Thursday, June 07, 2012

AC 2795 - the Lord's temptations

AC 2795 [2]
This alone need be said here,
that the Lord could not possibly be tempted
when He was one with the Divine itself,
for the Divine is infinitely above all temptation.
But He could experience temptation as to His human.
This is the reason why,
when He was to undergo the severest and inmost temptations,
He joined the first human to Himself,
that is to say, the rational and the natural degrees of it,
. . . and after that separated Himself from them,
. . . though still retaining certain traits through which He could be tempted.
. . .The truth that neither the Divine itself nor the Divine Human
could be tempted may become clear to anyone
merely from the fact that not even angels can approach the Divine,
still less the spirits who bring temptations about, and least of all the hells.
From all this it is evident why the Lord came into the world 

and took on the human state of being with all its weakness,
for by doing so He was able to be tempted as regards the human
and by means of temptations to suppress the hells.
He was able to restore every single thing to obedience and to order,
and to save the human race
which had removed itself so far away from the Supreme Divine. 

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