Jesus is clearly identified in the Gospels as the son of God, and
during his ministry regularly referred to “the Father” as a separate, higher being. Yet he also stated his own divinity, which was reinforced when he was resurrected after the crucifixion and appeared, in the flesh, to his followers.
So was he God? What about the Father? Could he and the Father both be God? And what about the Holy Spirit, also mentioned with great frequency? Was that a third divine being?
This seeming paradox led to a variety of interpretations among early Christians, which led to a council of 300 church leaders in the Turkish town of Nicaea in 325 A.D. They settled on the idea of three beings making up one God, an idea which was confirmed and expanded in a second council in Constantinople in 381 A.D. The doctrine took final form in what’s known as the Athanasian Creed, adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in the sixth century.
That creed, which is still central to most Christian churches today, says that the three – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are equally God and equally all-powerful, and that all three existed from eternity and will exist to eternity. It says the Son was “begotten” of the Father and the Holy Spirit “proceeded” from the Father and the Son, but all three are “uncreated,” are equal, and are together one God in the Holy Trinity.
Swedenborg says this doctrine was the beginning of the end for the Christian church, leading to an inevitable belief in three gods, even when people spoke of one God. It also argues that three separate infinite beings would be impossible, since something that’s infinite cannot be divided.
Instead, Swedenborg says that God the Father – Jehovah, as known in the Old Testament – planted his own essence in Mary so that it could be clothed with a physical human body. Through Mary the resulting man – Jesus – also inherited all the typical human weaknesses and desires for evil, which meant that despite his divine soul he could lust for evil as powerfully as anyone ever has.
That human frailty allowed Jesus to engage directly in battle against the hells, which had at the time grown so powerful that people were nearly cut off from heaven. Those battles were waged the same way our battles are waged: through temptation. Swedenborg says Jesus subjected himself to temptation throughout his life, on a scale and to a degree that we can’t imagine. But as he won each battle, he forced another part of hell into submission.
Those battles had another effect. With each victory, Jesus turned a little bit of his human reality into divine reality, slowly uniting his human exterior with his divine soul. By the time of his ministry, what people saw was mostly divine. Through his final temptation, on the cross, he purified the final aspects of his physical humanity, so the body that was buried and resurrected was fully divine – Jesus was Jehovah and Jehovah was Jesus. And since he took that divine human body to heaven, Jesus is still Jehovah and Jehovah is still Jesus, which is expressed in Swedenborg as “the Lord.”
As for the Holy Spirit, Swedenborg says the case is this:
The Lord has always offered people spiritual guidance, but originally did so from a distance. The earliest people learned of the Lord through angels, and by seeing spiritual meaning in the natural world. Later the Lord used inspired people – Moses and various judges and prophets – to teach others about spiritual things. This changed, however, when he came among us as Jesus. As Jesus he spoke to people directly, teaching them himself about spiritual things, teachings that were recorded and passed on to us today. According to Swedenborg, the term “the Holy Spirit” describes the power of that direct teaching and the way the Lord uses it to motivate us.
The Holy Spirit, then, draws its power from things that have always been true, but it’s a power that came into effect through Jesus. That’s why it’s an expression that does not ever occur in the Old Testament, which instead speaks of the Spirit of Jehovah or the Spirit of the Lord.
So what does the Trinity mean to us now? What is the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in our lives? Swedenborg says that the three aspects of the Lord do indeed exist, but rather than being three people they are the soul of the Lord (the Father), the body of the Lord (the son) and the Lord’s activity (the Holy Spirit).
Passages from Swedenborg
Doctrine of the Lord (Dick) n. 58
All the particulars of this Creed, as it is verbally set forth, are true if, instead of a Trinity of Persons, we understand a Trinity of Person. This may appear if we transcribe it again, as follows:
He who would be saved must keep this Christian faith. This Christian faith is: We worship One God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, neither mingling the Trine of the Person, nor dividing the Essence. The Trine of the one Person is what is called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is one and the same, the glory and the majesty equal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreate, the Son is uncreate, and the Holy Spirit is uncreate. The Father is infinite, the Son is infinite, and the Holy Spiritis infinite; and yet there are not three infinites, nor three uncreates, but one Uncreate, and one Infinite. Similarly, as theFather is Almighty, so the Son is Almighty, and the HolySpirit is Almighty; and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.
As the Father is God, so the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. Although the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord; yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord. Now, as by the Christian verity we acknowledge a Trine in one Person, who is God and Lord, so by the Christian faith we can say one God and one Lord. The Father was made of none, neither created nor born; the Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created, but born; the Holy Spirit is of the Fatherand of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor born, but proceeding.
