Table of Contents

Part 1:

1. Love is our life. §§1-3

2. God alone—the Lord—is love itself, because he is life itself. Both we on earth and angels are life-receivers. §§4-6

3. Divinity is not in space. §§7-10

4. God is the essential person. §§11-13

5. In the Divine-Human One, reality and its manifestation are both distinguishable and united. §§14-16

6. In the Divine-Human One, infinite things are distinguishably one. §§17-22

7. There is one human God who is the source of everything. §§23-27

8. The true divine essence is love and wisdom. §§28-33

9. Divine love is a property of divine wisdom, and divine wisdom is a property of divine love. §§34-39

10. Divine love and wisdom is substance and is form. §§40-43

11. Divine love and wisdom are substance and form in and of themselves, and are therefore wholly “itself” and unique. §§44-46

12. Divine love and wisdom cannot fail to be and to be manifested in others that it has created. §§47-51

13. Everything in the universe was created by the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. §§52-54

14. Everything in the created universe is a vessel for the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. §§55-60

15. All the things that have been created reflect the human in some respect. §§61-64

16. The useful functions of everything created tend upward, step by step, from the lowest to us, and through us to God the Creator, their source. §§65-68

17. Divinity fills all space in the universe nonspatially. §§69-72

18. Divinity is in all time, nontemporally. §§73-76

19. Divinity is the same in the largest and smallest things. §§77-82

Part 2:

20. In the spiritual world, divine love and wisdom look like a sun. §§83-88

21. Warmth and light emanates from the sun that arises from divine love and wisdom. §§89-92

22. That sun is not God. Rather, it is an emanation from the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. The same is true of warmth and light from that sun. §§93-98

23. The spiritual warmth and light that result from the emanation from the Lord as the sun form a single whole just as his divine love and wisdom do. §§99-102

24. The sun of the spiritual world is seen at a middle elevation, as far from angels as our physical world’s sun is from us. §§103-107

25. The distance between the sun and angels in the spiritual world is an apparent distance that depends on their acceptance of divine love and wisdom. §§108-112

26. Angels are in the Lord and the Lord is in them; and since angels are vessels, the Lord alone is heaven. §§113-118

27. The east in the spiritual world is where the Lord is seen as the sun, and the other directions follow from that. §§119-123

28. The regions in the spiritual world are not caused by the Lord as the sun but by the angels, depending on their receptivity. §§124-128

29. Angels always face the Lord as the sun, so south is on their right, north on their left, and west behind them. §§129-134

30. Everything in the deeper reaches of angels’ minds and bodies alike is turned toward the Lord as the sun. §§135-139

31. Every kind of spirit turns toward her or his ruling love in the same way. §§140-145

32. The divine love and wisdom that emanate from the Lord as the sun and constitute heaven’s warmth and light is the emanating Divinity that is the Holy Spirit. §§146-150

33. The Lord created the universe and everything in it by means of that sun that is the first emanation of divine love and wisdom. §§151-156

34. The physical world’s sun is nothing but fire and is therefore dead; and since nature has its origin in that sun, nature is dead. §§157-162

35. There would be no creation if it were not for this pair of suns, one living and one dead. §§163-166

36. The goal of creation—that everything should return to the Creator and that there should be a union— becomes manifest in outermost forms. §§167-172

Part 3:

37. There are atmospheres, liquids, and solids in the spiritual world just as there are in the physical world, but they are spiritual, while ours are physical. §§173-178

38. There are levels of love and wisdom, consequent levels of warmth and light, and also levels of atmosphere. §§179-183

39. There are two kinds of levels, vertical levels and horizontal levels. §§184-188

40. Vertical levels are matched in kind, with one following from another in sequence like a purpose, a means, and a result. §§189-194

41. The first level is the sum and substance of all the levels. §§195-198

42. All processes of perfection increase and rise by and according to levels. §§199-204

43. In a sequential arrangement, the first level is the highest and the third the lowest, while in a simultaneous arrangement, the first level is the center and the third level is the circumference. §§205-208

44. The final level is the composite, vessel, and foundation of the prior levels. §§209-216

45. The vertical levels find their full realization and power in their final form. §§217-221

46. There are levels of both kinds in everything that has been created, no matter how large or small. §§222-229

47. There are three infinite and uncreated vertical levels in the Lord, and three finite and created levels in us. §§230-235

48. These three vertical levels exist in each of us from birth and can be opened in sequence. As they are opened, we are in the Lord and the Lord is in us. §§236-241

49. Spiritual light f lows in within us through three levels, but not spiritual warmth except to the extent that we abstain from evils as sins and turn to the Lord. §§242-247

50. If that higher level, the spiritual level, is not opened in us, we become focused on the physical world and our sense impressions. §§248-255

51. In its own right, the earthly level of the human mind is a continuum, but because of its responsiveness to the two higher levels, it seems to have distinct levels when it is raised up. §§256-259

52. The earthly mind, being the envelope and vessel of the higher levels of the human mind, is reactive. If the higher levels are not opened, it acts against them; whereas if they are opened, it acts with them. §§260-263

53. The origin of evil is in the abuse of the abilities proper to us called rationality and freedom. §§264-270

54. Evil and false things are absolutely opposed to good and true things because evil and false things are demonic and hellish, while good and true things are divine and heavenly. §§271-276

