TCR 263 - the Lord fulfilled & became

TCR 263
. . . each individual is his own will and his own understanding,
and this is what makes one person distinct from another.
Since the will is the organ for the reception of love,
and thus for all the kinds of good which make up his love,
and since the understanding is the organ for the reception of wisdom,
and thus for all the forms of truth which make up his wisdom,
it follows that each individual is his own love and his own wisdom,
or what is the same, his own good and his own truth.
This is the only thing that makes him a person
and being a person consists in nothing else.
As for the Lord, He is love itself and wisdom itself,
and so good itself and truth itself;
He became these by fulfilling every good and every truth in the Word.
For one who thinks and speaks nothing but truth becomes that truth;
and one who wills and does nothing but good becomes that good.
Since the Lord fulfilled all the Divine truth
and Divine good which are in the Word,
both in its natural as well as its spiritual sense,
He became good itself and truth itself, and so the Word.

TCR 249 - what makes a united life

TCR 249
Every person has two life-faculties, known as the understanding and the will.
The understanding receives truth and hence wisdom;
the will receives good and hence charity.
These two faculties must act as one
for a person to be a true member of the church;
and they do so,
so long as a person forms his understanding from genuine truths,
and this appears to be his own doing,
and so long as his will is filled by the good of love,
which is the Lord's doing.
Hence a person has a life of truth and a life of good,
the life of truth in the understanding, the life of good in the will.
So long as they are united, they make not two, but one life.
This is the marriage of the Lord and the church,
or the marriage of good and truth in the case of the individual.

TCR 245 - Are you living real or imaginary?

TCR 245
The Word is like a mine, the depths of which are rich in gold and silver;
or like a mine containing richer and richer veins of gems
the further one goes into it.
It is the understanding of the Word which opens up these mines.

[2] For those who probe the Word to extract from it the truths of faith
and the kinds of good which are needed for life,
the Word is like treasures owned by the Shah of Persia
or the Mogul or Chinese Emperors.
People belonging to the church are like their treasurers,
who have permission to take out as much as they want . . ..
On the other hand
those who merely possess the Word and read it,
without seeking for genuine truths to establish faith,
and genuine kinds of good to guide life,
are like those who know from the newspapers
that there are vast treasures there, but never get a penny from them.
Those who possess the Word without drawing from it
any understanding of genuine truth or any will for genuine good,
are like those people who think themselves wealthy
because they have taken huge loans from others . . ..
Anyone can see that this is imaginary.
They are also like people who walk about in magnificent costume,
ride in gilded carriages . . . yet do not actually own any of these things.

TCR 231 - enlightenment; TCR 238 - the Word is like a treasure-chest

TCR 231
Enlightenment comes only from the Lord,
and to those who love truths because they are true,
and make them their guide to a useful life.

TCR 238
The Word in its literal sense is like a treasure-chest,
in which lie arranged in rows precious stones, pearls and diadems.
If a person regards the Word as holy and reads it as a useful guide to life,
the thoughts in his mind can be compared
to one who holds such a chest in his hand, and throws it heavenwards;
and as it rises it flies open and the treasures inside reach the angels,
who take great pleasure in seeing and carefully examining them.
The pleasure they get from this is shared with people
and brings about association and also the sharing of perceptions.
It was for the sake of this association with angels,
and at the same time being conjoined with the Lord,
that the Holy Supper was instituted;
in this the bread becomes in heaven Divine good
and the wine becomes Divine truth,
in both cases coming from the Lord.
This kind of correspondence is from creation,
and was established in order
that the heaven of the angels and the church on earth,
and in general the spiritual world and the natural one, should be one,
and so that the Lord might conjoin Himself with both at once.

TCR 221 - the tabernacle, the temple - inside & out

TCR 221
. . . the Temple represented the heaven of the spiritual angels,
the Tabernacle that of the celestial angels.
Spiritual angels are those who possess wisdom from the Word,
celestial angels are those who possess love from the Word.
The Lord Himself teaches us in John that the Temple at Jerusalem
means in the highest sense the Lord's Divine Human:

Break up this Temple, and in three days I will raise it again.
John 2:19, 21.

He was speaking about the temple of His body.

When the Lord is meant, so too is the Word, for He is the Word.
Now since the interior parts of the Temple
represented the interiors of heaven and the church,
and so those of the Word,
therefore its external parts also represented and stood for
the exteriors of heaven and the church,
and so those of the Word, that is, its literal sense.
We read of the exterior of the Temple
that it was built of whole, undressed stones, and inside of cedar-wood;
all its walls were carved inside with cherubim, palms and open flowers,
and the floor was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:7, 29, 30).
All these things too stand for the externals of the Word,
which are the holy things in its literal sense.

TCR 216 - the celestial, spiritual & natural senses of the Word

TCR 216
At its very heart
the celestial sense of the Word makes it like a gentle flame setting on fire;
at the intermediate level
its spiritual sense makes it like a light giving illumination.
Consequently at its outermost level
its natural sense makes it like a diaphanous object
which the flame turns red as purple, and the light turns white as snow.
It resembles either a ruby or a diamond,
the celestial flame making it like a ruby,
the spiritual light like a diamond.
Since the Word is like this in its literal sense, this is what is meant by:

• (i) The precious stones forming the foundations of the New Jerusalem.
• (ii) The Urim and Thummim on Aaron's ephod.
• (iii) The precious stones in the garden of Eden, in which the King of Tyre is said to have been.
• (iv) The curtains, veils and posts of the Tabernacle.
• (v) Likewise, the external features of the Temple at Jerusalem.
• (vi) The Word in its glory was represented in the Lord at His transfiguration.
• (vii) The power of the Word at its outermost level was represented by the Nazirites.
• (viii) The Word's power is beyond description.

TCR 209 - communication

TCR 209
. . . there can be no communication with heaven by means of the Word
for those who have false notions about doctrine;
their reading falls apart on the way up and vanishes . . ..
The opposite is the case with those who have true ideas about doctrine,
learned from the Lord by means of the Word;
when they read the Word it reaches all the way to heaven
and make a connection with angels there.
The angels themselves,
when they come down from heaven to perform a duty below,
appear to be surrounded by small stars,
especially round their head;
this is a sign that they posses Divine truths from the Word.

TCR 200 - What do they mean?

TCR 200 [2-3]
Anyone who knows nothing of the spiritual sense of the Word
. . . is unaware that
garden, grove and wood
mean wisdom, intelligence and knowledge,
or that olive, vine, cedar, poplar and oak
mean the good and truth of the church
in their celestial, spiritual, rational, natural and sensual forms.
Nor does he know that lamb, sheep, goat, calf and ox
mean innocence, charity and natural affection;
or that mountains, hills and valleys
mean the highest, lower and lowest elements in the church.
Nor does he know that
Egypt means factual knowledge,
Assyria the faculty of reason,
Edom the natural level,
Moab the adulteration of good,
the Children of Ammon the adulteration of truth,
the Philistines faith without charity,
Tyre and Sidon the knowledge of good and of truth,
Gog external worship without any internal.
In general, Jacob in the Word means the natural church,
Israel the spiritual church,
Judah the celestial church.
When one knows all these meanings,
it is possible to reflect that the Word speaks only of heavenly matters,
and those worldly matters are merely the underlying supports for the others.

TCR 191 - the style of the Word and our intentions in reading It

TCR 191
But the natural person still cannot be convinced by quotations
that the Word is Divine truth itself,
containing Divine wisdom and Divine life,
because he looks at it from the point of view of its style,
and in this he cannot see these things.
However, the style of the Word is the actual style of God,
beyond comparisons with any other style,
however high-flown and magnificent.
Such is the style of the Word
that there is holiness in every sentence, every word,
in some places even every letter.
Thus the Word forms a conjunction between a person and the Lord,
and opens the way to heaven . . .
But it ought properly to be known
that the only people to have life from the Word
are those who read it
with the intention of drawing Divine truths from it,
like water from the spring,
and at the same time with the intention
of putting the Divine truths drawn from it into practice in their lives.
The reverse happens to those whose only intention in reading the Word
is to win honors and gain worldly advantages.

TCR 188 - What is the Holy Spirit?

TCR 188 [9]
. . . the Holy Spirit is not a person by Himself,
so not God by Himself either,
but the Holy Divine which goes forth and proceeds
from the one omnipresent God, who is the Lord.
. . . Nowhere in the Old Testament
do we read that the prophets spoke the Word from the Holy Spirit,
but from Jehovah;
and where the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the New Testament,
the Divine which proceeds is meant.
This is the Divine which enlightens, teaches,
quickens, reforms and regenerates.

[11] . . . the Holy Spirit means
the Lord's Divine activity from His Divine omnipresence . . .