Thus there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity none is greatest, or least, but they are altogether equal. So that it is just as was said above, that the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 92
The "Son of God" is the human manifestation in which God sent himself into the world. The Lord frequently says that the Father sent him, or that he was sent by the Father (for example, Matthew 10:40; 15:24; John 3:17, 34; 5:23, 24, 36, 37, 38; 6:29, 39, 40, 44, 57; 7:16, 18, 28, 29; 8:16, 18, 29, 42; 9:4; and very often elsewhere). The Lord says this because being sent into the world means coming down among people, which he did through the human manifestation he took on through the Virgin Mary.
The human manifestation really is the Son of God, in that he was conceived by Jehovah God as the Father, as it says in Luke 1:32, 35.
He is called "the Son of God," "the Son of Humankind," and "the Son of Mary." "The Son of God" means Jehovah God in his human manifestation. "The Son of Humankind" means the Lord in his role as the Word. "The Son of Mary" properly means the human manifestation he took on. Just below we will show that "the Son of God" and "the Son of Humankind" have the meanings just mentioned. As for "the Son of Mary" meaning just the human manifestation, this is obvious from human reproduction. The soul comes from the father, the body from the mother. The soul is in the fathers semen; it is clothed with a body in the mother. To put it another way, everything we have that is spiritual comes from our father; everything physical comes from our mother.
In the Lord's case, the divine nature he had came from Jehovah his Father; the human nature he had came from his mother. These two natures united together are "the Son of God." The truth of this is clearly substantiated by the Lord's birth, as recorded in Luke: "The angel Gabriel said to Mary, The Holy Spirit will descend upon you and the power of the Highest will cover you; therefore the Holy One that is born from you will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).
Another reason why the Lord described himself as "sent" by the Father is that "someone who has been sent" has a similar meaning to "an angel." The word "angel" in the original language means "one who has been sent." [The Lord] is said to be [an angel] in Isaiah, "The Angel of the Faces of Jehovah has freed them. Because of his love and his mercy he redeemed them" (Isaiah 63:9); and in Malachi, "Suddenly the Lord will come to his temple - the One you seek, the Angel of the Covenant, whom you desire" (Malachi 3:1); besides other passages.
Where we discuss the divine Trinity below in chapter 3 of this work [163-188] it will become clear that the divine Trinity - God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - exists within the Lord; the Father in him is the divinity he draws on, the Son is his divine human manifestation, and the Holy Spirit is the divine power that radiates [from him].
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 163
The Divine Trinity
We covered God the Creator and creation; then we covered the Lord the Redeemer and redemption; lastly we covered theHoly Spirit and the divine action. Because we have covered the triune God in this way, we need to cover the divine Trinity as well. The Trinity is well known to the Christian world, yet in other ways it is unknown. Only through understanding the Trinity can we gain a just idea of God; and in the church a just idea of God is like the sanctuary and the altar in a church building. It is like the crown on the head and the scepter in the hand of a monarch sitting on a throne. The entire body of theology depends on it the way a chain hangs from its hook. Believe it or not, we are even allotted our own place in heaven depending on our idea of God. It is like a touchstone for testing the quality of gold and silver, that is, the goodness and truth in us. There exists no goodness in us that brings salvation except the goodness we have from God; and there exists no truth in us whose quality does not come from that core of goodness.
For us to see the nature of the divine Trinity in full perspective, the explanation of the Trinity needs to be divided into points as follows:
- There is a divine Trinity, which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
- These three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are three essential components of one God. They are one the way our soul, our body, and the things we do are one.
- This Trinity did not exist before the world was created. It developed after the world was created, when God became flesh. It came into existence in the Lord God the Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ.
- At a conceptual level, the idea of a trinity of divine persons from eternity (meaning before the world was created) is a trinity of gods. This idea is impossible to wipe out just by orally confessing one God.
- The apostolic church knew no trinity of persons. The idea was hatched by the Council of Nicaea. The council introduced the idea into the Roman Catholic church; and the Roman Catholic church introduced the idea into the churches that have since separated from it.
- The Nicene and Athanasian views of the Trinity led to a faith that has perverted the whole Christian church.
- The result is the abomination of desolation and the affliction such as has never existed before and will never exist again, which the Lord foretold in Daniel, the Gospels, and the Book of Revelation.
- In fact, if the Lord were not building a new heaven and a new church, the human race would not be preserved.
