Could there be reasons for the humble, vulnerable beginnings of Jesus’s life?

In this video from his Swedenborg and Life web series, host Curtis Childs and featured guests explore how the Divine design may have been at play from the very beginning of Christ's life.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 706 [12]; Luke 2:8-12; The Word 7; True Christian Religion 89, 90, 96, 766)

764. After This Night Comes the Morning, Which Is the Lord's Coming

Since the successive stages of the church on both a large and a small scale are described in the Word as the four seasons of the year (spring, summer, fall, and winter) and as the four times of day (morning, afternoon, evening, and night), and since the modern-day church, which is Christianity, is the night, it follows that now the morning is at hand. The morning is the beginning of a new church.

The following passages make it clear that the Word describes the successive stages of the church as the four parts of the day, which are determined by light.

Through the evening and the morning, for two thousand three hundred [days], what is holy will be made just. The vision of the evening and the morning is the truth. (Daniel 8:14, 26)

Someone was crying out to me from Seir, "Watchman, watchman, what of the night?" The watchman replied, "Morning is coming, but so is the night. " (Isaiah 21:11-12)

The end has come. The morning is upon you, O you who dwell in the land. Behold, the day has come; the morning is over. (Ezekiel 7:6-7, 10)

In the morning, in the morning Jehovah will bring his judgment to light; it will not be lacking. (Zephaniah 3:5)

God is in her midst. God will help her when she looks for the morning. (Psalms 46:5)

I have been waiting for Jehovah. My soul waits for the Lord like those who watch for the morning. They watch for the morning because with him there is the most redemption. He will redeem Israel. (Psalms 130:5-8)

[2] In the passages just quoted evening and night mean the time when the church is at an end; morning means the time when the church is just beginning.

The Lord himself is also called the Morning, as we see in the following passages:

The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me, "He was like the morning light, a morning without clouds. " (2 Samuel 23:3-4)

I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the shining morning star. (Revelation 22:16)

From the womb of your dawn comes the dew of your youth. (Psalms 110:3)

These quotations are about the Lord. Since the Lord is the Morning, he rose from the tomb first thing in the morning, in order to begin a new church (Mark 16:2, 9).

[3] What the Lord says about his Coming makes it obvious that we are to await it:

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him and said, "Tell us what the sign of your Coming and of the close of the age will be. " (Matthew 24:3)

Immediately after the affliction of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Humankind will appear, and they will see the Son of Humankind coming in the clouds of heaven with power and glory. (Matthew 24:29-30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27)

Like the days of Noah, so will the Coming of the Son of Humankind be. Therefore be prepared, because you do not know at what hour the Son of Humankind will come. (Matthew 24:37, 39, 44)

In Luke:

When the Son of Humankind comes, will he find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8)

In John:

Jesus said of John, "If I want him to remain until I come . . . " (John 21:22-23)

[4] In the Acts of the Apostles:

When they saw Jesus taken up into heaven, two men were standing near them in white clothes. They said, "Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way you saw him go up to heaven. " (Acts of the Apostles 1:9-11)

In the Book of Revelation:

The Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show his servants what must happen. "Behold, I am coming. Blessed are those who keep the commandments of this book. Behold, I am coming, and my reward is with me, to give to all according to their works. " (Revelation 22:6-7, 12)

And from the same chapter:

I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, a shining morning star. The spirit and the bride say, "Come. " And those who hear, say, "Come. " And those who are thirsty, come. Those who wish to, take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:16-17)

And again in the same chapter:

He who testifies to these things says, "I am indeed coming. " Amen. Do indeed come, Lord Jesus! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. (Revelation 22:20-21)

90. People who are not aware that Divine omnipotence proceeds and works in accordance with order can be led by their imagination to form many ideas contrary to sound reason, and even contradictory ones. For instance, why did God not take upon Himself human form immediately, without advancing through these stages? Why did He not gather the elements from the four quarters of the world to create and make up a body, so that He could display Himself as God-Man to the Jewish people, or rather to the whole world? Or, if He wished to be born, why did He not pour His whole divinity into the embryo or Himself as a child; or why did He not at once after being born raise Himself to adult stature, and speak from Divine Wisdom? Those who think about Divine omnipotence devoid of order, may conceive and bring forth these and similar ideas, and so fill the church with nonsense and rubbish; which is what has happened. For instance, the idea that God could have fathered a Son from eternity, and arranged for a third God to proceed even at that point in time from Himself and His Son. Or that He could become angry with the human race, consign it to destruction, and be willing to be brought back to pitying it through the Son, and to do this through His intercession and the memory of His crucifixion;

[2] and then go on to put His Son's righteousness into a person, and plant it in his heart like Wolff's ¹ simple substance, in which according to that author all the Son's merits are present, but which cannot be divided, since if it were, it would collapse to nothing. Or further that He can remit anyone's sins He wishes, as it were by a Papal bull, or cleanse the worst sinner from his black wickedness, and thus turn a swarthy devil into a shining angel of light, without a person shifting himself any more than a stone, but standing still like a statue or an idol. Not to mention many other crazy notions, which those who set up Divine power as absolute, unhindered by the knowledge or acknowledgment of any order, may toss out like a winnower tossing chaff into the air. These people may in spiritual matters, those, that is, which concern heaven, the church and so everlasting life, stray from Divine truths like a blind man in a wood, who at one time stumbles over rocks, at another hits his forehead on a tree, at another gets his hair entangled in its branches.

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