Total Submission to the Lord

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Men are nothing else than forms receptive of life from the Lord, and these forms are such by inheritance and by actual life that they refuse to admit the spiritual life which is from the Lord. But when these receptacles have been so far renounced that they no longer have any freedom from the man's own, there is total submission. A man who is being regenerated is at last so far reduced by repeated alternations of desolation and sustenance that he no longer wills to be his own, but the Lord's; and when he has become the Lord's he comes into a state of such a nature that when he is left to self he grieves and is seized with anxiety; and when he is delivered from this state of self he returns into his happiness and bliss. In such a state are all the angels.

In order that He may make a man blessed and happy, the Lord wills a total submission, that is, that he be not partly his own and partly the Lord's, for then there are two lords, which no one can serve at the same time:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matt. 6:24).

Total submission is also meant by the Lord's words in Matthew:

He that loveth father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son and daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me (Matt. 10:37)

where by "father and mother" are signified in general those things which are man's own from inheritance, and by "son and daughter" those things which are his own from actual life. Man's own is also signified by "soul" in John:

He that loveth his soul shall lose it; but he that hateth his soul in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If anyone will minister to Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be (John 12:25, 26).

Total submission is also signified by the Lord's words in Matthew:

Another disciple said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow Me; and let the dead bury their dead (Matt. 8:21, 22).

That submission must be total is very evident from the first commandment of the church:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God from all thy heart, and from all thy soul, and from all thy mind, and from all thy forces; this is the first commandment (Mark 12:30).

Thus because love to the Lord does not come from man, but from the Lord Himself, therefore all the heart, all the soul, all the mind, and all the forces, which are recipients, must be the Lord's, consequently submission must be total. ...

(Arcana Coelestia 6138)

God is One in Essence and in Person

Passages from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

These three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are the three essentials of the one God, and they make one as soul, body, and operation make one in man. In anyone thing there are both general and particular essentials, and these together make one essence. The general essentials of the one man are his soul, body, and operation. That these constitute one essence can be seen from this-that one is from the other and for the sake of the other in an unbroken series; for man gets his beginning from the soul, which is the very essence of the semen; and the soul not only initiates, but also produces in their order all things that pertain to the body, and afterward all things that proceed from the soul and body together, which are called operations. From this production, therefore, of one from the other, and the consequent ingrafting and conjunction, it can be seen that these three are of one essence, and therefore they are called three essentials.

Everyone acknowledges that these three essentials, namely, soul, body, and operation, both were and are in the Lord God the Savior. That His soul was from Jehovah the Father cannot be denied except by Antichrist; for in the Word of both Testaments He is called the Son of Jehovah, the Son of the Most High God, the Only-begotten; consequently the Divine of the Father, like the soul in man, is His first essential. From this it follows that the Son whom Mary brought forth is the body to that Divine soul; for in the mother's womb nothing is furnished except the body that has been conceived and derived from the soul; this, therefore, is His second essential. Operations constitute the third essential, since these proceed from soul and body together, and what proceeds is of the same essence as that which produces it. That the three essentials, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the Lord are one, like soul, body, and operation in man, is clearly evident from the Lord's words, that the Father and He are one; that the Father is in Him and He in the Father; and in like manner He and the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit is the Divine that goes forth out of the Lord from the Father...

When it is said that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the three essentials of the one God, like soul, body, and operation in man, it seems to the human mind as if these three essentials are three persons, which is impossible. But when it is understood that the Divine of the Father, which constitutes the soul, and the Divine of the Son, which constitutes the body, and the Divine of the Holy Spirit or the proceeding Divine, which constitutes the operation, are the three essentials of the one God, the statement is comprehensible. For God the Father is His Divine, the Son from the Father is His Divine, and the Holy Spirit from both is His Divine; and as these are one in essence and one in mind they constitute one God. But if these three Divine essentials are called persons, and if to each person is attributed his own property, to the Father imputation, to the Son mediation, and to the Holy Spirit operation, the Divine Essence, which in fact is one and not divisible, becomes divided: and thus none of the three is God in fullness, but each has a sub-triple power; and this a sound understanding must needs reject.