TCR 174, 176 - a history lesson; TCR 184 - a Pearl

TCR 174, 176
The Apostolic church means not only the church which existed in various places in the time of the Apostles, but also in the following two or three centuries. But eventually they began to tear the door of the temple off its hinges, and like thieves to break into its sanctuary. The temple means the church, its door the Lord God the Redeemer, and the sanctuary His Divinity. For Jesus says:

Truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door,
but climbs up another way, is a thief and a robber.
I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved.
[John 10:1, 9]

[2] This crime was committed by Arius and his followers. Consequently a Council was summoned by Constantine the Great to meet at Nicaea, a city of Bithynia; and its members, in order to expel the damaging heresy of Arius, invented, concluded and laid down the doctrine that the three Divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, existed from eternity, each of whom had a personality, and came into and continued in existence by Himself and in Himself. They also held that the second person, the Son, came down and took upon Himself human form and carried out the redemption, and by this means His Human has divinity by hypostatic union, so that by this union He has close kinship with God the Father. This was the beginning from which there spread over the earth heaps of unspeakable heresies about God and the person of Christ. Antichrist then began to rear his head, and split God into three, and the Lord the Saviour into two, thus destroying the Temple the Lord had built by means of His Apostles; this went so far that every stone was pried loose, until not one was left upon another, as predicted by His words (Matt. 24:2). Here 'Temple' does not mean just the Temple in Jerusalem, but also the church; and the whole of that chapter deals with its consummation or end.

176 [2] It is said in heaven that when the Council of Nicaea finished its work, there took place simultaneously the things the Lord foretold to the disciples:

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,
and stars will fall from the sky,
and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
[Matt. 24:29]


TCR 184
. . . the Divine Trinity is like a pearl* of great price;
but divided into persons it is like a pearl cut into three,
which is obviously completely ruined.

* The Latin word for 'pearl' is here unio, which also means 'union'.

TCR 163 - a touchstone

TCR 163
. . . the idea everyone has of God determines his place in the heavens.
It is like the touchstone used to test gold and silver,
that is to say, it tests the nature of the good and truth a person has.
For he cannot have any good which leads to salvation except from God,
nor any truth which does not get its quality from the good deep within it.

(i) There is a Divine Trinity consisting of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

(ii) Those three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
are the three essentials of a single God,
which make one as soul, body and activity do with a person.

(iii) This Trinity did not exist before the creation of the world,
but it was provided and made after the creation of the world,
when God became incarnate,
and then it was in the Lord God, the Redeemer and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

TCR 162 - the Word

TCR 162 [6,8]
So they went and entered a room,
the walls of which shone as if made of gold,
and there too they saw a table on which was laid a copy of the Word,
surrounded by precious stones in a heavenly pattern.
The custodian angel said:
'When the Word is opened,
a light shines out from it of indescribable brightness,
and at the same time the precious stones
give a rainbow effect above and around the Word.
When an angel from the third heaven comes near,
the rainbow appears above and around the Word on a red background;
when an angel comes from the second heaven and looks at it,
the rainbow appears on a blue background;
when an angel from the lowest heaven comes and looks,
the rainbow appears on a white background.
When a good spirit comes and looks,
there is a variegated effect of light like marble.'
They were given a visual demonstration of these effects.
The custodian went on to say:
'If anyone approaches who has falsified the Word,
first of all the radiance disappears;
and if he comes close and fixes his gaze on the Word,
the surroundings change to the color of blood.
Then he is warned to go away, as it is dangerous.'

. . . falsifying the Word consists in taking truths from it
and using them to prove untrue propositions;
this is done by taking truths from the Word out of context
and murdering them.

[This section is repeated with minor changes from AR 566.
See also the post on 11/18/09.]

TCR 154 - acting and speaking

TCR 154
. . . everyone freely acts and speaks from the Lord
when he does so from the Word.

TCR 151 - What is believing in the Lord?

TCR 151
Believing in the Lord
is not just a matter of acknowledging Him,
but includes keeping His commandments.
Merely to acknowledge Him
only demands some thought on the part of the understanding,
but to keep His commandments
requires acknowledgment on the part of the will, too.
The human mind is made up of the understanding and the will.
It is the function of the understanding to think,
of the will to act.
So as long as a person's acknowledgment
is merely in thought on the part of the understanding,
he approaches the Lord with no more than half his mind;
but when he acts,
then he does so with his whole mind,
and that is what believing is.

TCR 140 - the Holy Spirit

TCR 140
Now because the Holy Spirit means the Divine truth,
and this was in the Lord Himself and was the Lord Himself (John 14:6),
and so because the Holy Spirit could not proceed from any other source,
it is said:

The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
John 7:39

and after His glorification:

He breathed on His disciples and said,
Receive the Holy Spirit.
John 20:22

The reason why the Lord breathed on the disciples and said this
was that breathing on was the external sign standing for inspiration by God;
and inspiration means being brought into contact with communities of angels.

TCR 126 - Glorification and temptations

TCR 126
The Lord had two purposes in coming into the world,
redemption and the glorification of His Human;
and by these He saved both men and angels.
These two purposes are quite distinct,
but still they are combined in effecting salvation.
The nature of redemption was . . . a battle against the hells,
their subjugation and afterwards the ordering of the heavens.
Glorification, however,
is the uniting of the Lord's Human with His Father's Divine.
This took place by stages and was completed by His passion on the cross.
For every person ought for his own part to approach God,
and the more nearly he does so,
the more closely does God on His side enter into him . . .
The reason why the actual union was fully achieved
by the passion on the cross is that it was the last temptation
which the Lord underwent in the world;
and temptations create conjunction.
In temptation it looks as if a person is left to himself,
but he is not, since God is then most closely present in his inmost,
and secretly gives him support.
When therefore anyone is victorious over temptation,
he is most inwardly conjoined with God,
and in this case the Lord was most inwardly united with God His Father.

[2] The Lord's being left to Himself,
when He suffered on the cross, is evident from His cry then:

O God, why have you abandoned me?
[Matt. 27:46]

as well as from these words of the Lord:

No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself.
I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it back;
this charge I received from my Father.
[John 10:18]

These passages then can prove
that the Lord did not suffer in His Divine, but in His Human,
and then a most inward and complete union took place.
An illustration of this might be the fact that
while a person is suffering physical pain,
his soul feels nothing but is merely distressed.
But when the victory is won,
God takes away that distress,
wiping it away as one does tears from the eyes.

TCR 120, 121 - the first parts of the real redemption was the conquest of the invasive hells and the ordering of the heavens

TCR 120 [2, 3]; 121[3]
If a person spends his time with thieves or pirates,
he ends up by becoming like them;
if he lives with adulterers and whores,
he ends up by thinking adultery of no consequence.
Again if he mixes with terrorists,
he ends up by thinking nothing of using violence on anyone.
All evils are contagious,
and can be likened to a plague which infects people
simply by their being exposed to the victims' breath;
or to a cancer or gangrene which spreads,
and makes first the surrounding parts,
and then those further and further away, rot,
until the whole body is destroyed.
It is the pleasures of evil,
to which everyone is prone from birth, that cause this.

. . . but for the redemption effected by the Lord
no one could be saved, nor could the angels remain unharmed

The . . . reason why the Lord redeemed the angels too
is that not only every man, but also every angel,
is held back from evil by the Lord and kept in a state of good.
For no one, whether angel or man,
is of himself in a state of good,
but all good is from the Lord.

TCR 113 - the New Church and the Lord's Prayer

TCR 113
. . . the idea of God enters into every part of religion,
and it is this which establishes conjunction with God,
and that conjunction is the means of salvation.
We in heaven recite that prayer every day,
just as people on earth do;
but then we do not think of God the Father, since He is invisible,
but we think of Him in His Divine Human, since in this He is visible.
In this you call Him Christ, we call Him the Lord;
thus the Lord is our Father in the heavens.

. . . at the present time a new church is being established by the Lord,
which is meant by the New Jerusalem in Revelation.
In this church worship will be directed to the Lord alone,
as it is in heaven,
and thus all will be accomplished
which the Lord's Prayer contains from beginning to end.

TCR 109 - like a morning without clouds

TCR 109 [3]
The difference between the state of the church
before and after the Lord's coming
can also be compared to a person
who reads a book at night by the light of the moon and stars,
and one who does so in sunlight.
It is crystal clear that in the former light,
which is only white, the eye strays;
but it does not in the latter light,
which is flamelike.
Therefore we read of the Lord:

The God of Israel spoke,
the Rock of Israel talked to me.
He is like the light of morning,
when the sun rises,
a morning without clouds.
2 Sam. 23:3, 4

TCR 104 & 105 - preparation for Easter

HIS PROGRESS TOWARDS UNION WAS HIS STATE OF EXINANITION,
AND THE UNION ITSELF IS HIS STATE OF GLORIFICATION.

TCR 104

It is well known in the church that when the Lord was in the world He underwent two states, which are known as exinanition and glorification. The earlier state, that of exinanition, is described in many passages of the Word, especially in the Psalms of David, and also in the Prophets, in detail in Isaiah chapter 53, where we read that He emptied His soul to the point of death (Isa. 53:12). This same state is that of His humility before the Father, for in that state He prayed to the Father, and says that He is doing the Father's will, and He ascribes all that He did and said to the Father. His praying to the Father is evident from these passages: Matt. 26:39, 42*; Mark 1:35; 6:46; 14:32-39; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 22:41-44; John 17:9, 15, 20. His doing the Father's will: John 4.34; 5:30. His ascribing to the Father all that He did and said: John 8:26-28; 12:49, 50; 14:10. Indeed, He cried out on the cross: 'My God, my God, why are you abandoning me?' (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). Moreover, if He had not been in this state, He could not have been crucified.

