The Divine Trinity (pt 3)

Selection from True Christian Religion  ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt 3)

But in what manner these passages are to be understood, whether as meaning that these are three Gods, who in essence and consequently in name are one God; or that they are three objects belonging to one subject, that is, merely qualities or attributes of one God which are so named; or in some other way, the reason left to itself is incapable of seeing. What then is to be done?

There is no other way than for man to go to the Lord God the Savior, and under His auspices read the Word; for He is the God of the Word; and man will then be enlightened and will see truths which reason also will acknowledge.

But on the other hand, if you do not approach the Lord, (though you read the Word a thousand times, and see therein the Divine trinity and the unity also), you will never understand otherwise than that there are three Divine persons, each one of whom singly is God, and thus that there are three Gods.

But because this is repugnant to the common perception of all men throughout the world, to escape reproaches men have invented the notion that although there are in truth three Gods, it is indispensable to faith that one God only, and not three, be named. Furthermore, lest they should be overwhelmed with censure it was determined that on this point especially the understanding should be imprisoned and held bound under obedience to faith; and that this should evermore be a sacred principle of Christian order in the Christian church

Such a paralytic birth resulted from their not reading the Word under the Lord's auspices; for everyone who does not read the Word under His auspices reads it under the auspices of his own intelligence, which is like an owl in such things as are in spiritual light, as all the essentials of the church are.

When one so reads in the Word what is said of the trinity, and from what he reads, thinks that although there are three Gods they are still one, the matter appears to him like a response from a tripod, which, because he does not understand it, he rolls about between his teeth; for if he should set it before his eyes it would become a riddle, which the more he tries to solve the more he involves himself in darkness, until finally he begins to think about it without understanding, which is like seeing without an eye.

In short, those who read the Word under the auspices of one's own intelligence, as is done by all who do not acknowledge the Lord as the God of heaven and earth, and therefore approach and worship Him alone, may be likened to children at play, who tie a bandage over their eyes and try to walk in a straight line, and even think that they are going straight ahead, when yet they turn step by step to one side and finally go in the opposite direction, and strike against a stone and fall.

Such are also like mariners sailing without a compass, who run their vessel on the rocks and perish. They are also like a man walking over a wide plain in a thick fog, who seeing a scorpion takes it for a bird, and attempting to seize and pick it up with his hand receives a deadly wound.

Such again are like a waterfowl or a hawk, which sees above the water a little of the back of a big fish, and darts down and fixes its beak in it, and is drawn under by the fish and drowned.

Again they are like one entering a labyrinth without a guide or a cord, and the farther he goes in the more he loses sight of the way out.

A man who reads the Word not under the Lord's auspices but under the auspices of his own intelligence, thinks himself a lynx and better sighted than Argus; and yet he inwardly sees not a shred of truth, but only what is false; and under self-persuasion this falsity seems to him like a polar star towards which he directs all the sails of his thought; and then he no more sees truths than a mole does, or if he sees them he bends them to favor his phantasies, and so perverts and falsifies the holy things of the Word.

To be continued...

(True Christian Religion 165)

The Divine Trinity (pt 2)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued Pt 2)

There it a Divine Trinity, which is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

That there is a Divine trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is made clearly evident in the Word, as in the following passages:

The angel Gabriel said to Mary, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).

Here three are mentioned, the Most High, who is God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God:

When Jesus was baptized, Lo, the heavens were opened, and John saw the Holy Spirit descending as a dove and coming upon Him and lo, a voice out of heaven saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:16, 17; Mark 1:10, 11; John 1:32).

And still more plainly in these words of the Lord to His disciples:

Go ye and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19);

and still again in these words in John:

There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit (1 John 5:7).

Furthermore, the Lord prayed to His Father, and spoke of Him and with Him, and said that He would send the Holy Spirit, and He did send it.

Finally the apostles in their Epistles frequently mentioned the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

From all this it is clear that there is a Divine trinity, which is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But in what manner these passages are to be understood, whether as meaning that these are three Gods, who in essence and consequently in name are one God; or that they are three objects belonging to one subject, that is, merely qualities or attributes of one God which are so named; or in some other way, the reason left to itself is incapable of seeing. What then is to be done?

To be continued...

(True Christian Religion 163)

The Divine Trinity

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Divine trinity, which is known and yet unknown in the Christian world

Only through this can a right idea of God be acquired

a right idea of God in the church is like the sanctuary and altar in a temple, or like the crown upon the head and the scepter in the hand of a king on his throne; for on a right idea of God the whole body of theology hangs, like a chain on its first link; and if you will believe it, everyone is allotted his place in the heavens in accordance with his idea of God. For that idea is like a touchstone by which the gold and silver are tested, that is, the quality of good and truth in man. For there can be no saving good in man except from God, nor any truth that does not derive its quality from the bosom of good.

