Friday, October 02, 2015

TCR 95,96 - acts of redemption, righteousness; TCR 100 - an immutable law

TCR 95
The Christian churches to-day say and believe
that merit and righteousness belong to the Lord alone
through the obedience He showed to God the Father,
while He was in the world,
in particular by His passion on the cross.
But they have assumed
that suffering the cross was itself the act of redemption;
yet that was not it,
but the act of glorifying His Human . . ..
The acts of redemption
by which the Lord made Himself righteousness
were His carrying out of the last judgment,
which took place in the spiritual world.
He then separated the wicked from the good
and the goats from the sheep,
expelling from heaven
those who made common cause
with the beasts of the dragon.
From the worthy He founded a new heaven,
from the unworthy a new hell;
and by stages He brought everything everywhere
back into order,
and in addition He established a new church.
These were the acts of redemption
by which the Lord made Himself righteousness;
for righteousness consists
in doing everything in accordance with Divine order,
and restoring everything which had slipped out of order.
Divine order itself is righteousness.

TCR 96
Yet the truth is that the Lord's righteousness,
being of such a nature and origin that it is purely Divine,
could not be conjoined with any person,
so that it could not cause anyone to be saved,
any more than the Divine life can,
which is the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom.
The Lord enters into every person with these,
but unless that person lives in accordance with order,
though he has that life within him,
it contributes nothing to his salvation,
giving him merely the ability
to understand truth and to do good.
Living in accordance with order
is living in accordance with God's commandments.

TCR 100
. . . it is a fixed and immutable law
that the Lord approaches a person
to the extent that he approaches the Lord.

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