The state of glorification is the state of being united. He was in this state when He was transfigured before His three disciples, and when He performed the miracles, and each time He said that the Father and He were one, that the Father was in Him and He in the Father, and that all things of the Father's were His. After their complete union He said that He had power over all flesh (John 17:2); and all power in heaven and upon earth (Matt. 28:18), and much besides

TCR 105
The Lord had to undergo these two states of exinanition and glorification because progress towards union is not possible by any other way, since it is in accordance with Divine order, and this is immutable. Divine order requires that a person should adjust himself to receive God, and prepare himself as a receiver and dwelling-place for God to enter into and live as in His temple. This a person must do of himself while still acknowledging that it is from God. He must make this acknowledgment, because he does not feel the presence and working of God, although it is God who by His intimate presence performs all the good of love and all the truth of faith in a person. Every person must and will advance in accordance with this order, if he is to become spiritual instead of natural. The Lord advanced in the same way in order to make His natural human Divine; it was for this reason that He prayed to the Father, did His will, attributed to Him all that He did and said, and on the cross uttered the words 'My God, my God, why are you abandoning me?' For in that state God appears to be absent. But after this state comes another, which is a state of being linked with God. In this state a man behaves in the same way, but then does so from God; nor does he then need, as he did previously, to attribute to God all the good which he wills and does, and all the truth which he thinks and speaks, because this acknowledgment is written on his heart, and consequently is inwardly in every action he does and every word he utters. In the same way the Lord united Himself with His Father, and the Father united Himself with Him; in short, the Lord glorified His Human, that is, made it Divine, in just the same way as He regenerates a person, that is, makes him spiritual. [2] Every person who becomes spiritual instead of natural passes through two states, the first of which leads to the second, and so from the world to heaven, as will be fully proved in the chapters on free will, charity and faith, reformation and regeneration. All I shall say here is that in the first state, that called reformation, a person has full freedom to act as his understanding argues; and in the second, the state of regeneration, he has the same freedom, but he then wills and acts, thinks and speaks under the influence of a new love and a new intelligence, which are given him by the Lord. For in the first state the understanding plays the leading role and the will the second, in the second state the will plays the leading role and the understanding the second. But still it is the understanding which acts from the will, not the will which acts by means of the understanding. The linking of good and truth, charity and faith, and the internal and external man, takes place in exactly the same way.

TCR 96 - righteousness

TCR 96
The Lord enters into every person with these,
(Divine Love and Divine Wisdom)
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.
When a person so lives and acts,
he acquires righteousness for himself,

. . . righteousness is acquired the more a person applies it,
and he applies righteousness,
the more the love of what is right and true
inspires his dealings with his neighbor.
Righteousness dwells in the actual good,
or the actual service, which he performs.
For the Lord says that every tree is recognized by its fruit.
We recognize another person by his actions,
if we pay attention to the end and purpose of what he wills,
and the intention or cause behind his actions.
This is what all the angels observe,
and so do all the wise people in our world.

TCR 85, 86 - the power of the Divine Truth

TCR 85
There are two factors which make up the essence of God,
the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom,
or, what is the same thing, the Divine Good and the Divine Truth. . .
The same pair is meant in the Word by Jehovah God;
Jehovah means the Divine Love or the Divine Good,
God the Divine Wisdom or the Divine Truth. . .
Where the subject is the Divine Good, the name Jehovah is used,
where it is the Divine Truth, God;
and where both are meant, He is called Jehovah God.

TCR 86
The reason Jehovah God came down into the world as the Divine Truth
was so that He could effect redemption.
Redemption was the conquest of the hells,
the ordering of the heavens,
and afterwards the establishment of a church.
To achieve these aims the Divine Good is not powerful enough,
but the Divine Truth coming from the Divine Good is.
Divine Good regarded in itself is like a rounded point on a sword,
or like a blunt piece of wood, or a bow without arrows.
But the Divine Truth coming from the Divine Good
is like a sharpened sword,
and like a piece of wood pointed to make a spear,
and like a bow with arrows, all of which are potent against enemies. . .
There was no other way in which the falsities and evils,
in which the whole of hell was and perpetually is plunged,
could be attacked, defeated and conquered
except through the Divine Truth coming from the Word.
There was no other way in which a new heaven could be founded,
formed and set in order, as was then done.
There was no other way in which a new church
could be established on earth.
Moreover, all the strength, all the might and power of God
belongs to the Divine Truth coming from the Divine Good.
This was the reason why Jehovah God
came down as the Divine Truth,
which is the Word.

TCR 81 - knowledge of the Lord surpasses in excellence all other kinds of knowledge

TCR 81
The previous chapter dealt with God the Creator,
and at the same time with creation;
this chapter will deal with the Lord the Redeemer,
and at the same time with redemption. . .

We say 'the Lord' and not 'Jehovah'
because the Jehovah of the Old Testament
is called the Lord in the New Testament,
as can be established from the following passages . . .:

Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah;
you shall love Jehovah God
with your whole heart and your whole soul.
Deuteronomy 6:4, 5

but in Mark:

The Lord our God is one Lord;
you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart
and your whole soul.
Mark 12:29, 30

Also in Isaiah:

Prepare the way for Jehovah,
make smooth in the desert a path for our God.
Isaiah 40:3

but in Luke:

You shall go before the face of the Lord
to prepare the way for Him.
Luke 1:76

and in other passages.
The Lord too ordered His disciples to call Him Lord . . .
The reason was that the Jews did not dare
to name Jehovah on account of His holiness,
and because 'Jehovah' means the Divine Being (Esse),
which existed from eternity,
while the Human, which He took upon Himself in time,
was not that Being. . .
For this reason, here and in what follows
by the Lord we understand Jehovah in His Human.

[2] Now since knowledge of the Lord surpasses in excellence
all other kinds of knowledge known to the church, or even in heaven,
I shall adopt an ordered arrangement
to bring that knowledge to light, as follows:

(i) Jehovah, the Creator of the Universe,
came down and took upon Himself human form,
in order to redeem and save mankind.

(ii) He came down as the Divine Truth, which is the Word,
yet He did not separate the Divine Good from it.

(iii) He took upon Himself human form
in accordance with His Divine order.

(iv) The Human by which He brought Himself into the world
is what is called the Son of God.

(v) The Lord by acts of redemption made Himself righteousness.

(vi) By the same acts He united Himself with the Father,
and the Father with Him. This too was in accordance with Divine order.

(vii) Thus God became man, and man God, in one person.

(viii) His progress towards union was His state of exinanition,
and the union itself is His state of glorification.

(ix) From this time on
no one from Christian countries can come into heaven,
unless he believes in the Lord God the Saviour,
and approaches Him alone.

TCR 76, 78 - God the Creator of the universe

TCR 76 [2, 4]
. . .the universe was created by Jehovah God
by means of the sun in the midst of which He is;
and because love cannot exist except together with wisdom,
that the universe was created by Jehovah God
from His love by means of His wisdom.

But it should be kept in mind
that the love and wisdom,
which in God make one,
are not love and wisdom in the abstract,
but are in Him as substance.
For God is the very, sole and consequently prime substance and essence,
which is and continues in existence in itself.

TCR 78 [3]
For God is love itself and wisdom itself,
and His love contains infinite affections,
and His wisdom infinite perceptions;
all the things to be seen upon earth
are correspondences of these affections and perceptions.
This is the origin of birds and animals, trees and shrubs,
crops and grain, plants and grasses.
For God has no extension, but is everywhere in space;
so He fills the universe from first to last.
Because He is omnipresent,
there are such correspondences
of the affections of His love and wisdom
throughout the natural world.

TCR 72, 73 - laws of order

TCR 72 [2], 73[2-3]
. . . almighty God is order itself,
and that there are myriads of laws of order,
as many in fact as there are truths in the Word,
and God cannot act contrary to them,
because if He did so,
He would be acting against Himself,
and so not only contrary to righteousness
but contrary to His own omnipotence.

The laws of order assigned to a person are
that he should acquire for himself truths from the Word,
and think about them in a natural way,
and, so far as he is able, rationally,
thus equipping himself with a natural faith.
The laws of order on God's side then are
that He approaches the person,
fills the truths with His Divine light,
and so fills the person's natural faith,
which is merely factual knowledge and strongly held opinion,
with the Divine essence.
Thus, and only thus, does it become a saving faith.

It is similar with charity; but let me briefly give some examples.
God's laws prevent Him from forgiving anyone's sins,
except to the extent that the person
in accordance with his laws
refrains from committing them.
God cannot spiritually regenerate a person,
except in so far as the person
in accordance with his laws regenerates himself naturally.
God is constantly striving to regenerate and so save people,
but He cannot achieve this
unless the person prepares himself to receive God,
and so smooths the way and opens the door to Him.

