Jesus – Word Study

One of the central ideas in Swedenborg is that traditional

Christianity got Jesus wrong 17 centuries ago, and that establishing a new understanding is crucially important. Put simply, it says that Jesus and God the Father are not separate entities that have both existed from eternity - instead, Jesus was and is the expression of God's divine humanity into a form that we can embrace, understand and follow. Thus "the Lord" (the inclusive name Swedenborg uses almost exclusively) is not made up of multiple beings; the Lord is an infinite whole that is expressed to us according to the states of our own minds.

To a degree, that disagreement harks back to the first three centuries of Christianity, when believers debated the meaning of the often-cryptic statements of Jesus and interpreted them in a variety of ways. Much of that debate centered on the nature of Jesus himself. Was he God, or was he an inspired man? If he was God, how was he God? Did he exist from the beginning, or was he created by God the Father?

In an attempt to settle the debate, the Roman emperor Constantine I called the leaders of the two main branches to a council in the city of Nicaea (in present-day Turkey) in 325 AD. Those leaders negotiated a compromise, agreeing that Jesus was begotten of God the Father, was of one substance with God the Father, and was sent down to us to save us. That creed was expanded and clarified in another council in Constantinople in 381, specifying that Jesus the Son existed "before all worlds," and added an active role for the Holy Ghost as the giver of life proceeding from the Father and Son, and the voice which spoke through the prophets. Some centuries later these ideas were expanded and expressed in what is known as the Athanasian Creed, considered central to the faith of many Christian denominations.

Swedenborg says that while these ideas assert that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are of one substance, they still cause people to envision God as three, not one, and that this belief turned the Christian churches toward destruction.

So who (and what) WAS Jesus?

Swedenborg says that the Lord is infinite, is life itself, and is humanity itself. All creation flows from the Lord, and all creation supports humanity because humanity is the expression of the Lord into the material world. So the Lord's humanity has always existed.

But that humanity was spiritual, not natural, through thousands of generations; early humans lived in close communion with the Lord and with heaven, and embraced the Lord's humanity on an internal level.

That would would change; eventually people turned away from the Lord and embraced material things instead, in essence worshipping their own minds and what they could know from their senses and their rationality concerning the world around them. They had closed their minds; the only way for the Lord to reach them was in the material world.

So the Lord, through Mary, created a physical human through which he could express himself. And it could not be simply a body; it also had be human in mind and heart, with the divine at its inmost, with the divine as its soul - because being "human" is as much (or more) about having a human heart and mind than it is about having a human body.

Swedenborg says Jesus was an infant like any infant, a child like any child, though precocious in his learning (as illustrated by his visit to the Temple at age 12). As he started to become aware of his true nature, he began to face temptations (as we all do as we approach adulthood). But just as his inner self was beyond any other, so too were the temptations he faced. As he faced and conquered each temptation, though, he removed part of the human nature he inherited from Mary and replaced it with divine nature from the soul within. That process is illustrated by the 40 days in the wilderness, and his temptation to save the world by force - something that in his infinite love he desperately desired to do.

This process continued through his public ministry to the final temptation on the cross - a temptation to step down and through the greatest of miracles make everyone believe. Instead, he let his human body die, leaving people with the crucial freedom to believe or not believe.

This mixture of human and divine within him is why we see him in some instances praying to the Father as to a separate being -- at those times he is speaking from the human aspect, battling temptation. At other times, when he speaks from the divine, he is clear about his true nature and reveals that he is, in fact, the Father as well as the Son.

So what is Jesus now? He is what he has always been: He is the Lord, as perfectly human as he has always been. But by taking on a material form he gave us a face, a voice, an example, a friend, a father, a shepherd, a tangible loving human that our minds can engage and that can lead us to heaven.

