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Ephesians 2

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1 And to you did he give life, when you were dead through your wrongdoing and sins,

2 In which you were living in the past, after the ways of this present world, doing the pleasure of the lord of the power of the air, the spirit who is now working in those who go against the purpose of God;

3 Among whom we all at one time were living in the pleasures of our flesh, giving way to the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and the punishment of God was waiting for us even as for the rest.

4 But God, being full of mercy, through the great love which he had for us,

5 Even when we were dead through our sins, gave us life together with Christ (by grace you have salvation),

6 So that we came back from death with him, and are seated with him in the heavens, in Christ Jesus;

7 That in the time to come he might make clear the full wealth of his grace in his mercy to us in Christ Jesus:

8 Because by grace you have salvation through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is given by God:

9 Not by works, so that no man may take glory to himself.

10 For by his act we were given existence in Christ Jesus to do those good works which God before made ready for us so that we might do them.

11 For this reason keep it in mind that in the past you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are looked on as being outside the circumcision by those who have circumcision, in the flesh, made by hands;

12 That you were at that time without Christ, being cut off from any part in Israel's rights as a nation, having no part in God's agreement, having no hope, and without God in the world.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who at one time were far off are made near in the blood of Christ.

14 For he is our peace, who has made the two into one, and by whom the middle wall of division has been broken down,

15 Having in his flesh put an end to that which made the division between us, even the law with its rules and orders, so that he might make in himself, of the two, one new man, so making peace;

16 And that the two might come into agreement with God in one body through the cross, so putting an end to that division.

17 And he came preaching peace to you who were far off, and to those who were near;

18 Because through him the two of us are able to come near in one Spirit to the Father.

19 So then you are no longer as those who have no part or place in the kingdom of God, but you are numbered among the saints, and of the family of God,

20 Resting on the base of the Apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief keystone,

21 In whom all the building, rightly joined together, comes to be a holy house of God in the Lord;

22 In whom you, with the rest, are united together as a living-place of God in the Spirit.

   

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Divine Love and Wisdom #24

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24. We may not be aware of it, but we all think of an aggregation of people as a single individual. So we understand right away when someone says that monarchs are the head and that their subjects are the body, or when someone says that this or that individual has some particular role in the body politic, that is, in the realm. It is the same with the spiritual body as with the civil. The spiritual body is the church, whose head is the Divine-Human One. We can see from this what kind of person a church would look like under this construct if we were to think not of one God as creator and sustainer of the universe but of many gods instead. We would apparently be envisioning a single body with many heads on it--not a human being, then, but a monster.

If we were to claim that these heads have a single essence that made them all one head, then the only possible image would be either of a single head with many faces or of many heads with one face. In our perception, then, the church would look grotesque. In fact, one God is the head, and the church is the body that acts at the bidding of the head and not on its own, as is true of us as well.

This is also why there is only one monarch per realm. More than one would pull it apart; one holds it together.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.