TCR 68, 69[3] - the Lord's Power and equilibrium

TCR 68, 69[3]
The reason a person has from Divine Omnipotence
power against evils and falsities to the extent
that he lives in accordance with the Divine order
is that no one, except God alone,
can resist evils and the falsities they produce.
For all evils and their falsities come from hell,
and there they hold together as a unit,
exactly as all kinds of good and so truths do in heaven.
. . . in the sight of God the whole of heaven is like one person,
and in the opposite case hell is like one monstrous giant.
Thus acting against one evil and its falsity
is like taking on that monstrous giant or all hell.
No one can do this except God, because He is omnipotent.

Every person, as long as he lives in the world,
treads a path mid-way between heaven and hell;
and he is in equilibrium, that is,
he has free will to look up to God or down to hell.
If he looks up to God,
he acknowledges that all wisdom comes from God,
and his spirit is really present among the angels in heaven.
The person who looks down,
as everyone does whose evil puts him under the power of falsities,
is in his spirit really among the devils in hell.

TCR 57 - God is Good Itself

TCR 57
God is omnipotent, because He can do everything of Himself,
and all others derive their power to act from Him.
Being able and willing are for Him one,
and since He does not will anything but good,
He cannot therefore do anything but good.

Moreover, God is Good itself,
so that when He does good He acts within Himself,
and He cannot step out of Himself.
From this it is plain that His omnipotence progresses and works
within the sphere of action of good,
and this is infinite.

[2] From these facts it can be established
that the Divine omnipotence can in no wise depart from itself
so as to make contact with any evil, nor promote it from itself,
for evil turns itself away.
This is how it comes about
that evil is totally separated from God and cast into hell;
and between hell and heaven, where He is, yawns a gaping chasm.
These few considerations can reveal the madness of those who think,
even more believe, more still teach,
that God can damn anyone, curse him, cast him into hell,
predestine his soul to eternal death, avenge injuries,
be angry or punish anyone.
He is not even able to turn His face away from a person and frown upon him.
These and any actions of this kind would be contrary to His essence,
and what is contrary to that is contrary to Himself.

TCR 48 - only the Lord

TCR 48 [18]
Only the Lord, during His life on earth,
had wisdom from Himself
and did good of Himself,
because the Divine itself was in Him
and was His from birth.
Therefore by His own power
He became the Redeemer and Saviour.

TCR 50 - Divine Wisdom

TCR 50
. . . omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence are qualities
of the Divine Wisdom as the result of the Divine Love,
and not of the Divine Love by means of the Divine Wisdom. . ..

Since righteousness is an attribute of love
and judgment an attribute of wisdom,
love leaves all control to its wisdom.

TCR 39, 41, 44 - Divine Love & Wisdom and people

TCR 39
Since God is Love Itself and Wisdom Itself,
He is Life Itself, or Life in Itself.

We read in John:

The Word was with God, and the Word was God;
in Him was Life, and the Life was the light of men.
(John 1:14)

'God' there means the Divine Love,
and 'the Word' means the Divine Wisdom;
and the Divine Wisdom is truly life,
and life is truly the light radiated by the sun of the spiritual world,
in the midst of which is Jehovah God.

TCR 41 [2]
. . . because a person needs to be reformed and regenerated,
which is impossible unless the light of life, which is intelligence,
shows what ought to be willed and loved.
It should, however, be known
that God is constantly working to conjoin love with wisdom in a person,
though he, unless he looks to God and believes in Him,
is constantly working to separate them.
Therefore in so far as these two,
the good of love or charity and the truth of wisdom or faith,
are conjoined in a person, so far does he become an image of God,
and is raised towards and into the heaven where angels live.

TCR 44
There are two things
which make up the essence of God - love and wisdom;
but there are three
which make up the essence of His love -
loving others than oneself,
wishing to be one with them,
and devoting oneself to their happiness.
The same three make up the essence of His wisdom,
because . . . love and wisdom are one in God.
It is love which wills these things,
wisdom that puts them into effect.

[2] The first essential, loving others than oneself,
is to be recognized in God's love towards the whole human race.
On this account God loves everything He has created . . ..
God's love goes out and extends not only to good people and things,
but also to evil people and things;
consequently, not only to people and things in heaven,
but also to people and things in hell . . ..
For God is everywhere and from eternity to eternity the same.
. . . But it is the fault of evil people and things that they are evil,
because they do not receive God's love as it is . . . but as they are.

[3] The second essential of God's love,
wishing to be one with others,
is to be recognized also in His conjoining Himself to the heaven of angels,
the church on earth, to everyone in it,
and to every good and truth
which compose and make up men and the church.
Love regarded in itself is nothing but a striving to be conjoined.
Therefore to realize this essential of love
God created man in His image and likeness,
so that he could be conjoined with this.

[4] The third essential of God's love,
to devote Himself to the happiness of others,
is to be recognized in everlasting life,
which is blessedness, bliss and happiness without end,
which He gives to those who receive His love into themselves.
For God, just as He is Love itself, is also blessedness itself.
For every love breathes out an aura of joy from itself,
and the Divine Love breathes out
the very height of blessedness, bliss and happiness for ever;
so God makes the angels and men after death happy from Himself,
which He does by being conjoined with them.

TCR 35 - love & wisdom constitute life

TCR 35 [6]
. . . love and wisdom could have no existence
without having somewhere an origin,
and that that origin is love itself and wisdom itself,
and therefore life itself,
and these are God,
from whom nature is.

TCR 31- infinity and eternity

TCR 31
In relation to spaces God's infinity is called immensity,
because "immense" is a term applied to what is great and large,
and to extension and its spaciousness.
But in relation to times God's infinity is called eternity,
because "to eternity" is an expression applied to what is progressive,
which is measured by time without limit.

But in God, as has just been shown,
there is nothing of space and time;
nevertheless, the beginnings of these are from God;
and from this it follows
that by immensity His infinity in relation to space is meant,
and by eternity His infinity in relation to times.
[2] But to the angels in heaven
the immensity of God means His Divinity in respect to His Esse,
and His eternity His Divinity in respect to His Existere.
Also immensity means His Divinity in respect to love,
and eternity His Divinity in respect to wisdom.

. . . times were introduced by God with creation.

TCR 22 - Jehovah means 'I am' and 'Being'

TCR 22 [2]
By this revelation
the natural person is enabled to raise himself above nature,
thus above himself,
and to see such things as pertain to God,
yet only as if at a distance,
although God is near to every person,
for in His essence He is in a person;
and being in a person
He is very near to those who love Him;
and those love Him
who live according to His commandments
and believe in Him;
these as it were see Him.
What is faith but to see spiritually that God is?
And what is a life according to His commandments
but an acknowledgment in act
that from Him are salvation and eternal life?

TCR 13 - He who seeks an end seeks also the means

TCR 13
. . . the universe is a work coherent as a unit
from things first to things last,
because in creating it
God had a single end in view,
which was an angelic heaven from the human race;
and all things of which the world consists are means to that end;
since he who seeks an end seeks also the means.

The Divine love can be intent upon no other end
than the eternal blessedness of humankind,
having its source in the Divine;
and its Divine wisdom can bring forth nothing
but uses that are means to that end.

. . the universe is the workmanship of one God,
and that He dwells in every particular use
because He dwells in the end.
For in every case
one who is in an end
must be in the means also,
since the end is inmostly in all the means,
actuating and directing them.

TCR 6 - there is a God, and He is One

TCR 6
The entire Holy Scripture,
and all the doctrines therefrom of the churches in the Christian world,
teach that there is a God and that He is one.
The entire Holy Scripture teaches that there is a God,
because in its inmosts it is nothing but God,
that is, it is nothing but the Divine that goes forth from God;
for it was dictated by God;
and from God nothing can go forth
except what is God and is called Divine.

. . . every person whose reason is imbued
with any sanctity from the Word knows,
as if from himself, that God is one,
and feels it to be a sort of insanity to say that there are more.
The angels are unable to open their lips to utter the word "gods,"
for the heavenly aura in which they live resists it.
That God is one the Holy Scripture teaches, not only thus universally,
as has been said, but also in many particular passages,
as in the following:

Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.
(Deuteronomy 6:4; also Mark 12:29)

I am Jehovah thy God
and thou shalt acknowledge no god beside Me.
(Hosea 13:4)

Thus saith Jehovah, the king of Israel,
I am the First and the Last,
and beside Me there is no god.
(Isaiah 44:6)

TCR 2, 4[3] - there is a Divine Trinity,and that this is in the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ

TCR 2, 4[3]
The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah,
came into the world to subdue the hells and to glorify His Human.
Without this no mortal could have been saved,
and those are saved who believe in Him.

It is a universal point of faith
that God is one in essence and in person,
in whom is the Divine Trinity,
and that He is the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ.
It is a universal point of faith
that no mortal could have been saved,
if the Lord had not come into the world.
It is a universal point of faith
that He came into the world to take hell away from men,
and He did this by fighting against hell and winning victories over it.
In this way He subdued it and reduced it to order,
and made it subject to His command.
It is a universal point of faith
that He came into the world to glorify the Human
which He assumed in the world,
that is, to unite it with the originating Divinity.
By this means He keeps hell for ever in order and subject to His command.
Since this could only be achieved
by means of temptations experienced in His Human,
even to the most extreme, His passion on the cross,
He underwent this.
These are the universal matters of faith concerning the Lord.

