. But in the end there is the hope of getting to the true love and miracle of that wonderful relationship between a parent and child. And ultimately we need to remember to always look to our Divine Parent as a model, and ask for His help. And when we do, He’ll say, “As you wish.”

- Solomon Keal

Eve: The Feeling That Life Is Our Own

2010-07-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

Lessons:
Genesis chapter 2
Divine Providence 116

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this sermon, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

We all live in what seems to be a paradox. We all live in two distinguishable realities. On the one hand we know that our life is completely from the Lord... actually it’s the Lord’s life. This is represented in the Bible by 'Adam.' On the other hand, it feels like life is our own. This is represented in the Bible by 'Eve.' Two distinguishable realities. On the one hand we know that our thoughts and feelings are not really our’s, and so we can’t take credit for the good ones or blame for the bad ones (DP 308), but on the other hand we know that our life is defined by the thoughts and feelings that we choose. (DP 50, 196) Two distinguishable realities. Adam and Eve.

A physical example of this is that our breathing is both involuntary and voluntary. If we stop thinking about our breathing, we’ll still keep breathing. We don’t have to think about breathing in order to stay alive. Our life is the Lord’s. But if we want to, we can control our breathing and that can affect our heartbeat and mental state, and our quality of life. So are we in control of our breathing? Yes and no. It is a very real appearance that our life is our own.

Another analogy for this is that just this morning my 1-year-old daughter was walking while I held on to her hands. To her she felt like she was walking and she was very proud of that. But without that connection between her hands and my fingers, she would have fallen over and maybe even hurt herself. This is like the fact that we feel like we govern our own lives and accomplish things on our own, but it’s really the Lord who is holding us up from falling.

The purpose of creation is a heaven from the human race. As it says in Divine Providence, “The Lord did not create the universe for His own sake but for the sake of people He would be with in heaven. By its very nature, spiritual love wants to share what it has with others.” (DP 27) But the Lord’s life and love can’t be shared with us, unless we can actually experience that life and love. The success of the Lord’s goal for us depends on our sense of autonomy; our ability to feel life. And so the Lord said in Genesis, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” The end-goal for Divine Providence depends on the creation of Eve; our ability to feel the Lord’s life as our own.

So the Lord created Eve out of the rib of Adam. In Secrets of Heaven it says that “human selfhood, viewed from heaven, looks completely bony, lifeless, and hideous - inherently dead. But once the Lord gives it life, it appears to have flesh.” (AC 149) On the next page it says that not only does it come alive, but it looks “lovely and beautiful.” (AC 154) And so the Lord said in Genesis, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) The Lord wants these two paradoxical realities to be married in us... which often seems contradictory to us: ‘How can I acknowledge that the Lord is really in control, when I still have to get out of bed, and get myself to do things?’ ‘How is it possible that I could feel more alive, if I acknowledged that my life isn’t really mine?’ It doesn’t seem to make sense. Much like the difference between the sexes, these two realities see life from very different points of view. But the Lord intended that they should be complimentary, and that, “the masculine element and feminine element united by truly conjugial love produce one life that is fully human.” (CL 316) It says in Divine Providence that, "People do not know how two things can act in unison if they are different from each other.... [And yet] a form makes a whole more perfectly as its constituents are distinguishably different and yet united." (DP 4) We can’t acknowledge the Lord as the source of our life, unless we can experience that life as our own. Adam must be married to Eve. But we also can’t truly experience life in its fullness, unless we acknowledge that that life is the Lord’s. Eve must come from, and be married to Adam. In Divine Providence it says that “Love is the life of each one of us, and... the quality of that life depends on the quality of our love’s union with wisdom.” (DP 193) So the quality of our life depends on our sense of self being married to the knowledge that life is the Lord’s.

This law of Divine Providence is important in understanding how we should live our everyday lives. We need to acknowledge that the Lord is the one who regenerates us, while at the same time acknowledging that we need to do the work of repentance and reformation. The marriage of Adam and Eve is like the marriage of Faith and Charity, or the marriage of Freedom and Reason. If we believe in ‘Faith Alone’ or ‘Reason Alone’ then the Writings say we are like statues, standing still, doing nothing, waiting for salvation. (DP 321) And if we believe in ‘Charity Alone’ or ‘Freedom Alone’ - or the belief that we can regenerate ourselves - then the Writings say we are like animals (maybe even like serpents. DP 310, 321) and we become people who believe only in our own intelligence and prudence, and our own ability to accomplish good.

It’s also important that we remember that our sense of self is not just an appearance. It’s very real. Eve may have been created out of Adam, but she was just as much flesh and bone as he was. If our ability to make choices really was just an appearance, then we would all be doomed to predestination. But that’s not part of the Lord’s Divine Providence. We are truly free to make spiritual choices, thanks to the creation of Eve.

But then the snake enters the scene. “The serpent was more crafty than any other beast.” (Genesis 3:1) The snake represents our prudence, which is the part of us that trusts only our own sense of what is the right thing to do. (AC 194, DP 310, 313). The snake is the part of us that says, ‘I don’t just feel like life is my own, I believe that life is my own, and I can change myself!’ When we let the snake get to the Eve in us, then our sense of autonomy is deceived by the idea that we can govern ourselves. Eve is the access point for the hells, because it is the place where we can begin to love ourselves.

It’s interesting to note here that Adam doesn’t put up much of a fight. He’s pretty passive in this story. In Divine Providence it says that “we need to dismiss the evils of this [hellish] love with what seems to be our own strength. To the extent that we do this, the Lord draws near and unites us to Himself.” (DP 33) We can’t just expect that because we have ‘Adam’, we will be saved. That’s a life of faith alone. We need our ‘Eve’ to resist the fruit offered by the snake. That’s the only way to truly be conjoined with the Lord. But on the other hand maybe if the conversation hadn’t between just between Eve and the snake, but between both Adam and Eve and the snake, then maybe the two of them together would have been able to resist the snake, and the story would’ve ended differently.

So who is to blame in this story: Adam, Eve, or the serpent? It’s important to recognize that our sense of self (Eve) is different from our love of self (Serpent). Our sense of self is a truly human gift from God, but the love of self is from hell. Actually, Adam, Eve, and the serpent all ended up getting cursed in this story, and part of Eve’s curse is that her husband would rule over her. (Genesis 3:16) Our sense of autonomy - the feeling that life is our own - should be ruled by our acknowledgment that life is from the Lord. Contrary to what many Christians, including Paul, have thought, this doesn’t mean that husbands should literally rule over their wives. It’s talking about a marriage inside each of us. But even thought Paul’s understanding may have been somewhat flawed, his words to the Ephesians still capture this idea very nicely. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22) Our sense of autonomy should submit to our belief that our life is from the Lord. And Paul goes on to acknowledge the other side of it as well: “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.” (Ephesians 5:28) We should love and cherish this sense of autonomy that the Lord has given to us. This is what allows us to feel the joy of the Lord as joy in ourselves, and thus to truly experience His love. (see DLW 47) And this is also why “the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” (Genesis 3:20)

Now the downside of having ‘Eve’ in us, is that along with being able to feel happiness and joy, we can also feel sadness and pain. This is the other part of Eve’s curse. “In pain you shall bring forth children.” (Genesis 3:16) But this is only what happens when we forget about Adam. We might sometimes say to ourselves, “Life is hard!” It’s hard work to resist evils that we are inclined to from birth. If we listen to our own prudence, as Eve listened to the snake, then life does feel hard, the way does seem narrow (see Matt 7:13), and it even seems as impossible as trying to fit a camel through the eye of a needle (see Mark 10:25) . But if we remember to keep Eve married to Adam, then the yoke is easy (see Matt 11:30) . “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27). When Eve and Adam are married in us, then we are more likely to say, “Life is Good!” because we recognize that the Lord is good, and life is the Lord’s.

So what do we do? We do need to resist evils with what seems to be our own strength. We do need to repent of bad habits, and try to start good habits. We do need Eve. But when that feels really hard, and even impossible; we need to remember Adam: we need to pray to the Lord, ask for His help, find His wisdom in His Word, and cast our cares on Him. This is the marriage of Adam and Eve. Our ultimate union with the Lord is represented by a marriage, because our sense of self must be married to an acknowledgment that all life if from the Lord. Regeneration is a lot like marriage. It involves two very different points of view making one life together. And just like with the marriage of a man and woman, it may be difficult and feel impossible at times, but in the end, if we trust in the Lord, we can actually experience the heaven of feeling the Lord’s joy. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

Amen.

My 2nd Sermon

2010-06-10T14:13:00.000-07:00

The Centurion’s Faith in Jesus: The Healing Power of Love

Lessons:
Matthew 4:13-17, 23-25
Matthew 8:5-13
DP 330:5-7

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this sermon, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

I’ve often found it seemingly paradoxical that our church teaches that: ‘faith that saves is to believe in Jesus Christ’ (see TCR 3), while at the same time it teaches that: ‘people of all religions can be saved’ (see DP 330). If a Muslim or Buddhist who doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ can be saved, then why does our church teach that: ‘faith that saves is to believe in Jesus Christ’? How does this work? A comprehensive understanding of the Heavenly Doctrines as revealed by Emanuel Swedenborg explains how this works. But rather than seeking to answer this question purely by doctrinal study, let’s first look at a story in the Gospels. A great story that illustrates this concept can be found in the story we just read of the centurion’s faith in Jesus, in Matthew chapter 8.
After the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus came down from the mountain and healed all kinds of people. In Capernaum, a Roman centurion came up to Jesus and asked Him to heal his servant. The Lord said He would come and do so. The centurion then said, ‘You don’t need to come; just say the word and he will be healed.’ And Jesus responded by saying in amazement to His disciples:
“Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:10-12)
The servant was then healed at that very moment because of the faith of the centurion.
It’s not hard to grasp the basic moral of this story: The Lord is telling us that mere membership in the church does not imply true faith, and that mere non-membership in the church does not imply a lack of true faith. The simple moral of the story is tolerance. This centurion was a Gentile Roman and not a Jew, and yet the Lord was implying that he had a greater faith than some of the Jews who were considered ‘sons of the kingdom.‘ Translated into modern times, the Lord is telling us that we should remember that a Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Catholic, Protestant and Swedenborgian are all just as capable of being saved and ‘reclining at table in the kingdom of heaven.’ This is one of the well-loved teachings of our church. Not many churches teach such universal religious tolerance. If we were to ask ourselves ‘What Would Jesus Do?‘ in this story, we could answer, ‘He would want everyone to be healed and saved,’ and so should we.
But that’s the easy moral of this story. Let’s ask ourselves a less obvious question: ‘What Would the Centurion Do?’ All the characters in the Bible represent us. So I can ask myself: Am I being like the ‘sons of the kingdom’ and ‘gnashing my teeth’ at people? Or am I being like the Gentile centurion with his amazing faith in the Lord. And what was it that made this centurion’s faith so amazing, so true, and so effective? What was it that was lacking in the faith of some of the Jews that put them at risk for being ‘thrown into the outer darkness’? In the end, this story gets us asking the question, ‘What is faith that saves after all? And do I have it?‘ We should not assume that simply because you are sitting there, and I am standing here, that we automatically have faith that saves.
In order to get at the answer to this question, let’s pick apart the details of this story. We know from the story as it is told in Luke, that this centurion was a good man. The Jews told Jesus that, “he is worthy to have You do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” (Luke 7:4,5) We might imagine this being like a German officer in occupied France, helping the French people repair a bombed church. This was a person who went out of his way to help his immediate neighbor. This was a person who had every opportunity to abuse his power over his neighbor, and instead he helped them. This was a person who truly practiced love to the neighbor; which really just means: love towards everyone.
But why did this Roman centurion have so much faith in Jesus? He wasn’t a Jew, so he probably wouldn’t have believed in any prophesies of the Messiah. If he was a religious man at all, he very likely worshiped Jupiter or Mars, or even the emperor in Rome. What was his faith in Jesus based on? Well, we know that both Jesus and this centurion lived in Capernaum (Matt. 4:13), so very likely this centurion had heard of, and probably even seen many of the healings and miracles of Jesus. After all, Jesus was literally famous for the power He had to heal disease and cast out demons (Matt. 4:24). So the centurion’s faith was quite simply based on the fact that he knew Jesus could heal his boy. True Christianity number 2 says, “To believe in Him is to have confidence that He saves.” The centurion had confidence that Jesus could save his servant. The name ‘Jesus’ actually means Savior, as we know from the Heavenly Doctrines (see AC 3004 and TCR 298) and from the literal sense of the Word where it says: “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” (Matt 1:21). Jesus saves us from hell, which in the Word is represented by sickness, demon-possession and death.
As was said before, we also know from the Luke version of the story, that the centurion was a good man. The number from True Christianity goes on to say that “...and because only those who live good lives can have such confidence, this too is meant by believing in Him.” The centurion had true faith because he had confidence that Jesus could save his servant, and because he was a good man. So for us, the test of whether our faith is true or not could be: Do I have confidence that the Lord can and wants to save me spiritually? And, am I loving towards people? When I’m doing those things, I have true faith. When I’m not, I don’t have true faith.
Now lets look at some other details of this story. The centurion had a paralyzed servant at home. If we are the centurion, then what is our ‘paralyzed servant at home’? Apocalypse Revealed number 3 says that in the Word ‘servants’ represent truths, because true ideas serve goodness, as a servant serves his master. Also, a person’s ‘home’ represents his mind or his life. So as the centurion, we might recognize that we often want to do what is good, but we don’t always now how. We lack the truths that serve our desire to be good. Our servant is lying paralyzed at home.
Another detail is that the centurion lived in Capernaum. In a good sense, ‘Capernaum’ represents “the establishment of the church with the Gentiles that are in the good of life and that receive truths.” (AE 447:5) Earlier in Matthew, Capernaum is associated with this quote from Isaiah: “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” (Matt 4:16) Jesus fulfilled this prophesy by living in Capernaum; by bringing light into the darkness. So it’s important for us to recognize that without the Lord living in our ‘town’, we too will live in darkness and falsity. When we find that our ‘servant at home’ is sick, we need to remember that the Lord lives right here in our ‘home town’, and we just need to turn to Him for help. That is part of faith that saves.
The Lord then tells His disciples that “many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” What is meant by the people from the ‘east and west’? This makes me think about how even today we refer to people of ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ philosophies. Often times these people don’t see eye to eye on things. But the Heavenly Doctrines tell us that, whatever the doctrine or philosophy, if a person is living a good life, they can get into heaven. In Secrets of Heaven it say that “‘many from the east and the west’ denote those who are in the knowledges and the life of good, and those who are in obscurity and ignorance; thus those who are within the church and those who are without it.” (AC 3708:13) Apocalypse Explained says that people from the east and west also represent “all who are in the good of love to the Lord and in the good of charity towards the neighbor” (AE 422:6). And that number goes on to say that “all who are in good are also in truths,” because as it says in the Doctrine of Life, “good loves truth.” (Life 65). What this means is that people who want to do good and love their neighbor tend to seek out philosophies that support that. Apparently, whether that is a Buddhist philosophy or a Christian philosophy is less important than whether or not they are loving God and loving the people around them.
“Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” The Writings tell us that ‘Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ represent “the celestial things of love” (AC 2187:4), and also the Lord Himself (see AE 252:3, AE 768:13, AC 10442). So ‘to recline at table with them’ represents to be conjoined with the Lord, to make His love a part of us, and to have heaven within us (see AC 3832, 9527, 10442, AE 252:3), because as the Lord taught us in Luke, “the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) So just like when we take the Holy Supper, ‘reclining at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ represents bringing the Lord’s love and wisdom into us so that heaven lives in us, and we live in heaven. The Lord is the “bread of life” (John 6:35) and we should be eating that bread. This isn’t just describing the process of getting to a place called ‘heaven’ after we die, this is describing the process of bringing heaven into our current natural lives. And the way we do that is by having faith like the centurion. The ‘faith that saves’ is a life of love towards others.
Sometimes it can also be useful to understand what we should be doing by looking at what we shouldn’t be doing. Sort of a ‘10 Commandments’ mentality. This is where we get into the last part of the Lord’s words to his disciples, “...while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In Apocalypse Explained is says that: "‘kingdom’ in the Word signifies heaven and the church in respect to truths.” (AE 48:2) So the ‘sons of the kingdom’ are people who have the truths and therefore should have heaven in them, but in this case they don’t. These ‘sons of the kingdom’ get thrown into the ‘outer darkness.‘ In the Word ‘darkness’ symbolizes “falsity arising either from ignorance of truth, or from some false tenet of religion, or from a life of evil.” (AR 413:3) So how does somebody get from having the truth, to being in falsity? The key is in the last thing Jesus says: “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In Secrets of Heaven, we are told that ‘gnashing of teeth’ represents the “collision of falsities with the truths of faith.” (AC 9052:3) The Writings also say that people represented by the phrase ‘gnashing of teeth’ are people who engage in: contempt for others, hostility, derision, mockery, enmity, and jeering because a person who is like this “fights for his [or her] own falsity from love of self, [love] of learning, and [love] of fame.” (AE 556:18. See also HH 575) And that people who spiritually ‘gnash their teeth’ “appear to themselves to have power over everything.... and argue about everything.” (AR 435) When we have the truth, and at the same time no love for the people around us, then those truths get twisted into falsities. When we engage in doctrinal arguments and battles with other people in which we get nasty and mean, then we are like the ‘sons of the kingdom’ being thrown into outer darkness.
The centurion was not a ‘son of the kingdom.’ He didn’t know anything doctrinal about the Lord. But what he did know was that Jesus was a good Man who could save people from sickness and death. The centurion called Jesus ‘Lord,’ not because he had necessarily read the Scriptures and recognized the Messiah, but because he recognized that Jesus was the Master of healing and salvation. It is possible that he actually believed that Jesus was God (Jupiter) Himself (see AE 815:3). But more importantly, he recognized that Jesus represented the healing power of love, and that is what he had faith in. That is why people of all religions can be saved, because everyone can recognize and know the healing power of love. And since that is who the Lord is, then everyone can know the Lord. Swedenborg’s book Divine Providence states that “no one is saved because of knowing about the Lord. We are saved because we live by His commandments. Further, the Lord is known to everyone who believes in God because the Lord is the God of heaven and earth.” (DP 330:6)
So as you go into your week, ask yourself if you are ‘gnashing your teeth’ at people, or if you are ‘reclining at table‘ with the Lord’s love. Because what really matters in the church is that we live our lives with an acknowledgment of the Lord’s power to heal, and a love for the people around us, like the centurion did. This was the faith that Jesus marveled over. Because in the end, love is the faith that saves. And the salvation of the Lord’s healing love comes to us when we have a faith and life of love. “And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment.”
Amen.

