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Divine Human

От New Christian Bible Study Staff, Julian Duckworth

The Divine needs to connect with what's been created, especially to what is human. Since the Divine Itself is, in its essence, beyond human comprehension, we can see and know it from its visible forms which are the Word, Jesus Christ, the created universe, and even the the human mind and body. These and many other things express the Divine Human.

To understand this further, imagine that you are completely paralyzed, to the point that you can’t make a sound or even move your eyes or the muscles of your face. Someone you love walks up to you. Inside, you feel a surge of affection. But how can you show it? You can’t say it, can’t smile, can’t even form an expression in your eyes. It can’t be done; you have no communication at all.

To be expressed, then, love needs a vessel, something capable of communication. That vessel is what Swedenborg calls the “human.”

For us, in the physical world, that “human” is in the form of our physical bodies. Through them we can smile, laugh, speak, hug, kiss, write - and can also strike out, shout in anger and criticize. Our bodies are the vessels that let us share what’s inside with the people around us. Through our bodies we also see, hear and feel the things inside others. They are the mode through which we interact.

But imagine if you could read minds, and could allow your mind to be read by others. You would no longer need your body as a vessel, but the things you shared would still be human; they would be human thoughts, human feelings, human ideas, still distinctly your own and reflective of the kind of person you are. You’d still have a “human,” but it would be your mind instead of your body.

That can give us some idea of what the Lord’s “human” is: it is the vessel through which we can receive His love and His guidance. It’s not something physical, like our human bodies, but is spiritual, as our minds are spiritual. And it puts His love into feelings, images and ideas, just as our minds do.

Put that way, it’s easy to see that the Lord’s humanity has always been, and was indeed an agent of creation: in creating the universe, the Lord used his human to give form to His love, forms that would be separate from Him, forms that He could love. It’s also easy to see that His humanity will always be: He is love itself, and that love will always need a vessel.

The Lord’s “human” also fills another great need. We are finite; the Lord is infinite. We live in a world of dead physical matter; the Lord is life itself. We are born into selfish loves; the Lord loves us infinitely. We live in time and space and can only think in terms of time and space; the Lord is outside of time and space, uncontained and uncontainable. For these and many other reasons the Lord, in His essence, is inconceivable to us; we have no mental tools to form an idea of the infinite. We can, however, think of the Lord as a human, and can thus worship him in the form of His divine human. By relating his love to us, his humanity makes it possible for us to relate to Him.

That leaves one great question: what about Jesus? He was human, but also kind of God, too. How does that relate to the idea of the divine human?

The answer lies in how we receive what the Lord gives us, and how that reception has changed over the millennia.

The Lord’s love is conveyed to us through the divine human in the form of what Swedenborg calls “divine truth,” which is essentially the Lord’s thoughts, His ideas. These thoughts are, of course, all about love, and are filled to overflowing with His love.

The earliest people, those of what Swedenborg calls the “Most Ancient Church,” could receive those thoughts directly, and accept the love in them directly. From this they were pure and innocent to a degree we can barely imagine, with wisdom and insight that sprang from the love they shared.

As people drew away from the Lord, though, their ability to accept the love contained within the divine truth began to degrade. In what Swedenborg calls the “Ancient Church” people received it in the form of love of one another, and accessed it through powerfully symbolic stories and the symbolism of nature. Finally, with the Children of Israel, the love and the truth were almost completely separated, with the Lord’s ideas contained within ritual, but His inspiration to be good operating in a disconnected way. Ultimately those people grew so evil that the desire for good was in danger of being choked off forever.

So the Lord rendered his “human” into physical flesh, born as a child to the virgin Mary. As always, that human was a vessel for the Lord’s love, but it was a vessel that could share divine truth in a tangible way. Swedenborg’s works say that Jesus spent his life stripping away His mortal aspects by battling temptations, and was a form of divine truth when He began His ministry. During His ministry he stripped away his mortal loves, until in the final temptation on the cross he was fully reunited with the divine love that was His soul. In His ministry, then, he shared His deepest ideas, and in His death He shared the love that formed and filled those ideas. It was enough to save humankind forever.

In doing this the Lord also changed His relationship with us. He gave us deeper truths about how to be loving, and taught us that love is more important than ritual. He also opened for us the idea that the Bible is full of deeper and richer meanings: that it is itself a form of divine truth. With these tools we now have the ability to use the Lord’s ideas as a key to accept His love. By knowing what’s right, knowing what the Lord teaches, we can compel ourselves to act in loving ways even if we don’t feel the love, and the Lord will use that to reform us so that we come to actually love what is good.

So the Divine Human is still a vessel for the Lord’s love, as it has always been. It’s a vessel that has adapted according to our needs and the paths the Lord can use to draw us toward heaven.

(Препратки: Apocalypse Explained 26, 151; Apocalypse Revealed 613; Arcana Coelestia 2716, 3061 [2-3], 4180 [5-6], 4687 [2-3], 4724 [2-4], 4735 [2-3], 6280 [1-6], 6804 [4], 6831, 7211, 9303, 10067 [3], 10267, 10356; Divine Love and Wisdom 14-17-18-22, 52, 285; Heaven and Hell 80, 101; On the Athanasian Creed 27, 62, 209)

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Apocalypse Explained #150

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150. Verse 18. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, signifies those of the church with whom the internal and the external, or the spiritual and natural man, make one. This is evident from what is written to this angel understood in the internal sense, which treats of the conjunction of the internal or spiritual man with the external or natural man, or concerning those of the church in whom these are conjoined. In every man there is an internal and an external; his internal is what is called the spiritual man, the external what is called the natural man. When man is born, the external or natural man is first opened; and afterwards, as he grows up and is perfected in intelligence and wisdom, the internal or spiritual man is opened. The external or natural man is opened by such things as man derives from the world, while the internal or spiritual man is opened by such things as he derives from heaven; for the external or natural man is formed for receiving such things as are in the world, but the internal or spiritual man for receiving such things as are in heaven. The things in the world, for receiving which the external or natural man is formed, have reference, in general, to all things of civil and moral life; while the things in heaven, for receiving which the internal or spiritual man is formed, have reference, in general, to all things of love and faith.

[2] Since there are these two in man, and each separately must be opened by means proper to it, it is clear that unless the internal is opened by its proper means man continues merely natural, and his internal in that case is closed. But those with whom the internal is closed are not men of the church; for the church with man is formed through communication with heaven: and there is no communication with heaven unless man's internal is opened by its proper means, all which have reference, as was said above, to love and faith. It is to be known, moreover, that with the man of the church, that is, the man who has been regenerated by the Lord by means of truths called truths of faith and by means of a life according to them, the internal and external or the spiritual and natural man are conjoined, and that this conjunction is effected by correspondences. (The nature of correspondences, and therefore the nature of the conjunction effected by them can be seen from what is shown about them in the Arcana Coelestia, and cited from that work inThe Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 261 .)

[3] Now since a man does not become a man of the church until his internal or spiritual man has been opened and until this has been conjoined with the external or natural man, those within the church in whom this conjunction is effected are now treated of; for (as was said above, in n. 20, by "the seven churches" are not meant seven churches, but all in general who are of the Lord's church; consequently what is written to the angel of each church treats of such things as constitute the church; here, therefore, that is, "to the angel of the church of Thyatira," the internal and external are treated of, and the conjunction of the two in those of the church. (But as hitherto it has not been known that these two are actually in man, and that they must be opened and conjoined that man may be a man of the church; and as these things cannot be made clear in a few words, therefore they have been treated of in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 36-53, 179-182)

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.