55. Everything in the three levels of the earthly mind is enclosed in the works that are done by our physical actions. §§277-281

Part 4:

56. The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, created the universe and everything in it not from nothing but from himself. §§282-284

57. The Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, could not have created the universe and everything in it except as a person. §§285-289

58. The Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, brought forth the sun of the spiritual world out of himself, and created the universe and all its contents from it. §§290-295

59. There are three things in the Lord that are the Lord—a divine element of love, a divine element of wisdom, and a divine element of service. These three things are made visible outside the sun of the spiritual world—the divine element of love through its warmth, the divine element of wisdom through its light, and the divine element of service through the atmospheres that enclose it. §§296-301

60. The atmospheres—three in number in each world, spiritual and physical—in their final forms terminate in the kinds of material substance characteristic of our earth. §§302-304

61. There is nothing of absolute Divinity in the material substances that make up earth, but they are still derived from absolute Divinity. §§305-306

62. All useful functions, which are the goals of creation, are in forms, and they get these forms from the material substances characteristic of earth. §§307-318

63. From a functional point of view, everything in the created universe is in our image; and this testifies that God is human. §§319-326

64. All of the Lord’s creations are useful functions; and they are useful functions in the sequence, on the level, and in the specific way that they relate to humanity and through humanity to the Lord, their source. §§327-335

65. Evil functions were not created by the Lord. Rather, they came into being along with hell. §§336-348

66. What we can see in the created universe bears witness to the fact that nature has brought forth nothing and contents ix brings forth nothing. Divinity brings forth everything from itself, and does so through the spiritual world. §§349-357

Part 5:

67. The Lord has created and formed within us two vessels and dwellings for himself called volition and discernment. Volition is for his divine love and discernment for his divine wisdom. §§358-361

68. Volition and discernment, the vessels of love and wisdom, are in the whole brain and every part of it and therefore in the whole body and every part of it. §§362-370

69. There is a correspondence between volition and the heart and between discernment and the lungs. §§371-393

70. From the correspondence of the heart with volition and the lungs with discernment, we can learn everything that can be known about volition and discernment or love and wisdom—everything, therefore, that can be known about the human soul. §§394-431

71. The nature of our first stage after conception. §432

40. Divine love and wisdom is substance and is form. The everyday concept of love and wisdom is that they are something floating around in, or breathed out by, thin air or ether. Hardly anyone considers that in reality and in function they are substance and form.

Even people who do see that love and wisdom are substance and form sense them as something outside their subject, flowing from it; and they refer to what in their perceptions is outside the subject and flowing from it as substance and form even though they sense it as floating around. They do not realize that love and wisdom are the actual subject, and that what they sense as floating out from the subject is only the appearance of the inherent state of the subject.

There are many reasons why this has not come to light before. One of them is that appearances are the first things the human mind draws on in forming its understanding, and the only way to dispel these appearances is through careful probing into cause. If a cause is deeply hidden, we cannot probe into it unless we keep our discernment in spiritual light for a protracted period of time; and we cannot hold it there for a long time because of the earthly light that keeps pulling us back.

Still, the truth is that love and wisdom are the real and functional substance and form that make up the very subject.

221. I am now allowed to disclose two secrets that can be brought within comprehension through what has just been said.

The first is that the Word finds its fullest expression and power in its literal meaning. There are three meanings in the Word answering to the three levels--a heavenly meaning, a spiritual meaning, and an earthly meaning. Since the Word contains these three meanings by the three vertical levels and their union is through correspondence, the final meaning, the earthly one that we call the literal meaning, is not only the composite, vessel, and foundation of the deeper, corresponding meanings, it is also the Word in its fullest expression and its full power. There is an abundance of evidence and support for this in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 27-35 [27-36], 36-49 [37-49], 50-61, and 62-69.

The second secret is that the Lord came into the world and took on a human nature in order to gain access to the power to conquer the hells and bring everything in the heavens and on earth back into order. He put on this human nature over the human nature he had before. The human nature he put on in the world was like our own worldly nature, but each nature was still divine and therefore infinitely transcendent of our own and angels' finite human nature. Further, since he completely transformed his physical human level all the way to its limits, he, unlike anyone else, rose from death with his whole body. By taking on this human nature he clothed himself with a divine omnipotence not only for the conquest of the hells and the reordering of the heavens but also for keeping the hells subject forever and saving us. This power is what is meant by his sitting at the right hand of the power and might of God.

Since the Lord made himself divine truth in ultimate form by taking on a physical human nature, he is called "the Word," and it says that the Word was made flesh. Divine truth in its ultimate form is the Word in its literal meaning. He made himself that Word by fulfilling everything about himself in the Word, in Moses and the prophets.

Everyone is his or her own good and true nature. Nothing else makes us human. Because he took on a physical human nature, the Lord is divine good and divine truth itself, or in other words, divine love and divine wisdom itself, in both their primal and their ultimate forms. This is why he looks like a sun in the angelic heavens with greater glory and fuller brilliance after his coming into the world than before his coming. This is a secret that can be brought within comprehension by the principle of levels.

I will be discussing later [233] his omnipotence before his coming into the world.