(True Christian Religion 166 - 168)

The Conjunction of the Lord with Those Who Believe in Him

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

When speaking of His union with the Father, the Lord speaks immediately and without a break of His conjunction with the human race; because this was the cause of the union, as is evident in John:

That they all may be one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and Thou in Me, for I have made known unto them Thy name, and will make it known, that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them (John 17:21, 22, 26)

which it is evident that in the union of Himself with the Father the Lord had in view the conjunction of Himself with the human race, and that He had this at heart, because it was His love; for all conjunction is effected by means of love, love being conjunction itself.
Again in the same gospel:

Because I live, ye shall live also in that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in Me, and I in you; he that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me (John 14:19-21)

from which in like manner it is evident that in the union of His Human Essence with His Divine Essence the Lord had in view the conjunction of Himself with the human race, and that this was His end, and this His love, which was such that the salvation of the human race, as held in the union of Himself with His Father, was to Him the inmost joy. There is also here described that which unites, namely, to have and to do His commandments, and thereby to love the Lord.

Again:

Father, glorify Thy name; there came therefore a voice from heaven, I have both glorified and will glorify it again. Jesus said, This voice hath not come for My sake, but for your sakes. But I, when I shall be lifted up from the earth, will draw all after Me (John 12:28, 30, 32)

by "glorification" is meant union, as before said; and that in the union of Himself with the Father He regarded the conjunction of Himself with the human race, is openly said in the words, "when I shall be lifted up, I will draw all after Me."

That conjunction of the Infinite or Supreme Divine with the human race was effected through the Lord's Human made Divine, and that this conjunction was the cause of the Lord's coming into the world, is an arcanum into which many inquire in their own minds, and because they do not comprehend, they do not believe it; and as they do not believe for the reason that they do not comprehend, it becomes a scandal or stumbling-block to them. ... Very many of these - almost the greater part of those who had been men of talent in the world - when they merely think that the Lord became a man, and in external form was like other men, that He suffered, and that nevertheless He rules the universe, at once fill the sphere with scandals ... in the other life the interiors are open, and are made manifest by the sphere diffused from them. ...

Seeing that such is the case, it may be well to explain the matter a little further. After all the celestial in man had perished, that is, all love to God, so that there was no longer any will of good, the human race had then been separated from the Divine; for nothing effects conjunction except love, and when this had been annihilated, there was disjunction; and when there is disjunction, then destruction and extirpation follow. Therefore the promise was then made respecting the Lord's coming into the world, who should unite the Human to the Divine, and by this union should effect in Himself the conjunction of the human race by means of the faith of love and of charity.

From the time of the first promise (spoken of in Gen. 3:15) the faith of love in the Lord who was to come effected conjunction. But when there was no longer any faith of love remaining in the whole world, then the Lord came and united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence, so that they were altogether one, as He Himself clearly says; and at the same time He taught the way of truth, that everyone who should believe in Him - that is, who should love Him and the things that are His, and who should be in His love which is love toward the universal human race, thus in love toward the neighbor-should be conjoined and saved.

When, in the Lord, the Human was made Divine, and the Divine Human, the result was an influx of the Infinite or Supreme Divine with man that otherwise could not possibly have existed; and an additional result was the dispersion of the direful persuasions of falsity and the direful cupidities of evil with which the world of spirits was brimful, and with which it was continually being filled full from the souls arriving from the world; and they who were in those persuasions and cupidities were cast into hell, and thereby were separated. Unless this had been done, the human race would have perished, for the Lord rules the human race by means of spirits. Nor could they have been dispersed in any other way, for no operation of the Divine was possible through man's rational things into those of internal sense, because these are far below the Supreme Divine when not so united; not to mention still deeper arcana that cannot be explained to the apprehension of any man. ...

(Arcana Coelestia 2034:2-8)