Passages from Swedenborg

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 89

89
3. In the process of taking on a human manifestation, God followed his own divine design. In the section on divine omnipotence and omniscience we showed that in the act of creating, God introduced his design into the universe as a whole and into each and every thing in it. Therefore in the universe and in all its parts God's omnipotence follows and works according to the laws of his own design. The treatment of those laws runs from 49 to 74.
Now, because God came down, and because he is the design (as was also shown in that section), there was no other way for him to become an actual human being than to be conceived, to be carried in the womb, to be born, to be brought up, and to acquire more and more knowledge so as to become intelligent and wise. Therefore in his human manifestation he was an infant like any infant, a child like any child, and so on with just one difference: he completed the process more quickly, more fully, and more perfectly than the rest of us do.
This statement in Luke shows that he followed the divine design in his progress: "The childJesus grew and became strong in spirit, and he advanced in wisdom, age, and grace with God and with humankind" (Luke 2:40, 52). Other statements about the Lord in the same Gospel make it clear that he grew up more quickly, more fully, and more perfectly than the rest of us; for example, when "he was a child of twelve, he sat and taught in the Temple in the midst of the scholars, and all who heard him were astounded at his insightful answers" (Luke 2:46-47). Likewise later on; see Luke 4:16-22, 32.
The Lord's life followed this path because the divine design is for people to prepare themselves to accept God; and as they prepare themselves, God enters them as if he were coming into his own dwelling and his own home. The preparation entails developing a concept of God and of the spiritual things related to the church - that is, developing intelligence and wisdom.
It is a law of the divine design that the closer and closer we come to God, which is something we have to do as if we were completely on our own, the closer and closer God comes to us. When we meet, God forms a partnership with us. The Lord followed this design even to the point of union with his Father, as we will show later on [97-99, 105-106].

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 90

90
People who do not know that the divine omnipotence follows and works according to the divine design are capable of hatching many concepts from their own imaginations that contradict and oppose sound reason. For example, they might wonder why God did not instantly take on a human manifestation without going through life stages. They might wonder why he did not create or assemble a body for himself from substances from all four directions of the world. If he had, he could have presented himself as a human God before the Jewish people and in fact before the entire world. Or if he had especially wanted to go through the birth process, why did he not pour his whole divinity into that embryo, or else into himself as a baby? Or right after he was born why did he not expand himself to the size of an adult and immediately start speaking divine wisdom? People who think of divine omnipotence without thinking of the divine design are capable of conceiving and giving birth to these thoughts and others like them, and filling the church with craziness and garbage - which, of course, has actually happened.
Take for example the idea that God could procreate a Son from eternity and could arrange that a third God would then emanate from himself and his Son. Or the idea that God could be enraged at the human race and schedule it for destruction, but then be willing to be brought back to compassion by the Son through the Son's intercession and the Father's recollection of the cross. Not only that, but God could put his Son's justice into people and insert it into their hearts like Wolff's "simple substance," in which, as that author himself says, everything of the Son's merit exists, even though that substance cannot be divided, since divided it would collapse into nothing. Then there is the idea that through a Papal bull God could forgive the sins of anyone he felt like forgiving and could purify utterly godless people of their black sins, thereby making dark devils shine like angels of light, while the godless people changed and developed no more than a stone would, but instead stayed as still as a statue or an idol.
People who fixate on divine, absolute power without recognizing or acknowledging any divine design are capable of scattering abroad these and many other insane ideas the way a winnower scatters chaff on the wind. On spiritual topics having to do with heaven, the church, and eternal life, people like this are prone to wander far from divine truths like a blind man in a forest who one moment trips over stones, the next knocks his head against a tree, and the next catches his hair in the branches.

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 163

163
The Divine Trinity

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:

1. There is a divine Trinity, which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. The Nicene and Athanasian views of the Trinity led to a faith that has perverted the whole Christian church.

7. 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.

