Saturday, February 18, 2012

AC 1999 - adoration, humiliation; AC 2004 - conjunction

AC 1999
Abram fell upon his faces.*
. . . this signifies adoration . . ..
To fall upon the face was a rite of adoration in the Most Ancient Church,
and also in that of the Ancients,
for the reason that the face signified the interiors,
and the state of their humiliation
was represented by falling upon the face;
so in the Jewish representative church
it became a customary ceremonial.
True adoration, or humiliation of heart,
carries with it prostration to the earth upon the face before the Lord . . ..
For in humiliation of heart
there is the acknowledgment of self as being nothing but filthiness,
and at the same time the acknowledgment of the Lord's infinite mercy . . ..


[2] That the Lord adored and prayed to Jehovah His Father,
is known from the Word of the Gospels;
and also that He did so as if to one different from Himself,
although Jehovah was in Him.
But the state in which the Lord was at these times
was His state of humiliation . . .
that He was then in the infirm human that was from the mother;
but insofar as He put this off,
and put on the Divine,
He was in another state,
which is called His state of glorification.
In the former state
He adored Jehovah as one different from Himself,
although in Himself;
for, as has been said, His internal was Jehovah;
but in the latter, that is, in His state of glorification,
He spoke with Jehovah as with Himself,
or He was Jehovah Himself.

[3] A person's internal is that from which he is a person,
and by which he is distinguished from brute animals.
By means of this internal he lives after death,
and to eternity a person,
and by means of it
he can be uplifted by the Lord among the angels.
This internal is the very first form
from which a person becomes and is a person,
and by means of it
the Lord is united to a person.

[5] . . . the Lord's internal was Jehovah Himself,
because He was conceived from Jehovah,
who cannot be divided and become another's,
as is the case with a son who is conceived from a human father;
for the Divine is not divisible,
like the human,
but is and remains one and the same.
To this internal the Lord united the Human Essence;
and because the Lord's internal was Jehovah,
it was not a form recipient of life,
like the internal of a person,
but was life itself.
. . . Insofar therefore as the Lord was in the human
which He received by inheritance from the mother,
so far did He appear distinct from Jehovah
and adore Jehovah as one different from Himself.
But insofar as the Lord put off this human,
He was not distinct from Jehovah,
but was one with Him.
The former state, as before said, was the Lord's state of humiliation;
but the latter was His state of glorification.

AC 2004 [3]
Between the Lord and Jehovah there was union,
but between a person and the Lord
there is not union,
but conjunction.
The Lord united Himself to Jehovah by His own power,
and He therefore also became Righteousness;
whereas a person by no means conjoins himself by his own power,
but by the power of the Lord;
so that the Lord conjoins a person with Himself.

* "Faces" is in the plural in both the Hebrew and the Latin
because a person has really as many faces as affection
and it is the same with the Lord . . .. [Reviser.]

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