TCR 139 - One in the Lord

TCR 139

The Holy Spirit means properly the Divine Truth,
so also the Word;
and in this sense the Lord is Himself
also the Holy Spirit.
But the present-day church uses the term 'Holy Spirit'
to describe the way God works,
that is, the actual process of making a person righteous,
so this is the meaning given here to the Holy Spirit . . ..

. . . the activity of God takes place
by means of the Divine Truth
which proceeds from the Lord;
and that which proceeds
is of one and the same essence
as He from whom it proceeds.
This is like the trio of soul, body and what proceeds
making up a single essence,
which in the case of a human being is purely human,
but in the case of the Lord
is Divine and human at the same time . . ..
So the three essentials called
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
are one in the Lord.

The Lord is the Everlasting God

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God"?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and His understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on the wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

(Isaiah 40:27-31)

TCR 137 - our faith and its truths

TCR 137 [5]

. . . our faith is,
has been,
and ever will be
in the Lord God the Savior,
whose Human is Divine
and whose Divine is Human. 

This makes it easy for us to accept,
as uniting the Divine spiritual to the natural of men.
So it becomes a spiritual faith at the natural level,
and this makes the natural as it were translucent,
as the result of the spiritual light
which illuminates our faith. 

The truths of which it is made up
are as numerous as the verses in Holy Writ;
all its truths are like stars,
which by their light show it forth and give it form. 

A person acquires faith from the Word
by means of his own natural powers of enlightenment,
which are based upon
knowledge, thought and false belief. 

But with those who believe in the Lord,
He turns these into
conviction, trust and confidence.
This makes the natural faith spiritual,
and charity gives it life.

The Scroll of the Lord

Look in the scroll of the Lord and read:

None of these will be missing,
not one will lack her mate.
For it is His mouth that has given the order,
and His Spirit will gather them together.
He allots their portions;
His hand distributes them by measure.
They will possess it forever
and dwell there from generation to generation.

The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
"Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
He will come with vengeance;
with Divine retribution He will come to save you."

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not journey on it;
it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
No lion will be there,
nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
and the ransomed of the Lord will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

(Isaiah 34:16-17; 35:1-10)

TCR 130 - the Lord's passion

TCR 130 [3]

The details of the Lord's passion show clearly
that as the Prophet
He represented the state of the Jewish church
with regard to the Word.
For example, His betrayal by Judas;
His arrest and conviction by the chief priests and the elders;
His being beaten;
His head being struck with a reed;
His crowning with a crown of thorns;
the dividing of His garments,
and the casting of lots for His tunic;
His crucifixion;
His being given vinegar to drink;
His side being pierced;
His burial and resurrection on the third day.

-- His betrayal by Judas
meant that He was betrayed by the Jewish nation,
which possessed the Word,
since Judas represented that nation.
-- His arrest and conviction
by the chief priests and elders
meant that the whole of that church so behaved.
-- His being beaten, being spat upon in the face,
being flogged and having His head struck with a reed
meant their similar treatment of the Word
as regards the Divine truths it contains.
-- The crowning with thorns
meant that they falsified and adulterated these truths.
-- The dividing of His garments
and throwing lots for His tunic
meant that they threw to the winds
all the truths of the Word,
but not its spiritual sense,
which is what the tunic meant.
-- The crucifixion
meant that they destroyed and profaned the whole Word.
-- Their giving Him vinegar to drink
meant that they offered only falsified truths,
which is why He did not drink it.
-- The piercing of His side
meant that they utterly extinguished
all the truth and all the good of the Word.
-- His burial
meant the rejection of all He had left from His mother.
-- His resurrection on the third day
meant His glorification,
or the union of His Human with the Father's Divine.

From this it is now plain that 'carrying iniquities'
does not mean removing them,
but representing the profaning of truths in the Word.

The Lord is our Mighty One.

O Lord, be gracious to us;
we long for you.
Be our strength every morning,
our salvation in time of distress.

The Lord is exalted,
for He dwells on high;
He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.
He will be the sure foundation for your times,
a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;
the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

Look upon Zion, the city of our festivals;
your eyes will see Jerusalem,
a peaceful abode,
a tent that will not be moved;
its stakes will never be pulled up,
nor any of its ropes broken.
There the Lord will be our Mighty One.
It will be like a lace of broad rivers and streams.
No galley with oars will ride them,
no mighty ship will will sail them.
For the Lord is our judge,
the Lord is our lawgiver,
the Lord is our king;
it is He who will save us.

(Isaiah 33:2,5-6,20-22)

TCR 126 - the Lord had two purposes

TCR 126, 127

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 . . .
to be 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.
It is similar to the building of a church:
its construction by human hands must come first,
and then afterwards it must be consecrated,
and finally prayers must be said
for God to be present and unite Himself
with its congregation.
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 linked with God,
and in this case the Lord
was most inwardly united with God His Father.

. . . although redemption and the passion on the cross
are two distinct events,
still they are combined in effecting salvation,
since the Lord by His union with the Father,
the result of His suffering on the cross,
became the Redeemer for ever.