My First Sermon

2010-05-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

"The Uncut Stones of the Temple"

Readings:
1 Kings 6:1-7
Matthew 7:24-27
Swedenborg's True Christianity, number 221

Today we are going to focus on the meaning of the whole uncut stones used in constructing the walls of the temple in Jerusalem, and how that applies to our life. The specific text that we will be focusing on is 1 Kings chapter 6 vs. 7 which says that “...the house itself...was built with unhewn stone, and no hammer or ax or any iron tool was heard in the house while it was being built.” (1 Kings 6:7)
There is some disagreement among Biblical scholars over whether these stones that were brought to build the temple were whole uncut stones, or whether they were simply cut to size and squared off-site at the quarry before arriving at the temple construction site. It makes a big difference in how we picture the temple in out minds, or in artwork. Many artists paint Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem as being built out of large square blocks of stone, much like the construction of the Bryn Athyn cathedral. But this may not be an accurate portrayal of the temple. It may be more accurate to portray the temple as being built of large irregularly-shaped stones, fitted together with mortar. Or maybe the temple was built of whole stones that were carefully fit together like puzzle pieces without mortar, like the dry-stone-wall construction of Machu Picchu in Peru. Whether it’s a difference between source texts, or because the Hebrew is simply unclear, there are differing opinions on this point. Fortunately we know from the Heavenly Doctrines as revealed by Emanuel Swedenborg that the temple was indeed made of unhewn or uncut stones, and that this was for a very specific and important reason.
But before we get to that reason, let’s place this passage in context. How does this story of the temple being built have meaning in our life? What is the spiritual meaning of the temple? Jesus Himself answered this question in John:
So the Jews said to him, "What sign do you show us for doing these things?" Jesus answered them, "Break this temple in pieces and I will raise it in three days." The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking about the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:18-22)
It is widely recognized in the Christian world that the body of Christ means the Church (see TCR 372), and that we should abide in the Lord and the Lord in us. (see John 15:4). We also know from John chapter one that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Word. So from all of these passages we can see that the temple represents the Lord, the Word, the Church or religion, and that we should live our spiritual lives in that temple, and that we should build a house in us for the Lord to live.
So the construction of that temple refers to the construction of our religion; the place in us where the Lord can dwell. And King Solomon in this story represents the Lord in His first advent, or in the case of our current lives, he represents the first advent of the Lord into our hearts and minds. Once we have received the Lord into our lives, He can begin to regenerate us, which is the construction of the temple. The construction of the temple took seven years to accomplish, much like the seven days of creation that we know represents our spiritual rebirth. And though the entire project was overseen by Solomon (representing the Lord), we know that in the Word, "the builders are the people of the church” (HH 534). In other words: we are employed by the Lord to build our own religion.
When a building is being constructed, first the outside is constructed, then the inside is constructed. This is true for us too. First we need create external structures in our life, by developing good habits and spiritual practices. In time, those external structures can be filled with the actual goods of religion. In other words, we first have to force ourselves in a very mechanical and structured way to follow the truths of religion; such as obeying the 10 commandments. After that is accomplished we can begin to love to do those things. That external structure can only be founded on truths. That is why the exterior of the temple was built of hard stone (representing truths), and the interior of the temple was built of soft wood (representing good).
The Lord has told us in His Word that, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” (Psalm 127:1), and also that “Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” (Matt 7:24-25) We also know that the Lord Himself is called “The Stone of Israel” (Genesis 49:24), and that as it says in John; the Lord is the Word (John 1:1,14).
These passages explain that we need to construct our religion based on the truths of the Lord’s Word. In the Word, truths are represented by rocks or stones, such as the two tablets of stone on which the 10 commandments were written. But these passages from the literal sense of the Word also illustrate the process of how we should construct our religion; namely by using the literal sense of the Word. Passages from the Word can be placed together to form spiritual ideas that we can live by, much like stones can be placed together to form a building that we can live in.
The Writings of Swedenborg tell us that whole unhewn stones represent the truths of the literal sense of the Lord’s Word (see AC 8940, 8941; AE 585). Hewn stones by contrast represent “what is artificial, and thus what is fictitious in worship; that is, what is of man's own or of the figment of his thought and heart.” (AC 1298:2) and also “whatever of doctrine, religion, and worship is from self-intelligence” (AE 585:11). Because everything can have both a good and bad correspondence, rocks or stones can represent either truth or falsity; and in this case a hewn stone represents falsity from our own intelligence. (see AR 847) Taken to the extreme we can see how evil comes out of this when we think about how an intricately hewn stone could become an idol, and could achieve the complete opposite result from the one intended by building the temple.
A religious fabrication, produced out of self-intelligence and not derived from the Word, is meant in the internal sense by 'idols' and 'strange gods', by 'molten images' and 'graven images'. Products of the self are nothing else; for in themselves they are dead, even though venerated as living. (AC 8941)

The reason why hewn stones represent this, is because of what iron tools represent. “By these instruments are signified such things as are of self-intelligence, and which devise.” (AC 8942) Iron tools are an extension of our hands which are extensions of our own will and our own understanding, and when these stem from love of one's self above all else, it is dangerous to apply them to the Lord’s Word. (see AC 10406:11) The Writings say that, "‘iron’ signifies truth in ultimates, which is called sensual truth, which when separated from rational and spiritual truth, is turned into falsity.” (AR 847) When we take truth only at it’s sensual, literal level, we can be tempted to abuse it. We could take one truth out of context and repeatedly hit someone over the head with it to drive home a point we want to make, much like chiseling at a stone with sharp iron. That is not what the Lord wants us to do with His truths. His truths are meant to be gently, quietly placed together to build a house suitable for worship which is the life of charity.
As was said earlier, the stones in the walls of the temple specifically represent the truths of the literal sense of the Word. Like rocks these truths can be very irregular at times. They can be bulky. They can be heavy and hard to carry. They can have sharp points and rough edges. When we’re trying to fit them into the philosophy of how we live our lives, it can be very tempting to take the iron tools of our limited selfish intellect and shave off some corners. For example ‘This statement about the Lord wanting the children of Israel to kill Midianites in the book of Numbers, doesn’t fit with Jesus telling us to love our enemies in Matthew. I think I’ll just trim the corner off so they fit together better. Or maybe I’ll just leave this stone out; it really doesn’t seem to fit.’ In the past, the Christian church fell into the error of splitting God into three persons, almost like splitting what should have been one whole stone into three stones to make them fit better in the walls of the temple.
Despite the fact that the Lord warns us not to use our limited selfish intellect to change the stones of the literal sense of the Word, He still wants us to work with these stones. We still need to do the work of actually piecing them together into the walls of a temple that will hold the life of charity. The Lord does not do this for us. And so we are told in the Writings,
That by "'a worker in stone' is signified the good of love, or the will of one who is regenerate, [and that this] is because the good of love works in a person while they are being regenerated, and disposes the truths with them into order; and afterward, when they have been regenerated, it keeps them in their order." (AC 9846)
If we have a love for the Lord and a love for the neighbor in our hearts, then that will guide us in knowing how these strangely shaped stones of the Lord’s Word can be pieced together to form a beautiful temple; the life of religion.
Our job as good workers of stone, is to trust that the whole stones of the literal sense of the Lord’s Word do fit together to form the walls of the church in us. Whether they fit because of the conjunctive power of mortar (which represents the good of charity (see AC 1300)), or because the Lord gives us the spiritual enlightenment to see how the puzzle-like stones fit together, the important thing is that we do not attempt to change or modify the truths of the literal sense of the Word with our own intellect. We need to trust that our religion can be based on those truths.
When we do this, we will develop a good trusting relationship with the Lord. We will also gain a sense of contentment. This is why the building of the temple was relatively silent, because of “the meaning of 'being silent' as resting content and... refusing to think or believe that [we] achieve anything by [our] own powers” (AC 8176)
Once the external structure of our religion has been constructed out of the truths of the literal sense of the Word, we can begin the interior decoration of that temple. Strangely enough, though the external walls of the temple had to be built from unhewn stones, the interior walls of the temple were built out of intricately carved wood. Iron tools must have been used on that wood! So how do we reconcile this? The Lord does not want us to be robots, blindly obeying His will. He wants us to use our understanding, and our sense of self, for good. A common saying in our church, taken from the book True Christianity, is that ‘Now it is permitted to enter with understanding into the mysteries of faith.” (TCR 508) The Lord permits the use of our 'iron tools' on the rational and good things of the interiors of the temple. But those things must first be given structure and stability by the unhewn stones of the exterior walls: the truths of the literal sense of the Word. Without that structure and protection, the beautifully and delicately carved wood of the interior of the temple would be destroyed by the elements of nature, and simply fall to pieces.
So think about your own religion. Is it constructed out of whole unhewn stones? Is it constructed out of a knowledge of the literal sense of the Word? Are you a good worker in stone? Is your construction design based on love to the Lord and love to the neighbor? Think about these things the next time you see a stone wall, and remember the Lord’s words in Matthew: “Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” (Matt 7:24-25)
Amen.

The Lord's Divine Truth in the Word

2010-04-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

A Study of the Nature of the Language of the Word, and the Process of Deriving Doctrine from the Word.

“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5) “The Word in this passage is the Divine truth that is in the Lord and from the Lord, so here it is also called the light, which is Divine truth.” (HH 137)

The Word is the Lord’s Divine truth. What we call the ‘Bible’ - or the literal sense of the Word - is the container for this Divine truth. (See TCR 210) By reading the physical words on the paper, we can develop an understanding of the Lord’s Divine truth. This provides a natural basis for the Lord’s immediate presence with us. And so it is extremely important to read the Word.
But “the Word is not understandable without a body of teaching.” (TCR 225) This is because the Divine truth lies hidden within the actual physical words of the literal sense. If one thinks about it, it would be impossible for the Lord’s infinite truth to be fully represented by finite words, unless there were levels or dimensions of truth within truth.
In the New Church, the ‘body of teaching’ which interprets the Word is drawn from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, who, by being enlightened directly from the Lord, drew it from the letter of the Word.

What are the levels or dimensions of truth in the Word? The highest level of truth in the Word is the truth that relates to the Lord and love to the Lord. This is the celestial or heavenly sense. The next level of truth in the Word is the truth that relates to loving one’s neighbor. This is the spiritual sense. Both of these senses are internal to the literal or natural sense of the letter. The natural sense of the Word includes the actual letters of the Bible, as well as a literal understanding of the stories in an historical and moral way. (See AC 3712, De Verbo 35, TCR 212). Because the spiritual and celestial sense both reside within the natural sense, there are often what seem to be redundant dualities or trines representing these two or three senses. Phrases like “void and empty” or be “fruitful and multiply” reflect this reality.
It is these internal meanings that make the natural Word holy, (see TCR 200) because it would be impossible for finite letters to be equivalent to infinite truth if this were not so. But it is in the literal sense of the Word that the fullness of that holiness resides, (see TCR 214) because in the literal sense is contained truth for humanity on every level. Thus it is that Divine doctrine exists in all levels of the Word (AC 3712).

The literal sense of the Word is like the body of a person, while the internal or spiritual sense is like the soul of a person. (see AC 2311, SS 5). We can’t get to know a person’s soul without their body. The body is the means whereby their soul is knowable. Also, without a body, a person’s soul would not be able to function in this world. The soul is the reason why a person’s body is alive. All these things are also true of the internal and literal senses of the Word. And just like the truths about a person’s soul don’t always match with the truths about a person’s body (for example a really good person could look physically ugly), the internal truths of the Word don’t always shine through the literal sense in an immediately obvious way. But the more we try to get to know a person in an accepting and loving way, the more we see their true nature shining through any physical ugliness, quirky behaviors or confusing way of talking. The same is true with the Word. The more familiar we become with the entire literal sense of the Word, from a sincere desire to understand the Lord’s goodness and truth, the more that internal truth will shine through.
When we are getting to know a person, we principally get to know their soul by means of the things they say and do. The things they say and do are most often accomplished by their face and hands. And so it is also true that we especially get to know the internal sense of the Word through its ‘face and hands.’
"The doctrine of genuine truth may also be fully drawn from the literal sense of the Word; for the Word in that sense is like a person clothed, but whose face and hands are uncovered. Everything in the Word pertaining to man’s life, and thus to his salvation, is there unveiled. The rest is veiled; and in many places where it is veiled it shines through as the face appears through a thin veil of silk. Moreover, as the truths of the Word increase from the love of them, and are co-ordinated by love, they shine more and more clearly through their coverings and become more obvious. But this also it brought about by means of doctrine." (SS 55, see also TCR 229)

So the body of teaching that we need in order to fully understand the internal sense of the Word, still “has to be drawn from the Word’s literal meaning.” (TCR 225) But how is that to be done when the literal sense of the Word is so often confusing, strange, and contradicting? The same way that it is to be done when dealing with a person. We should look for the good in that person, or in other words, we should look for the Lord’s goodness in the Word. “Divine truth needed for a body of teaching becomes manifest only to those who have enlightenment from the Lord.” (TCR 225)

What is enlightenment? In a natural sense it means that a person can see because there is light and not darkness. In a spiritual sense, it means that a person can understand truth because of a connection with the Lord through heaven, and not with hell. “Enlightenment comes to people who love truths because they are true and who make them useful in their lives, because these people are in the Lord and the Lord is in them.” (TCR 231) So in one sense enlightenment comes with an attitude adjustment; when we choose to think positively, rather than negatively. But how does this work?
"We can understand how this happens by perceiving that for vertical levels, one is above the other, with the earthly level, the terminal one, acting like an inclusive membrane for the two higher levels. As the earthly level is raised toward a higher level, then, the higher activates that outer earthly level from within and enlightens it. The enlightenment is actually happening because of the light of the higher levels from within, but it is received gradually by the earthly level that envelops and surrounds them, with greater clarity and purity as it ascends. That is, the earthly level is enlightened from within, from the light of the higher, distinct levels; but on the earthly level itself, it happens gradually." (DLW 256)

So it is not simply by reading the physical words of the Bible that we gain enlightenment in spiritual truths, but by mentally focussing on searching for the Lord’s goodness and truth in those words. This mental focus is what opens our minds to heaven which is where the enlightenment and understanding truly comes from. The understanding of the literal sense of the Word is like a container which, if turned in the right direction, can hold spiritual truth from the Lord, but if not turned in the right direction, remains empty.
Emanuel Swedenborg had this focus, and so he was enlightened by the Lord as to the spiritual meaning of the Word in a very detailed way. His spiritual eyes were opened to the true nature of the Sacred Scripture, much like the Lord’s disciples’ minds were opened after His resurrection. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.... Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:27,45) Swedenborg was appointed by the Lord to be enlightened in this way so that he could provide the means for a new revelation of truth. This new revelation is the second coming of the Lord as was prophesied by the Lord in John: “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.” (John 16:25) In the Writings of Swedenborg we are told about the nature of the language used in the Word. The ‘figures of speech’ are alluding to the symbolic language of the Word. The concept of symbolic speech is not a new one, since the Lord Himself explained some of His own parables. But the finer details of that ultimate parable known as the Bible, is explained by Swedenborg to be a language of correspondences, representations and significations.

