Taking Away From the Lord What Is His

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

And he believed in Jehovah, and He imputed it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)

That this signifies that herein the Lord first became righteousness, may also be seen from the connection of things in the internal sense, in which the Lord is treated of. That the Lord alone became righteousness for the whole human race, may be seen from the fact that He alone fought from Divine love, namely, from love toward the whole human race, whose salvation was what in His combats He solely desired and burned for. In regard to His Human Essence the Lord was not born righteousness, but became righteousness through combats of temptations and victories, and this from His own power. As often as He fought and overcame, this was imputed to Him for righteousness, that is, it was added to the righteousness that He was becoming, as a continual increase, until He became pure righteousness.

A man who is born of a human father, or of the seed of a human father, when fighting from himself cannot fight from any other love than the love of self and of the world, thus not from heavenly love, but from infernal love, for such is the character of his Own [self-hood] from his father, in addition to the Own [self-hood] acquired by his own conduct. Therefore he who supposes that he fights from himself against the devil is hugely mistaken. In like manner he who desires to make himself righteous by his own powers - that is, to believe that the goods of charity and the truths of faith are from himself, consequently that he merits heaven by them - acts and thinks against the good and truth of faith; for it is a truth of faith, that is, it is the truth itself, that the Lord fights. And therefore because he then acts and thinks against the truth of faith, he takes away from the Lord what is His, and makes what is the Lord's to be his own, or what is the same, he puts himself in the Lord's place, and thereby puts that which is infernal in himself. Hence it is that such men desire to become great, or the greatest, in heaven; and hence it is that they falsely believe that the Lord fought against the hells in order that He might be the greatest. What is man's own [self-hood] is attended with such phantasies,, which appear as if they were truths, but are just the reverse.

That the Lord came into the world in order to become righteousness, and that He alone is righteousness, was also foretold by the prophets; and therefore this could have been known before His coming; and also that He could not become righteousness except through temptations, and victories over all evils and all the hells.

As in Jeremiah:
In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell in confidence, and this is His name whereby they shall call Him, Jehovah our righteousness (Jer. 23:6).

In the same:
In those days and in that time will I cause an Offshoot of righteousness to grow onto David, and He shall do judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell in confidence; and this is what they shall call Him, Jehovah our righteousness (Jer. 33:15-16).

In Isaiah:
He saw, and there was no man; and He wondered that there was none to intercede; and His arm brought salvation unto Him, and His righteousness it upheld Him. And He put on righteousness as a coat of mail, and a helmet of salvation upon His head (Isa. 59:16-17; see especially Isa. 63:3, 5).

"His arm" means His own power. Because the Lord alone is righteousness, the "habitation of righteousness" also is mentioned in Jeremiah 31:23; 50:7.

(Arcana Coelestia 1813)

No Heaven in Hell, and No Hell in Heaven

The perception of opposites is different from the perception of relatives; for opposites are things without, and are opposed to things within.

An opposite has its beginning where one thing wholly ceases to be anything, and another then arises with an effort to act against the former, as when a wheel acts against another wheel, or a current against another current.  But relatives pertain to the arrangement of many and various parts in an order that is concordant and harmonious, like precious stones of various colors in the stomacher of a queen, or like flowers of different colors arranged in a garland to give pleasure to the sight. Therefore in both of these opposites there are relatives, that is, in what is good as well as in what is evil, in what is true as well as in what is false, thus both in heaven and in hell, all the relatives in hell being the opposites of the relatives in heaven.

Since, then, from the order in which He is, God perceives and sees and is cognizant of all things relative in heaven, and thereby perceives, sees, and is cognizant of all the opposite relatives in hell . . . it is clear that God is omniscient in hell as well as in heaven, and in like manner with men in the world; thus that He perceives, sees, and is cognizant of their evils and falsities from the good and truth in which He Himself is, and which in their essence are Himself; for we read:

If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there (Ps. 139:8);

and again:

Though they dig into hell, thence shall My hand take them (Amos 9:2)

(True Christian Religion 62).

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Now as evil and good are two opposites, precisely like hell and heaven, or like the devil and the Lord, it follows that if man shuns an evil as sin, he comes into the good that is an opposite to the evil. The good opposite to the evil which is meant by murder, is the good of love towards the neighbour.

Since this good and that evil are opposites, it follows that the latter is removed by the former. Two opposites cannot exist together, as heaven and hell cannot exist together. If they were together there would exist that lukewarm state concerning which it is written in the Revelation:

I know . . . that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Rev. iii 15, 16.

(Life 70, 71)

Loving To Be Taught

From Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

How can so many discordant religions exist, instead of one true religion over all the earth, if the Divine providence has as its end a heaven from the human race?

But listen, I pray: All the human beings that are born, however many and in whatever religion, can be saved, provided they acknowledge God and live according to the commandments in the Decalogue, which are not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to steal, and not to bear false witness, for the reason that doing such things is contrary to religion, and thus contrary to God. Such fear God and love the neighbor; they fear God in the thought that to do such things is contrary to God; and they love the neighbor in the thought that to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness, and to covet the neighbor's house or wife is against the neighbor. Because such in their life look to God, and do not do evil to the neighbor, they are led by the Lord; and those who are led are also taught in accordance with their religion, about God and about the neighbor; for those who so live love to be taught, while those who live otherwise do not; and because they love to be taught, when after death they become spirits they are instructed by the angels and gladly accept such truths as are in the Word.

(Divine Providence 253)