8. In fact, if the Lord were not building a new heaven and a new church, the human race would not be preserved.

9. 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. 102

102
There is a belief that the Lord in his human manifestation not only was but still is the Son of Mary. This is a blunder, though, on the part of the Christian world. It is true that he was the Son of Mary; it is not true that he still is. As the Lord carried out the acts of redemption, he put off the human nature from his mother and put on a human nature from his Father. This is how it came about that the Lord's human nature is divine and that in him God is human and a human is God. The fact that he put off the human nature from his mother and put on a divine nature from his father - a divine human nature - can be seen from his never referring to Mary as his mother, as the following passages show: "The mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.' Jesus said to her, 'What do I have to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come'" (John 2:34). Elsewhere it says, "Jesus on the cross saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing next to her. He said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold your mother'" (John 19:26, 27). On one occasion he did not acknowledge her: "There was a message for Jesus from people who said, 'Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, and they want to see you.' Jesus said in reply, 'My mother and my brothers are these people who are hearing the Word of God and doing it'" (Luke 8:20, 21; Matthew 12:46-49; Mark 3:31-35). So the Lord called her "woman," not "mother," and gave her to John to be his mother. In other passages she is called his mother, but not by the Lord himself.
[2] Another piece of supporting evidence is that the Lord did not acknowledge himself to be the son of David. In the Gospels we read,

Jesus asked the Pharisees, saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They say, "David's." He said to them, "Why then does David in the spirit call him his Lord when he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a footstool for your feet?"' If David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" And no one could answer him a word. (Matthew 22:41-46; Mark 12:35, 36, 37; Luke 20:41-44; Psalms 110:1)

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 172

172
4. 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 catholicor 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. 338

338
The faith that the apostles had was a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as many passages in their Epistles make clear. I will quote only the following:

I myself am no longer alive; instead Christ is living in me. I am indeed alive in the flesh, but with a living faith that is a faith in the Son of God. (Galatians 2:20)

To both Jews and Greeks, Paul proclaimed repentance before God and faith in our Lord JesusChrist. (Acts 20:21)

The one who took Paul outside said, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then you and your household will be saved." (Acts 16:30, 31)

Those who have the Son have life. Those who do not have the Son of God, do not have life. I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe in the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:12, 13)

We are Jews by nature, not sinners from the nations. Since we know that people are not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ, we too have come to believe in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 2:15, 16)

Because their faith was a faith in Jesus Christ and also a faith that came from him, the apostles called it "the faith of Jesus Christ," as just above in Galatians 2:16, and also in the following passages: "Through the faith of Jesus Christ, God's justice is in and upon all who have come to believe, to justify those who have the faith of Jesus" (Romans 3:22, 26). Paul wished to "have the justice that comes from the faith of Christ, the justice that comes from the God of faith" (Philippians 3:9). "These are the people who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ" (Revelation 14:12). [Paul mentions salvation] "through faith that is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15). "In Jesus Christ there is faith working through goodwill" (Galatians 5:6).
The passages just quoted clarify which faith Paul meant in the well-worn phrase in the church today: "Therefore we conclude that people are justified by faith apart from the works of the Law" (Romans 3:28). It does not mean faith in God the Father; it means faith in his Son. Still less does it mean faith in three gods in a row, one from whom, a second for whom, and a third through whom [we have faith].
The reason the church today believes that Paul's saying refers to its own faith in three divine Persons is that for fourteen centuries, since the Council of Nicaea, the church has not recognized any other faith than this. As a result, it has not known any other faith, believing that this was the only faith and that no other faith was possible. Therefore everywhere that the Word of the New Testament says "faith," people have believed that this was the faith the Word meant. They have applied everything said about faith to this faith. Consequently, the only faith that saves - faith in God our Savior - has perished. Their position caused many mistakes to creep into their teachings, as well as many paradoxes that go against sound reason. In a church, every teaching that aims to teach and show the way to heaven and salvation depends on its faith. Since, as I say, many mistakes and paradoxes crept into their faith, it became necessary for them to proclaim the dogma that the intellect has to be kept under obedience to faith.
In Paul's words in Romans 3:28, "faith" does not mean faith in God the Father, it means faith in his Son, and "the works of the Law" do not mean the works of the law of the Ten Commandments, they mean the works of the Mosaic Law for the Jews (as you can see from the verses that follow Romans 3:28, as well as from similar words in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians 2:14, 15). The foundation stone of the modern-day church crumbles, then, and so does the shrine built on it, like a house sinking into the ground until only the top of the roof remains visible.

