イエス様が十字架にかかって死んだとき、地震が起きました。岩が割れました。十字架刑の命令を実行した百人隊長とその兵士たちは恐れた。

神殿の中心、「聖なるもの」、エルサレムのまさに中心で、聖なるベールが上から下へと裂けたのです。

真っ二つに裂けた」ベール...。

幕屋と後の神殿のベールは重要なものでした。出エジプト記や列王記上に詳しく書かれています。また 天界の秘義2576と書かれています。「理性的な真理は、精神的な真理に対する一種のベールまたは衣服です....ベールは、理性的な善と真理の最も近く、最も内側の外観を表していた....

そして今、イエスが十字架上で亡くなると、ベールは破れてしまいます。これは何を意味するのでしょうか？

スウェーデンボルグはその象徴をこう表現しています。

"...すべての外観が払拭されると、主は神そのものの中に入り、同時に神となったその人間を通して、神そのものへのアクセス手段を開いたということである。"(天界の秘義2576)

4つの分岐点となるスピリチュアルな出来事について考えてみましょう。

1）物理的な宇宙の創造。現在の推測では、138億年前）。 創世記1:1-10

2）生命の誕生。地球上では、35億年前から45億年前の間）。 創世記1:11-25

3) 霊的な意識を持つ人間の始まり。10万年前と推測されています。 創世記1:26-31

4）主なる神、イエス・キリストの受肉と復活（2000年前）。

神様の愛と知恵は、長い間、宇宙に流れ込んでいます。エントロピーが発生するかと思いきや、生命や知性を好むような宇宙が存在する。そのようにして流れ込んできた人間の心が、今、神に応答していることを神が知ったとき、それはどんなに充実した瞬間だっただろうか。

しかし、自由に反応できるということには悲劇が潜んでいます。なぜなら、私たちは反応しないこともできるし、逆の道を歩むこともできるからです。

私たち人間がより「洗練」されていくにつれ、神は私たちに到達するために新しいチャンネルを使いました。そして、それらのチャンネルには、初期の頃から、主がいつか人間の姿でこの世に来られるという予言がありました。

なぜ主はそのようなことをする必要があったのか。主は、私たちが救いに至る決断をするのに十分な善と真実が存在するためには、人々がそのような人間レベルのつながりを持つ必要があることを予見していたに違いありません。

スウェーデンボルグの説明に戻ろう。

"「...すべての外見が払拭されると、主は神そのものの中に入っていった...」。

主の地上での生涯を通して、主は私たちと同じ人間であるという外観がありました。人間の体を持っていました。疲れたり、空腹になったりすることもありました。疲れたり、お腹が空いたり、誘惑されたり（私たちと違って、いつも勝っていましたが）しました。霊的な生活の中で、彼は神の本質から切り離された人間の姿を痛感したことがあった。また、その姿が薄れ、自分の神性をより強く感じることもあった。彼が成長し、バプテスマを受け、宣教活動を始めたとき、彼は自分の中で起こっていること、つまり自分の人間的な部分が栄光に輝くことを、ますます強く意識するようになったに違いない。十字架上での肉体の死によって、肉体的な人間らしさはもはや邪魔なものではなくなった。その姿は払拭された。神と人間の間に新たなつながりが完全に形成されたのです。

そして、スウェデンボルグの発言の第2部です。

"同時に彼は、神となった彼の人間を通して、神そのものへのアクセスの手段を開いた。"

ベールが破れたのです。真の善よりも儀式を優先し、神は目に見えず、人間の知識からベールで隔てられていた古い宗教が破られたのだ。主の新しい教えによって、新しい光が人々に届くようになったのです。私たちは、神の人間として、より深く理解し、近づき、愛することができるようになった神に応答することができました。

9229. 'And men of holiness shall you be to Me' means a state of life then composed of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'men of holiness' as those who are led by the Lord, for the Divine which emanates from the Lord is holiness itself, 6788, 7499, 8127 (end), 8302, 8806. Consequently those who receive that emanation in faith and also in love are called holy ones. Anyone who imagines that a person is holy from any other source, or that anything present with a person is holy apart from that which comes and is received from the Lord is very much mistaken; for that which is the person's own, and is called his proprium, is evil.

The human proprium is nothing but evil, see 210, 215, 694, 874-876, 987, 1047, 4328, 5660, 5786, 8480, 8944.

