April 27, 2018

The Strong Force of Love

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
In the Ancient Church, Jehovah was called "God Most High" for the reason that "height" represented and therefore signified what is internal, and thus "the Most High" signified what is inmost. Hence the worship of the Ancient Church was upon high places, mountains, and hills. The inmost also has the same relation to the exterior and the outermost, as the highest bears to the lower and the lowest.

The Most High or the Inmost is the Celestial of Love, or Love, itself. Jehovah, or the Lord's internal man, was the very Celestial of Love, that is, Love itself, to which no other attributes are fitting than those of pure Love, thus of pure Mercy toward the whole human race which is such that it wills to save all and make them happy to eternity, and to bestow on them all that It has; thus -
out of pure mercy to draw all who are willing to follow to heaven, that is, to Itself, by the strong force of love.
This Love itself is Jehovah.

Of nothing can Am or Is be predicated except of Love.  From this Love - because in Love, or of Love itself - is the very Being [Esse] of all life, that is, Life itself.  And because Jehovah alone is Being of life, or Life itself, as He alone is Love, each and all things have thence their being and their life; nor can anyone be and live of himself except Jehovah alone, that is, the Lord alone; and as no one can be and live of himself except the Lord alone.  It is a fallacy of sense that men seem to themselves to live of themselves.

The angels plainly perceive that they do not live of themselves, but from the Lord, since they live in the very Being of the Lord's life, because in His love.  But yet to them above all others there is given the appearance as of living from themselves, together with ineffable happiness.  This therefore is to live in the Lord, which is never possible unless we live in His love, that is, in charity toward the neighbor.
(Arcana Cœlestia 1735)