Since the idea of God and all knowledge of Him has been so fragmented,
I propose to discuss in turn
God the Creator,
the Lord the Redeemer,
the Holy Spirit the Active Force,
and finally the Divine Trinity,
so that what has been broken into fragments may be put together again. . .

This article in the Athanasian creed is therefore valid:

In Christ, God and Man, or the Divine and the Human,
are not two, but in one person;
as the rational soul and the flesh are one man,
so too God and Man are one Christ.

CL 532-533 - What news from earth? The Lord has revealed secrets!

CL 532-533
. . . the Lord has revealed secrets
which surpass in excellence
all the secrets previously revealed . . .:

(1) That in the Word
and in each and every particular of it,
there is a spiritual meaning corresponding to the natural meaning;
that through that spiritual meaning
people of the church are conjoined with the Lord and affiliated with angels;
and that in it lies the holiness of the Word.

(2) That the corresponding elements
of which the spiritual meaning of the Word consists
have been disclosed.

(3) that the Lord has now revealed
the circumstances of people's life after death.

(4) that the Lord has now disclosed
the nature of the world in which angels and spirits live,
thus the nature of heaven and the nature of hell;
as also that angels and spirits live in affiliation with men;
in addition to many other wonders connected with them.

(5) The Lord has now revealed
that there is in your world a different sun from the one in our world;
that the sun of your world is pure love,
while the sun of our world is nothing but fire;
that because your sun is pure love,
everything that emanates from it brings with it something of life,
while because our sun is nothing but fire,
everything that emanates from it brings with it nothing of life;
also that this is the origin of the difference
between what is spiritual and what is natural,
a difference hitherto unknown which has also been disclosed."
It has been made known in consequence of this . . .
from what source the light comes
which enlightens the human intellect with wisdom,
and from what source the warmth comes
which kindles the human will with love.

(6) that there are three degrees of life,
and consequently three heavens;
that the human mind is divided into these degrees,
and that the human being thus corresponds to the three heavens.

(7) concerning the Last Judgment;
concerning the Lord,
that He is God of heaven and earth,
that God is one both in person and in essence,
in whom is the Divine trinity,
and that He is the Lord;
also concerning the New Church about to be established by Him,
and the doctrine of that church;
concerning the sacredness of the Holy Scripture;
as also that the Apocalypse has been revealed,
nothing of which could have been revealed,
not even in one little verse,
except by the Lord.

The angels rejoiced greatly at hearing these reports; but when they perceived in me a sadness and began to inquire what reason I had to be sad, I said that although these secrets revealed at the present time by the Lord surpass in excellence and importance any concepts hitherto imparted, still on earth they are regarded as worthless.
The angels were surprised at this, and they petitioned the Lord to permit them to look down into the world; and on looking down, behold, they saw only darkness there.
They were then told to write these secrets on a piece of paper, and to let the paper descend to the earth, at which time they would see a portent. So they did so. And lo, the piece of paper with these secrets written upon it was let go from heaven, and as it descended, while still in the spiritual world, it shone like a star. But as it floated down into the natural world, the light disappeared, and the further it fell, the darker it became.
Then, when the angels directed it into gatherings of people containing certain educated and learned representatives from the clergy and laity, a murmur arose from many of them, in which were heard the following words: "What is this? Is it of any consequence? What does it matter if we know these things or not? Are they not creations of the brain?"
Moreover, some of them appeared as though to take the piece of paper and to fold it, roll it up, and unroll it with their fingers, in order to obliterate the writing; while others appeared as though to tear it up, and some to try to trample it with their feet. But they were kept by the Lord from such a wickedness, and the angels were commanded to withdraw the paper and protect it.
After that, because the angels were saddened and thought to themselves how long this would be the case, they were told, "For a time and times and half a time." (Revelation 12:14)

CL 515 & 516 - the spiritual marriage

CL 515 & 516
. . . the Word has a natural meaning and a spiritual meaning,
and that there is a correspondence between them . . .

By the spiritual marriage
we mean the marriage of the Lord and the church . . .
and so also the marriage between goodness and truth . . .
. . . this marriage of the Lord and the church
and consequently a marriage of good and truth
exists in each and every particular of the Word. . ..
For the church is founded on the Word,
and the Word is the Lord.
The Word is the Lord
because He is the Divine good and Divine truth in it.

CL 490, 491,493 - the will and the intellect, character, purpose and intention

CL 490 [3]
1. The will by itself accomplishes nothing on its own,
but whatever it does it does through the intellect.

2. Conversely, too, the intellect by itself accomplishes nothing on its own,
but whatever it does it does from the will.

3. The will flows into the intellect, and not the intellect into the will;
but the intellect makes known what is good and what is evil
and advises the will, in order that it may choose
between the two and do that which it prefers.

4. After that a twofold conjunction of the two takes place,
one in which the will operates inwardly and the intellect outwardly,
the other in which the intellect operates inwardly and the will outwardly.

CL 491
Now, because evils and falsities can be defended
just as easily as goods and truths,
and because the intellect in defending them
draws the will over to its side,
and the will together with the intellect forms the mind,
it follows that the form of the human mind
has its character in accordance with its persuasions . . ..

Whatever character the form of a person's mind has,
moreover, such also is the character of his spirit;
consequently, such is the character of the person.

CL 493
That which springs from the very essence of a person's life,
thus which springs from his will or love,
is in the main called purpose;
while that which springs from the outward expression of his life,
thus from the intellect and its thought,
is called intention.

CL 478 - breadth and height

CL 478
. . . all evils, like all goods,
are allotted a breadth and a height,
and because according to that breadth
they have their kinds
and according to that height
their degrees . . .

CL 477 - character of the mind

CL 477 [3]
Every person has an inner mind and an outer mind,
thus an internal sight and an external sight.
In evil people the inner mind is insane and the outer one wise,
while in good people the inner mind is wise
and in consequence of it the outer one too;
and the character of the mind
determines how a person in the spiritual world sees objects.

CL 452 - character and intention

CL 452
. . . a person is a person of such a character
as he is in his purpose, intention or end,
and so he also appears to the Lord and to angels;
indeed, so he is also regarded by wise men in the world.
For the intention is the soul in all actions . . .

CL 436, 437, 444 - equilibrium

CL 436
. . . human rationality can turn itself in either direction and receive an influx.
If it turns in the direction of good, it receives an influx from above,
and then the person's rationality is formed more and more
for the reception of heaven.
But if it turns in the direction of evil, it receives an influx from below,
and then his rationality is formed more and more
for the reception of hell.

CL 437
The equilibrium between them is a spiritual equilibrium,
because it exists between good and evil.
Because of this equilibrium a person has free will.
In it and through it a person thinks and wills
and so speaks and acts as though of himself. . .
If he turns himself to the Lord,
his rationality and freedom are led by the Lord;
but if he turns away from the Lord,
his rationality and freedom are led by hell.

CL 444 [6]
"But let me explain this matter a little more clearly.
The Lord views every person by looking at his forehead,
and this sight passes to the back of his head.
Behind the forehead is the cerebrum,
and in the back of the head the cerebellum.
The cerebrum is devoted to wisdom and its truths,
while the cerebellum is devoted to love and its goods.
Therefore a person who looks with his face to the Lord
receives wisdom from Him,
and through that wisdom, love.
But a person who looks away from the Lord
receives love and not wisdom;
and love without wisdom
is love that originates with man
and not from the Lord.
Moreover, because this love allies itself with falsities,
it does not acknowledge God,
but embraces itself as a god . . . .

CL 425, 426, 461 - opposites

CL 425
No one knows good from the experience of evil,
but evil from the experience of good.
For evil dwells in darkness,
while good abides in light.

CL 426
The natural self is the character into which everyone is first led as he matures,
which is accomplished through various kinds of knowledge and concepts,
and by rational matters having to do with the intellect.
But the spiritual self is the character into which he led by a love of being useful,
a love which is also called charity.
Accordingly, in the measure that anyone is in a state of charity,
in the same measure he is spiritual;
but in the measure that he is not in that state,
in the same measure he is natural,
even if he should be discerning in acumen and wise in his judgment.

CL 431
. . . uncleanness in the church springs from licentious love,
and that cleanness in it springs from married love.

CL 413-414 - innocence of wisdom

CL 413
. . . it is intelligence and wisdom that make an angel.

CL 414
. . . innocence is the essence of all good,
and that good is good
to the extent that it has innocence in it.
Moreover, because wisdom has to do with life,
and thus with good,
wisdom is wisdom in the measure
of the character it derives from innocence.
The same is true of love, charity, and faith . . .
and for that reason no one can enter heaven
unless he possesses innocence.

CL 394 - innocence and peace

CL 394
Innocence and peace are the two innermost elements of heaven.
We call them innermost, because they emanate directly from the Lord.
For the Lord is the essence of innocence and the essence of peace.
Because of His innocence the Lord is called a Lamb,
and because of His peace He says,
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you" (John 14:27).

Innocence and peace are the innermost elements of heaven
for the further reason
that innocence is the very essence of every good,
and peace is the serenity of every delight that is connected with good.

CL 386 - What is an atmosphere?