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 296

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All people who acknowledge and worship another god besides the Lord the Savior JesusChrist, who is Jehovah God himself in human form, sin against this first commandment. So do all those who convince themselves that there are three actually existing divine persons from eternity. As these people reinforce themselves in this mistake, they become more and more earthly and mindless. They cannot inwardly comprehend any divine truth. If they hear and accept divine truth, they nonetheless pollute it and wrap it in mistaken ideas. For this reason they can be compared to people who live on the lowest or underground level of a house - they do not hear any of the conversation of people on the second or third floors, because the ceiling over their heads stops the sound from getting through.
[2] The human mind is like a three-story house that contains people on the bottom floor who have convinced themselves that there have been three gods from eternity, while on the second and third floors there are people who acknowledge and believe in one God in a human form that can be seen - the Lord God the Savior.
People who are mindlessly physical and utterly earthly are actually complete animals; the only thing that differentiates them from true brute animals is their ability to speak and to make false inferences. They are like someone who lives at a zoo where there are wild animals of every kind, who plays the lion one day, the bear the next, the tiger the next, the leopard or the wolf the next, and could play a sheep but would be laughing inside.
[3] People who are merely earthly think about divine truths only on the basis of worldly phenomena and the mistaken impressions of their own senses. They cannot lift their minds above them. As a result, their body of religious teaching could be compared to a soup made of chaff that they eat as if it were the finest cuisine. Or their body of teaching could be compared to the loaf of bread and the cakes that Ezekiel the prophet was commanded to mix from wheat, barley, beans, lentils, spelt, and human excrement or cow dung in order to represent what the church was like in the Israelite nation (Ezekiel 4:9 and following). It is the same with the body of teaching of a church that is founded and built on the idea of three divine persons from eternity, each of whom is individually god.
[4] By picturing it mentally as it truly is, anyone can see the hideous wrongness of this faith. It is like three people standing next to each other in a row: the first person is distinguished by a crown and a scepter; the second person's right hand is holding a book, which is the Word, while his left hand holds a golden cross spattered in blood; and the third person has wings strapped on and stands on one foot in an effort to fly off and take action. Over the three there is an inscription: These three people, each of whom is a god, are one God. Any wise man would see this picture and say to himself, "That's ridiculously unrealistic!"
He would say something very different if he saw a picture of one divine person whose head was surrounded with rays of heavenly light, with the inscription: This is our God - our Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator in one, and therefore our Savior. He would kiss this picture and take it home next to his heart, and when he and his wife and their children and servants would look at it they would feel uplifted.

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 638

638
The apostolic church, which worshiped the Lord God Jesus Christ, and at the same time God the Father in him, can be compared to the garden of God. Arius, who arose then, is like the serpent sent in from hell. The Council of Nicaea is like Adam's wife, who offered fruit to her husband and persuaded him to eat it. After eating the fruit, they appeared naked to themselves, so they covered their nakedness with fig leaves. Their nakedness symbolizes the innocence they had before that point. The fig leaves symbolize the truths belonging to their earthly self, which were falsified more and more.
That early church can also be compared to the twilight before dawn and the early morning, and on through the day until late afternoon. Then dark clouds came up, lasting until evening and continuing into the night. During the night, some places saw the moon rise. Some of the people in those places saw something in the Word in the light of the moon, but the rest continued on into such thick darkness of night that they could no longer see anything of divinity in the Lord's humanity, even though Paul says that "all the fullness of divinity dwells physically in Jesus Christ" (Colossians 2:9), and John says that "the Son of God who was sent into the world is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20).
[2] The early or apostolic church could never have guessed that a church was yet to come that would say there is one God but worship three gods at heart; separate goodwill from faith; separate forgiveness of sins from repentance and the effort to lead a new life; and conclude we are completely powerless in spiritual matters. Least of all would they have guessed that some Arius would raise his head, and once dead, would rise again and secretly rule the church to the bitter end.

