AC 2523 - The Word and the Lord's Life on Earth; AC 2526 - Good Is . . . Truth Is

AC 2523

In the internal sense of the Word
the Lord's whole life is described,
such as it was to be in the world,
even as to the perceptions and thoughts,
for these were foreseen and provided
because from the Divine;
this being done for the additional reason
that all these things might be set forth at that time
as present to the angels,
who perceive the Word according to the internal sense;
and that so the Lord might be before them,
and at the same time
 how by successive steps
He put off the human,
and put on the Divine.
Unless these things
had been as if present to the angels,
through the Word,
and also through all the rites in the Jewish Church,
the Lord would have been obliged
to come into the world immediately
after the fall of the Most Ancient Church,
which is called Man or Adam;
for there was an immediate prophecy
of the Lord's advent (Gen. 3:15);
and what is more,
the human race of that time
could not otherwise have been saved.

As regards the Lord's life itself,
it was a continual progression
of the Human to the Divine,
even to absolute union (as already frequently stated),
for in order that He might combat with the hells
and overcome them,
He must needs do it from the Human;
for there is no combat with the hells from the Divine.
It therefore pleased Him to put on the human
like another man,
to be an infant like another,
to grow up into knowledges,
which things are represented by
Abraham's sojourning in Egypt (chapter 12),
and now in Gerar;
thus it pleased Him to cultivate the rational
as another man,
 and in this way to disperse its shade,
and bring it into light,
and this from His own power.
That the Lord's progression
from the Human to the Divine
was of this nature,
can be denied by no one if he only considers
that He was a little child,
and learned to talk like one; and so on.
But there was this difference:
that the Divine Itself was in Him,
seeing that He was conceived of Jehovah.

AC 2526

. . . good is good from innocence;
and truth is truth from good;
and when these are in their order,
there is then all ability.