The Rock Eternal

We have a strong city;
God makes salvation its walls and ramparts.
Open the gates
that the righteous nation my enter,
the nation that keeps faith.
You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is stead fast,
because he trusts in You.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord, the Lord, is the rock eternal.

(Isaiah 26:1-4)

TCR 118 - What is redemption?

TCR 118

To redeem means to free from damnation,
to reclaim from everlasting death,
to snatch from hell,
and to release
the captives and those in bondage
from the hands of the devil.
The Lord performed this
by conquering the hells
and founding a new heaven.
The reason why people could not
by any other means be saved
was that the spiritual world
is so closely integrated with the natural world
that they are inseparable.
This principally affects people's interiors,
what is called their souls and minds;
those of the good are conjoined
with the souls and minds of angels,
those of the wicked
with the souls and minds of the spirits of hell.
Their union is such
that if a person were deprived of them,
he would fall lifeless,
like a block of wood.
Likewise neither could angels and spirits
remain in existence,
if human beings were taken away from them.

"Glory to the Righteous One"

They raise their voices,
they shout for joy;
from the west they acclaim the Lord's majesty.
Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord;
exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel,
in the islands of the sea.
From the ends of the earth we hear singing:
"Glory to the Righteous One."

(Isaiah 24:14-16)

TCR 113 - the idea of the Lord

TCR 113 [6]
For 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.
The Lord too taught that He and the Father are one,
that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father;
that he who sees Him, sees the Father;
and that no one comes to the Father except through Him.

The Lord Says

This is what the Lord says to me:
"I will remain quiet
and will look on from My dwelling place,
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,
like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest."

(Isaiah 18:4)

TCR 110 - conjunction with the Lord

TCR 110 [5-6]

To prepare oneself to receive and be conjoined to God
is to live in accordance with Divine order,
and the laws of order are all the commandments of God.
The Lord fulfilled these down to the last comma,
and so made Himself a receiver of the Divinity
in all its fulness.
Therefore Paul says that in Jesus Christ
all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily,
and the Lord says that all things of the Father's are His.

It is further to be held
that the Lord alone is active in a person,
and the person by himself is only passive,
but he is moved to activity
by the influx of life from the Lord.
This perpetual influx from the Lord
makes it appear to a person that he acts of himself.
Because this is so, he also has free will,
and this is given to him
in order to prepare himself
to receive and be conjoined to the Lord,
a state which would be impossible
if the conjunction were not reciprocal.
This is accomplished
when a person acts of his own free will,
yet is led by faith to attribute all activity to the Lord.

In That Day

See, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
will lop off the boughs with great power.
The lofty trees will be felled,
the tall ones will be brought low.
He will cut down the forest thickets with an ax;
Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

In that day you will say:

"I will praise You, O Lord.
Although You were angry with me,
Your anger has turned away
and You have comforted me.
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord, 
is my strength and my song;
He has become my salvation."
With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.

In that day you will say:

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name;
make known among the nations what He has done,
and proclaim that His name is exalted.
Sing to the Lord,
for He has done glorious things;
let this be known to all the world.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
for great is the Holy One of Israel among you."

(Psalm 10:33-34; 12:1-6)

TCR 105 - two states in order

TCR 105 [2]

That every person
who from being natural becomes spiritual
passes through two states,
entering through the first into the second,
and thus from the world into heaven . . ..
. . . in the first state,
which is called the state of reformation,
a person has complete freedom to act
according to the rationality of his understanding:
and in the second,
which is the state of regeneration,
he has the same freedom;
but he now wills and acts, 
and thinks and speaks,
from a new love and a new intelligence,
which are from the Lord.
For in the first state
the understanding takes the chief part
and the will the second;
while in the following state
the will takes the chief part,
and the understanding the second;
nevertheless, the understanding now acts from the will,
and not the will through the understanding.
The conjunction of good and truth, 
of charity and faith,
and of the internal and external,
is effected in the same way.

The Lord Warns

The Lord spoke to me with His strong hand upon me,
warning me not to follow the way of this people.
He said:

"Do not call conspiracy
everything that these people call conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.
The Lord Almighty is the One you are to regard as holy,
He is the One you are to fear,
He is the One your are to dread,
and He will be a sanctuary . . .."

Bind up the testimony
and seal up the law among my disciples.
I will wait for the Lord,
who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob.
I will put my trust in Him.

(Isaiah 8:11-13,16-17)

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

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

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

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

Come Now

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the best from the land;
but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword."

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

(Isaiah 1:18-20)

TCR 86 - rounded points, sharp points

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.
Swords, spears and bows
in the spiritual sense of the Word
stand for militant truths . . ..
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. 

Therefore it is said in the Psalms of David:

Gird your sword upon Your thigh,
O Mighty One, and go up in Your splendor,
ride upon the Word of truth;
Your right hand shall teach You wondrous things;
sharp are Your arrows,
Your enemies shall fall beneath You.
(Psalm 45:3-5)

This passage describes the Lord,
His combats with the hells
and His victories over them.

Let My Prayer Be

Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord;
keep watch over the door of my lips.
Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil,
to take part in wicked deeds
with men who are evildoers;
let me not eat of their delicacies.

(Psalm 141:3-4)