281. "Because You were slain and have redeemed us to God by Your blood." This symbolizes deliverance from hell and salvation by conjunction with the Lord.

We need not have recourse to the spiritual sense to explain the specific symbolic meanings of the particulars here, such as what it means to be slain, to redeem us to God, and the meaning of His blood, for they are arcana which are not apparent in the literal sense. It is enough to say that it is redemption that is thus described. And because redemption is deliverance from hell and salvation by conjunction with the Lord, these are what are symbolically meant.

Here we will simply confirm from the Word that Jehovah Himself came into the world, was born a human being, and became the Redeemer and Savior for all who by a life of charity and its faith are conjoined with His Divine humanity, and that Jehovah is the Lord from eternity, so that the Lord's Divine humanity, with which one must be conjoined, is the Divine humanity of Jehovah Himself.

[2] We will accordingly cite here passages which confirm that Jehovah and the Lord are one, and that because they are one and not two, the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah Himself, is, by assuming a human form, the Redeemer and Savior. This is apparent from the following:

You, O Jehovah, are our Father; our Redeemer from of old is Your name. (Isaiah 63:16)

Thus said Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts: "I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God." (Isaiah 44:6)

Thus said Jehovah, your Redeemer, and He who formed you...: "I am Jehovah, who makes all things and... alone... by Myself. (Isaiah 44:24)

Thus says Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am Jehovah your God...." (Isaiah 48:17)

...Jehovah, my rock, and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14)

Their Redeemer is strong; Jehovah of Hosts is His name. (Jeremiah 50:34)

...Jehovah of Hosts is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He shall be called the God of the whole earth. (Isaiah 54:5)

...that all flesh may know that I, Jehovah, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. (Isaiah 49:26; 60:16)

As for our Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts is His name... (Isaiah 47:4)

."..with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you." Thus said Jehovah your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:8)

...said Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 43:14)

...said Jehovah, the Redeemer of Israel, His Holy One... (Isaiah 49:7)

You have redeemed me, O Jehovah, God of truth. (Psalms 31:5)

Let Israel hope in Jehovah, for... with Him is abundant redemption. He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. (Psalms 130:7-8)

Arise (O Lord) for our help, and redeem us for Your mercies' sake. (Psalms 44:26)

(Jehovah God said,) I will redeem them from the power of hell; I will redeem them from death. (Hosea 13:4, 14)

(O Jehovah,) hear my voice... He will redeem my soul... (Psalms 55:17-18)

See also Psalms 49:15; 69:18; 71:23; 103:1, 4; 107:2, Jeremiah 15:20-21.

[3] People in the church do not deny that the Lord is the Redeemer in His humanity, because it accords with Scripture, including this statement:

Who... comes from Edom..., traveling in the greatness of His strength? ...the year of My redeemed has come... ...He redeemed them... (Isaiah 63:1, 4, 9)

Say to the daughter of Zion, "Surely your salvation is coming; behold, His reward is with Him, and... they shall call them The Holy People, The Redeemed of Jehovah." (Isaiah 62:11-12)

Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people... (Luke 1:68)

And so, too, elsewhere.

For still more passages confirming that the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah Himself, came into the world and assumed human form in order to redeem mankind, see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, nos. 37-46.

Jehovah is also called a Savior in many places, too many to cite them here.

2724. 'And there he called on the name of [Jehovah,] the God of Eternity' means worship from it. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling on the name of God' as worship, dealt with in 440. Those who belonged to the Ancient Church did not understand merely name by the word 'name' but the entire nature, see 144, 145, 340, 768, 1754, 1896, 2009. Thus by 'the name of God' they understood everything in one embrace by which God was worshipped, consequently everything of love and faith. But once the internal aspect of worship perished and only the external was left people began to understand nothing else by 'the name of God' than the name. Indeed they went so far as to worship the name itself, being quite indifferent to what the love and the faith were in which their worship was grounded. As a result of this nations began to identify themselves by the names of their gods, the Jews and Israelites setting themselves above the rest because they worshipped Jehovah. They made the utterance and the calling upon the name itself the essential feature of worship; but in fact worship of the name alone is not worship at all, for that practice may exist even among the worst of people who in worshipping the name alone become greater profaners.

[2] Now because 'the name of God' means the entirety of worship, that is, the love and faith in their entirety from which He is worshipped, it is therefore clear what is meant by hallowed be Your name - in the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6:9, and what by the following words spoken by the Lord,

You will be hated by everyone for My name's sake. Matthew 10:22.

If two of you agree in My name on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them. Matthew 18:19-20.

He who leaves houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields, for My name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will be allotted the inheritance of eternal life. Matthew 19:29.

Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Matthew 21:9.

Jesus said, You will not see Me from now on until you say, Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord. Matthew 23:39.

You will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. Then many will stumble and betray one another, and hate one another, and all for My name's sake. ¹ Matthew 24:9-10.

As many as received Him, to them He gave power to be sons of God, to those believing in His name, John 1:12.

He who does not believe is judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:17-18.

Jesus said, Whatever you ask in My name, I will do it. John 14:14-15; 15:16; 16:23-24, 26-27.

Jesus said, I have manifested Your name to men. John 17:6.

Holy Father, keep them in Your name whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are one. John 17:11-12.

I made known to them Your name, and I will make known that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them. John 17:26.

That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. John 20:31.

There are in addition very many places in the Old Testament in which the name of Jehovah and of God is not used to mean the name but love and faith in their entirety in which worship is grounded.

[3] But those who worship the name alone, without love and faith, are spoken of in Matthew as follows,

Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy through Your name, and cast out demons through Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name? But I will confess to them, I do not know you; depart from Me, you workers of iniquity. Matthew 7:22-23.

As has been stated, once the member of the Church from being internal became external, and began to make worship consist in a name alone, people no longer acknowledged one God but many. For it was a custom among the ancients to add something after the name of Jehovah and by doing that to call to mind some benefit or attribute of His, as in the present verse, 'He called on the name of [Jehovah,] the God of Eternity'. Another example occurs in the next chapter,

Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah Jireh (that is, Jehovah will see). Genesis 22:14.

And the following, among others, are further examples,

Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi (that is, Jehovah is my banner). Exodus 17:15.

Gideon built an altar to Jehovah and called it [the altar] of Jehovah Shalom (that is, of peace). Judges 6:24.

It was from this custom that those who made worship consist in a name alone came to acknowledge so many gods, and also that among the gentiles, especially those in Greece and Rome, so many gods came to be acknowledged and worshipped, whereas the Ancient Church from which those attributive names derived always worshipped but one God who was revered under so many names, for the reason that by 'name' they understood the essential nature.

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