CL 386
We call the Divinity emanating from the Lord an atmosphere,
because it goes out from Him, surrounds Him,
fills both worlds - the spiritual and the natural -
and brings about the effects of the ends
which the Lord ordained at creation
and which He subsequently provides.

Everything that flows out from an object,
surrounds it and envelops it, is called an atmosphere.
As, for example, the atmosphere of light and heat from the sun around it;
the atmosphere of life from a person around him;
the atmosphere of aroma from a shrub around it;
the atmosphere of attraction from a magnet around it; and so on.

But the universal atmospheres which we are discussing here
are from the Lord around Him;
and they emanate from the sun of the spiritual world,
at whose center He is.
From the Lord through that sun
emanates an atmosphere of warmth and light,
or to say the same thing,
an atmosphere of love and wisdom,
to bring about ends which are of use.

CL 281-284 - sapphire-colored gowns inwoven with threads of gold

CL 281-284
. . . everyone is lovable and beautiful in accordance with his love.

. . . wisdom is the origin of beauty . . .
By wisdom I mean genuine morality,
because this is wisdom in life.

Love alone is not the origin of beauty,
neither is wisdom alone,
but the origin is a union of love and wisdom . . .

CL 372 - protection

CL 372
. . . good protects itself through truth.

CL 349 - only by the Lord

CL 349
. . . a person is made spiritual only by the Lord.

CL 334 - friendship & trust

CL 334
Since truly conjugial love joins the souls and hearts of two together,
it is coupled therefore also with friendship
and through this with trust,
and causes them both to be of a conjugial nature.
Such friendship and trust so rise above other types of friendship and trust
that, as that love is the greatest of loves,
so that friendship is the greatest of friendships,
and likewise that trust.

CL 331 - love & esteem

CL 331
. . . love esteems what it loves.
Esteem always accompanies love,
although love may not always accompany esteem.

CL 313 - progression

CL 313
The concluding state in any progression
has the character of the sequential development
by which it is formed and brought into existence.
This is a principle which ought to be acknowledged
in the educated world on account of its truth;
for it enables us to discover what influx is and how it operates.
By influx we mean everything that goes before in a series
and which forms the next element and then the next
and through a succession of these the concluding one.
We may cite as an example
everything that goes before in a person and forms his wisdom.
Or everything that goes before in a statesman and forms his prudence.
Or everything that goes before in a theologian and forms his learning.
Likewise everything that progressively develops
from infancy and forms the adult.
Also everything that progressively develops in succession
from the seed and sapling and makes the tree,
and which afterwards progressively develops
from the flower and makes its fruit.
In similar manner,
everything which goes before and progressively develops
in the case of a bride and groom and makes their marriage.
This is what we mean by influx.

[3] It follows that one state is formed from one progression
in the case of spiritual people,
and another in the case of people who are natural . . ..
For spiritual people look to the Lord,
and the Lord oversees and guides an orderly progression.
But natural people look to themselves,
and so proceed in an inverted progression.

CL 305 - there are three regions in the human mind

CL 305
. . . there are in human minds three regions,
the highest of which is called celestial,
the intermediate one spiritual,
and the lowest one natural.
A person dwells by birth in the lowest region,
but he ascends into the next higher one, called spiritual,
by living according to truths of religion,
and into the highest one
by achieving a marriage of love and wisdom. . ..

[The spiritual region] is the region into which
a person is led by the Lord when he is born anew.. . .

A person is raised into this last region [the celestial region]
by a love of serving useful ends . . ..

CL 293 - spiritual wisdom and conjunction by love

CL 293
Spiritual wisdom is
to acknowledge the Lord our Savior
as God of heaven and earth,
and through the Word and discourses from it
to acquire from Him truths connected with the Church,
from which comes a spiritual rationality;
and in addition to live from Him according to those truths,
from which comes a spiritual morality.

All conjunction by love requires action, reception, and reaction.

CL 280 - a spiritual person

CL 280
. . . a spiritual person does what he does
in accordance with justice and judgment . .
because a spiritual person behaves spiritually,
even with one who is natural.

CL 267 - the Lord wants to keep us safe

CL 267 [2]
For everyone . . . is withheld from the lust of evil
and kept in a state of intelligence
according as he looks to the Lord
and at the same time is conjoined with Him.


(Conjunction happens when we live by the Ten Commandments
because He told us to, and when we shun evils because they are
sins against Him.)

CL 266 - What is useful service but love of the neighbor in act?

CL 266 [3, 5]
So they continued, saying,
"The positions we hold are positions we admittedly sought,
but for no other purpose than to be able to perform useful services
more fully and to extend them more widely.
We are also surrounded with honor, and we accept it,
yet not for our own sake, but for the good of the society.
. . . the services we render
come from a love of them within us from the Lord.
This love, moreover, gains its bliss
from its communication through useful service with others.
We know, too, from experience,
that the more we perform useful services from a love of them,
the more this love increases,
and with it the wisdom on which the communication depends.
But the more we keep these services to ourselves
and do not communicate them,
the more the bliss dies away . . ..
The whole of heaven, in short,
is nothing but a world of useful service,
from the firsts to the lasts of it.
What is useful service but love of the neighbor in act?
And what holds the heavens together except this love?"

Everyone who believes in the Lord
and refrains from evils as sins
performs useful services from the Lord.
But everyone who does not believe in the Lord
and does not refrain from evils as sins
performs the services he does from himself
and for the sake of himself.

CL 249 - human beings were created

CL 249
Human beings were created to be useful,
because useful service
is the containing vessel of goodness and truth . . ..

CL 238 - marriage and the church

CL 238
. . . the origin of the church and the origin of conjugial love
have the same seat in a person,
and that they are locked in a continual embrace.

. . . conjugial love depends on the state of the church in a person,
consequently that it stems from religion,
because it is religion which forms that state.

CL 233 - Do you not know . . .

CL 233 [2]
"Do you not know that to live rightly is charity,
and to believe rightly is faith?"

CL 220 - thinking

CL 220
. . . the intellect can think that something is good,
thus thinking as true that this something is good.
It is different with the will.
This does not think about goodness and truth
but loves them and does them.

CL 211 - becoming wise

CL 211
For a person becomes wise
as the inner perceptions of his mind are opened,
because by their opening
the thoughts of his understanding are raised into a higher light
and the affections of his will into a higher warmth
- the higher light being wisdom,
and the higher warmth a love for wisdom.


Note: This is not gender specific here. The whole book is talking about marriage, but right here, the Latin is not gender specific.

CL 194, 200 - putting aside inherent natures and becoming truly human

CL 194
. . . it was enjoined on man that he leave father and mother
and cling to his wife(Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4,5).
[2] The father and mother a man is to leave mean,
in a spiritual sense,
the inherent nature of his will
and the inherent nature of his intellect
(the inherent nature of a person's will
being to love itself,
and the inherent nature of a person's intellect
being to love its own wisdom).
And to cling means to commit himself to love of his wife.
These two inherent natures are evil and deadly to a man
if they remain in him,
but the love arising from the two is turned into conjugial love
as a man clings to his wife, that is, as he acquires a love for her.

CL 200
. . . in a marriage of truly conjugial love,
each partner becomes more and more deeply human,
for that love opens the deeper aspects of their minds,
and as these are opened,
a person becomes more and more human.

CL 184, 185 - character, changes, time

CL 184
The state of a person's life is its character.
Further,
because every person has in him two faculties which form his life,
faculties which are called intellect and will,
the state of a person's life is its character
in relation to his intellect and will.
It is apparent from this that
changes in one's state of life
mean changes in its character in respect to
elements having to do with the intellect
and elements having to do with the will.

CL 185 [3]
Changes in the state
of these two life forces or faculties in a person are unceasing,
continuing from infancy to the end of his life,
and afterwards to eternity;
and the reason is that there is no limit to knowledge,
even less to intelligence, and still less to wisdom.
For there is an infinity and eternity in the range of these,
arising from the Infinite and Eternal who is their source.
Hence the ancient philosophical tenet,
that everything is capable of being divided to infinity;
to which should be added
that everything is similarly capable of being multiplied.
The angels assert
that they are perfected in wisdom by the Lord to eternity,
which means also to infinity,
since eternity is an infinity of time.

CL 183 - useful service

CL 183 [3-4]
Love cannot rest unless it acts, for love is the active force in life;
nor can wisdom exist and endure
unless it does so from love
and together with love
whenever love acts,
and to act is application to useful purpose.
Therefore we define application to useful purpose
as the doing of good from love through wisdom.
Application to useful purpose is what good is.

Since these three elements - love, wisdom, and application to useful purpose -
flow into people's souls, we can see why it is said that all good is from God.
For all action from love through wisdom is called good,
and action includes also application to useful purpose.

CL 170 - the delightful states resulting from a marriage of good and truth

CL 170
. . . conjugial love originates from the marriage between goodness and truth,
and this marriage comes from the Lord.
Moreover, it is the nature of love to will to share with another,
indeed, to confer joys upon another whom it loves from the heart,
and to seek its own joys in return from doing so;
and this being the case, infinitely more, therefore,
does the Divine love in the Lord will to confer joys upon mankind,
whom He created to be recipients
of both the love and the wisdom emanating from Him . . ..

