The Primary Thing of All Revelation

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

And his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren; and they hated him, and could not speak for peace unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren, and they added yet to hate him. And he said unto them, Hear I pray this dream which I have dreamed; and behold we were binding sheaves in the midst of the field, and lo my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and behold your sheaves came round about, and bowed down themselves to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they added yet to hate him for his dreams, and for his words.

And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold I have dreamed yet a dream, and behold the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down themselves to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said to him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him, but his father kept the word.  Genesis 37:4 - 11

And lo my sheaf arose, and also stood upright. That this signifies what is doctrinal concerning the Lord's Divine Human is evident from the signification of a "sheaf" as being doctrine ... and from the signification of "arising and standing upright," as being the supreme that should reign, and that they would adore.

That this is the Lord's Divine Human is evident from what follows, namely,
• that the eleven sheaves bowed down themselves to that sheaf

and in the second dream
• that the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down themselves to Joseph, whereby is signified the supreme that should reign, and that they would adore

wherefore also Jacob says,
• "Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?"

... the Divine truth of the Lord is what is represented by Joseph; the supreme of this is the Lord Himself, and the supreme among doctrinal things is that His Human is Divine.

With this supreme of doctrinal things the case is this:

The Most Ancient Church, which was celestial, and which above all others was called Man, adored the infinite being, and the derivative infinite coming-forth; and because, from the things which could be perceived in their internal man and those which could be felt in their external, and from the visible things in the world, the men of that church could have no perception of the infinite being, but could have some perception of the derivative infinite coming-forth, they therefore adored the infinite coming forth in which is the infinite being.

The infinite coming-forth in which is the infinite being they perceived as a Divine Man, because they knew that the infinite coming-forth was brought forth through heaven from the infinite being; and as heaven is the Grand Man, corresponding to each and all things that are in man ... they therefore could have no other idea of perception concerning the infinite coming forth from the infinite being, than as of a Divine Man;

for whatever from the infinite being passes through heaven as the Grand Man is attended with an image thereof in each and all things.

When that celestial church began to fall away, they foresaw that the infinite coming forth could no longer have influx into the minds of men, and that so the human race would perish; therefore it was revealed to them

that One should be born who would make the Human in Himself Divine, and in this way become the same infinite coming-forth as had been before, and would at last become one with the infinite being as also it had been before.

From this came their prophecy in Genesis concerning the Lord

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:15).

This is described in John in these words:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-4, 14);

the "Word" is the Divine truth, which in its essence is the infinite coming-forth from the infinite being, and is the Lord Himself as to His Human. This very Human it is from which truth Divine now proceeds and flows into heaven, and through heaven into the minds of men; consequently which rules and governs the universe, as it has ruled and governed it from eternity;

for it is one and the same with the infinite being, because He conjoined the Human with the Divine, which was done by this, that He made the Human in Himself also Divine.

From this it is now evident that the supreme of truth Divine is the Lord's Divine Human, and hence that the supreme among the doctrinal things of the church is that His Human is Divine.

(Arcana Coelestia 4687)

emphasis by reviser

The Divine Trinity (pt 15)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

(Final Installment pt 15)

From a Trinity of Persons, each one of whom singly is God, according to the Athanasian creed, many discordant and heterogeneous ideas respecting God have arisen, which are phantasies and abortions.

From the doctrine of three Divine persons from eternity, which in itself is the head of all the doctrinals in the Christian churches, there have arisen many ideas of God that are unbecoming and unworthy of the Christian world, which, on the subject of God and His oneness ought to be and might be a light to all peoples and nations in the four quarters of the globe. All who dwell outside the Christian church, both Mohammedans and Jews, and besides these the Gentiles of every cult, are averse to Christianity solely on account of its belief in three Gods. This its propagandists know; and therefore they are very cautious about divulging the doctrine of a trinity of persons as it is taught in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds; for if they did they would be shunned and ridiculed.

The absurd, ludicrous, and frivolous ideas that have sprung up out of the doctrine of three Divine persons from eternity, and that still spring up in every man who retains a belief in the words of that doctrine, rising from his ears and eyes into the sight of his thought, are as follows:

That God the Father sits on high overhead; the Son at His right hand; and the Holy Spirit before them listening, and forthwith traversing the whole world, dispensing according to their decision the gifts of justification, inscribing them upon men and changing men from children of wrath to children of grace, and from being damned to being elect.