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 337

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1
The Faith That Saves Us
Is Faith in the Lord God Our Savior Jesus Christ

The faith that saves is faith in God our Savior, because he is divine and human. He is in the Father and the Father is in him; therefore they are one. If we turn to him, we are turning to the Father as well - to the one only God. Faith in any other god does not save us.
We are to believe or have faith in the Son of God, the Redeemer and Savior, conceived by Jehovah and born from the Virgin Mary, who is named Jesus Christ. This is clear from commands that he, and later his apostles, frequently repeated.
The following passages make it clear that he himself commanded us to have faith in him:

Jesus said, "This is the will of the Father who sent me, that all who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life, and I will revive them on the last day." (John 6:40)

Those who believe in the Son have eternal life. Those who do not believe in the Son will not see life; instead God's anger will remain upon them. (John 3:36)

So that all who believe in the Son would not perish but would have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him would not perish but would have eternal life. (John 3:15, 16)

Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will never die." (John 11:25, 26)

Truly, truly I say to you, those who believe in me have eternal life. I am the bread of life. (John 6:47, 48)

I am the bread of life. Those who come to me will never hunger and those who believe in me will never thirst. (John 6:35)

Jesus cried out, saying, "If any are thirsty, they must come to me and drink. If any believe in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow out of their bellies." (John 7:37, 38)

They said to Jesus, "What shall we do to perform the works of God?" Jesus answered, "This is God's work, to believe in the One whom the Father sent." (John 6:28, 29)

As long as you have the light, believe in the light so that you may be children of the light. (John 12:36)

Those who believe in the Son of God are not judged; but those who do not believe have already been judged because they have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18)

These things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and through believing may have life in his name. (John 20:31)

Unless you have believed that I am [he], you will die in your sins. (John 8:24)

Jesus said, "When the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, has come, it will convict the world of sin, of justice, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in me." (John 16:8, 9)

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 637

637
In those early times, all who were then part of the Christian world acknowledged that the Lord Jesus Christ was God and that he had all power in heaven and on earth and power over all flesh, as he himself says (Matthew 28:18; John 17:2). In obedience to his command from God the Father, they believed in him (John 3:15, 16, 36; 6:40; 11:25, 26). The truth of this is obvious from the fact that when Arius and his followers began denying the divinity of our Lord and Savior who was born from the Virgin Mary, the emperor Constantine the Great called together all the bishops in order to convict and condemn that position, using Sacred Scripture. The bishops did indeed accomplish this, but to avoid a wolf they stumbled onto a lion, or as the saying goes, the one who tried to avoid Charybdis fell upon Scylla: They invented a Son of God from eternity, who descended and took on a human nature. They believed that by doing this they had rescued and restored the Lord's divinity. They did not realize that God himself, the Creator of the universe, had come down in order to become the Redeemer and therefore to be the Creator once again, according to the following clear statements in the Old Testament: Isaiah 25:9; 40:3, 5, 10, 11; 43:14; 44:6, 24; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7, 26; 60:16; 63:16; Jeremiah 50:34; Hosea 13:4; Psalms 19:14.

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 170

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3. 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 rose from 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.