‘Correspondences’ describe the relationship between spiritual things and natural things. All natural things exist because of spiritual things; but the two exist in different dimensions known as discrete degrees. What we think of as natural realities are really just manifestations of spiritual realities. Water, for example, is a natural manifestation of truth. Water ‘co-responds’ to truth, because they respond together; they respond in the same way. Water quenches our natural thirst and cleans our physical bodies, the same way that truth quenches our spiritual thirst and cleans our spiritual bodies. “Correspondence is the appearing of the internal in the external.” (AC 5423). Water behaves in this way because truth behaves in this way.
While ‘correspondence’ describes the very real relationship between spiritual and natural things, ‘representations’ describe the appearance, manifestation, or image on the natural plane. (see AC 4044) In the stories of the Word, water represents truth. ‘Signification’ means that the words themselves in the Bible represent things. For example: water corresponds to truth, and so therefore water represents truth, and the word ‘water’ in the Word signifies truth. (see AC 2899) “Correspondences, representatives, and significatives conjoin the natural world with the spiritual.” (AC 7290)
The entire divinely inspired Word was written using this kind of language, and so it contains within it Divine truth, because it is multi-dimensional. Knowledge of correspondences allows us to, as it were, break the code of the literal sense. But we must be careful with this knowledge:
"You might think that we could gain a body of genuinely true teaching by exploring the Word’s spiritual meaning through the study of correspondences. In fact, a body of teaching is not gained through that meaning; it is only enlightened and corroborated by that meaning, for... people who know a few correspondences are capable of falsifying the Word be connecting and applying correspondences to support some preconceived idea already lodged in their mind." (TCR 230)

So once again we come back to the important fact that we must always go to the Lord for enlightenment. It is only the Lord that can open our eyes to Divine doctrine; the genuine truth in His Word. “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13)

How to apply the 10 Commandments

2010-03-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

I've been working on developing a chart for how to understand and apply the 10 commandments, based on some key doctrines I've been learning from the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Doctrines relating to the Lord's mercy, His love for the human race, and the true consequences of our choices and actions. This study stems from the Writings' assertion that it is the love of adultery, not necessarily the act of adultery, that condemns a person to hell (which - in more accurate terms, because the Lord personally condemns nobody to hell - means that a person will choose to live in hell.) The act of adultery is bad and harmful to oneself and one's neighbor, but it does not condemn a person unless they love it. (See Conjugial Love number 423 and also the chapter on 'Adultery in its Kinds and Degrees') I began to see how this holds true for all of the 10 commandments.

So I've started creating a chart with five columns. In the center is the 10 Commandments themselves. The column to the right of that is a column entitled, "Bad Things To Do Which Are Repentable and Forgiveable and Won't Necessarily Lead to Hell" I know it's a pretty long title, but there it is. In this column are listed the actual acts of disobeying the 10 Commandments: Killing, Committing Adultery, Lying, Stealing, Coveting, etc. These acts in themselves are bad, but won't necessarily send a person to hell. A person can repent of all of the acts of disobeying the 10 Commandments, and with the Lord's Divine Mercy get themselves to Heaven.

The column to the right of that one is called "Things That Will Lead To Hell." In this column are listed the loves of disobeying the 10 Commandments, as opposed to simply breaking them in act. Loving to kill, loving to commit adultery, loving to steal, loving to lie, etc. These things will send a person to hell, not simply the acts in themselves.

The column to the left of the center column is called, "Good Things To Do Which Won't Necessarily Lead To Heaven." In that column are listed all of the acts of literally obeying the 10 Commandments. Going to church, never taking the Lord's name in vain, not committing adultery in act, not killing, not stealing, not lying, etc. These are great things to do. But all of these things could be done from a sense of honor, reputation and personal gain. They could be done in act, but without a love for them. They are good in the sense that they keep a person from harming their neighbor. But if they aren't taken to heart, in themselves they will not get a person into Heaven.

The column to the left of that is called "Things That Will Lead To Heaven." In this column are listed all of the loves of obeying the 10 Commandments. Loving the Lord, loving one's neighbor, loving marriage, being honest, being content, etc. These are the things that lead to Heaven.

This is important to remember because we need to be careful about making spiritual judgments. If a person disobeys a particular commandments, we cannot assume that that act is filled with a love of Hell. Likewise if a person obeys a particular commandment we cannot assume that that act is filled with a love of Heaven. People in Heaven are filled with a genuine love of the Lord and the neighbor. People in Hell are filled with a genuine hatred of the Lord and the neighbor. The acts that we do or do not commit here on Earth, in themselves do not determine those loves. Good acts are definitely good. Bad acts are definitely bad. But salvation and condemnation are bigger than that.

The 10 Commandments are given primarily for us to judge ourselves. They are the guide for telling us where we are on our spiritual path.

Fluency in the Internal Sense

2010-03-26T13:16:00.000-07:00

Children need to learn how to read the literal sense of the Word, much like adults need to learn how to read the internal sense of the Word. When children are learning to read they often carefully and painstakingly sound out and pronounce every word without much expression. “The... ball... rolled... down... the... hill.” Our process is very similar. We carefully and painstakingly sound out the correspondences of the internal sense. “Horse means understanding... chariot means doctrine... sword means truth...” In time children come to learn to read with more expression, and we can recognize that they understand the meaning of the word and the story that they tell, and are no longer simply decoding the sounds within the letters. The same can eventually be true of us as adults. As we get more fluent in the genuine truths and the correspondences of the internal sense of the Word, we too have the hope of reading the internal sense more fluently and with expression, as we begin to understand the meaning of the spiritual and heavenly stories there.

What does the 'flock' eat?

2010-03-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

In the Christian world a minister is often called a 'pastor' referring to a 'shepherd' and the congregation is often called his 'flock.' This is for the reason that the pastor's job is to feed his flock spiritual food. But it's important to remember that in this analogy, what he is feeding them is not food that he has made or prepared, but rather it is straight from the Lord, available to all, as the grass of the fields is to sheep. The pastor's job is simply to lead the flock to where they can find and eat food for themselves; in the pastures of the Lord.

Loving our Neighbors in Heaven

2010-03-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

In the doctrines of our church there is the concept that when we read the literal sense of the Word, whether we understand it or not, it makes the angels happy. For a long time I have struggled with the concept. Isn’t the purpose of reading the Word for us to gain an understanding of the Lord and His Truths? Why does it matter if it makes the angels happy, if it doesn’t do anything for our own spiritual lives? And while I still believe that reading the Word with understanding is preferable and should be the goal, I have gained a new perspective on the additional use of angels being made happy by the reading of the Word, even if it is without our own understanding. It comes down to this: loving the neighbor. Reading the Word makes the angels happy, and this is good because it is an expression of love to the neighbor. The angels are our neighbors! And this scenario helps to illustrate two important truths of our church: 1. That the angels are people like us, and that thus they fall into the category of the ‘neighbor.’ And 2. that the angels are present with us, here and now, as opposed to being distant and ‘up’ in Heaven. Heaven is all around us, and therefore Heaven’s residents are our neighbors. Heaven is full of people, and thus we should love them as we are commanded to love all our neighbors. I find that often I believe that angels don’t need our love. After all they have other angels to love them; and in a much more perfect capacity than we are often capable of loving people. But here on earth we provide a very important function in that we are the foundation of Heaven. We ‘ground’ the Heavens. And even though we are not as regenerate as the angels are, we are capable of serving them as our neighbors. This includes reading the literal sense of the Word here on Earth. That is one of the ways which we can express love for our neighbors in Heaven.

Community

2010-03-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

A couple nights ago I attended a Feast of Charity here in Bryn Athyn. It was a wonderful chance for multiple generations of this community to get together and share ideas on what a community is, or should be. Despite the fact that my wife and I had to be chasing our four kids around a lot of the time, we did manage to engage in some good conversation. Many people shared some wonderful ideas with the whole group. During the course of the evening it started to become apparent to me that Good Community is based on Good Communication. It seems obvious when looking at the two words together, but I think it is important to remember. 'Love of the neighbor' is based on our ability to communicate with each other, and that is what creates good community.

Why was Jesus a man not a woman?

2010-03-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

Why did the Lord, in His first advent, come as a man and not as a woman? First I would like to address why I believe this is an important question to raise. In the General Church of the New Jerusalem we believe that the truths of the Lord's second coming as revealed by Swedenborg help us to grow closer to the Lord in His Divine humanity. We believe that the God of heaven and earth took on the merely natural form of Jesus Christ in the world. We also believe that, as it says in Genesis 1:27, both men and women are created in the image and likeness of God, and so God is the source of both masculinity and femininity. But because the language of the Old and New Testaments refers to God almost exclusively in a masculine way, it can be hard for women to feel close to the Lord, especially given that Jesus Christ was in fact male. For example, when a woman is giving birth, how easy is it for her to know that the Lord knows exactly what she is going through, if she is picturing Him in the masculine form of Jesus Christ? I personally know women who struggle with this issue. I hope that in the course of this study I can shed some light on this subject, so that women might be able to feel closer to the Lord, and so that all of us might understand our relationship with the Lord more clearly.

Purpose of the Advent
In asking why the Lord came as a man and not a woman, we must first examine why the Lord came at all. What was the purpose of the first advent? The Lord came into this world to save the human race from extinction. Because the Lord gave us freedom, and a sense that life is our own, we can get ourselves into trouble. As long as this trouble is balanced by goodness in the world, our freedom is maintained. But if the balance gets off, an intervention is required, because evil actually prevents good people from getting to heaven. So the Lord came to save us from our own eternal damnation. And He did this by pushing back and subjugating the hells, restructuring the heavens, and establishing a New Church (see TCR 84). He also saved us by glorifying His Human, which meant that He could then continually keep the hells at bay (see NJHD 293), and it also meant that He could then truly be conjoined with us (see AC 2554). One might be tempted to think - in a stereotypical sort of way - that it was because the Lord came to fight that He must have come as a man. But I think there’s a lot more to it than that.
So how did the Lord accomplish this task? By means of Divine truth, and by means of His Divine Human. An intervention was required, but the Lord could not come to us in His full essence, or His sheer Divinity would have annihilated us. So He came as a part of Him; as Divine truth. He came as the part of Himself that can approach us, and can be approached by us. And He came as the part of Himself that had the power to fight back the hells without destroying them. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” (John 1:14). Jesus Christ was the bodily visible form of Divine truth, which in turn is the form of the Lord’s Divine love.
In my experience this is very often where we reach the end of the discussion: The Lord came as Divine truth, and men are forms of truth, while women are forms of love (see CL 90, 160, 187, 223; AC 8337), so therefore the Lord had to have come in the form of a masculine man. But I think there is a lot more to it than that. For one thing: sometimes in the Word women represent truth. And in fact sometimes women represent Divine truth, as was the case with Sarah, Abraham’s wife (see AC 2063). So it seems it was not simply the fact that the Lord came as Divine truth that meant that He had to be male.

Masculine and Feminine
Perhaps to understand this better we need to examine exactly what the relationship is between good and truth, and masculinity and femininity. What does the masculine represent?
The inmost quality in masculinity is love, and it’s veil is wisdom, or in other words, it is love veiled with wisdom, while the inmost quality in femininity is that same wisdom, the wisdom of masculinity, and its veil the love resulting from it. (CL 32)
A male is born intellect-oriented and ... a female is born will-oriented, or in other words, ... a male is born with an affection for knowing, understanding and becoming wise, while a female is born with a love for joining herself to that affection in the male. (CL 33)

So if the Lord was meant to be the Word made flesh, it makes sense that He would need to be born with an affection for knowing, understanding and becoming wise. And if the masculine is ultimately ‘love veiled with wisdom’ it makes sense that the Lord would also follow this pattern because the Lord is Divine love clothed with Divine wisdom. This all makes sense, but one still might wonder: if men and women are equal, and both are created in the image of God, then it seems out of balance for the nature of the Lord to be reflected in the spiritual structure of men, more than that of women. Again, there must be something deeper going on here.

The Divine Human
Perhaps a better understanding can be gained on this subject if we explore the nature of the Lord’s Divine Human and His Divine Natural. “After He assumed the Human in the world, He also became Man in ultimates,” (Lord 36). Gender issues aside, it is important to know that when the Lord was born, His body was completely natural just like our bodies. This represents the fact that God is human and we are human because God is human.
He has a body and every thing pertaining to it, that is, a face, breast abdomen, loins and feet; for without these He would not be a Man. (DLW 18)

A full understanding of this fact is what leads to a full understanding of the fact that God is human and has a personality. It prevents us from getting the false impression that God is an impersonal force. But at the same time we need to recognize that He is much more than a human body.
Here is an analogy that helps to explain this concept: The Lord was in a finite body, in a similar way that the Divine truth is contained in the Bible. The Bible as a natural, physical object is not Divine truth, but it contains within it Divine truth. In a similar way, Jesus’ body, as a natural, physical object was not Divine, but it contained within it Divinity.
After the Lord was glorified, He put off the human from Mary, and put on the Human from the Father (see Lord 35:2). And unlike us when we die (see CL 32, 44), the Lord did not retain His gender when He was glorified. He could not have, since He was now joined to His Divine soul which was the source of both genders. The Lord was no longer constrained by masculinity, just as He was no longer constrained by time and space. But once again, lest we imagine God as being without Person, we are taught that He rose “with His whole body,” (Lord 35:9) and yet “His body was not now material, but Divine substantial.” (Lord 35:10) So while this may be a comfort for some to know that the glorified Lord is no longer constrained by masculinity, we are still left with the problem of trying to picture God in a human form. (It is interesting to note that when Jesus was glorified, He became the ‘Holy Spirit’; a name which is not constrained by masculinity.)
In the first advent, the Lord gave us an image of His humanity and personality by coming to earth in human form. But we are caught in the paradoxical place of needing to recognize that while God Himself came to earth in the material body of Jesus Christ, God is no longer limited by the material body of Jesus Christ. However if we simply forget about the life of Jesus Christ in an effort to move away from the associated constraints of masculinity, then we also move away from the power of the life of the One who brought us salvation. On the other hand, if we recognize that God is in essence Divine love and Divine wisdom, and that in fact “the Divine is imaged in a pair who are in truly conjugial love,” (HH 374) then we are at risk of falling into the trap that the Christian world fell into when they separated God into separate persons. How do we picture one human God from whom comes both masculinity and femininity?
The Writings help us with this problem by reminding us that we should:
Think about God in terms of essence, and from this think about person. Thinking in terms of person about essence means thinking materially about essence too. But thinking about person in terms of essence means thinking spiritually also about person. (TCR 623:5)

So we should remember that the essence of God existed in the actual person of Jesus Christ, while not being constrained by the masculine nature of that person. We need to think about the Lord as being the First and the Last... at the same time. In heaven, when the angels read the Word, the story of Jesus Christ is not limited by mere masculinity for them as it often is for us. This is because they are thinking spiritually, and not naturally. This is not easy to do, but it is what we too should strive for.

