Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt 6)
Before the world was created this Trinity was not; but after creation, when God became incarnate, it was provided and brought about, and then in the Lord God the Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ.In the Christian Church at the present day a Divine trinity existing before the creation of the world is acknowledged; that is, that Jehovah God begat a Son from eternity, and that the Holy Spirit then went forth from both, and that each of these three is by Himself or singly God, because each is one person subsisting of Himself. —
• But as this is incomprehensible to all reason it is called a mystery, which can be penetrated only in this way - that these three have one Divine essence, by which is meant eternity, immensity, omnipotence, and thus an equal Divinity, glory, and majesty.
• But that this trinity is a trinity of three Gods, and therefore in no sense a Divine trinity, will be shown in what follows: while from all that precedes it is evident that the trinity (which is also a trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) which was provided and brought about when God became incarnate, thus after the world was created, is a Divine trinity, because it is a trinity in one God.
This divine trinity is in the Lord God the Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ, because the three essentials of the one God, which constitute one essence, are in Him.That in Him (as Paul says) dwelleth all the fullness of Divinity is evident also from the words of the Lord Himself, that all things of the Father are His, and that the Holy Spirit speaks from Him, and not of itself; and finally, that when He arose He took from the sepulchre His whole human body, both the flesh and the bones (Matt. 28:1-8; Mark 16:5, 6; Luke 24:1-3; John 20:11-15), unlike any other man; of which He bore living witness to His disciples, saying:
Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself handle Me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have (Luke 24:39)From this every man may be convinced, if he will, that the Lord's humanity is Divine; consequently, that in Him -
God is Man and Man is God.The trinity which the present Christian Church has embraced and brought into its faith, is that God the Father begat a Son from eternity, and that the Holy Spirit then went forth from both, and that each one of Himself is a God. Human minds can conceive of this trinity only as a triarchy, like the government of three kings in one kingdom, or of three generals over one army, or of three masters in one household, all possessing an equal power. From this what but destruction could ensue?
Or if one wishes to figure or shadow forth this triarchy before his mind's sight, and at the same time the unity of its members, he can present it to contemplation only as a man with three heads on one body, or as three bodies under one head. In such a monstrous image must the trinity appear to those who believe that there are three Divine persons each by Himself God, and who join these into one God, but deny that God, because He is one, is therefore one person.
That a Son of God begotten from eternity descended and assumed a Human may be compared to the fables of the ancients, that human souls created at the beginning of the world enter into bodies and become men.
Also to the absurd notion that the soul of one person passes into another, as many in the Jewish church believed; for example, that the soul of Elijah would pass into the body of John the Baptist, and that David would return into his own or into some other man's body, and rule over Israel and Judah, because it is said in Ezekiel:
I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David; and he shall be their shepherd and I Jehovah will be to them as God, and David a prince among them (34:23, 24);besides other passages; not knowing that the Lord is there meant by "David."
(True Christian Religion 170, 171)