364. (i) The Lord flows into every human being with all His Divine love, all His Divine wisdom, and so with all His Divine life.

We read in the Book of Creation that man was created an image of God, and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 1:27; 2:7). This description means that he is an organ of life, not life itself. For God could not have created another like Himself; if He could have done so, there would be as many gods as there are people. Nor could He create life, just as neither can light be created. But He could create man to be a form for life to act on, just as He created the eye to be a form for light to act on. Nor could God, nor can He, divide His essence, since it is one and indivisible. So since God alone is life, it follows indubitably that God uses His own life to give life to every human being. Without that quickening man would be as regards flesh nothing but a sponge, and as regards bones nothing but a skeleton, no more alive than a clock, which is kept running by a pendulum together with a weight or a spring. Since this is so, it also follows that God flows in with every person with all His Divine life, that is, with all His Divine love and Divine wisdom. These two make up His Divine life (39-40 above); for the Divine cannot be divided.

[2] However, the manner in which God flows in with all His Divine life can be grasped as somewhat resembling the way the sun of the world flows in with all its essence, which is heat and light, into every tree, into every shrub and flower, into every stone, ordinary as well as precious, so that each single object draws its ration from this common inflow; but the sun does not split up its light and heat, giving part to this object and part to that. It is much the same with the sun of heaven, which radiates Divine love as heat and Divine wisdom as light. These two flow into human minds, just as the heat and light of the sun of the world flow into human bodies, giving them life depending on the nature of their form; the form of each takes from the common inflow what it needs. The following saying of the Lord can be applied to this:

Your Father makes His sun rise upon the wicked and the good, and sends rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous, Matthew 5:45.

[3] Also, the Lord is omnipresent, and where He is present, there He is with His whole essence. It is impossible for Him to take anything away from that essence, so as to give a part to one and another part to another, but He gives it in its entirety, enabling a person to take a little or much. He says too that He has His dwelling with those who keep His commandments, and that the faithful are in Him and He is in them. In short, everything is full of God, and from that fulness each takes his own share. Everything held in common is like this, for instance, the atmospheres or the oceans. The atmosphere is the same on the smallest as it is on the largest scale. It does not assign a part of itself to a person's breathing, to a bird's flying, or to the sails of a ship, or the sails of a wind-mill; but each takes from it its own portion and uses for itself as much as is enough. It is also similar with a granary full of wheat; the owner each day takes from it his own rations, and it is not the granary that distributes them.

293. (Verse 11) Saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power. That this signifies merit and justice pertaining to the Divine Human of the Lord, and that from it is all Divine truth, Divine good and salvation, is evident from the signification of thou art worthy, O Lord, as being the merit and justice pertaining to the Lord's Divine Human, concerning which we shall speak presently; and from the signification of glory and honour, when said of the Lord, as being Divine truth and Divine good which are from Him (concerning which see above, n. 288); and from the signification of power as being salvation. The reason why power here signifies salvation is that all Divine power respects salvation as an end; for a man is reformed, and afterwards introduced into heaven, and is there withheld from evil and falsity and held in good and truth, from the Divine power; and this no one can do but the Lord alone. Those who claim that power to themselves, are entirely ignorant of what salvation means, for they do not know what reformation is, nor what constitutes heaven with man; and to claim to themselves the Lord's power, is to claim power over the Lord Himself, which power is called the power of darkness (Luke 22:53).

[2] That power, when said of the Lord, has chiefly respect to salvation, is evident from the following passages, as in John:

Jesus said, "Father thou hast given" to the Son "power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him" (17:2).

Again:

"As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name" (1:12).

Again:

"I am the vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing" (15:5).

In Mark:

"They were astonished at his doctrine; for he taught them as one having authority" (1:22).

And in Luke:

"With authority and power he commandeth the unclean Spirits, and they come out" (4:36).

The same may be seen in many other passages.

The Lord also has power over all things, because He is God alone; but the salvation of the human race is the principal object of power, because for the sake of that the heavens and all worlds were created, and salvation is the reception of the Divine proceeding.

[3] The reason why by thou art worthy, O Lord, is signified the merit and justice which pertain to the Lord's Divine Human is that the words signify that He merited; and the merit of the Lord consists in the circumstance that when He was in the world He subjugated the hells and reduced to order all things in the heavens, and that He glorified His Human, and this from His own power, and thus saved all the human race who believe in Him, that is, who love to do His precepts (see John 1:12, 13). This merit is also called justice in the Word, and the Lord as to His Divine Human is thence called Jehovah our Justice (Jeremiah 23:5, 6; 33:15, 16). (Concerning this merit, or this justice of the Lord, more may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 293, 294; and in the references to Arcana Coelestia there, n. 300-306).