Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
A Memorable Relation - A Thing Worth Remembering
In Story Form, An Experience in the Spiritual World
Awaking once soon after daybreak, I went out into the garden in front of my house, and saw the sun rising in his glory, and round about him a halo, at first faint, but afterwards more distinct, and beaming like gold, and beneath its border was a rising cloud, which from the sun's rays glowed like a carbuncle. It set me thinking about the fables of the most ancient people which depicted Aurora with wings of silver and countenance of gold.With my mind immersed in the delights of these meditations, I came into the spirit; and I heard certain spirits conversing, who said, "O that we might be permitted to talk with the innovator who has thrown among the leaders of the church that apple of discord after which so many of the laity have been running, and which they have picked up and held up for us to look at." By that apple they meant the little work, entitled, A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church*. And they said, "It is certainly a schismatical writing, such as no man ever before conceived of." And then I heard one of them exclaim, "Schismatical? It is heretical!" But some of those beside him said, "Hush! Hold your tongue! It is not heretical; he gives an abundance of quotations from the Word; and to these our neophytes, by whom we mean the laity, give heed and assent."
Hearing this I came forward, being in the spirit, and said, "Here I am; what is the matter?"
At once one of them, a German, as I afterwards heard, a native of Saxony, said in an authoritative tone, "How dare you turn upside down the worship established in the Christian world for so many centuries, which teaches that God the Father should be invoked as the Creator of the universe, His Son as the Mediator, and the Holy Spirit as the Operator? Moreover, you divest the first and the last God of the personality we ascribe to them, although the Lord Himself says, When ye pray, pray thus, Our Father who art in the heavens; hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come. Therefore are we not commanded to invoke God the Father?"
After this there was silence, and all who favored the speaker stood like brave seamen on their warships when they sight the enemy, and stand by to shout, "Now, have at them; victory is sure."
Then I rose to speak; and said, "Who among you is not aware that God came down from heaven and became Man? For we read, -
The Word was with God, and God was the Word, and the Word became flesh."Then, looking towards the Evangelicals, among whom was that dictator who had just addressed me, I said,-
"Who among you does not know that in Christ, who was born of Mary the Virgin, God is Man and Man is God?"But at this the assembly made a great noise; therefore I said, "Do you not know this? It is according to the doctrine of your confession which is called the Formula Concordioe, where this is affirmed and fully corroborated."
Then the dictator turned to the assembly and asked if they were aware of this; and they answered, "As to the person of Christ we have given the book very little study, but we have worked hard at the part on Justification by Faith Alone; if, however, it is so written in that book, we acquiesce." Then one of them remembering, said, "That is the way it reads; and it says furthermore that the Human nature of Christ has been exalted to Divine majesty and all its attributes; also that in that nature Christ sits at the right hand of the Father."
Hearing this they were silent; and as it was undisputed I spoke again, and said,-
"This being so, what then is the Father but the Son, and what is the Son but the Father also?"Yet as this again offended their ears, I continued, "Hear the very words of the Lord and attend to them now, if you never have before; for He said,-
I and My Father are one;' 'I am in the Father and the Father in Me;' 'Father, all Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine;' 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.What do these things mean, but that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and that they are one as the soul and body in man are one, and thus that they are one person? And must not this be your belief, if you believe in the Athanasian Creed, where nearly the same things are said? But from the passages quoted take this one saying of the Lord, 'Father, all Mine are Thine, and all Thine are Mine.' What else does this mean than that-
The Divine of the Father belongs to the Human of the Son, and the Human of the Son to the Divine of the Father, consequently that, in Christ, God is Man and Man is God, and thus that they are one as soul and body are one?Every man may say the same of his own soul and body, namely, All mine are thine, and all thine are mine; thou art in me and I in thee; he that seeth me, seeth thee; we are one in person and in life. This is because the soul is in the man, both in the whole and in every part of him, for the life of the soul is the life of the body, and between the two there is a mutuality.
All this makes clear that the Divine of the Father is the soul of the Son, and the Human of the Son the body of the Father.From where does the soul of an offspring come unless from its father, and its body unless from its mother? The expression is the Divine of the Father; but the Father Himself is what is meant, since He and His Divine are the same; and this Divine is one and indivisible. That this is true is evident also from the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary,-
The power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, and the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee; and the Holy Thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.And just above He is called 'the Son of the Most High,' and elsewhere 'the only-begotten Son.' But you, who call Him merely the Son of Mary, destroy the idea of His Divinity; yet it is only the learned among the clergy and the scholars among the laity who destroy this idea, for these, when they raise their thoughts above the sensual things pertaining to their bodies, regard the glory of their reputation; and this not only obscures but extinguishes the light whereby the glory of God enters.
But let us return to the Lord's Prayer, where it says, -
Our Father who art in the heavens; hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come.By these words you who are present understand the Father in His Divine alone but I understand the Father in His Human. Moreover, this Human is the name of the Father; for the Lord said, -
Father, glorify Thy name, that is, Thy Human; and when this is done the kingdom of God comes.And the reason why this Prayer was commanded for the present time is evident, namely, that through His Human an approach may be had to God the Father. The Lord also said, -
No man cometh unto the Father but by Me;And in the Prophet, -
Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and His name is God, Mighty, Father of Eternity;And elsewhere, -
Thou, Jehovah, art our Father, our Redeemer, from everlasting is Thy name;Besides many other places where the Lord our Savior is called Jehovah. This is the true explanation of the words of that Prayer."
When I had said all this, I looked at them and noted the changes in their countenances according to changes in the states of their minds, some favoring me and looking toward me, and some not favoring and turning themselves away. And then on the right I saw a cloud of opal color, and on the left a dusky cloud, and under each the appearance of a shower. That under the dusky cloud was like a rain at the close of autumn, and that under the opal cloud was like the fall of dew in early spring.
Then suddenly I came out of the spirit into the body, and thus returned from the spiritual world into the natural world.
(True Christian Religion 112)
* click A Brief Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church