Apocalypse Revealed # 504
504. Where also our Lord was crucified. This symbolizes a failure to acknowledge the Lord's Divine humanity, and thus a state in which He is rejected.
It is a saying in the church that people who blaspheme the Lord, crucify Him, and that so, too, do those who, like the Jews, deny that He is the Son of God.
People who deny that the Lord's humanity is Divine are like Jews because everyone views the Lord as a person, and anyone who views His humanity as on par with the humanity of any other person is incapable then of thinking of His Divinity, no matter how often this is called the Son of God, born from eternity, coequal with the Divinity of the Father. When he is told this or hears it read, it penetrates his hearing, indeed, but not at the same time his belief, since he thinks of the Lord as being a material person like any other man, retaining the same properties of the flesh. And because he then sets the Lord's Divinity aside and pays it no attention, he is therefore in the same state as he would be if he denied it; for he denies that the Lord's humanity is the Son of God, even as the Jews did also, for which reason they crucified Him. That the Lord's humanity is nevertheless the Son of God is something plainly said in Luke 1:32, 35, Matthew 3:16-17, and elsewhere.
[2] It is apparent from this why people in the church turn directly to God the Father, and many also to the Holy Spirit, and rarely anyone directly to the Lord.
Since the Jews crucified the Lord owing to their denial that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, therefore their Jerusalem is also called Sodom (Isaiah 3:9, Jeremiah 23:14, Ezekiel 16:46, 48). And the Lord says,
On the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:29-30)
What the fire and brimstone are may be seen in no. 452, 494.
Matthew 4
1
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2
When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward.
3
The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."
4
But he answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'"
5
Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple,
6
and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will put his angels in charge of you.' and, 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you don't dash your foot against a stone.'"
7
Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written, 'You shall not test the Lord, your God.'"
8
Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory.
9
He said to him, "I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me."
10
Then Jesus said to him, "Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.'"
11
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and served him.
12
Now when Jesus heard that John was delivered up, he withdrew into Galilee.
13
Leaving Nazareth, he came and lived in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,
14
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying,
15
"The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,
16
the people who sat in darkness saw a great light, to those who sat in the region and shadow of death, to them light has dawned."
17
From that time, Jesus began to preach, and to say, "Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."
18
Walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers: Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.
19
He said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers for men."
20
They immediately left their nets and followed him.
21
Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them.
22
They immediately left the boat and their father, and followed him.
23
Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Good News of the Kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness among the people.
24
The report about him went out into all Syria. They brought to him all who were sick, afflicted with various diseases and torments, possessed with demons, epileptics, and paralytics; and he healed them.
25
Great multitudes from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and from beyond the Jordan followed him.