We list these states as
innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, complete trust,
and a mutual desire of the mind and heart to do the other every good,
since innocence and peace have to do with the soul,
tranquillity has to do with the mind,
inmost friendship has to do with the breast,
complete trust has to do with the heart,
and a mutual desire of the mind and heart to do the other every good
has to do with the body as a result of these.

CL 162, 177 - the growing and uniting of married love

CL 162
When friendship and mutual trust join together
with the first love in marriage,
conjugial love results,
which opens the partners' hearts and inspires in them
the sweet enjoyments of love,
and this more and more deeply
as friendship and trust are added to the original love,
and as that original love enters into this friendship and trust
and they into it.

CL 177
Married partners become proportionately one person
in the measure that their conjugial love grows.
And because, in heaven, this love is genuine,
owing to the celestial and spiritual life of the angels,
therefore two married partners there are called two
when they are referred to as husband and wife,
but one when they are referred to as angels.

CL 158 - the union of the will & understanding

CL 158
. . . there is a very close union between understanding and will,
and that the union is such
that the one faculty can enter into the other
and find delight from and in that union.

CL 145 - spiritual wisdom

CL 145
A person from being natural only gradually becomes spiritual.
For a person becomes spiritual as his rationality -
which stands in between heaven and the world -
begins to draw its life or soul from what flows in from heaven.
This occurs as he becomes affected by and is delighted with wisdom
(the wisdom spoken of in no. 130 - see *). . ..

Spiritual wisdom in itself is such
that it grows warmer and warmer with the love of becoming wise,
and because of this, it increases to eternity.
This takes place as it is perfected as though by processes . . .
which are accomplished by
purifications and separations of the intellect
from the misconceptions of the senses,
and of the will from the temptations of the body.

*CL 130
Regarded in its fullness, wisdom has to do with
concepts, reason and life at the same time.
Concepts come first;
reason is formed by means of them,
and wisdom by both concepts and reason together -
and this when a person lives reasonably or rationally
according to truths formed as concepts.

CL 121 - What is the wisdom of life?

CL 121 [1, 4]
Regarded in its fullness,
wisdom has to do with concepts, reasons and life at the same time.
Concepts come first;
reason is formed by means of them,
and wisdom by both concepts and reason together -
and this when a person lives reasonably or rationally
according to truth formed as concepts. . . .

Since wisdom is . . . a matter of life first and consequently of reason,
the question arises, what wisdom of life is.
In brief summary, it is this:
to refrain from evils because they are harmful to the soul,
harmful to the civil state, and harmful to the body,
and to do good things because they are of benefit to the soul,
to the civil state, and to the body.

CL 125, 127 - correspondences

CL125 (6)
A husband does not represent the Lord and his wife the church,
because husbands and their wives both together form the church.
It is a common saying in the [Christian] church
that as the Lord is the head of the church,
so the husband is the head of the wife. *
If this were true, it would follow
that the husband represents the Lord and the wife the church.
But the truth is that, whereas the Lord is the head of the church,
people - both men and women - are the church,
and still more so husbands and wives together.
(Quoting Ephesians 5:23. Cf. 1 Corinthians 11:3.)

CL 127
. . . conjugial love corresponds to an affection
for genuine truth and its chasteness, purity and holiness;
that insemination corresponds to the power of truth;
that procreation corresponds to the propagation of truth;
and that love for little children
corresponds to the protection of truth and good.

Now because truth in a person appears as if it were his,
and good is joined to it by the Lord,
it is evident that these correspondences are correspondences
of the natural or outer self with the spiritual or inner self.

CL 120 - the Lord and the church

CL 120
. . . the Lord is the source from which all good and truth flow,
and it is the church which receives this good and truth
and puts them into effect.

CL 115 - there is no such thing as good alone or truth alone

CL 115 [3]
. . . everything which exists in the whole of heaven
and everything which exists in the whole world
is nothing but a form of the marriage between good and truth,
since each and every thing
was created out of
and into
a marriage of good and truth . . ..

Good alone or truth alone has no reality,
but they take form and become real
through a marriage of the two,
the character of the resulting form
being determined by the character of the marriage.

Divine good and Divine truth in the Lord the Creator
are good and truth in their very essence.
The being of His essence is Divine good,
and the expression of His essence is Divine truth.
In Him, moreover, good and truth exist in their very union,
for in Him they are infinitely united.
Since these two are united in Him, the Creator,
therefore they are also united in each and every thing created by Him.
By this the Creator is also conjoined with all things created by Him
in an eternal covenant like that of a marriage.

CL 94 - from knowledge, to intelligence, and finally, to wisdom

CL 94
. . . as a person advances from knowledge to intelligence,
and from this to wisdom,
his mind also changes its form accordingly,
for it opens up more and more
and becomes more closely connected with heaven
and through heaven with the Lord.
Consequently the person becomes a greater lover of truth
and more devoted to goodness of life.

CL 83 - union

CL 83
. . . good does not exist apart from truth,
nor truth apart from good,
consequently
there is an eternal marriage between them . . .

CL 35 - the Golden Age of marriage

CL 75 [5, 8]
[5] Then because I had in my thought the desire
to learn about the marriages of the most ancient peoples,
I looked by turns at the husband and wife,
and I observed a seeming unity of their souls in their faces.

So I said, "You two are one."

The man replied, "We are.
Her life is in me, and my life is in her.
We have two bodies, but one soul.
The union between us is like the union
of the two tabernacles in the breast
which are called the heart and the lungs.
She is my heart and I am her lungs.
But since when we say heart here we mean love,
and when we say lungs we mean wisdom,
therefore she is the love of my wisdom,
and I am the wisdom of her love.
Therefore her love outwardly clothes my wisdom,
and my wisdom is inwardly within her love.
Consequently, as you have said,
the unity of our souls appears in our faces."

[8] "We here have seen, for thousands of years,
that those delights [of marriage or conjugial love]
become more excellent and exalted
in abundance, degree and strength,
according to the worship of the Lord Jehovih among us.
That heavenly union or that heavenly marriage
which exists between love and wisdom
infuses itself as a result of that worship."

CL - light and warmth; presence and conjunction

CL 72
There are two things which form the church and so heaven in a person:
truth of faith and goodness of life.
Truth of faith brings the Lord's presence,
and goodness of life in accordance with truths of faith
brings conjunction with Him
and thus forms the church and heaven.
Truth of faith brings presence because it has to do with light,
that being what spiritual light is.
Goodness of life brings conjunction
because it has to do with warmth,
that being what spiritual warmth is;
for spiritual warmth is love,
and goodness of life has to do with love.
We also know that all light - even wintry light - brings presence,
and that warmth united with light brings conjunction;
for gardens and flower-beds become visible in every kind of light,
but they do not produce flowers and fruit
until warmth is combined with the light.

The evident conclusion from this is
that people are blessed with truly conjugial love
not if they only know the truths of the church,
but if they know them and do the good things it teaches.

CL 60 - two things from the Lord, the Creator

CL 60
The two things that emanate from the Lord are love and wisdom,
because these are what He is
and so are what come from Him.
And everything that has to do with love is called good,
and everything that has to do with wisdom is called truth.
Now because these two emanate from the Lord as the Creator,
it follows that these two are present in the things He created.

