Comprehending God Born Man in the World

Selection from Emanuel Swedenborg's work

Last Judgment (Posthumous)
The Last Judgment in the year 1757 conducted in the Spiritual World

The Gentiles
About the time of the Last Judgment, Christians appeared there in the middle, where they were arranged at a distance from the center to the circumference, and also at the various quarters according to the light of truth from the love of good.

Around this middle were seen the Mohammedans arranged in like manner at the various quarters, near to the Christians according to the light of truth from good.

Outside this compass were seen the Gentiles arranged according to their religion and according to life therefrom.

All have similar lands divided into mountains, hills, rocks and valleys, and above them are expanses where dwell the best of them who have received from angels truths of doctrine concerning the Lord and concerning life. Beyond them appeared as it were a sea, which was the boundary.

All these circuits taken together are extended not in a plane but in a globe like the earth, so that when I was conducted to the Gentiles, after passing through the Mohammedans, I descended by a declivity.

When the Last Judgment was going on, those who were in the western quarter beyond the Mohammedans, were led away towards the east. They were led, not by a circuit, but above the northern plane of the Christians, and, what I wondered at, on high, so that they were transferred by a way above the Christians, and yet did not communicate with them. And they were then allotted places around the Mohammedans at the east and also at the south. On both sides of where the Mohammedan heavens are, there appeared openings descending into the depths. Thither were cast those of them who were evil, who had worshipped idols, and had thought nothing about God, and at the same time had lived an evil life.

There is also a similar chasm on the northern side of the Mohammedan desert. Into this were cast the worst, and also many of the Roman Catholic religion who had worshipped the images of saints, and had thought nothing at all about the Lord. These latter were gathered from the northern quarter under the mountains there and were mingled with the Gentiles because they are similar. I then saw the whole northern valley even to the mountains there torn up to its foundations, and all who were there, scattered, and then there appeared in that place as it were a smokiness.

I was afterwards led beyond the Mohammedans to certain Gentiles who were in the eastern quarter, with whom it was granted to speak.

They said that they were sad because the Divine does not appear to them, when yet they think of the Divine and speak about it; and, therefore, if there is a God [they had hoped] that He would send to them those who would teach them; but that they had long waited for this in vain, lamenting that perchance He had deserted them, and that thus there seemed nothing else for them but to perish.

And then I heard angels speaking with them out of heaven, saying that God could not have been manifested to them because -

they had not been willing to believe that God was born a man in the world, or that He had taken on a Human, and that until they believe this, God cannot be manifested to them, nor can they be taught, because this is the primary thing of all revelation.

They said that they did indeed believe that God is Man but that they could not comprehend that He was born Man in the world.

But answer was made them, that -

He was not born Man like any other man, since He was not born from a human father, but from the Father Jehovah, and by a Virgin, and that thus He was unlike any other man; for a man's soul from a human father is a recipient of life, but the Lord's soul from the Father Jehovah is life itself, which gives life to all; and that the difference is as between the human and the Divine, and the finite and the infinite, or the create and the uncreate; and because He was such as to His soul, it could not be otherwise than that His body should become like His soul, after He had rejected that of the body which He had taken from the mother; and that therefore He rose as to His whole body, nor did He leave anything of it in the sepulcher, as is the case with every other man, who rises only as to his spirit, and never as to his material body.  And further, it was said that the Divine itself, as it is in itself, which is infinite, could not have done otherwise than reject the finite which was from the mother, and put on the infinite from the Father, thus the Divine. 

They said that they had known no other than that He was like any other man born from a human father, and also that He so died, and was afterwards received by men as God, and that they now know that the Lord is not such a man as others are.

After they received these things they were divided, and those who had received the faith were instructed by angels in other matters of faith and love.

(Last Judgment-Posthumous 126 - 128)