Why Not A Woman?
While the above ideas may help us with the mental problem of trying to think spiritually about the Lord beyond the masculine body of Jesus Christ, we are still left wondering: why did the Lord choose a masculine body over a feminine body?
As was mentioned above, in the Word, Sarah represents the Lord’s Divine truth, so would it not have been possible for a female Messiah to embody Divine truth? We also find many references in the Word to imagery that paints the Lord in a feminine way. For example in Deuteronomy 32:11-12, and Matthew 23:37 the Lord is compared to a female bird who wishes to protect her young under her wings. The Writings indicate that in both cases this represents the power and protection of Divine truth (see AR 245). In Deuteronomy 32:18 it says, “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave your birth.” The Writings indicate that here too, the ‘Rock’ signifies the truth (see AC 8581). In Isaiah we find these passages:
Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb; (Isaiah 44:24)
Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by Me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. (Isaiah 46:3-4)
Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:15)

The Writings indicate that all of these passages have reference to the fact that the Lord is the one who regenerates us; or in other words the one who gives birth to us spiritually (see AE 710:3,11,14). So if a woman could have represented Divine truth and also the one who regenerates us, why could the female form not have been appropriate for the Messiah?
A simple and not very satisfying answer is that even though perhaps theoretically the Lord could have come as a female Messiah, still He did not. So trying to picture God in the form of a woman actually distances us from the person of the Lord God Jesus Christ. But it is useful to remember that the reasons for why the advent happened the way it did, where it did, and when it did, are not only based on the Lord’s Divine plan, but also on His reaction to our natural choices.
If we try to answer the question by looking at natural reasons, it is pretty clear: The culture of that part of the world at that time would not have accepted a female Messiah. It was an extremely patriarchal society. Hebrew and Jewish women in Biblical times were subject to their fathers and husbands. They were not counted in the censuses of the Torah, or involved in many of the religious practices. Punishments were usually more harsh for women than for men. They were in many ways considered a form of property. Polygamy was common. There are numerous laws listed in the Torah which show how women were second-class citizens, and in no way socially equal to men. The few women who had power, such as Miriam, were usually still subject to men.
When Jesus came to that church, He radically changed the way that women were viewed by how He treated them. He spoke with women (even foreign women) in public, and He had women disciples and friends. He forgave a woman caught in adultery, and He encourage people to think differently about divorce, and many of the other laws of the Torah. The Lord treated women as equals, and paved the way for how women are treated today. If the Lord had come as a woman, the culture would not have accepted her as a leader and therefore society would not have changed.
This illustrates the fact that the way the Lord appears to us (both in our minds and in the actual advent) is largely dependent on our state of reception. (see AC 2520:2, 2533.2) The limited understandings - and consequent culture - of the Jews paved the way for the necessity of a male Messiah. The language of the Word, and in fact the very history of the Word, reflects humanity’s limited understanding of God. Just as we can get stuck on the appearance that God is angry, we can get stuck on the appearance that God is male.

Our Relationship With The Lord
But I am still left with wanting a more satisfying answer regarding the spiritual reasons for why the Lord came as a male. There must be a way that the equal and complementary duality of masculinity and femininity is reflected in our understanding of the Lord. As I mentioned before, women can represent either good or truth in different circumstances. Perhaps a closer look at what those circumstances are will help us gain greater clarity on this:
In the celestial church the husband was in good, and the wife in the truth of this good; but in the spiritual church the man is in truth, and the wife in the good of this truth. (AC 4823; see also AC 5946)

In the Word, the Lord is often referred to as the Bridegroom or Husband of the church. This brings up the interesting point that in the Word,
a bridegroom means the Lord in respect to Divine good, and a bride means the church in respect to Divine truth from the Lord. For a church is a church by virtue of its reception of the Lord's Divine goodness in the Divine truths that it has from Him. (AR 797)

But outside of the Word, in our actual lives,
A husband does not represent the Lord and his wife the church, because both husbands and wives together form the church.... Rather, the correspondence rests with married love, insemination, procreation, love for little children, and other things of a similar sort that occur in marriage and result from it. (CL 116)

So how do we synthesize all of these teachings? And how does it help to answer our question of why the Lord came as a man?
All of these numbers point to the idea of a process. The Lord was born on this earth as Divine truth, but through the process of glorification He became Divine good; the Bridegroom of the church. We also have a process in us of learning truths from the Lord that eventually lead to good from the Lord. And that process eventually moves on from truths-leading-to-good (spiritual) to good-leading-to-truths (celestial). And our relationship with the Lord is ultimately like the process of marriage, while at the same time like the state of being parented. But these points need more cohesion. So to gain more clarity let us explore the nature of our relationship with the Lord as His church.

The Church
In the Word, the feminine usually represent the church in the sense of mere humanity. From the very beginning, with the creation of Eve, the form of a woman has represented our sense of self.
The meaning of the woman as the church can be seen from the heavenly marriage described above in number 155. The heavenly marriage is a relationship in which heaven (and so the church) is united to the Lord through its sense of self. In fact heaven and the church are to be found in the feeling of independent existence, because without it there could never be union. When the Lord in His mercy infuses our selfhood with innocence, peace, and goodness, it still seems to be our own, but it becomes heavenly and full of the greatest blessings.... Because of the heavenly, angelic sense of self, the Word calls the church a woman, a wife, and a bride, young woman, and daughter. (AC 252-253)

But in another sense the church is not us, but actually our relationship with the Lord:
The church comes from the Lord and it exists in people who go to Him and live according to His commandments.... Love is what conjoins, and conjunction with the Lord is the church. (CL 129)

So in one sense the church is humanity: finite imperfect people. But in another sense the church is an ideal that is apart from us. We might even think of the Lord and His church (in the ideal sense) as the ultimate image of a conjugial couple, where they are no longer two but one. But there is more:
While we call the total assemblage of angels heaven because they do make it up, what really makes heaven overall and in every specific instance is the Divine Nature that emanates from the Lord, flowing into angels and accepted by them.... If people are in heaven or in the church, they are in the Lord and the Lord is in them. (HH 7,11)

So in a third sense the church is the Lord. The church is the Lord with us. And in that sense, the Lord takes on a feminine form, in the form of the church.

Representation of Women
In the Word, women represent a number of different things, but they are always placed in the context of men. Regarding natural reasons, we might say that this is because of the history of male-dominated society. But regarding spiritual reasons we might say that this is because women represent conjunction. When a woman represents truth, she is representing truth in it’s conjunction with good. When a woman represents good, she is representing good in it’s conjunction with truth. “A female is born with a love for joining herself to that affection in the male.” (CL 33) It can seem out of balance or unfair that when the Lord is Divine truth He is usually represented by a man, and when He is Divine good He is also usually represented by a man. But perhaps it is that ‘distinguishing into parts’ that is represented by the masculine. Perhaps the feminine represents the conjunction (rather than separation) of good and truth in the Lord?
The masculine likes to understand and distinguish. The feminine likes to conjoin. “For the intellect has to do with light, and love with warmth, and concerns that are matters of light are seen, whereas concerns that are matters of warmth are felt.” (CL 168) We first come to know the Lord through His distinguishable elements. As we come to understand the Lord in this way, we ‘see’ Him. And because that understanding has to do with our intellect, He appears to us as masculine. But once we have moved out of that spiritual state into a celestial state, and we experience that conjunction of good and truth in us, in the Lord, and between us and the Lord, we ‘feel’ Him. And because that feeling has to do with our will, we experience the Lord as a marriage or conjunction that is very often represented by a woman (the church).
It seems as though truth is the primary thing in the church, because it is its first concern in time.... The good of charity is nevertheless the primary thing in the church... Now because the good of charity is from the Lord, and truth of faith exists in a person as though it originated with him, and because these two form the kind of conjunction of the Lord with people and of people with the Lord... it is apparent that this conjunction is the church. (CL 126)

Conclusion
So why did the Lord not come as a woman? Because the form of a woman represents the Lord inside of us. We do not see or worship the Lord inside of us; we live the Lord inside of us! “The reason is that goodness is a matter of warmth rather than light, and warmth is not seen but felt.” (CL 123) Picturing and worshiping the Lord as outside of us is an intellectual, spiritual thing to do, and is represented by the masculine. This is the first, and necessary step in the process, but the end goal is that we should feel and live the Lord! That is the loving, celestial thing to do, and is represented by the feminine.
So the Lord in His first advent came in the form of a man because the masculine represents that first step in our spiritual process, and that is what the advent is. But it is only an appearance that truth is the primary thing of the church, just as the masculine form of Jesus Christ was only an appearance of the full humanity of God. He also came in the form of a man because the masculine represents that spiritual awareness that God is outside of ourselves, whereas the feminine represents that celestial awareness of God living in us and conjoined with us. There is much more to be studied on this subject than is possible in the scope of this paper, but my hope is that some of these ideas will be useful to people in understanding our relationship with the Lord God Jesus Christ.

What is the Holy Spirit?

2010-03-08T14:28:00.000-08:00

In the General Church of the New Jerusalem we stress the importance of a belief in one God and not a Trinity of persons in God. In doing so, I find that I often tend to avoid the subject of the Trinity entirely. But the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg clearly tell us that there is indeed a Trinity in God. And the more passages I read in the Writings about the Trinity and especially the Holy Spirit, the more I get a clearer sense of the true nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One Human God of Heaven and Earth.

So what is the Holy Spirit? To put it in the simplest way, “the Lord himself is in fact the Holy Spirit.” (TCR 139) The Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ. Just like when we die and put off our physical bodies and become a spirit, Jesus Christ also died, put off His physical body and became the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ’s personality without the constraints of space and time placed on Him while He was in this world.
Without those constraints of space and time, the Holy Spirit is essentially the Lord’s presence everywhere and all the time. The Holy Spirit is His proceeding, or His radiation (but this is a good kind of radiation which we want a heavy dose of.)
Did the Holy Spirit exist before Jesus Christ? In John it says that “the Holy Spirit was not yet in existence, because Jesus was not glorified yet.” (John 7:39) Prior to the 1st Advent, there was still a Divine proceeding, only then it was proceeding from Jehovah. After the Advent, Divine Truth had a Human form in Jesus Christ, and so the Divine proceeding came directly from Jesus Christ. Prior to the Advent, the Lord was able to be present with us only by means of heaven and the angels there. After the Advent the Lord was able to present with us by means of His own Holy Spirit. (TCR 158) God’s personality of Jesus Christ - which existed in time - forever changed the way that He interacts with this world, and that is why very specifically the Holy Spirit didn’t exist before He was glorified. Before He was glorified there was no Divine proceeding that came directly from the life of Jesus Christ.
In the Christian world, the Holy Spirit is thought of as a separate Person of God. Perhaps the Christian world went astray because it attempted to place the Trinity in the context of the dimension of space (three separate Persons), rather than placing the Trinity in the context of the dimension of time. “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” (Revelation 1:8) The Lord existed before time and outside of time, as Jehovah. He existed in time in the life of Jesus Christ. And He exists for all time as the Holy Spirit. But in the same way that placing the Trinity in the context of space led to the false assumption of three Persons in God, placing the Trinity in the context of time could lead to the false assumption that God changes. God does not change. But the way that we are able to interact, communicate, and conjoin with Him makes it seem as though He does.
But despite the fact that the Lord doesn’t change, it’s important that we don’t have a static image of Him. The Lord is dynamic and active. The Lord’s action is in fact the Holy Spirit (TCR 138). When we think of someone who is very active, energetic, and dynamic, we often say that he or she has ‘got spirit!‘ In a very similar way, the Lord has got Holy Spirit!
Another way we could think of the Holy Spirit is as the mind of God. In the same way that we might think of our spirit as being the equivalent to our mind, we might also think of the Holy Spirit as being the equivalent to the Lord’s mind. (TCR 156) We might even say that the Holy Spirit is like the consciousness of God. It is the part of Him that thinks and acts based on His essence. As humans, we don’t think and act directly from our soul, we think and act from our conscious mind. It is the same with the Lord, and so His thoughts and actions are the Holy Spirit. And because in the spiritual world ‘thought brings presence,’ it is through the Lord’s thoughts (His Holy Spirit) that He is present with us.
So what are the Lord’s thoughts? They are the Word. (TCR 139) The Divine Truth itself. When the Lord came into the world “the Word became flesh,” (John 1:14) and when the Lord left the world, the Word became Spirit. The Lord told His disciples that ‘the Spirit of Truth’ would be coming. (John 16:13) This was the Holy Spirit. The spiritual sense of the Word. We might even say that in regards to the Word we have the Holy Letter and the Holy Spirit. And so it is through the Word, the Spirit of Truth, that the Lord inspires and enlightens us. (TCR 140). This is how the Lord has an effect on us.
True Christianity number 139 says that “The Holy Spirit is the divine truth and also the divine action and effect that radiate from the one God.” In a very real sense, the Holy Spirit is the effect that the Lord has on us. It’s the part of the Lord that we are filled with, when we turn to Him. We can’t be filled with the essence of His Divine Love and Wisdom or we would either be destroyed or become God. But we are made to be filled with a part of God, and that part is His Holy Spirit.
Another way to put it is that the Holy Spirit is the Lord’s Divine influence on us. (TCR 172). It’s the sphere of His thoughts and affections that affect us. It is the Lord filling us with his goodness and truth. (TCR 145) Or we might say, the Holy Spirit is the quality of the Lord that He is recognized by. For example to compare it with us, we might say, “Let’s do that in the spirit of Uncle Ned!” recognizing that the hypothetical ‘Uncle Ned’ had qualities or characteristics or motives that we would like to emulate. We often use the phrase, “That’s the spirit!” One could almost ask in response, “the spirit of what?” The reply might be something like, “the spirit of giving, or the spirit of determination, or the spirit of Christmas.” It’s the same with the Lord. When we say “the Holy Spirit,” we might ask, “the Holy Spirit of what?” The correct response could be, “the Holy Spirit of love, or wisdom, or usefulness.” When we are living the life of religion we hope to be living in the Holy Spirit of the Lord.
So the Holy Spirit is the Lord’s action and effect on us. What is that effect? How do we change? The effect and change is that we are reborn. I said before that God doesn’t change. But God changes us. That is the Holy Spirit at work. In New Church terms we call this reformation and regeneration. (TCR 142) Because the Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ, we have the model for our own regeneration. In the same way that the man Jesus Christ became the Holy Spirit through glorification, we as people can become angelic spirits or angels through regeneration. And because the Holy Spirit is the Lord’s Truth, the Holy Spirit is “the force that reforms and regenerates us; then renews us, brings us to life.” (TCR 142) This is why the Holy Spirit is represented by a dove, because a dove represents regeneration. (TCR 144). This is also why ‘spirit’ means ‘breath,’ because the Lord’s Holy Spirit breathes spiritual life into us. (John 20:22) And this is also why the Holy Spirit is called the ‘Comforter,’ (John 14:26) because through regeneration the Lord comforts us and lifts our spirits.

The more we understand what is meant by the Holy Spirit, the more we can understand how real and present the Lord is with us. As was stated at the beginning of this article, the most important thing to remember about the Holy Spirit is that it is simply the Lord God Jesus Christ, Who is here with us right now.

The Number Seven in Revelation

2010-03-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

The book 'Apocalypse Revealed' by Emanuel Swedenborg, reveals the hidden meaning of the Book of Revelation. It's interesting to note that even the numbers have hidden meanings.

“Numbers symbolize properties, or rather they serve
as a class of adjectives to substantives, assigning
some attribute to their subjects, because a number
in itself is a natural quantity. For natural things
are measured by numbers, but spiritual things by
properties and their states. Therefore someone
who does not know the symbolism of numbers in
the Word, and particularly in the book of Revelation,
cannot know the many secrets that it contains.”
(AR 10)

Seven is the most common number in the book of Revelation (aside from the number one)
It occurs around 60 times in Revelation
It occurs in 15 out of 22 chapters.
The number 7 is - in many ways - a theme of the book of Revelation.

The number 7 appears in nature: 7 colors of the rainbow, 7 notes in the musical scale, 7 crystal systems in the mineral kingdom, 7 groups of elements in the Periodic Table.

The number 7 also appears in culture: 7 wonders of the Ancient World, 7 continents, 7 seas, the lucky number 7, and the 7 deadly sins.

The number 7 is one of the most common numbers in the Bible: 7 days of Creation, 7 fat cows and 7 lean cows, 7 branches on the candlestick in the Tabernacle.

"Seven symbolizes all things or all people, and so also fullness and completeness, and it occurs in the Word where the subject is something holy, and in the opposite sense, something profane." (AR 10)

In Revelation chapters 1 through 4, we find the 7 churches, the 7 angels of the churches, the 7 lampstands, the 7 stars in the Lord's hand, the 7 torches before the throne and the 7 spirits. All of these represent the New Church, or in a broader sense, all Christians who worship the Lord and read the Word.