• There is a Divine Trinity, which is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

• These three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are the three essentials of one God, and they make one as soul, body, and operation make one in man.

• 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 ideas of thought a Trinity of Divine Persons from eternity, or before the world was created, is a Trinity of Gods; and these ideas cannot be effaced by a lip-confession of one God.

• A Trinity of Persons was unknown in the Apostolic church, but was hatched by the Nicene Council, and from that was introduced into the Roman Catholic church, and from that again into the churches separated from it.

• From the Nicene Trinity and the Athanasian Trinity together a faith arose by which the whole Christian church has been perverted.

• This is the source of that "abomination of desolation, and that tribulation such as has not been nor ever shall be," which the Lord foretold in Daniel and in the Gospels and in the Apocalypse.

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

• 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.

To be continued...

(True Christian Religion 163)

'Flesh and Blood' in the Holy Supper

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

He who does violence to truth does violence likewise to good, because truth has been so conjoined with good that the one belongs to the other; and therefore if violence is done to the one, it is done to the other also.

He who knows nothing of the internal sense of the Word, knows no otherwise than that by "bloods" in the Word are signified bloods; and that by "shedding blood" is merely signified killing a man. But -

the internal sense does not treat of the life of man's body, but of the life of his soul, that is, of his spiritual life, which he is to live forever.

This life is described in the Word in the sense of the letter by such things as belong to the life of the body; namely, by the flesh and blood. And because the spiritual life of man exists and subsists through the good which is of charity and the truth which is of faith, therefore in the internal sense of the Word -

the good which is of charity is meant by "flesh,"

and the truth which is of faith is meant by "blood."

And in a still more interior sense, the good which is of love to the Lord is meant by "flesh," and the good of love toward the neighbor is meant by "blood."

But in the supreme sense, which treats of the Lord alone, -

"flesh" denotes the Divine good of the Lord, thus the Lord Himself as to Divine good;
and "blood" denotes the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, thus the Lord as to Divine truth.

These things are understood in heaven by "flesh and blood" when a man is reading the Word; in like manner when he attends the Holy Supper; but in this the bread is the flesh, and the wine is the blood, because by "bread" the same is signified as by "flesh," and by "wine" the same as by "blood."

But this is not apprehended by those who are sensuous, as is the case with most men in the world at this day; and therefore let them remain in their own faith, provided they believe that in the Holy Supper, and in the Word, there is something holy, because from the Divine.

Granting that they do not know wherein this holiness consists, nevertheless let those who are endowed with any interior perception (that is, who are able to think above the things of sense), consider whether blood is meant by "blood," and flesh by "flesh," of the Lord, in the following passage in John:

The bread that I will give is My flesh. Verily, verily, I say unto you Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall not have life in you. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him. This is the bread that came down from heaven  (John 6:51-58).

That the Lord's "flesh" denotes the Divine good of His Divine love; and that His "blood" denotes the Divine truth proceeding from His Divine good; can be seen from the fact that these are what nourish the spiritual life of a man.

From this also it is said, My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed; and also, this is the bread that came down from heaven. And as man is conjoined with the Lord through love and faith, it is also said, he that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him.

But as before said those alone apprehend this saying who can think above the sensuous things of the body; especially those who are in faith and in love to the Lord, for these are raised by the Lord from the life of the sensuous things of the body toward the life of their spirit; thus from the light of the world into the light of heaven, in which light those material things which are in the thought from the body disappear.

(from Arcana Coelestia 9127: 1 - 5)

God Opens the Eyes

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is said that "God opens the eyes" when He opens the interior sight or understanding; which is effected by an influx into man's rational, or rather into the spiritual of his rational. This is done by the way of the soul, or the internal way, unknown to the man.

This influx is his state of enlightenment, in which the truths which he hears or reads are confirmed to him by a kind of perception interiorly within his intellectual.

This the man believes to be innate in him, and to proceed from his own intellectual faculty; but in this he is very much mistaken; for it is an influx through heaven from the Lord into what is obscure, fallacious, and seeming with the man, which by means of the good therein, causes the things which he believes to be similar to truth. But they only who are spiritual are blessed with enlightenment in the spiritual things of faith. It is this which is signified by "God opening the eyes."