- Many absurd, alien, imaginary, and misshapen ideas of God have come into existence from the Athanasian Creed's assertion of a trinity of persons, each of whom is individually God.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 164
There is a divine Trinity, which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is very obvious in the Word that there is a divine Trinity, which is the Father, the Son, and the HolySpirit. Take the following passages for example:
The angel Gabriel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will descend upon you and the power of the Highest will cover you; therefore the Holy One that is born from you will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)
Here three are named: the Highest (who is God the Father), the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God.
When Jesus was baptized, behold the heavens opened and John saw the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove upon him; and a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:16, 17; Mark 1:10, 11; John 1:32)
The Trinity is even more obvious from the Lord's words to his disciples:
Go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)
The Trinity is also obvious from these words in John:
There are three who testify in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. (1 John 5:7)
Further evidence besides these passages is that the Lord prayed to his Father and spoke about him and with him; and he said that he was going to send and had sent the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, in their letters the apostles frequently mention the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These sources clearly show that there is a divine Trinity, which is the Father, theSon, and the Holy Spirit.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 166
These three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are three essential components of one God. They are one the way our soul, our body, and the things we do are one. In any given thing there are general essential components and there are also specific essential components. The general and specific components combine to make one essence.
In our case, our general essential components are our soul, our body, and the things we do. These three components combine to make one essence, as you can see from the fact that one component comes from and exists for the other in an unbroken chain. We begin from our soul. The soul is the essence of the semen that originates us. Our soul not only initiates but also sequentially produces the features of our body. Then there are the things we do, which come from both our soul and our body. Because one of these components produces another, and therefore the subsequent components are grafted onto and connected to those that came before them, it follows that these three components share one essence. This is why they are called the three essential components.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 167
The same three essential components - soul, body, and action - existed and still exist in the Lord God the Savior, as everyone acknowledges. The concept that the Lord's soul came from Jehovah the Father is something only the Antichrist could deny, since the Word of both testaments calls him the Son of Jehovah, the Son of God the Highest, and the only begotten One. The Lord's primary essential component, then, is the Father's divinity, like the soul in us. It follows that the Son whom Mary bore is the body of that divine soul; for what develops in the mother's womb is the body that was conceived by and derived from the soul. This, then, is the second essential component. Actions make a third essential component because they come from both the soul and the body; for things produced have the same essence as the things that produce them.
The three essential components that are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in the Lord as our soul, our body, and our actions [are one in us]. This is clear and obvious from the Lord's statement that the Father and he are one, and that the Father is in him and he is in the Father. The Lord is also one with the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is divinity radiating from the Lord on behalf of the Father, as I have fully shown from the Word in 153 and 154 above.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 168
When told that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the three essential components of the one God as our soul, our body, and our actions [are the essential components of a human being], the human mind may still think that three persons play the roles of these three essential components, when in fact there could not be three separate persons. When, however, we see the Father's divinity as the soul, the Son's divinity as the body, and the Holy Spirit's divinity (or divinity emanating) as action, and we see them as three essential components of one single God, then they become understandable. For the Father has his own divinity; the Son derives his divinity from the Father; and the Holy Spirit derives its divinity from them both. Since they share the same soul and essence, they constitute one God.
If we called these three divine components persons, however, and assigned each one its own responsibility - if we saw theFather as assigning spiritual credit or blame, the Son as mediating, and the Holy Spirit as putting things into effect - then we would be splitting a divine essence that is actually unified and indivisible. We would have made none of the three fully God; we would have given each one only a third of the power - an arrangement that a sound intellect has no choice but to reject.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 170
This Trinity did not exist before the world was created. It developed after the world was created, when God became flesh. It came into existence in the Lord God the Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ. Nowadays the Christian church asserts that the divine Trinity came into existence before the world was created: Before time, Jehovah God bore a Son. Then the Holy Spirit went out from them both. Each of the three is a God all by himself, in that each is a single self-sufficient person.
Because this concept does not square with any type of reasoning, it is called a mystery. The only way to grasp the concept is to think that the three share one divine essence - an essential eternity, immensity, and omnipotence and therefore equal divinity, glory, and majesty.
I will show in the sections to come, however, that such a concept becomes a trinity of gods and is therefore not a divine Trinity. On the other hand, from everything I have already said it is evident that a trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that developed after God became flesh, and therefore after the world was created, is a real divine trinity because it is a trinity in one God. This divine trinity exists in the Lord God the Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ because the three essential components of the one God that go together to form one essence exist within him.