In Revelation chapters 5 through 8, we find the opening of the 7 seals on the scroll, which represents that the Word was completely hidden, but then revealed by the Lord.

In Revelation chapter 5, the Lamb of God has 7 horns and 7 eyes, which represents that the Lord is all-seeing (omniscient), and all-powerful (omnipotent).

In Revelation chapters 8 through 11, we find the 7 angels and the blowing of the 7 trumpets which represented the Lord's manifestation of truth and the subsequent revealing of profanation in the church.

In Revelation chapters 12, 13 and 17, we find three different beasts (including the dragon) with 7 heads, representing the irrationality brought about by profanation in the church.

In Revelation chapters 15 and 16, we have the 7 angels with 7 bowls pouring out the 7 plagues, which represents the Lord's exposing of profanation by means of the Word.

In Revelation chapter 17 we have the 7 king and the 7 mountains which represent the complete profanation of the good and true things of the church.

In Revelation chapters 11 through 13 we find less obvious sevens in the nations trampling the Holy City for 42 (7x6) months (Witnesses). In Chapter 13: The beast of the sea exercised authority for 42 months. Both of these mean the complete end of the church.

The two witnesses will prophesy for 1260 days (7x180, 3.5 years, 1/2 of 7), and in Chapter 12: The woman is nourished in the wilderness for 1260 days. Once again, both of these mean the complete end of the church, and a new beginning.

In Chapter 11: After 3.5 days the two witnesses will come back to life, and in Chapter 12: The woman is nourished in the wilderness for time, times, 1/2 time (3.5)
Once again, both of these mean the complete end of the church, and a new beginning.

In Revelation chapter 13, the number 666 is mentioned, which represents profanation. It's interesting to note that 6 is completed by 7. One might think of 6 as humanity's number, and 7 as God's number.

All of these point out that the number 7 illustrates the theme of the book of Revelation as being about the end of the old church and the beginning of the new church. And that this Last Judgment was brought about by the holiness of the Lord exposing the complete profanation of the church.

Most of the book of Revelation features the number seven. But in the last few chapters the theme changes to the number 12, which addresses the nature of the New Church.

Revelation Chapter 12

2010-03-08T13:52:00.000-08:00

The story of the woman clothed with the sun in Revelation chapter twelve is a familiar one in the General Church of the New Jerusalem. But in our June 19th celebrations and pageants we very often only hear a limited amount of the internal sense of that story. In this paper I hope to explore the internal-historical sense in a little more depth, based on the correspondences (keys to Biblical symbols) in the book: ‘Apocalypse Revealed.’ by Emanuel Swedenborg. And by doing so, I hope to gain a better sense of the overall storyline of the internal sense of this chapter. I will also attempt to place the story in the greater context of the book of Revelation using the model of ‘Law and Order’ offered by the Rev. Dr. Andy Dibb. And I will also very briefly explore the regenerative sense of this story as illustrated in ‘Apocalypse Explained.’ also by Emanuel Swedenborg.

General exposition of the internal-historical sense of Revelation chapter twelve:

The story opens with a great sign appearing in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, which means that it was revealed by the Lord that there would come be a New Church in heaven and on earth (represented by the Woman), which would eventually be governed by love to the Lord God Jesus Christ (represented by being clothed with the sun), and that the doctrines and faith of the Church on earth would teach about that love (signified by the moon under her feet). (AR 532-533) The crown of twelve stars signifies that the people of the New Church will be intelligent and wise because of the truth and goodness that they learn from the Word. (AR 534) The fact that this pregnant Woman was experiencing labor pains means that the new doctrines of this church will be hard to accept for many people in the Christian world. (AR 535) The new doctrines teach that the Lord Jesus Christ is the One Human God of heaven and earth, and that faith and charity should be conjoined in a life lived according to the Word.
These doctrines are hard to accept because most people in the Christian world believe in a trinity of persons, and that the Humanity and Divinity in Jesus are divided, and that faith alone saves. These ideas are represented by the dragon. These beliefs are capable of destroying the Church, like a dragon is capable of destroying a woman. These beliefs are also the most commonly accepted beliefs in the Christian world, and are therefore huge and pervasive compared with the doctrines of the New Church. And for many people these beliefs are upheld because they support a hellish love of self; believing they can do whatever they want and still be saved by faith. This is why the dragon is fiery red. (AR 537) But because the Word actually teaches faith and charity conjoined, and the worship of One God, these beliefs twist the meaning of the Word. These beliefs are also irrational when examined closely. How could there be three coequal gods? How can you really separate faith and charity? These beliefs turn what should be ‘one’ into ‘many’; like the seven heads of the dragon. (AR 538) But despite the irrationality of these beliefs, they have power in the world because they allow people to live irresponsibly “without any fear of hell.” This is represented by the power of the ten horns. (AR 539) And these beliefs are also backed up by the literal sense of the Word, and so to many people these beliefs appear crystal clear, like the seven jewels on the dragon’s seven heads. (AR 540) The dragon’s tail casting a third of the stars out of heaven represents that these beliefs have taken what once were good and true ideas (such as love to the Lord, and love to the neighbor) and cast them out of the Church. (AR 541)
These days, in a conversation about Christianity, any little hint of an idea contradicting faith alone is immediately criticized, which is represented by the dragon ready to devour the Child. (AR 542) But the new doctrine has now been born because of the second coming of the Lord to His Church. ‘The Child shepherding the nations with a rod of iron’ represents that this doctrine will be taught by means of the literal sense of the Word, and being ‘caught up to God and His throne’ means that it will be protected and nurtured by the Lord. (AR 544-545)
Until such time as this new doctrine will be accepted by many people, the New Church will exist both inside and outside of the Christian world in small numbers, represented by the Woman in the wilderness. (AR 546) It’s time will come - represented by the 1260 days - when enough people in the world no longer accept the teachings of faith alone and a trinity of Persons in God. (AR 547)
“And war broke out in heaven.” (Rev. 12:7) While the church is forming on earth, spirits in the old heaven are being instructed by angels about these new doctrines. These angels teach that God is One in the Lord’s Divine Human and that faith and charity are one in life. Spirits in that ‘heaven’ who believe in faith alone and a trinity of persons in God reject these new doctrines and cast themselves out of heaven. (AR 548-549) And in turning away from the Lord, they pervert “everything having to do with the church” (AR 551) These spirits of the dragon are ‘cast to the earth,’ which means they take up residence in the World of Spirits, and begin to try to convince other spirits (and by association: people on earth) that they are right in their beliefs. (AR 552)
Despite the fact that the story is not over, significant progress has been made. The Lord has now brought Heaven back into a state of order. Angels now fully acknowledge that Jesus Christ is God, without contradiction. And because Heaven is now in order, the Church can be brought back into a state of order too. This is joyful news to the angels of Heaven, and they proclaim it: “Now salvation, and power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ have come.” (Rev.12:10) (AR 553) Obstacles to the establishment of the New Church have been removed. And it was accomplished by means of the Divine Truths of the Word, which are represented by ‘the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.‘ (AR 555) Good Christians spirits could now fully enter into a state of love to the Lord, which is the state of this New Heaven. This is what is meant by “and they did not love their lives to the death.” (AR 556)
But at this point the state of the World of Spirits is still infested with people who believe in faith alone and a trinity of persons in God. And this is bad news for the New Church on earth. “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath.” (Rev. 12:12) (AR 558) These evil spirits in the World of Spirits do not want the New Church to grow because it threatens the power they have over people. And so “they harass the New Church” (AR 560) But the Lord protects these people from these evil spirits, by giving ‘wings of an eagle’ to the Woman. (AR 561) The time has not yet come for the New Church to be fully established. It needs to be nourished for ‘a time and times and half a time.’ (AR 562) The New Church can only be fully established when the threat of the dragon has been removed from both Heaven and earth. And so the Woman is hidden away. The New Church is not very well known.
And then the dragon attacks! He spews water from his mouth. People who believe in faith alone and a trinity of persons in God provide a steady stream of reasons for why their doctrine is true. (AR 563) But these reasons cannot persuade the members of the New Church who rationally understand the spiritual truths of the Word to be saying otherwise. And thus the reasonings are swallowed up by the earth. (AR 564) This makes the people of the dragon angry, and they turn their attention to persuading other people in their false doctrine. And so the dragon makes war with the Woman’s offspring too. (AR 565)
The chapter ends with John saying, “Then I stood on the sand of the sea.” In Revelation chapter twelve, the Lord had been showing John all of this taking place from the perspective of being in heaven. Now the Lord shifts John’s spiritual perspective to seeing things taking place below heaven, represented by standing on the sand of the sea. (AR 565) This sets the stage for the story in the next chapter.

How this might fit in the ‘Law and Order’ theory of the general structure of the book of Revelation:

So working with the ‘Law and Order’ idea for the structure of the Book of Revelation, up until now we’ve been following the work of the detectives in finding out exactly what the crime was, how it was committed and who the perpetrator was. The detectives have narrowed their field of suspects and determined that the Protestant faith was guilty. At this point in the ‘Law and Order’ show, the criminal often feels accused or cornered, and so he might act out irrationally. The criminal may even try to commit another crime, thinking that that will save him from being caught. This could be the case in story of Revelation chapter twelve. We shift our focus to the ‘Woman Clothed With the Sun,’ which represents the New Church, about to give birth to a baby Son, which is the doctrine of the New Church. Here is a picture of a new innocent character in our story who is suddenly in danger of being the next victim. The old Christian Church is dead, but the New Church is also in danger of being killed by the same criminal. And indeed the dragon of faith alone tries to attack. The dragon recognizes that these new characters, the Woman and her Baby, know that he is guilty, and so out of self-preservation, he tries to kill them too.
The Woman knows that the Law (which represents the Lord) can protect her, but first she needs to flee from the danger of the dragon who is trying to kill her. At this point in a ‘Law and Order’ episode there is often an exciting car chase or shoot-out, which is like the war in heaven of Michael and his angels fighting the dragon. The detectives and police are aware of the situation. They know that the Woman and her Baby are in danger, so they send out what in the ‘Law and Order’ universe would be called an ABP (All Points Bulletin) or BOLO (Be On the Look Out) which is like the loud voice from heaven saying, “woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that it has a short time.” (Rev. 12:12)
Finally we reach a climax in the police work where the criminal (the dragon) actually attempts to kill his new intended victim (the Woman), and he spews water out of his mouth. But it’s too late because the Woman is now under the protection of the Law (represented by the wings of the eagle, and the earth). Either the attempted murder fails because of this, or the dragon decides it’s not worth the risk, and so he flees. His eventual capture and conviction comes later in the book of Revelation, chapter twenty.

How this could apply to our own personal judgments in regeneration:

This story is a great reminder that even people who consider themselves part of the New Church are still in danger of being attacked by the dragon that destroyed the Old Church. We are not immune to believing and living the falsity of faith alone, or the trinity of Persons in God.
If we find ourselves defending a doctrine that supports our love of self, then that’s probably the fiery red dragon attacking us. True doctrine supports love to the Lord and love to the neighbor. There will be no place in heaven for us if we defend the truths of the Word and live contrary to what they teach. For example if we spend our time criticizing our neighbors for the way they choose to worship the Lord, then we are not living in charity, and we are being ruled by the dragon of faith alone.
When we do the spiritual work of rejecting the dragon of faith alone, then there is rejoicing in heaven, because we are allowing the Lord to be our King instead. And the Lord is Love Itself. And in reality, what we actually do is turn to the Lord by shunning evil, and then He alone has the power to cast out the dragon in us. When we turn to the Lord, we experience the joy of heaven. We also experience the enlightenment of understanding the internal sense of the Word, which is like the woman being given wings of an eagle. (AE 759)
Throughout our life we will periodically be attacked by our own love of self and pride of self-intelligence. But when we focus on loving the Lord and loving our neighbor, the falsities and evils of hell get swallowed up, which is like the water from the dragon being swallowed up by the earth.
(AE 706-766)

So hopefully we now have a more comprehensive mental picture of the internal sense of this familiar story. This is a pivotal story, occurring roughly midway through the book of Revelation, which reminds us - in such a vivid exciting narrative - of the crucial reasons for the Last Judgment and the establishment of a New Church. It is a story of the Church as a macrocosm in the internal-historical sense, as well as the Church as a microcosm within each and every one of us. And in both cases it reminds us of what keeps the Church safe and healthy; namely: the doctrines that keep us focussed on love to the Lord and love to the neighbor.

The Role of Wisdom in Marriage Love

2010-03-08T13:47:00.000-08:00

When we look around at the world today we often see things that trouble us: Divorce rates climbing, children and adults being abused, men and women being unabashedly lustful and adulterous. It may even be our own marriages or relationships that are cold and unhappy. These do not seem like situations in which love is thriving. But wait; love is thriving in those situations, it just tends to be a selfish love or love of the world. So what is it that’s missing in those situations? What is actually missing is wisdom.
The book “Conjugial (or Marriage) Love” by Emanuel Swedenborg, is all about the true love that can exist between a man and a woman. Conjugial love is that love in marriage that conjoins a husband and wife so that they are “no longer two but one flesh.” (Matt 19:6) It is the real “true love” that is spoken of in fairy tales. What is it that makes conjugial love so special; that sets it apart from other loves? It is wisdom. The book is in fact called “The Delights of Wisdom relating to Conjugial Love.” So what is wisdom? What is its role in conjugial love? How can it help our marriages become better? How can it help the world become a better place? This paper will attempt to answer those questions.

Part 1: Wisdom in General
In the New Church we know that wisdom is one side of the proverbial ‘two-sided coin.’ Love and wisdom are the two parts of the duality that comprise everything. The Lord is the marriage of Divine love and wisdom. The Church is the marriage of faith and charity. We are regenerated through a marriage of our will and understanding in love and wisdom. The entire created universe comes about through the marriage of good and truth. These are all facts that are good to know. But how do we understand them? What does ‘wisdom’ mean? How is it defined?

Is Wisdom the Same as Knowledge?
The word ‘wisdom’ has a range of meanings. Someone who is considered wise could simply be someone who knows a lot of facts, such as a history professor. Or it could be someone who is really intelligent; someone who can think on their feet, such as a lawyer or a judge. It could be someone with a lot of experience, such as a wise old grandparent that we go to for advice. Or it could be someone who thinks about deep abstract things such as a philosopher or a sage. It could even be the kid on the street who is ‘street-wise’ and knows the ins and outs of a city. The Writings say that “people are capable of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Knowledge has to do with concepts, intelligence with reason, and wisdom with life. Regarded in its fullness, wisdom has to do with concepts, reason and life at the same time.” (CL 130)

Knowledge vs. Life
So wisdom has more to do with life than simply with knowledge. One might recall the story from Genesis of the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen 2:16,17). Just like Adam and Eve, we may be tempted to think that wisdom comes from eating of the latter, when it actually comes from eating of the former. Wisdom is of life, not simply knowledges, and so true wisdom involves a recognition that all life is from the Lord (eating of the Tree of Life) and not ourselves (eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil). (See TCR 39, CL 135, 444, AC 128) Later in the paper we will discuss what a wisdom of life looks like.

Wisdom is Innocence
If we think we are wise, then we probably are not, because wisdom has nothing to do with having pride in the intelligence of ourselves (CL 193, 331). But rather wisdom has to do with being humble (SS 91), and being willing to be led by the Lord, which is a state of innocence. And the Lord is Wisdom Itself (CL 414, HH 341).

Wisdom Comes From The Church
Since wisdom comes from the willingness to be led by the Lord, then where do we go to be led by the Lord? We need to go to the truths of His Word in the Church. Wisdom “is inseparably bound up with the church [because]... concerns that have to do with the church and are called spiritual have their seat in the inmost recesses in a person, because they are connected with heaven and through heaven with the Lord.” (CL 130) As Moses said,
“Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom.” (Deut. 4:6)

Wisdom is a Useful Life
So what are the spiritual concerns that the church teaches? What is the life of wisdom?
In brief summary, it is this: to refrain from evils because they are harmful to the soul, harmful to the civil state, and harmful to the body, and to do good things because they are of benefit to the soul, the civil state, and to the body.” (CL 130)
‘Doing good things’ is also known as ‘useful service.’
Useful services are spiritual when they have to do with love toward God and love for the neighbor.... People who concern themselves with the first useful services, which are spiritual... these people are wise.” (CL 19)
In many ways wisdom is more like a verb than an noun. It has to do with how we live our life.