That the "eye" signifies the understanding is because the sight of the body corresponds to the sight of its spirit, which is the understanding; and because it corresponds, in the Word the understanding is signified by the "eye" in almost every place where it is mentioned, even where it is believed to be otherwise; as where the Lord says in Matthew:

The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light; but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness; if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness (Matt. 6:22-23; Luke 11:34).

Here the "eye" is the understanding, the spiritual of which is faith, as also is evident from the explication: "if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness."

So too in the same:

If thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee (Matt. 5:29; 18:9).

The "left eye" is the intellectual, but the "right eye" is its affection: that the right eye is to be plucked out means that the affection is to be subdued if it causes stumbling.

In the same:

Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear (Matt. 13:16);

and in Luke:

Jesus said to the disciples, Blessed are the eyes which see the thing which ye see (Luke 10:23).

Here by the "eyes which see," intelligence and faith are signified;

for their seeing the Lord, and also His miracles and works, did not make them blessed; but comprehending them with the understanding and having faith, which is "seeing with the eyes;" and obeying, which is "hearing with the ears."

That to "see with the eyes" is to understand, and also to have faith - for the understanding is the spiritual of the sight, and faith is the spiritual of the understanding.

The sight of the eye is from the light of the world, but the sight of faith is from the light of heaven. Hence it is common to speak of seeing with the understanding, and of seeing by faith.

Also in Mark:

Jesus said to the disciples, Do ye not yet perceive, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes see ye not? And having ears hear ye not? (Mark 8:17-18);

where it is manifest that not to be willing to understand and not to believe, is to "have eyes and not see."

In Luke:

Jesus said of the city, If thou hadst known the things that belong unto thy peace; but now it is hid from thine eyes (Luke 19:41-42).

And in Mark:

This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes (Mark 12:11);

where to be "hid from the eyes," and to be "marvelous in the eyes," means to be so to the understanding, as is known to everyone from the signification of the eye even in the common use of language.

(Arcana Coelestia 2701)

Sight from Within

Selection from Arcana Coeletia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

A man sees in himself whether what he thinks and wills, and consequently what he says and does, is good or evil, and consequently whether it is true or false. This is quite impossible unless he sees from within.

Seeing from within is seeing from the sight of the internal man in the external.

The case is the same as with the sight of the eye: the eye cannot see the things which are within it, but only those which are outside of it. From this then it is that a man sees the good and the evil that are in himself. Nevertheless one man sees this better than another, and some do not see it at all.

They who see it, are they who have received from the Lord the life of faith and charity, for this life is the internal life, or the life of the internal man.

Such persons, being from faith in truth, and from charity in good, can see the evils and falsities in themselves; for evil can be seen from good, and falsity from truth; but not contrariwise. The reason is that good and truth are in heaven, and in its light; whereas evil and falsity are in hell, and in its darkness. From this it is evident that those who are in evil and thence in falsity cannot see the good and truth, nor even the evil and falsity, which are in themselves, consequently neither can they see from within.

But be it known that to see from within is to see from the Lord; for it is the same with sight as with everything that exists, in that nothing exists from itself, but from that which is prior to or higher than itself, thus finally from the First and Highest.

The First and Highest is the Lord!

He who apprehends this can also apprehend that everything of life with man is from the Lord; and that as charity and faith constitute the veriest life of man, everything of charity, and everything of faith, are from the Lord. He who excels others in the gift of thought and perception, can from this also apprehend that the Lord sees each and all things - even the most minute - that are with man. But evil and falsity do not come forth from what is higher than themselves; but from what is lower. Consequently they do not come forth from the Lord, but from the world; for the Lord is above, and the world is beneath. Wherefore with those who are in evil and thence in falsity, the internal man is closed above and open beneath.

From this it is that they see all things upside down; the world as everything, and heaven as nothing. It is also for this reason that before the angels they appear upside down; with the feet upward, and the head downward. Such are all in hell.

(Arcana Coeletia 9128:2, 3)

Spiritual Life

Excerpt from a passage in Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

[I]t is not known what spiritual life is, thus neither that spiritual life is an interior life distinct from the natural life, which is exterior.

Spiritual life is given by the Lord to man through the reception of the truth of faith in the good of charity. ...

[W]hen a man of the church who is in the good of faith reads the Word, angels adjoin themselves to him, and are delighted in the man, because of the wisdom which then inflows to them through the Word from the Lord.

From this is the conjunction of heaven with man, which would not be possible without the Word. For the Word is such that there is not even a point or a jot in its original tongue which does not affect the angels, and conjoin them with man.

(Arcana Coelestia 9152)