I appeal to the learned of the clergy and well-informed of the laity, whether in their minds they cherish any other visual image than this, for this flows of itself from the same doctrine (see Memorable Relation, n. 16).

There flows from it also a curiosity for conjecturing what they conversed about before the world was made, whether about making the world, or perchance about those who according to the Supralapsarians were to be predestined and justified, or also about redemption; likewise what they have been conversing about among themselves since the world was created -

the Father from His authority and power to impute, the Son from His power to mediate; moreover that imputation, which is election, is from the mercy of the Son who intercedes for all in general and for some individually, and that the Father, being moved by love to the Son and by the agony witnessed in Him when on the cross, has grace for such.

But who cannot see that such things are silly conceits about God? And yet in the Christian churches these are the very sanctities, which are to be kissed with the lips, but not looked into by any mental vision because they are above the reason, and if they were lifted out of the memory into the understanding man would become insane. This, however, does not take away the idea of three Gods but induces a stupid faith, because of which a man, when thinking about God, may be likened to a sleep-walker wandering about in the darkness of night, or to one blind from birth wandering in the light of day.

That a trinity of Gods is fixed in the minds of Christians, although from shame they deny it, is very evident from the ingenuity of many of them in demonstrating by means of various things in plain and solid geometry, in arithmetic, and in physics, and also by foldings of cloth and paper, that the three are one and the one is three. Thus they play with the divine trinity as jugglers play with each other. Their juggling on this subject may be compared to the visions of those suffering from fever, who see one object (whether a man, or a table or a candle) as three, or three as one. It may also be compared to the tricks of those who work soft wax with their fingers and mould it into various shapes, now making it triangular to exhibit the trinity, and again spherical to exhibit the unity, meanwhile asking, "Is not the substance still one and the same?" And yet the Divine trinity is like the one pearl of great value, but when divided into persons it is like that pearl divided into three parts, whereby it is utterly and manifestly ruined.

(True Christian Religion 183 - 185)

The Divine Trinity (pt 14)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

(Continued pt 14)

So, too, unless a new heaven and a new church were established by the Lord there could no flesh be saved.

It is said in Matthew:

Then shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days be shortened no flesh would be saved (24:21, 22).

This chapter treats of "the consummation of the age," by which the end of the present church is meant; therefore "to shorten those days" means to bring that church to an end and establish a new one.

Who does not know that unless the Lord had come into the world and wrought redemption no flesh could have been saved? To work redemption means to found a new heaven and a new church.

That the Lord would again come into the world He foretold in the Gospels, Matt. 24:30, 31; Mark 13:26; Luke 12:40; 21:27; and in the Apocalypse, particularly in the last chapter. That He is also effecting a redemption at this day by founding a new heaven and establishing a new church to the end that man may be saved...

The great mystery that unless a new church is established by the Lord no flesh can he saved, is this:

That so long as the dragon with his horde remains in the world of spirits into which he has been cast, no Divine truth united to Divine good can pass through that world to men on earth without being perverted and falsified, or without its perishing.

This is what is meant in the Apocalypse by the words:

The dragon was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Woe to those that inhabit the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down unto them having great anger (12:9, 12, 13).

But when the dragon had been cast into hell (10:10),

John saw a new heaven and a new earth, and he saw the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven (21:1, 2);

"the dragon" meaning those who are in the faith of the present church.

In the spiritual world I have several times talked with those who believe that men are justified by faith alone; and I have told them that their doctrine is both erroneous and absurd, and induces upon men security, blindness, sleep, and in spiritual things a night, and consequently death to the soul; and I have exhorted them to discard it; but I received the answer, "Why discard it? Does not the superiority of the learning of the clergy over that of the laity hang upon that sole doctrine?" I replied, "In that case they do not regard the salvation of souls as any object, but the superiority of their own reputation; and as they have adapted the truths of the Word to their false principles, and have thus adulterated them, they are those angels of the abyss, called Abaddons and Apollyons (Apoc. 9:11), who signify those that destroy the church by a total falsification of the Word."

But they made answer, "What do you mean? By our knowledge of the mysteries of that faith we are oracles, and from it as from a sanctuary we give responses; therefore we are not Apollyons but Apollos." Indignant at this reply I said, "If you are Apollos you are also leviathans - your leaders the crooked leviathans, and the rest of you the stretched-out leviathans, whom God will visit with His sore and great sword" (Isa. 27:1). But at this they laughed.

To be continued...

(True Christian Religion 182)