Wisdom is the Form and Container of Love
And so we come to find that wisdom has to do with love, specifically love to the Lord and love to the neighbor. True wisdom has these loves within it. Wisdom is the form and container of these loves. Wisdom is the expression of love (Cl 493). Wisdom is the way of love and the way of spiritual life. Wisdom is the means by which love can do its job. “Whoever is wise will observe these things, and they will understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.” (Psalm 107:43)

So we have now determined that true wisdom is a recognition that all life and all truth is from the Lord through His Word in the Church, and that it is not only about acquiring knowledges and intelligence from that truth, but it is about applying these things to a life of useful service which is an expression of love the Lord and the neighbor.

Part 2: The Specific Wisdom that unites with Conjugial Love
So if wisdom is the way that love is expressed, then what is the way that conjugial love is expressed? It must also be wisdom. But since conjugial love is a specific love, there must be a specific wisdom that expresses it. This leads us to the nature of the difference between men and women.

Forms of Love and Wisdom
‘Conjugial Love’ number 32 states that the nature of masculinity is that it is love clothed with wisdom, while femininity is that wisdom clothed with love. So men - in their outer, conscious self - are focused on wisdom. And that wisdom stems from an innate love of growing wise. While women - in their outer, conscious self - are focused on love. And that love stems from an innate wisdom of their relationship with men. Thus men tend to be focused on truths and the relationships of ideas, while women tend to be focused on emotions and the relationships of people. (CL 168) Even the scientific world is aware of this difference between men and women. Studies have shown that men and women use their brains differently, and that women tend to have E-brains (Empathizing), and men tend to have S-brains (Systemizing).1
This is how men and women operate individually. But because men and women are predominantly intellect-oriented, and will-oriented, respectively, there is a recognition of there being an imbalance. There is a recognition that the other has something which they do not, and that true balance come with a sharing of what they have. “Therefore from creation there was implanted in both male and female a love of uniting into one.” (CL 32) Though it might not be conscious, this desire to be united is because love is not truly loving without wisdom, and wisdom is not truly wise without love. (CL 65)
It should be said here that everyone receives love and wisdom from the Lord, and is capable of having that love and wisdom united in their will and understanding. But there is a specific love that only women receive from the Lord. That love is conjugial love. (CL 224) That is the love that unites a husband and wife in marriage. Men can experience that love in their marriage to their wives, but it is not innate in them, as it is with women.
Because women have this specific love from the Lord, there must also be a specific wisdom in men which balances it, and unites with it. From the examination above, we know that this wisdom in general must involve the willingness to be led by the Lord into His truths, and love for growing wise in those truths that lead to a life of useful service. (CL 130, 183:8) But this is the wisdom that unites with true love in general. What is the specific wisdom that unites with conjugial love? To find out, we need to briefly examine what conjugial love is.
Conjugial love is “nothing else but the wish of two to be one.” (CL 215). On a philosophical, general sense, this is talking about the wish for love and wisdom to be one. But in a specific sense this is talking about the wish of one man and one woman to be one. This is the specific love that is given to women. So the specific wisdom that unites with that love must be the wisdom that leads to a life of conjoining with one spouse.

The Expression of Love for One Wife
Men tend to like to think about abstract ideas. This is the intellect at work. But wisdom comes when those ideas are applied to life. In a similar way, men can use their intellect to discover that the Lord teaches about the benefits and usefulness of conjugial love. This is the man using his rational wisdom. And when the man then applies that wisdom to life, it is an expression of his moral wisdom. Women are attracted first to the moral wisdom, but innately within them they recognize that their ability to unite with a man as a husband must stem from his rational wisdom, or in other words from his ability to recognize truths as coming from the Lord alone. (CL 102, 163-165) Women therefore conjoin externally to the life that men lead (moral wisdom), as well as internally to the awareness in men that their moral virtues are inspired by higher principles (rational wisdom). Its interesting to note that the word ‘virtue’ stems from the Latin word ‘virtus’ which also means ‘manliness.’
So taken in its entirety (a man’s moral wisdom containing within it rational wisdom), this wisdom expresses itself in the desire to unite with just one woman in marriage. In other words, a man who loves the life of monogamy has rational wisdom. (CL 217, 293)
In the 1999 movie entitled “The Bachelor,” a wise elder gentleman describes two imaginary places to live: Bachelorville and Husbandtown. Most men want to live in Bachelorville. Even some husbands want to live in Bachelorville. But as he says in the movie, “A good proposal comes not only from love, but from the desire to be a husband.” A man who has rational wisdom is a man who wants to live in Husbandtown.
Conjugial Love Depends on Wisdom
Women have a love for conjugial love directly from the Lord. Men have the ability for rational wisdom directly from the Lord. When a husband and wife love each other in marriage from this rational wisdom and conjugial love, they then experience the delights of conjugial love. The Writings even say that conjugial love is the “offspring of wisdom.” (CL 145) In reality conjugial love can only actually exist between two people. And the experience of that love depends on wisdom. (CL 69, 98, 161) There’s even a test to determine if one has true conjugial love or not:
A husband’s receiving the conjugal atmosphere solely through his wife is the mark by which true married love is recognized and differentiated from married love that is illusory, feigned, or cold.” (CL 224)
And the only way for a man to receive conjugial love from his wife is if he provides the proper form for it to exist in, namely: rational wisdom, or living a life that expresses love for one wife.

What About Wisdom in Women?
“What does a wise man or wisdom have to do with a woman?” Swedenborg asked this question of some angels in heaven. The angels laughed at this and said, “What is a wise man or wisdom apart from a woman or apart from love? A wife is the love of a wise man’s wisdom.” (CL 56). Just like the experience of conjugial love in the couple depends on rational wisdom from the husband, the experience of rational wisdom in the couple depends on conjugial love from his wife. It is a mutual, reciprocal, organic process. A man can experience conjugial love because of his wife, and a wife can experience rational wisdom because of her husband. The Writings even say that “wives still have these things [rational wisdom] in them inwardly.” (CL 165)
And along with that shared experience of rational wisdom (a life based on spiritual, monogamous principles), women also have their own special innate wisdom relating to the particular affections and delights of conjugial love in both themselves and their husbands. (CL 155 repeated, 208) The counterpart to that innate wisdom in women, is very likely mens’ innate love for growing wise.

Part 3: Wisdom in Married Couples
It was said above that conjugial love is the offspring of wisdom. This is the first step in the process. The next step is that more wisdom is then the offspring of conjugial love. It is an upward spiral. Conjugial love opens people’s minds to more spiritual growth. (CL 302)
“A capacity for growing wise increases with those who are in a state of true married love, because it is as a result of wisdom and in accordance with it that this love exists in married couples.” (CL 211)
So through the intimate relationship that a husband and wife have in conjugial love, they are each capable of becoming more wise. “In the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.” (Psalm 51:6)

How Can Wisdom Bring Love Back To My Marriage?
The book, “Conjugial Love” is full of truths that can be applied to life, which then creates a life of wisdom that is capable of receiving conjugial love. As an example, let us look at the chapter on ‘Cold States, Separation, and Divorce,’ (CL 234). If conjugial love is dependent on a state of wisdom, then it follows that cold states, separation and divorce are dependent on states of foolishness (to varying degrees). We may often complain that we don’t feel love in our marriage any more. Since love is dependent on wisdom (a religious way of life), we can determine that the reason or cause for why love isn’t felt anymore is a lack of wisdom. And we also now know that the feeling of love can return if we return to a life of wisdom; if we give that love a place to live. This is why things like reading the Word together, praying together, attending marriage support groups and marriage counseling are so important. This is also why the things we say to our spouse should always be guided by religious principles. For example, are the things we say kind, true, and useful?2 These are methods by which we can be reminded of the fact that the life of wisdom is what conjugial love unites itself with. If we can get ourselves back into the ways of the wisdom of life, then we can again become forms receptive of conjugial love, and so then we can eventually feel and experience the delights of it.
Every chapter in the book, “Conjugial Love,” talks about some form of wisdom to adopt in order to receive conjugial love, or some form of foolishness or insanity to avoid in order receive conjugial love. And shunning evils is just the first step. After that we also have to love the life of good, or specifically in this case, we have to love marriage. (CL 139, 217)

Wisdom and Foolishness in Society
“It may appear to a great number of people what monstrous and destructive ruinations of society and dissolutions of marriage would result if divorcings of wives were at the good pleasure of husbands prior to death.” (CL 276)
In some ways the above passage describes our current society all too well. It describes the problem; but fortunately the Lord is hard a work on the solution. Even people who have never read “Conjugial Love,” (but are arguably still within the sphere of the New Church) are catching on to the wisdom that is needed for true love to exist. And so we see books like, “Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus,” “The Five Love Languages,” “The Case for Marriage,” and many more. These are both secular and religious books that contain elements of the wisdom needed for true conjugial love to thrive in couples. With the presence of the Lord’s New Church, people are starting to catch on that a life and society without marriage love, is not wise.

Conclusion
“Only those people know the blissful delights of married love who reject the horrible delights of adultery. And no one can reject these except one who is wise from the Lord, and no one is wise from the Lord unless he performs useful services from a love of doing them.” (CL 137)
And the specific useful service that provides for conjugial love is: living a life based on religious principles from the Lord that expresses a love for marriage with one spouse. That is the wisdom of conjugial love. Wisdom provides a place for true love to live, in both a single married couple, and also our society in general.
“The marital union of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion.” (CL 457)

The Process of Marriage Love

2010-03-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of conjugial (or marriage) love. This paper will attempt to answer the following questions: What is conjugial love? Where does it come from? How is it a process? What does this process look like? How does one go about doing it? Who is involved in this process? How does this process relate to the process of regeneration, both with individuals and the church as a whole?
The terms “good and truth” have many synonyms and other terms for related ideas. So in this paper the terms: good, love, will, charity, conjugial love, and women have a relation to each other. And likewise, the terms: truth, wisdom, intellect, understanding, faith, rational wisdom, and men have a relation to each other.

What is Conjugial Love?
“Conjugial love in its essence is nothing else but the wish of two to be one.” (CL 215) When a husband and wife wish to be truly one, then they are looking towards the ideal of conjugial love. But simply wishing to be one isn’t enough to actually become one. There is also a process involved in becoming one. “Love regarded in itself is nothing but a desire for and consequent effort to conjunction, and conjugial love is a desire for and effort to conjunction into one.” (CL 37) So the process involves effort towards conjunction. In this paper we will examine that process.

The Origin of Conjugial Love
Conjugial love has its origin from the marriage of good and truth from the Lord, and the marriage of the Lord and His Church. (see CL 60-64, 222) And conjugial love ‘descends as an offshoot’ from these two marriages. (CL 64) Because conjugial love comes from these two marriages in origin, and in fact corresponds to them, it shares similar qualities with them. Later in the paper we will examine how they relate.

The Marriage of Love and Wisdom in a Husband and Wife
So if conjugial love has its origin in the marriage of good and truth (or love and wisdom), then what does that look like in the marriage of a husband and wife? How do a man and a woman in marriage come to be an image of the union of love and wisdom?
“When love is added to wisdom or united with it, then love becomes loving. And when wisdom conversely is added to love and united with it, then wisdom becomes wise. True conjugial love is nothing but a union of love and wisdom. Two married partners who have this love between them and in them at the same time are a reflection and image of it.” (CL 65)

So love and wisdom - or good and truth - are really not true and complete unless they are conjoined into one.
Men and women as individuals each have a will and understanding that are capable of receiving love and wisdom from the Lord. So both men and women already have love and wisdom in them. But at first the love and wisdom are not conjoined and not balanced. They are not conjoined because the will and understanding are at first not married. They become married (in love and wisdom) through the process of regeneration. But they are also not balanced. They are not balanced because men are oriented or formed in one way, and women in another way. Men are forms of love clothed with wisdom, and women are forms of wisdom clothed with love. (See CL 32-33) So men are intellect-oriented, and women are will-oriented.
But all the parts (love, wisdom, will, understanding, men, women) are only forms and images of the reality. Men and women are forms of what is truly human, and they only become truly human when united together. They only become truly loving and wise when united together. God is the perfect marriage of love and wisdom. We are only potential and/or imperfect marriages of love and wisdom. Thus women being one form and men being the opposite or complementary form. They each only approximate the perfect marriage in God.
Fortunately, these puzzle pieces have a desire to be put back together. “Wives are forms of love, and husbands its receivers.” (CL 161) The way that love and wisdom fit together is that wisdom is the expression of love, and love is the essence of wisdom. So because women are forms of love, they need a specific wisdom (expression of love) to fill their specific love. That wisdom comes from their husband, beginning with his pursuit of her. Likewise, because men are forms of wisdom, they need a specific love (essence of wisdom) to fill their wisdom. That love comes from their wife, beginning with her consent to him. The specific love that women provide for their husbands is conjugial love, and the specific wisdom that men provide for their wives is rational wisdom. “An intellect-oriented form does not have the capacity to develop a marital warmth on its own, but can do so only from the associated warmth of another in whom this has been implanted from creation.” (CL 223) So wives introduce their husbands into the warmth of conjugial love from the Lord, and husbands introduce their wives into the light of rational wisdom from the Lord. And by doing so they each become more human.

Nouns or Verbs?
In the Writings the words ‘love and wisdom’ are often used as nouns. Love has to do with something’s substance, while wisdom is its form. But as we know, love is also a verb. “I love you” is a statement using a verb. But it is not just about having an affection for someone. In the Writings, the word ‘love’ as a verb has more to do with an effort to conjoin. Can wisdom also be a verb? Wisdom is a way in which one lives one’s life:
“The question arises, what wisdom of life is. In brief summary, it is this: to refrain from evils because they are harmful to the soul, harmful to the state, and harmful to the body, and to do good things because they are of benefit to the soul, to the civil state, and to the body. This is the wisdom that is meant by the wisdom to which conjugial love attaches itself.” (CL 130)

So the marriage of love and wisdom is the way in which one lives one’s life in order to conjoin with people and the Lord. And this is a process which is chosen by us, and completed by the Lord in us.

Conjugial Love and Regeneration
The fact that conjugial love is a process may become more clear when it is related to the process of regeneration or rebirth.
“People know that every person is merely flesh-oriented at birth, and that from being flesh-oriented he becomes more and more deeply natural, and thus rational, and finally spiritual. The reason for such a progressive development is that the fleshy element is the soil, so to speak, in which natural, rational, and spiritual qualities are planted in turn. A person thus becomes more and more human. Almost the same sort of thing happens when one enters marriage. A person then becomes a more complete human being, because he is united with a partner with whom he may act as one person. In the first state, however, this is reflected in a kind of image, as mentioned before. In similar fashion he then starts from the fleshy element and progresses into the natural, only this time in respect to married life and so union into one.” In the case of spiritual people, “the first state of marriage is an introduction to continuing states of happiness, which advance as the spiritual rationality of the mind and consequently the natural sensuality of the body in one partner join and unite with these same qualities in the other.” (CL 59)

Conjugial love, like regeneration, is a process that makes a person more and more human (see also CL 316, 432). The process by which a person is regenerated (the marriage of good and truth in an individual) is affected by means of religion because it is a spiritual process. And because this is true, the process of conjugial love is also affected by means of religion, because it too is a spiritual process. In the Writings it is said that:
“The origin of the church and the origin of conjugial love have the same seat in a person, and that they are locked in a continual embrace.... People were created to be able to become more and more interior beings, thus to be introduced or elevated nearer and nearer to a marriage of good and truth and so into conjugial love, to the point that they feel its state of bliss. The only means by which they can be introduced or elevated is religion.” (CL 238)

The only means by which we can have conjugial love, be regenerated, and be saved is religion. This makes perfect sense when we think about what the word religion means: Religion comes from the Latin “re-ligare” meaning “to reconnect.” Religion is what reconnects good and truth. Religion takes things that should be married and shows them how to be married.