CL 56 - another visit to the Temple of Wisdom

CL 56
One time, while speaking with angels in the spiritual world, I was filled with a pleasant wish to see the Temple of Wisdom, which I had seen once before.* So I asked the angels about the way to it.
They said, "Follow the light, and you will find it."
And I said, "What do you mean, follow the light?"
They said, "Our light grows brighter the closer we get to that temple. Follow the light, therefore, in the direction it grows brighter. For our light emanates from the Lord as the sun of this world, and so, regarded in itself, that light is wisdom."
In the company of two angels I then went in the direction that the light grew brighter, and I ascended by a steep path to the top of a certain hill which was in the southern zone, where I found a magnificent gate. When the guard saw the angels with me, he opened it, and behold, I saw an avenue of palm trees and laurels, which we followed. The avenue curved around and ended up at a garden, in the middle of which stood the Temple of Wisdom.
As I looked around in the garden, I saw some smaller buildings, replicas of the temple, with wise men in them. We went over to one of the buildings, and we spoke at the entrance with the receptionist there, telling him the reason for our coming and the way we had arrived. And the receptionist said, "Welcome! Come in, have a seat, and let us spend some time together in conversations of wisdom."
[2] I saw inside that the building was divided into two sections, and yet the two were still one. It was divided into two sections by a transparent partition, but it looked like one room because of the partition's transparency, which was like the transparency of the purest crystal. I asked why it was arranged like that.
The receptionist said, "I am not alone. My wife is with me, and though we are two, yet we are not two but one flesh."
To which I replied, "I know you are wise, but what does a wise man or wisdom have to do with a woman?"
At this, with some feeling of annoyance, the receptionist's expression changed, and he stretched out his hand, and suddenly, then, other wise men were present from the neighboring buildings. To them he said with amusement, "Our visitor here says he wants to know what a wise man or wisdom has to do with a woman!"
They all laughed at this and said, "What is a wise man or wisdom apart from a woman or apart from love? A wife is the love of a wise man's wisdom."
[3] But the receptionist said, "Let us join together now in some conversation of wisdom. Let the conversation be about causes, today the reason for the beauty in the female sex."
So they then spoke in turn. And the first speaker gave this reason, that women were created by the Lord to be forms of affection for the wisdom in men, and affection for wisdom is beauty itself.
The second speaker gave this reason, that woman was created by the Lord through the wisdom in man, because she was created from man, and that she is therefore a form of wisdom inspired by the affection of love. And because the affection of love is life itself, a woman is a form of the life in wisdom, while the male is a form of wisdom, and the life in wisdom is beauty itself.
The third speaker presented this reason, that women have been given a perception of the delights in conjugial love. And because their whole body is an instrument of that perception, the abode where the delights of conjugial love dwell with their perception cannot help but be a form of beauty.
[4] The fourth speaker gave this reason, that the Lord took beauty and grace of life from man and transferred them into woman, and that is why a man not reunited with his beauty and grace in woman is stern, severe, dry and unattractive, and also not wise except for his own sake alone, in which case he is a dunce. On the other hand, when a man is united with his beauty and grace of life in a wife, he becomes agreeable, pleasant, full of life and lovable, and therefore wise.
The fifth speaker gave this reason, that women were created to be beauties, not for their own sake, but for the sake of men, so that men's natural hardness might become softer, the natural solemnness of their dispositions more amiable, and the natural coldness of their hearts warmer. And this is what happens to them when they become one flesh with their wives.
[5] The sixth speaker offered this reason, that the universe created by the Lord is a most perfect work, but nothing is created in it more perfect than a woman attractive in appearance and becoming in behavior, in order that a man may thank the Lord for such a gift and repay it by receiving wisdom from Him.
After these and several other similar views were expressed, one of the wives appeared through the crystal-like partition, and she said to her husband, "Speak, if you wish."
And when he spoke, the life in his wisdom from his wife was perceived in his speech, for her love was in the tone of his voice. Thus did experience bear witness to the truth expressed.
After this we looked at the Temple of Wisdom, and also at the things in the paradise surrounding it. And being filled with feelings of joy on account of them, we departed and went along the avenue to the gate, and so descended by the way we had come.

CL 42 - the appearance of some celestial angels

CL 42 [3-4]

. . . all angels are affections of love in human form.

The essential, dominant affection shines out from their faces,
and they are given clothing on the basis of their affection
and in accordance with it.
Consequently, in heaven they say
that everyone is clothed in his own affection . . .

He was dressed in a full-length robe,
and under the robe he wore a blue-colored garment,
which was tied about the waist with a golden girdle
bearing three precious stones, two of them sapphires,
one on each side, and a garnet in the middle.
His stockings were of shining linen,
into which had been woven threads of silver;
and his shoes were made entirely of silk.

Her hair was attractively arranged in a style to match her beauty,
with jewels in the form of flowers inserted into it.
She had a necklace of garnets, from which hung a rosette of peridots.
And she had bracelets of pearls.
She was dressed in a scarlet gown,
and under it a purple bodice fastened in front with rubies.
But what surprised me,
the colors kept changing
depending on which way she was facing in relation to her husband,
and their sparkle also kept changing accordingly,
being now more, now less -
more when they faced each other,
and less when she faced away at an angle.

CL 36, 38, 41 - conjunction & marriage

CL 36
Everyone's own love remains in him after death
for the reason that love is a person's life,
and consequently it is the real person.
A person is also what he thinks,
thus what his intelligence and wisdom are,
but these are united with his love.
For a person thinks because of his love and according to it;
in fact, if he is free to do so, he speaks and acts from it.
From this it can be seen that love is the being or essence of a person's life,
and that thought is the resulting expression or manifestation of his life.
Speech and action that spring from thought,
therefore, do not spring from thought,
but from love acting through thought.

CL 38
We use the terms, love for the opposite sex and conjugial love,
because a love for the opposite sex is not the same as conjugial love.
A love for the opposite sex is found in a natural person,
but conjugial love in a spiritual person.

CL 41
By spiritual marriage,
conjunction with the Lord is meant,
and this is achieved on earth.
And when it has been achieved on earth,
it has also been achieved in heaven.

To marry means to be conjoined with the Lord,
and to go to a wedding means to be received into heaven by the Lord.

CL 21 - love

CL 21 [2]
. . . love has power through wisdom.

CL 16, 18 - useful service

CL 16 [3]
"There are three things which flow as one from the Lord into our souls.
These three things together, or this trinity, are love, wisdom, and usefulness.
Love and wisdom, however,
do not occur by themselves except in imagination,
because by themselves they exist only
in the affection and thought of the mind.
In useful service, on the other hand, they exist in actuality,
because they exist at the same time in the action and activity of the body.
And where they exist actually, there they also remain.

"Now because love and wisdom exist and endure in useful service,
it is useful service that affects us,
and useful service is to carry out the duties of one's occupation
faithfully, honestly and diligently.

CL 18
. . . the abode of wisdom . . . lies in useful service.

CL 1 - witness

CL 1
I anticipate that many who read the following descriptions and the accounts at the ends of the succeeding chapters will believe they are figments of my imagination. I swear in truth, however, that they are not inventions, but actual occurrences to which I was witness. Nor were they witnessed in any condition of unconsciousness but in a state of full wakefulness. For it has pleased the Lord to manifest Himself to me and send me to teach the doctrines that will be doctrines of the New Church, the church meant by the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. To this end He has opened the inner faculties of my mind and spirit. As a result, it has been made possible for me to be in the spiritual world with angels and at the same time in the natural world with men, and this now for twenty-five years.*

* This work was originally published in the year 1768.

AR 961 - the Same

AR 961
. . . the Divine Esse,
which in Itself is God,
is the Same;
not the Same simply,
but Infinite;
that is, the same from eternity to eternity;
it is the Same everywhere,
and the Same with everyone and in everyone;
but that all the variety and variableness is in the recipient;
the state of the recipient does this.

AR 954 - the Root and Offspring of David; and AR 956-959 - Revelation 22: 17-19 - don't mess with the Lord's Word

AR 954
I am the Root and Offspring of David,
the bright and morning Star,
(Revelation 22:16)
signifies that it is the Lord Himself who was born in the world,
and was then the Light, and who will come with new light,
which will arise before His New Church,
which is the holy Jerusalem.

AR 956
And let him that hears say, Come;
and let him that thirsts come,
and let him that wills take the water of life freely,
(Revelation 17)

signifies that he who knows anything of the Lord's coming,
and of the New Heaven and New Church, thus of the Lord's kingdom,
should pray that it may come,
and that he who desires truths,
should pray that the Lord may come with light,
and that he who loves truths,
will then receive them from the Lord
without his own work.

AR 957 [2]
For I testify
unto everyone that hears the words of the prophecy of this book,
if anyone shall add unto these things,
God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book,
(Revelation 22:18)

There are two things in this prophetic book,
to which all its contents refer;
the first is, that no other God is to be acknowledged but the Lord,
and the other,
that no other faith is to be acknowledged but faith in the Lord;
he who knows these,
and yet adds anything with intent to destroy them,
cannot be otherwise than in falsities and evils,
and must perish from them,
because from no other God but the Lord,
and by no other faith but faith in the Lord,
is given the good which is of love,
and the truth which is of faith,
and consequently the felicity of eternal life,
as the Lord Himself teaches in many places in the Evangelists . . ..

AR 958
And if anyone shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy,
God shall take away his part out of the book of life,
and out of the holy city,
and the things which are written in this book,
(Revelation 22:19)

signifies that they who read and know the truths of doctrine in this book,
now opened by the Lord,
and yet acknowledge any other God than the Lord,
and any other faith than a faith in Him,
by taking away anything whereby they may destroy these two things,
cannot acquire any wisdom,
nor appropriate to themselves anything from the Word,
nor be received into the New Jerusalem,
nor have their lot with those who are in the Lord's kingdom.
These words signify the same as the foregoing,
only that here it is said of those who take away,
and there of those who add,
consequently of those who either by adding or taking away . . .
for all the things which are written in this book
regard the New Heaven and the New Church,
which make the Lord's kingdom as the end,
and the end is that to which
all the things which are written in the book have reference.

AR 949 - confidence & peace

AR 949 [2]
By faith in Him is meant confidence that He will save,
and they have this confidence who immediately approach Him,
and shun evils as sins;
with others it is not given.

It was said that "My reward is with Me"
signifies that He Himself is heaven and the felicity of eternal life,
for "reward" is intrinsic beatitude,
which is called peace, and consequently external joy.

These are solely from the Lord,
and the things which are from the Lord,
not only are from Him,
but also are Himself,
for the Lord cannot send forth anything from Himself except it be Himself,
for He is omnipresent with every person according to conjunction,
and conjunction is according to reception,
and reception is according to love and wisdom,
or if you will, according to charity and faith,
and charity and faith are according to life,
and life is according to the aversion to evil and falsity,
and aversion to evil and falsity
is according to the knowledge of what is evil and false,
and then according to repentance,
and at the same time looking to the Lord.