Paul's point that all the fullness of divinity dwells in Christ is clearly paralleled in the Lord's own statements that all things belonging to the Father are his and that the Holy Spirit speaks from him, not on its own. Furthermore, when the Lord rosefrom the tomb, he took along his entire human body, including its flesh and bones (Matthew 28:18; Mark 16:5, 6; Luke 24:1, 2, 3; John 20:11-15). He did this in a way that no other human being does. He himself gave experiential proof of this to the disciples when he said,
See my hands and my feet - that it is I myself. Touch me and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. (Luke 24:39)
This statement has the power to convince any open-minded person that the Lord's human manifestation is divine, and therefore that in him God is human and a human is God.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 172
At a conceptual level, the idea of a trinity of divine persons from eternity (meaning before the world was created) is a trinity of gods. This idea is impossible to wipe out just by orally confessing one God. The following words in the Athanasian Creed make it very obvious that a trinity of divine persons from eternity is a trinity of gods: "The Father is one person, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another. The Father is God and Lord, the Son is God and Lord, and the Holy Spirit is God and Lord. Nevertheless there are not three gods and lords; there is one God and Lord. Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as God and Lord, so the catholic religion forbids us to say three gods or three lords."
This creed has been accepted by the entire Christian church as ecumenical or universal. Today everything known and acknowledged about God comes from it. Those who took part in the Council of Nicaea that gave birth to this posthumous child called the Athanasian Creed had no other concept of the Trinity except a trinity of gods, as any can see who merely keep their eyes open as they read it. Since then they have not been the only people thinking in terms of a trinity of gods; the Christian world thinks in terms of no other Trinity because its whole concept of God comes from that creed and everyone now lives in a faith based on those words.
[2] I submit it as a challenge to everyone - both laity and clergy, laureled professors and doctors as well as consecrated bishops and archbishops, even cardinals robed in scarlet and in fact the Roman pope himself - that the Christian world nowadays thinks of no other Trinity except a trinity of gods. You should all examine yourselves and then speak on the basis of the images in your mind.
The words of this creed - the universally accepted teaching about God - make it as clear and obvious as water in a crystal bowl. For example, the creed says that there are three persons, each of whom is God and Lord. It also says that because of Christian truth, people ought to confess or acknowledge that each person is individually God and Lord, but that the catholic or Christian religion or faith forbids us to say three gods or lords. This would mean that truth and religion, or truth and faith, are not the same thing; they are at odds with each other.
The writers of the creed added the point that there is one God and Lord, not three gods and lords, so that they would not be exposed to ridicule before the whole world. Who would not laugh at three gods? On the other hand, though, anyone can see the contradiction in the phrase they added.
[3] If instead they had said that the Father has a divine essence, the Son has a divine essence, and the Holy Spirit has a divine essence, but nevertheless there are not three divine essences, there is one indivisible essence, then that mystery would be explainable. That is, "the Father" means the divine nature as an origin, "the Son" means the divine-human nature that came from that origin, and "the Holy Spirit" means the divine influence that radiates out. These are three aspects of one God. Another way of putting it is that the Father's divinity means something like the soul in us, the divine-human manifestation means something like our body, which comes from our soul, and the Holy Spirit means something like our actions, which come from both our body and our soul. Then we see three essences that belong to one and the same person. Together they form one indivisible essence.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 175
It is very obvious from the creed of what is known as the apostolic church that it had no awareness at all of any trinity of persons or of three persons from eternity. There the following words occur: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. And I believe in the Holy Spirit."
There is no mention here of any "Son from eternity." The Son mentioned here was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. From the writings of the apostles the people of that church knew that Jesus Christ was the true God (1 John 5:20); that all the fullness of divinity dwelt physically in him (Colossians 2:9); that the apostles preached faith in him (Acts 20:21); and that all power in heaven and on earth had been given to him (Matthew 28:18).
Who (or What) is Swedenborg?
The ideas on this site are based on the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th-century Swedish scientist and theologian. Swedenborg claimed that his religious writings, the sole focus of the last three decades of his life, were done at the behest of the Lord himself, and constituted a revelation for a successor to the Christian Church.
In keeping with Swedenborg’s own statements, modern believers downplay his role as author, attributing the ideas to the Lord instead. For this reason they generally refer to Swedenborg’s theological works as “the Writings,” and some resist the label “Swedenborgian” as placing emphasis on the man rather than the message.
Since “the Writings” would be an unfamiliar term to new readers, we have elected to use the name “Swedenborg” as a label for those theological works, much as we might use “Isaiah” or “Matthew” to refer to books of the Bible. The intent, however, is not to attribute the ideas to Swedenborg, any more than we would attribute the divinity of the Bible to Isaiah the man or Matthew the man.
So when you read “according to Swedenborg” on this site, it’s really shorthand for “according to the theological works from the Lord through Swedenborg.” When you read “Swedenborg says,” it’s really shorthand for “the theological works of Swedenborg say.”