Doctrine of the Lord (Dick) n. 35

35. 6. THE LORD SUCCESSIVELY PUT OFF THE HUMAN ASSUMED FROM THE MOTHER, AND PUT ON THE HUMAN FROM THE DIVINE IN HIMSELF. THIS IS THE DIVINE HUMAN, AND THE SON OF GOD. It is known that the Lord had a Divine and a Human, a Divine from Jehovah the Father, and a Human from the Virgin Mary. Consequently, He was both God and Man, and thus had a Divine Essence and a Human Nature; the Divine Essence from the Father, and the Human Nature from the mother. Hence He was equal to the Father as to the Divine, and inferior to the Father as to the Human. Moreover, He did not transmute this Human Nature from the mother into the Divine Essence, nor did He mingle it with the Divine Essence. This is taught by the doctrine of faith, called the Athanasian Creed. For the Human Nature cannot be transmuted into the Divine Essence, nor can it be commingled with this Essence.

[2] Yet in accordance with the same Creed is our doctrine that the Divine assumed the Human, that is, united it to itself, as the soul is united to its body, so that they were not two but one Person. From this it follows that the Lord put off the Human from the mother, which in itself was like the human of any other man and consequently material, and put on the Human from the Father, which in itself was like His Divine and consequently substantial*; so that the Human also was made Divine. Hence it is that, in the Prophetical Word, the Lord is called, even as to the Human, Jehovah and God; and in the Gospels, He is called Lord, God, the Messiah or Christ, and the Son of God, on whom men must believe, and by whom they are to be saved.

[3] Now, since the Lord had from the beginning a Human from the mother, which He put off successively, therefore, while He was in the world, He had two states, called the state of humiliation or exinanition,** and the state of glorification or union with the Divine which is called the Father. He was in the state of humiliation so far as, and when, He was in the Human from the mother; and He was in the state of glorification so far as, and when, He was in the Human from the Father. In the state of humiliation He prayed to the Father as to a being distinct from Himself; but in the state of glorification He spoke with the Father as with Himself. In this latter state He said that the Father was in Him, and He in the Father, and that the Father and He were One; but in the state of humiliation He underwent temptations and suffered the cross, and prayed to the Father not to forsake Him: for the Divine could not be tempted, still less could it suffer the cross. From these considerations it is now evident that, by temptations and continual victories in them, and by the passion of the cross, which was the last of the temptations, He fully conquered the hells, and fully glorified the Human, as was shown above.

[4] That the Lord put off the Human from the mother, and put on the Human from the Divine in Himself which is called the Father, is manifest also from this circumstance that, whenever He actually spoke to the mother, He did not call her "Mother", but "Woman". There are only three occasions recorded in the Gospels when the Lord actually spoke to the mother, or mentioned her. On two of these He called her "Woman", and on the third He did not acknowledge her as His mother. He twice called her "Woman", as we read in John:

The mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. John ii [3], 4.

And in the same,

Jesus from the cross, seeing His mother and the disciple standing by whom He loved, saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son!
Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother! John xix 26, 27.

On one occasion He did not acknowledge her, as we read in Luke,

It was told Jesus by certain who said, Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee.
Jesus answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these who hear the Word of God, and do it. Luke viii 20, 21; Matt. xii 46-49; Mark iii 31-35.

In other places Mary is called His mother, but not from His own mouth.

[5] This is also confirmed by the fact that He did not acknowledge
Himself to be the Son of David; for we read in the Gospels:

Jesus asked the Pharisees, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? They say unto Him, The Son of David.
He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call Him his
Lord, saying,
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?
If then David call Him Lord, how is He his Son?
And no man was able to answer Him a word. Matt. xii 41, 46; Mark xii 35-37; Luke xx 41-44; Ps. cx 1.

From these passages it is evident that the Lord, as to His glorified Human, was the Son neither of Mary nor of David. [6] The nature of His glorified Human He showed to Peter, James and John when

He was transfigured before them; and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light;
And then a voice out of the cloud said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. Matt. xvii 1-8; Mark ix 2-8; Luke ix 28-36.

