True Christian Religion # 583
583. IV. The process of regeneration is on the model of a person's conception, gestation in the womb, birth and upbringing.
The natural and spiritual events in a person's life, that is, what happens to his body and what to his spirit, are so ordered as permanently to correspond. The reason is that a person is by birth spiritual as regards his soul, and he is clothed with a natural form which is constituted by his material body. When therefore this is laid aside, his soul, clothed in his spiritual body, comes into the world where all things are spiritual, and there associates with people like him. Now the spiritual body has to be formed in the material one, a process accomplished by the inflow of truths and various kinds of good from the Lord through the spiritual world. These are inwardly received by the person in such things belonging to the natural world as are called civil and moral; so it is evident how the process of formation takes place. Because, as already said, there is a permanent correspondence between the natural and spiritual events in a person's life, it follows that this process must resemble his conception, gestation in the womb, birth and upbringing. That is why natural births in the Word mean spiritual births, that is, the birth of good and truth. For whatever stands in the literal or natural sense of the Word, enfolds and stands for something spiritual. I demonstrated fully in the chapter on the Sacred Scripture that every detail of the literal sense of the Word contains a spiritual sense.
[2] The natural births mentioned in the Word refer to spiritual births, as is evident from the following passages.
We have conceived, we have given birth, we have as it were brought forth [wind], we have not done what is sound, Isaiah 26:18.
At the presence of the Lord you give birth 1 , O earth, Psalms 114:7.
Has the earth given birth in one day? Shall I break and not bring to birth, and cause to give birth but close 2 up the womb? Isaiah 66:7-10. Sin gives birth and No shall be on the point of being breached, Ezekiel 30:16.
The pangs of childbirth shall come upon Ephraim. He is an unwise child, because at the right time he does not stand in the womb of sons, Hosea 13:12-13.
There are many other similar passages. Since natural births in the Word mean spiritual births, and these are the Lord's work, He is called He who forms and brings out of the womb. This is clear from these passages among others:
Jehovah your maker and who forms you from the womb, Isaiah 44:2.
He who brings me from the womb, Psalms 22:9.
I have been placed upon you from the womb, from my mother's inmost parts it was you who brought me forth, Psalms 71:6.
Pay attention to me, you who were carried by the belly, borne by the womb, Isaiah 46:3.
This is why the Lord is called 'Father' (as at Isaiah 9:6; 63:16, John 10:30; 14:8-9), and those who are in possession of good and truth from Him are called 'sons', 'born of God' and 'brothers' among themselves (Matthew 23:8-9). It is also why the church is called 'mother' (Hosea 2:2, 5; Ezekiel 16:45).
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. Reading parturis for parturit, as elsewhere when this verse is quoted.
2. 'not close' in the Latin, but corrected in the author's copy.
John 15
1
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
2
Every branch in me that doesn't bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3
You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4
Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can't bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.
5
I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
6
If a man doesn't remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7
If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you.
8
"In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples.
9
Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love.
10
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and remain in his love.
11
I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12
"This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
13
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14
You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.
15
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn't know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
16
You didn't choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17
"I command these things to you, that you may love one another.
18
If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19
If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20
Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his lord.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
21
But all these things will they do to you for my name's sake, because they don't know him who sent me.
22
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23
He who hates me, hates my Father also.
24
If I hadn't done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn't have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father.
25
But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.'
26
"When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.
27
You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