The Creation Story as a Model
Religion is what teaches us how to regenerate. The Writings of the New Church explain that the 6 days of Creation are a symbol for the 6 stages of our regeneration. (AC 6-13) Though the Writings only talk about this story as a model for regeneration, knowing that conjugial love is a process related to regeneration we might speculate on how that story applies to the process of conjugial love as well: The first day there is light, when we first become aware of the ideal of conjugial love. On the second day, when the waters are separated, we begin to recognize that conjugial love is not the love of the sex. On the third day when plants are created, we begin repentance and speak of living the life of conjugial love (though it is not actually living yet, but merely inanimate like plants). On the fourth day with the sun and moon, we are affected in some way by actual love and wisdom, perhaps in our own marriage. On the fifth day when birds and fishes are created, we begin to actually live the life of conjugial love. And on the sixth day when animals and humans are created, we actually love the life of conjugial love.
The second chapter of Genesis also offers us a model for regeneration and conjugial love in the creation of Eve. “A woman is actually transformed into a wife according to the description in the book of creation.” (CL 193)
“It follows from this that woman was created from man by a transmission and replication of his distinctive wisdom, which is formed from natural truth, and that man’s love for this wisdom was transferred to woman so as to become conjugial love; moreover, that the purpose of this was to replace love of self in man with love for his wife, who, from a nature innate in her, cannot help but turn the love of self in man into his love for her.” (CL 193)

So with both the process of regeneration and conjugial love, there is a replacement of love of self with a love for the neighbor, and in the case of conjugial love: a love for one’s closest neighbor which is their spouse.

The Process of Conjugial Love Aids the Process of Regeneration
Because regeneration and conjugial love are related processes, they aid each other. They are both processes by which we become more human. That the process of conjugial love aids the process of regeneration is apparent from the following statements:
“Marriage is the completion of a person, for by marriage a person becomes a complete person.” (CL 156)
“The more a person is in a state of conjugial love, the more spiritual he is; and the more spiritual he is, the more human he is.” (CL 230)
“There is, moreover, no love... which opens the interior recesses of minds more forcefully and adeptly, than conjugial love.” (CL 302)
“The marital union of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion.” (CL 457)

A repository is a receptacle where things are stored. So the Christian religion (which is arguably all about regeneration) is stored in the marriage of husbands and wives.

The Process of Regeneration Aids the Process of Conjugial Love
The process of regeneration, in which one prays to the Lord, reads the Word, and shuns evils as sins against the Lord, is the same process that introduces people into conjugial love.
“No others come into this love and no others can be in it but those that go to the Lord and love the truths of His church and do the good things it teaches; that this love comes from the Lord alone, and consequently is found in people who are of the Christian religion; and that this love depends on the state of the church in a person, because it depends on the state of his wisdom.” (CL 458)

When the process of regeneration is applied to a husband and wife, then the couple can have conjugial love. When they are both looking to the Lord, reading the Word, and shunning adultery, this allows for them to be in conjugial love. The process of regeneration is a process in which people become spiritual, and since conjugial love is a spiritual (and celestial) love, it requires people to be open to the spiritual level of their minds. (See CL 145)
“There are in human minds three regions, the highest of which is called celestial, the intermediate one spiritual, and the lowest one natural. A person dwells by birth in the lowest region, but he ascends into the next higher one, called spiritual, by living according to truths of religion, and into the highest one by achieving a marriage of love and wisdom. All kinds of evil and lascivious lusts reside in the lowest region, which is called natural. In the next higher region, however, which is called spiritual, there are not evil and lascivious lusts, for this is the region into which a person is led by the Lord when he is born anew. And in the highest region, which is called celestial, one finds conjugal chastity surrounded by its love. A person is raised into this last region by a love of serving useful ends, and because marriage serves the most excellent ends of all, by conjugial love.” (CL 305)

The Marriage of the Lord and His Church
As was mentioned above, conjugial love has its origin from the marriage of good and truth, and the from the marriage of the Lord and His Church. As we have discussed, both the processes of regeneration and conjugial love depend on religion. And religion is also related to the marriage of the Lord and His Church. So all three processes are intricately intertwined.
“The church is formed by the Lord in the man, and through the man in his wife. And after it has been formed in the two together, the church is complete, for then a full conjunction of good and truth takes place, and the conjunction of good and truth is the church.... The inclination to conjunction, which conjugial love is, exists in the same degree as the conjunction of good and truth, which is the church.” (CL 63)

Comparing Conjugial Love, Regeneration, and the Marriage of the Lord and His Church
So now we can see this spiritual process even more clearly when we compare all three:
Conjugial love is the wish of two to be one (CL 215), just as regeneration is the conjoining of love and wisdom in the will and understanding, and the Lord’s wish is to be conjoined with His Church. (CL 68, 386)
Conjugial love is introduced by the love for the opposite sex, just as we are encouraged to regenerate by the promise of heavenly happiness. There are mediate goods and ‘intermediate steps’ in all of these processes. (CL 98)
If neither married partner is spiritual, then conjugial love cannot grow, however it is not closed off to them unless they choose to love adultery. Similarly, if a person is in ignorance as to truth, and also has hereditary evils in their will, heaven is not closed off to them unless they choose to act evilly. (see CL 282)
In natural marriages there is often a power struggle between the husband and wife over who should be in charge. This is similar to the power struggle within us during regeneration over who is in charge: the will or the understanding. If the old will is in charge then we will do evils. If the understanding is in charge, but the will is still selfish, then we will be critical and judgmental of others. A conjunction is only possible when both parties represent love and wisdom. Similarly in the church, faith alone is destructive, as is indiscriminate charity, and the concept of salvation by merit alone. (see CL 291)
In the process of conjugial love, the man must court the woman, just as in the processes of regeneration we must first learn truths from the Word, and then learn to live the life of heaven. “Rationality thus opens,” and so the church becomes a true Church by means of conjunction with the Lord in His Word, and our will becomes a new will by being conjoined with our elevated understanding, and the woman becomes a wife by means of conjunction with her husband. (see CL 102, 122, 168)
“An image of the husband is formed in the wife” (CL 173). Likewise, an image of the Lord is formed in His Church. An image of wisdom is formed in our loves. An image of the understanding of truth is formed in our new will. An image of faith is formed in our acts of charity.
“It follows from this that conjugial love has its seat in chaste wives, but that their love depends on their husbands.” (CL 216 repeated) Similarly, regeneration has its seat in the changing of the will, but it depends on the truths of the understanding. And the church has its seat in a life of charity, but it depends on the truths of faith.
“Where conjugial love exists, this atmosphere is received by the wife, and by the husbands solely through the wife.” (CL 224) The love that conjoins the will and understanding comes through the will being opened to and by the Lord. Salvation comes through living a good life, and not by faith apart from that life.
And so the process is complete in which conjugial love, regeneration and the marriage of the Lord and His Church have all been achieved, and these all coexist in heaven within people.

We have now examined the process of conjugial love in relation to its origin in the marriage of good and truth from the Lord, and we have also seen its relationship to the process of regeneration, and the process of the Lord’s conjunction with His Church.
“Conjugial love is a desire for and effort to conjunction into one.” (CL 37)

Trinity of Person

2010-03-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to answer some of the questions people may have about the doctrine of the Trinity, both inside and outside of the New Church. We will look at the historical origin of the doctrine of the Trinity. We will examine why the interpretation of the Trinity as three Persons doesn’t work, from the perspectives of authority, reason, and experience. We will examine the true interpretation of the Trinity of Person, based on the truths of the Lord’s 2nd Coming, and why it is so important for the Church to understand this interpretation. And we will find out what our responsibility is in explaining this doctrine, both for ourselves and for others.

First, what are some of the questions people have about the doctrine of the Trinity? From those who are unfamiliar with the New Church perspective on this doctrine, some of the question might be: Is the Trinity a doctrine that the New Church espouses or rejects?
Doesn’t the literal sense of the Bible describe 3 different persons as God?
Why doesn’t it work for Jesus to simply be God’s son; a separate Divine Being?
What’s wrong with thinking there could be 3 persons in 1 God? He is infinite isn’t He?
Why is God indivisible?
People who are familiar with the New Church perspective on the Trinity might also have questions. Some of these might be questions directed towards people who are unfamiliar with the New Church doctrine: Can you really think of the Trinity as three separate Persons, and not picture three gods in your head?
If you are acknowledging each Person as God, how can you be adding Persons and not be adding gods?
Where does the idea come from, that Jesus and His Father might be at odds with each other?
Some questions might be directed inward, as an attempt to understand our own doctrine:
Is the Trinity a doctrine that the New Church espouses or rejects?
Why did Jesus talk to the Father as if He was someone separate from Himself?
Why is the language Jesus used in the Gospels confusing on this subject?
What examples can we use that might help to explain this mystery?
Why is this such an important topic? We will attempt to answer these questions in this paper.

Where does the doctrine of the Trinity come from?
“The Apostolic Church knew no trinity of persons. The idea was hatched by the Council of Nicaea.” (TCR 163) The Council of Nicaea first met in 325 A.D. One of it’s purposes was to define the Church’s official doctrine about who Jesus Christ was. And the doctrine later became ‘set in stone’ as it were, by the Athanasian Creed around 500 A.D. in it’s insistence that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were separate Persons. (see Lord 56) This was confounded further by the existence a something known as the Trinity Shield, which states that the Father is not the Son, and is not the Holy Spirit, and so on. (See Trinity Shield image at the end of this paper)
Even the Apostles’ Creed of 180 A.D., and the language of the Epistles and the Gospels of the 1st century, definitely described a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit, even though it was not described as a Trinity of Persons back then.

Why the Doctrine of a Trinity of three Persons in God does not work.
Authority:
So where did people get the idea that the Father and the Son might be separate persons? Very likely from the language of the Gospels and the words of Jesus themselves:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” (John 3:16)
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38)
“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I came to this hour.” (John 12:27)
“O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” (Matt 26:39)
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt 27:46)
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

All of these examples give the impression that Jesus had a will that was separate and maybe even at odds with the will of the Father, and thus that they were separate persons. (And yet the subject matter of what Jesus was saying was always that He was doing the will of His Father and NOT His own will. More on that later.)
Jesus Himself told His disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt 28:19) Notice however that He used the word “name” and not “person.”
“Take for example the appearance... in the New Testament that there are three distinct persons in the Godhead. It is to be observed, however, that nowhere in the four Gospels is the term ‘person’ used in reference to the Lord; on the other hand, it is true that the Lord spoke of the Father as if of another, and that He referred to the Holy Spirit as One who was to come in His place.” (Pendleton, pp 42,43)

The Epistles frequently refer to “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” (Col 1:2, emphasis added), and yet at the same time the Apostles believed that Jesus Christ was fully God, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” (Col 2:9) There is even a sense that the Apostles equated Jesus Christ with the God of the Old Testament:
“Moreover brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:1-4)

And finally, there are numerous quotes from the Gospels that indicate that Jesus and the Father are one and the same.
“Philip said to Jesus, ‘Show us the Father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Those who see Me see the Father. Why then are you saying, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.’” (John 14:8-11) “Jesus said, ‘I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30)
(see also TCR 188:5)

From all of this we can see that the language of the literal sense of the Word is confusing on this topic. “The Word in the sense of the letter is such that it distinguishes things which are one, as if they were not one.” (Lord 55)

Reason:
So let’s move on and examine the problem with our ability to reason. Does the doctrine of a Trinity of three Persons make sense, or not? Let’s begin by asking the question, “Is God divisible?” If we think about the nature of God being Infinity, or being the Source of everything, or being all Goodness; is that concept really divisible? Is it possible to divide Goodness, and say that something is half of Goodness, and another thing is the other half of Goodness? Doesn’t that actually lessen the Goodness? “We would be splitting a divine essence that is actually unified and indivisible. We would have made none of the three fully God; we would have given each one only a third of the power - an arrangement that a sound intellect has no choice but to reject.” (TCR 168) When in reality, I think we would all acknowledge that God cannot be lessened by being Infinite. The fact that He is omnipresent, doesn’t mean that He is ‘spread too thin.’
So then the question we might ask other Christians becomes, ‘If each Person in the Divine Trinity is fully God, then why do you call them separate Persons?” The doctrine of the New Church, and our own reason tells us that it doesn’t make sense:
“The truth is that dividing God or the divine essence into three persons, each of whom is individually a god in his own right, causes denial of God,” (TCR 15:2)
“For the Divine is not divisible; and to make three one by essence or substance does not take away the idea of three Gods, but only conveys the idea of unanimity between them.” (Lord 57)
“Just think. If one body had many heads, and each head had it’s own agenda based on it’s mind and its volition, could the body survive? There could be no unanimity among them the way there is with a single head.” (DLW 25)

This leads into the next major problem with the idea of a Trinity of Persons in God, which is that, in our minds, it then becomes possible for these Persons to be at odds with each other. The doctrine of the Trinity of Persons describes a scenario where Jesus intervened on our behalf and gave His life as a ransom, or payment for our sins. Payment to whom? Payment to the Father? Why would the Son need to pay the Father for something? Don’t they have the same goals in mind? (See above where I spoke of ‘separate vs. united wills’) “If we saw the Father as assigning spiritual credit or blame, [and] the Son as mediating,” (TCR 168) then there is no true unification between them.
As children we may remember a time when we went to our mother and asked for something, and she said, ‘No,’ and so then we went to our father and asked for the same thing, and he said, ‘Yes.‘ If you have ever been a parent, you know that this creates strife in the family. The parents are then not on the same page. There is no unified front. “Every city or house divided against itself will not stand.” (Matt 12:25). So how can the Persons of God be a divided front, and still govern the Universe effectively? They can’t. God is never a divided front. Therefore God is not divided into Persons.
However, many people still try to rationalize this idea. “They use various phenomena in plane geometry, solid geometry, arithmetic, and physics, as well as folding pieces of clothing and pieces of paper.” (TCR 184) C.S. Lewis, in his book, ‘Mere Christianity,’ uses the compelling analogy of finite persons as being like squares in two dimensions, and the Persons of God as being like squares that make up one cube in three dimensions. (See Lewis p. 162).
So lets play this game. I’ve heard Christians say that it’s not a matter of 1+1+1=3, it’s a matter of 1x1x1=1. I think this is actually fairly enlightened. But I don’t think that people fully realize how it actually doesn’t support the doctrine of a Trinity of Persons, but rather it supports the doctrine of a Trinity of Person. A multiplication problem is spoken in this way: 1x1x1=1 which means: One God, one time, and again one time, equals One God. It does not mean: one Person times another Person times a different Person equals One God. Any mathematician will tell you that this is true. This then becomes a great illustration of the nature of the Lord: God existed before time (the Father, the Creator), He exists in time (the Son, Jesus Christ), and He will continue to exist in all time (the Holy Spirit, Divine Proceeding); 1x1x1=1.
Another way that this doctrine is misunderstood is when people think that one person’s soul could be in another person’s body. But I think when examined carefully, people can recognize that that idea is only imaginary. It doesn’t actually work, because our bodies are shaped by our souls. (see TCR 171)
And finally, if there really were a Divine Family, that was yet one essence; wouldn’t God be guilty of selfishness, or in other words, of loving Himself?
“In regard to God, loving and being loved in return are not possible in the case of others who have some share of infinity or anything of the essence and life of intrinsic love or of Divinity. If there were within them any share of infinity or anything of the essence and life of intrinsic love - of Divinity, that is - it would not be others who would be loving God. He would be loving Himself. What is infinite or divine is unique. If it were in others, it would still be itself; and it would be pure love for itself, of which there cannot be the slightest trace in God. This is absolutely opposite to the divine essence.”
(DLW 49)

Experience:
We have now shown that for Christians who are not aware of the truths of the 2nd Coming, the doctrine of a Trinity of Persons, is confusing; both from the perspective of authority and reason. How does it fare when seen through the lens of experience?
Really examine yourself: Can you think of the Trinity as separate Persons and not picture three gods in your head? I submit that you cannot. The Athanasian Creed says that “there are three persons, each of whom is God and Lord.” (TCR 172:2) Try saying that without making it an addition problem. ‘The Father is God, the Son is God, AND the Holy Spirit is God.’ Whenever you use the word ‘and,’ it’s an addition problem. And so according to the above statement you are really adding three gods. It doesn’t work. We cannot picture three Persons without picturing three gods. “The infinite things in Him should not be called ‘infinitely many’ or ‘infinitely all,’ because of our earthly concepts of ‘many’ and ‘all.’’ (DLW 17) Because we can only think spatially (since we are beings that exist in space) we therefore naturally think in numbers, and numbers don’t apply to infinity.
One of the difficult things about the language of the Gospels is that Jesus often talked with the Father as if He was someone other than Himself. Can our experience shed any light on this? Yes. Very often, we humans talk to ourselves as if we are talking to someone other than ourselves. We might even say, “Solomon, don’t do that, you know you shouldn’t!” That’s like the Lord saying, “Not as I will, but as You will.” (Matt 26:39) Jesus’ Divine Soul (The Father) was His conscience. And as He was glorified - like when we are regenerated - His will and understanding became conjoined. And at that point He didn’t have to be governed by His conscience as if it was someone other than Himself. His conscience was Himself. “I and My Father are one.” (John 10:30) He no longer had to talk to Himself. He was truly Himself. But without understanding the nature of the Lord’s glorification, the idea that Jesus ‘talked to himself’ or that He ‘talked with God’ could indicate to people that He wasn’t really God, since He was behaving more like we do at times. So the only alternative left for people was to believe in three Persons of God. And this leads into the next point.