The Lord was also seen by John,

As the sun shining in his strength. Rev. i 16.

[7] That the Lord's Human was glorified is evident from what is said of His glorification in the Gospels, as from these passages:

In John:

The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified.
He said, Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. John xii 23, 28.

Because the Lord was glorified successively, therefore it is said, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again."

In the same Gospel:

After Judas was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. ... God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him. John xiii 31, 32

And in the same:

Jesus said, Father the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. John xvii 1, 5

And in Luke:

Ought not Christ to have suffered this, and to enter into His glory? Luke xxiv 26.

These words are said concerning His Human.

[8] The Lord said, God is glorified in Him; and also, God will glorify Him in Himself; and, further, Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. These things the Lord said, because the union of the Divine with the Human, and of the Human with the Divine was reciprocal. Therefore also He had said,

I am in the Father, and the Father in me. John xiv 10, 11;

And also,

All mine are thine, and all thine are mine. John xvii 10.

Thus the union was complete. It is the same with all union: it is not complete unless it is reciprocal. Such also must be the union of the Lord with man, and of man with the Lord, as He teaches in John:

At that day ye shall know that ... ye are in me and I in you. John xiv 20

And in another place,

Abide in me, and I in you ...
He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. John xv 4, 5.

[9] Since the Lord's Human was glorified, that is, made Divine, therefore, after death He rose again on the third day with His whole body. This does not happen to any man, for man rises again only as to his spirit, and not as to his body. In order that man might know, and that no one might doubt, that the Lord rose again with His whole body, He not only declared it by the angels who were in the sepulchre, but He also showed Himself in His Human body before the disciples, saying to them, when they believed that they saw a spirit,

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His bands and His feet. Luke xxiv 39, 40; John xx 20.

And further:

Jesus said to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing ...
Then said Thomas, My Lord and my God. John xx 27, 28.

[10] That the Lord might still further prove that He was not a spirit, but a Man, He said to the disciples,

Have ye here any meat?
And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb.
And He took it, and did eat before them. Luke xxiv 41-43.

Since His body was not now material, but Divine substantial, therefore

He came into the disciples, the doors being shut. John xx 19, 26.

And after He had been seen,

He became invisible (A.V. vanished out of their sight). Luke xxiv 31.

As the Lord was now of such a nature [that is, Divine], He was taken up, and sat on the right hand of God; for it is said in Luke:

And it came to pass while Jesus blessed the disciples, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. Luke xxiv 51;

And in Mark:

After He had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. Mark xvi 19.

To sit on the right hand of God signifies Divine Omnipotence.

[11] Since the Lord ascended into heaven and sat on the right hand of God, by which is signified Divine Omnipotence, with the Divine and the Human united into one, it follows that His Human substance or essence is as His Divine Essence. To suppose otherwise would be like thinking that His Divine was taken up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God, and not the Human at the same time. This, however, is contrary to Scripture, and also contrary to the Christian doctrine, which is, that God and Man in Christ are as the soul and the body; and to separate these would be contrary to sound reason. This union of the Father with the Son, or of the Divine with the Human, is also meant in the following passages:

I came forth from the Father and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. John xvi 28.

I go away and come unto Him that sent me. John vii 33; xvi 5, 16; xvii 11, 13; xx 17.

If then, ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before? John vi 62.

No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven. John iii 13.

Every man who is saved does ascend into heaven, yet not of himself, but of the Lord. The Lord alone ascended of Himself.
*Substantial, formed of substance, that which stands under something prior to it, and upon which the prior thing rests and manifests itself in a posterior degree. Thus the spiritual world is a substantial world, its various degrees of life being successively derived from the spiritual Sun, which is itself the manifestation of the Originating Divine. Cf. Material, formed of matter the ultimate or lowest manifestation of substance in the physical or natural world.
** Exinanition, the state during which the maternal heredity was being put off.

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The ideas on this site are based on the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18^th-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.

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