119. That the church is called mother is apparent from the following passages:

(Jehovah said,) "Contend with your mother...; ...she is not My wife, and I am not her Husband." (Hosea 2:2)

"You are the daughter of your mother, who loathes her Husband...." (Ezekiel 16:45)

"Where is the certificate of your mother's divorce, whom I have put away?" (Isaiah 50:1)

Your mother was like a vine..., planted by the waters, fruitful.... (Ezekiel 19:10)

"Mother" in those places refers to the Jewish Church.

(Jesus, stretching out His hand toward His disciples, said,) "My mother and My brothers are they who hear the word of God and do it." (Luke 8:21, cf. Matthew 12:48-50, Mark 3:33-35)

The church is meant by the Lord's disciples.

By the cross of Jesus stood His mother.... (And) Jesus...seeing His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, (also) said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" And He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" (Therefore) from that hour the disciple took her into his own [home]. (John 19:25-27)

The meaning here is that the Lord did not acknowledge Mary but the church as His mother. That is why He calls her "woman" and names her the mother of the disciple. He named her the mother of this disciple, John, because John represented the church in respect to its good acts of charity. These good acts are the church in actual practice. Therefore it is said that the disciple took Mary into his own [home].

(We explained in The Apocalypse Revealed that Peter represented truth and faith, James charity, and John works of charity - see nos. 5, 6, 790, 798, 879 - and that the twelve disciples together represented the church in all its elements - see nos. 233, 790 [798?], 903, 915.)

221. We can disclose two secrets here which as a result of the foregoing fall within the scope of the intellect.

The first secret is that the Word exists in its fullness and power in the sense of the letter. For the Word contains three levels or degrees of meaning: a celestial meaning, a spiritual meaning, and a natural meaning. Since these levels of meaning exist in accordance with three degrees of height, and they are connected by correspondences, it happens therefore not only that the last meaning - which is natural and is called the sense of the letter - embraces, contains, and is the foundation of the interior, corresponding meanings, but also that the Word exists in its fullness and power in its last meaning. (That this is the case we have shown and confirmed many times in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture 27-35, 36-49, 50-61, 62-69.)

[2] The second secret is that the Lord came into the world and took on human form in order to put Himself into the power of subjugating the hells and of reducing to order all things both in the heavens and on earth.

This humanity He put on over His prior humanity. The humanity that He put on in the world over His prior humanity was like the humanity of a person in the world, each being, however, Divine and thus infinitely surpassing the finite humanity of angels and people. Moreover, because He fully glorified His natural humanity even to the lasts of it, therefore He rose again with the whole body as no other person does. By assuming this humanity the Lord took on the limitless Divine power not only of subjugating the hells and reducing the heavens to order, but also of keeping the hells subjugated to eternity and saving humankind. This power is meant by His sitting at the right hand of the power and might of God. ¹

[3] Since by assuming a natural humanity the Lord made Himself Divine truth in the lasts of creation, therefore He is called the Word, ² and we are told that the Word became flesh. ³ Divine truth in the lasts of creation is the Word in the sense of the letter. The Lord made Himself this Divine truth by fulfilling all the prophecies of the Word concerning Him in the Old Testament. For every person is an embodiment of the good and truth in him. It is this alone that makes a person human. In the Lord's case, however, by assuming a natural humanity He became the embodiment of Divine good and truth itself, or to say the same thing, the embodiment of Divine love and wisdom itself, both in the firsts of creation and in the lasts of it. Consequently, in the angelic heavens He appears as the sun with a more intense radiance and with greater splendor since His advent into the world than before His advent.

This is a secret which may fall within the scope of the intellect as a result of the doctrine of degrees presented here.

As regards the Lord's omnipotence before His advent into the world, about this we will say something in subsequent discussions.

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