If the Trinity of Persons is a bad idea, then why did the Lord let it happen?
The answer can be found when we look at what the Council of Nicaea was reacting against. A man named Arius was trying to encourage a doctrine that denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
“From this it is manifest that it was of Divine permission that Christians in the beginning should receive the doctrine concerning three Persons, provided they also accompanied it with the belief that the Lord is the infinite God, the Almighty, and Jehovah. For if they had not received this, the Church would have perished, since the Church is a Church from the Lord, and since from Him, and from no other, is the eternal life of all.” (Lord 55:4)

So the doctrine of three persons was better than not acknowledging the divinity of Jesus at all, which is what the Arians wanted to do. It allowed for simple Christians to still believe in God.
“Those who believe these things in simplicity according to the doctrine and do not confirm themselves in the idea of three Gods, but who consider the three as One, are after death instructed by the Lord through angels that He is that One, and that Trine.”
(Lord 55:3)

But according to the doctrine of the New Church, the Trinity of three Persons is still not an accurate description of God. In the next section we will look at what a true interpretation of the Trinity is according to New Church doctrine.

Why the doctrine of a Trinity in the One Person of God does work.
Authority:
Willard D. Pendleton, in his book, ‘Education for Use,’ gets to the heart of the problem with this question:
“How there can be three Infinites and three Uncreates is a mystery, and by definition a mystery is that which cannot be explained. From this and from many other mysteries implicit within the letter [of the Bible], it seems evident that if these two Testaments are indeed the Word of God, they must contain a yet deeper meaning within the text.” (Pendleton, p. 17)

So we need to ask ourselves, ‘What does it mean for something to be true? When we say that ‘a light bulb went off in our heads’ is that a true statement? Well yes, and no. It’s true because it’s an analogy for having an idea. However, an actual lightbulb couldn’t go on in somebody’s actual head without killing them. Is it a lie to make a statement like that? No, but it’s also not factually true. This is like the truth of the Trinity of God. Though the literal sense of the Bible seems to indicate that there are three Persons in God, it’s not literally true. It’s simply illustrating a deeper truth, which is that there are three aspects of the one Person of God.
Swedenborg even indicates that the Athanasian Creed could be reworded, or better understood if the idea of ‘Person’ is not thought of literally. (see Lord 58, TCR 188:5)
In the New Church, the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are considered to be authoritative in the sense that they give the correct interpretation of the Old and New Testaments. So given that that is true, what is the correct interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity?
There are many attributes or qualities of the Lord God Jesus Christ that are represented in the Word by the ‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ and ‘Holy Spirit.‘ The Father represents God as the Creator, the Son represents God as the Savior and Redeemer of mankind, and the Holy Spirit represents God as the Divine Activity in our lives. (see TCR 163) And yet the key difference being that these are not different Persons, but different jobs or roles of One God.
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit can also represent the soul, body and action of God. Our reason will confirm that even we humans (created in the image of God) have a soul, body and mind or activity; but that these are not separate ‘persons’ within us, but rather separate parts of one person. (see TCR 163)
Another triune represented by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is that God is Divine Love, Divine Wisdom, and Divine Usefulness. (see DLW 296) And there are more: End or Purpose, Cause or Means, and Result or Effect (see DLW 230). Origin, Manifestation, and Influence (see TCR 172). Essence or Substance, Form, and Expression or Proceeding. (see DLW 14, 40) And there are parallel triunes that appear in creation and in humanity because of being an image of God, for example: Heat, Light, and Atmosphere (see DLW 296) and the Celestial or Heavenly realm of the mind, the Spiritual realm of the mind, and the Natural realm of the mind (see DLW 232). All of these examples illustrate the deeper meanings that can be contained in the words ‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ and ‘Holy Spirit.‘
Reason:
Does this make sense to us? Can reason confirm these ideas? I think some Christians today, who are enlightened, think that the use of the word ‘person’ is somewhat an issue of semantics. “Surely all wise people, though, think to themselves that ‘person’ here does not mean person at all. It means the attribution of some quality.” (TCR 173) They might actually have more of a New Church concept of the trinity than might be thought based on their religion. “After that [Last] Judgment, that is, now, every person who desires may become enlightened and attain wisdom.” (Lord 61) Therefore, as always, an examination of the assumption of what terms mean is key to true communication. But the important thing is that we need to not only understand in a philosophical sense how God contains a Trinity without being three Persons, but we also need to picture God in our heads as One Person.
As was said above, the idea of a soul, mind and body existing in one person is something that we can grasp. It’s easy to apply that to us and see how it is true. But even though we can apply it to the Lord, we are still left wondering why the language of the Bible is confusing. And so we need to delve a little deeper.
Why couldn’t Jesus simply be God’s Son? What’s wrong with that idea? Aside from the obvious polytheistic ideas that arise, it also just doesn’t work. Jesus’ soul came from God, and His body came from Mary. If it had stayed that way He would have continued to be distinct from God (the Father). But the Word says that His body didn’t stay mortal and finite, but that His body became Divine. (see TCR 170) The Lord went through varying state of glorification and emptying out (see DLW 234) that meant that He became less and less merely human and more and more Divine as His life went on. This is not a process that describes the formation of a new Divine Being, but rather it describes the process of the formation of the Lord’s Divine Human. While that subject is the topic of another paper, what we need to remember is simply that Jesus Christ is God Himself, and that He came to this earth for the purpose of making the connection we have with Him more personal. The doctrine of the Trinity of three Persons gets in the way of that purpose, because our attention is then divided.
Think about the Father as the soul of God, and the Son as the body of God. This helps us think more clearly about the various names of God. A soul cannot exist in two bodies. So the Father can only exist in the body of the Son. The Father does not have a body other than the Son. “The notion that a soul can exist and think and be wise without a body is an error that stems from deceptive appearances.” (see DLW 14) This helps to remove the mental image of three Persons.
So why does Jesus use the language of ‘Father,’ ‘Son,’ and ‘Holy Spirit’? Why couldn’t He have just used the words ‘Soul,’ ‘Body,’ ‘Activity’?
“Bear in mind, then, that these three elements - love, wisdom, and service - are in the Lord and are the Lord. Bear in mind also that the Lord is everywhere, is in fact omnipresent. Then consider that the Lord cannot make Himself manifest to any angel or to us as He really is and as He is in His sun. This is why He makes Himself manifest by means of things that can be accepted, doing so as to love in the form of warmth, as to wisdom in the form of light, and as to service in the form of an atmosphere.” (DLW 299)

We might take this idea further and surmise that this is why He makes Himself manifest by means of things that can be accepted, doing so as to love in the form of a Father, as to wisdom in the form of a Teacher (Jesus), and as to service in the form of a Holy Spirit.

Experience:
Because the purpose of the Lord’s coming in the world was so that we could have a personal relationship with Him, it’s important to understand what the word ‘person’ really means when used correctly.
“By ‘person’ we have reference to qualities and characteristics which through experience we have come to identify with man[kind]; for example, love, wisdom, understanding, sympathy, affection, the ability to communicate, and many other attributes.” (Pendleton, p. 23)

If we start splitting God up into ‘Persons,’ then we actually begin to lose the very things that make Him a Person. God has a Human Personality, and He wants us to know Him. When we start to get caught up in assigning specific attributes to specific Persons, we lose the Humanity of God. We start picturing Greek gods with their specific powers, rather than One God with every power. And the Greek gods were not human. The Lord God Jesus Christ is Human.
My personal experience is that I like to picture the Lord God Jesus Christ as He is pictured in Revelation 1:13-16. Almost as if He was a 60-year-old Jesus. “He is in fact God the Father in human form.” (TCR 180). “Those who have seen Me have seen the Father.” (John 14:7,9) I believe that everyone can and will picture God in different ways, but the important thing is that we picture Him as One Person.

Why is the doctrine of the Trinity so important?
The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the main doctrines that sets the New Church apart from other Christian churches. The Christian church’s misunderstanding of this doctrine is what led to the decline of the whole church.
“If you carefully examine the church’s individual teachings - for example, on God, the person of Christ, goodwill, repentance, regeneration, free choice, the selection of the chosen people, the purpose of the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Supper - you will clearly see that there is a trinity of gods in each one of them. If some teaching does not make the Trinity completely apparent, it still flows from the Trinity the way water flows from a spring.” (TCR 177:2)

One of the main purposes of the New Church is to set this straight for the world. I think that that is why the very beginning of ‘Heaven and Hell’ (which could be considered an introduction to the doctrines of the New Church) discusses the false doctrine of the Trinity of Persons in God. (see HH 2) It’s a defining doctrine.
Since the Lord came to earth and glorified his Human, He created a situation where He allowed for true worship to again take place. That worship is the recognition of His Divine Human, and that is why Christ is the only door to the sheepfold. (TCR 174) The Jewish church was able to truly worship Jehovah because they were simply a representational natural church. But to move on to becoming a spiritual and celestial church, we have to recognize the Lord’s Divine Humanity. It’s not that we can’t worship the Lord as our Father (After all Jesus told us to in the Lord’s Prayer), it’s simply that we need to recognize that our Divine Father has a Divine Human nature. “For us to gain access to the Father [the thoughts and loves of God], we have to go to His human manifestation [the words and deeds of God], since this is how Jehovah God puts Himself in the world and made Himself visible to human eyes. Through this He became accessible.” (TCR 188:6)
I think it’s important in our church that we don’t shy away from the doctrine of the Trinity, or say that we reject the doctrine of the Trinity. Sometimes Swedenborgians are called nontrinitarian (look up ‘Nontrinitarianism’ on Wikipedia). To the extent that that means we believe in one indivisible God, then that is true. But to the extent that that means we reject the Trinity within God, then it’s untrue. There are a number of other churches that are also labeled as ‘nontrinitarian’ yet who have very different beliefs than we do, and we need to be ready and able to explain our particular doctrine as distinct from theirs.
People are not going to feel welcomed into our church if we say we reject the doctrine of the Trinity with no explanation. The New Church explanation of the Trinity doctrine could be exactly what many Christians need or want to hear. Simply “using oral confession of one God to wipe out a belief in a trinity of gods is... impossible” (TCR 173) We need to explain ourselves clearly. We need to get into the habit of not only saying that we believe in one God, but saying that we believe in the Trinity within God, and then explain what that means in a charitable way.
By learning about, and better understanding the doctrine of the Trinity, we not only help ourselves to have a better relationship with the Lord, but we can also be in a position to help others to have a better relationship with the Lord.

We have now examined why this doctrine is so important, what a true interpretation of the Trinity looks like, where the misunderstandings about the Trinity come from, and we have also found answers to some common questions about the Trinity.

“The divine Trinity ought to shine like a lighthouse in the minds of people in the church, since God with His trinity and with the unity in His trinity is essential to all that is holy in heaven and in the church.” (TCR 169)

New Year's Resolutions

2010-03-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I’m increasingly amazed at how well the two holidays of Christmas and New Year fit together. At Christmastime we hear the story of the Lord’s birth. We are reminded of the beginning of the story of His life on this earth; a story in which Jesus became fully God. The happy ending of that story really comes at Easter, which means that at Christmas the predominant positive emotion is Hope. Hope that the light that has come into the world will grow and fill the world. Hope that the Lord will not only be born in our hearts, but also grow-up in our hearts, and that we will come to accept Him fully in His glorification.

And then a week later at the change of the New Year we have the tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions, which so wonderfully supports the ideas of spiritual growth and regeneration. It’s a time of year when many of us decide to try to change for the better. You may have heard of the concept of being a “Monday morning church”; well at this time a year we could also consider ourselves a “January 1st church”.

So we have the two holidays: First at Christmas we are reminded and inspired that there is hope for us. Then in the New Year we starting applying that truth to our lives so that we can change our will for the better in the process of regeneration... which is a fancy way of saying we make New Year’s Resolutions.

As I was making my New Year’s Resolutions this year, I was struck by how important it was for me in that process to truly understand how humanity works; in the sense of the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as people on earth and in heaven. Through the truths of the Lord’s Second Coming we know that when Jesus Christ was born, His soul was Divine, but His body was from Mary, and that through the process of glorification He became fully God; the One Human God of Heaven and Earth. We also know that angels are humans, and that the Lord wants all humans to become angels through the process of regeneration.

I think I often take those truths for granted. If I didn’t know those truths I could speculate that I might tend to think of the Lord as being somehow limited because He was the Son of Mary. I might think of Him as being limited because He took on hereditary inclinations towards evil. I might even be tempted to think that He didn’t even become fully God... He couldn’t have! Could He? But if I think about the Lord as no more than the Son of Mary, I am essentially admitting that I don’t believe that the Lord could be born human and then become fully God. And that means I would be admitting that I don’t believe in the process of spiritual regenerative change. If I thought that, then I wouldn’t be understanding the story, which tells us that the Lord saved the Human race BECAUSE He took on the natural consciousness of Jesus Christ.

This is a story of hope because it is indicating that we too can rise above our hereditary inclinations towards evil. The Lord’s life was a model for us. We can be born again! We can become angels, just as Jesus became fully God.

It’s also important to remember that God Himself was born on earth. He didn’t send His Son to earth who later also became God. Jesus Christ WAS God. This is similar to the fact that the Writings indicate that we are destined for heaven. Heaven is not simply a pleasant option for our afterlife, heaven is what we were created for. Heaven is our home. The Lord created us as potential angels. This means that the changes needed for us to become angels are therefore not as hard as we might think, because really we become who we were intended to be (angels), much like Jesus became who He was intended to be (God).

Now if we want to get technical, there were of course pretty major differences internally between the process of glorification that Jesus went through and the process of regeneration that we go through. For example, we don’t start with a Divine soul. Also, the Lord didn’t have to force Himself against His will to apply the truth, the way we do, because He had a Divine will. Jesus did have some pretty major advantages.

But the external process is still the same. The Lord still had to learn truths and apply them to life, just like we do. The Lord still had a hereditary “old will” that had to be replaced with a “new will” from God, just like we do. The Lord depended on “remains” or states of love that inspired Him, just like we do. Who knows, maybe the Lord also made New Year’s Resolutions?

In the process of making New Year’s Resolutions, we have the opportunity to begin to put off the “Mary human” just like Jesus did. We need to give up things that don’t serve us in getting to heaven. This can be a life-long process. But a life-long journey is made up of many little steps, and making New Year’s Resolutions can be some of those steps. Even if they seem trivial and material, such as vowing to not eat sugar, the discipline involved is a spiritual change, or can lead to a spiritual change. Shunning things that are bad for our natural bodies is good practice for shunning things that are bad for our spiritual bodies.

Sometimes we don’t succeed in achieving our New Year’s Resolutions. Sometimes we do. Forward progress in our spiritual journey is not made by being perfect, but by trying again and again. The Lord went through similar cycles while on earth. He fluctuated during His whole life between states of glorification (being united with His Divine soul), and states of humiliation (being distant from His Divine soul). Even to the last hour of His life, He was tempted. This is encouraging for us, because it means that we don’t have to get it right the first time. We just need to keep trying. We fall down, and then we pick ourselves back up.

There are times in our lives when the Lord seems to be distant, (like Jesus’ states of humiliation), and there are times when He seems close (like His states of glorification). It’s fortunate, or perhaps Providential that in the dark cold of winter we have a seemingly arbitrary change of our calendar year which can remind us of this cycle, this spiritual cycle, this human cycle.

May your New Year bring you closer to the Lord and may He bring you increased hope and happiness in your spiritual journey!

First Post

2010-03-08T13:28:00.000-08:00

Hello.

My name is Solomon Keal. I am a student at the Academy of the New Church Theological School in training to become a minister for the General Church of the New Jerusalem.
As of this writing I have finished my first two terms of a three year program.

This blog will feature some of my thoughts from school, as well as actual assignments and papers I have written, and also my hopes and plans for my own ministry.