To the extent that a person can be withheld from his proprium, the Lord can be present with him, and therefore to the same extent holiness resides with him, 1023, 1044, 1581, 2256, 2388, 2406, 2411, 8206, 8393, 8988 (end), 9014.

[2] The truth that the Lord is the Only Holy One, and that nothing is holy except that which emanates from the Lord, and so that which a person receives from the Lord, is evident from everywhere in the Word, as in John,

I make Myself holy, that they also may be made holy in the truth. John 17:19.

'Making Himself holy' means making Himself Divine by His own power. Consequently those who receive Divine Truth emanating from the Lord in faith and life are said to be 'made holy in the truth'.

[3] This also explains why after the Resurrection, when the Lord spoke to the disciples, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit, John 20:22. 'Breathing on (or into)' was a sign that represented the imparting of life through faith and love, as also in Genesis,

Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man (homo) became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.

Other examples like this may be seen elsewhere, such as Psalms 33:6; 104:29-30; Job 32:8; 33:4; John 3:8. Therefore also the Word is said to be inspired because it comes from the Lord, and those who wrote the Word have been called 'inspired'. Breathing, and so breathing on or inspiring, corresponds to the life of faith, see 97, 1119, 1120, 3883-3896. This explains why the term spirit in the Word is derived from the word for wind, and holiness from the Lord is called Jehovah's wind, 8286, and why the Holy Spirit is the holiness emanating from the Lord, 3704, 4673 (end), 5307, 6788, 6982, 6993, 8127 (end), 8302, 9199.

[4] So also it says in John 1:33 that the Lord baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and in Luke 3:16 that He baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 'Baptizing' in the internal sense means regenerating, 4255, 5120 (end), 9088; 'baptizing with the Holy Spirit' means regenerating by means of the good of faith; and 'baptizing with fire' means regenerating by means of the good of love, 'fire' being the good of love, see 934, 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324. In John,

Who is not going to fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. Revelation 15:4.

In Luke the angel telling Mary about the Lord said,

That which is holy will be born from you. Luke 1:35.

And in Daniel,

I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and behold, a vigilant and holy one came down from heaven. Daniel 4:13.

In these places 'that which is holy' and 'a holy one' stand for the Lord.

[5] Because the Lord alone is holy He is called in the Old Testament the Holy One of Israel, the Redeemer, the Saviour, and the Regenerator, as in Isaiah 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:20; 12:6; 17:7; 29:19; 30:11-12, 15; 31:1; 37:23; 41:14, 16, 20; 43:3, 14; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5; 55:5; 60:9, 14; Jeremiah 50:29; 51:5; Ezekiel 39:7; Psalms 71:22; 78:41; 89:18. This is why the Lord in heaven, and consequently heaven itself, is called the dwelling-place of holiness, Jeremiah 25:30; 31:23; ¹ Isaiah 63:15; the sanctuary, ² Ezekiel 11:16; 24:21; and also the mountain of holiness, Psalms 3:4. It is also why the middle of the tent [of meeting], where the ark containing the law was, was called The Holy of Holies, Exodus 26:33-34; for the law in the ark in the middle of the tent [of meeting], represented the Lord in respect of the Word. For the law is the Word, 6752, 7463.

[6] All this shows why it is that the angels are called holy in Matthew 25:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; Psalms 149:1; Daniel 8:13; also the prophets, Luke 1:70; and the apostles too, Revelation 18:20. Not that they are holy by their own virtue but that the Lord, who alone is holy and the only source of holiness, makes them so. For truths are meant by 'the angels', because they are those who receive truth from the Lord, 1925, 4085, 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8192, 8301; teachings which present the truth that comes through the Word from the Lord are meant by 'the prophets', 2534, 7269; and all the truths and forms of the good of faith in their entirety which come from the Lord are meant by 'the apostles', 3488, 3858 (end), 6397.

[7] Consecrations ³ among the Israelite and Jewish people took place in order that the Lord who alone was holy might be represented, and in order that holiness, which He alone is the source of, might be represented. This is the reason for the consecration of Aaron and his sons, Exodus 29:1ff; Leviticus 8:10-11, 13, 30; the consecration of their garments, Exodus 29:21ff; the consecration of the altar in order that it might be most holy, ⁴ Exodus 29:37ff; the consecration of the tent of meeting, the ark of the Testimony, the table, all the vessels, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and its vessels, and the laver and its base, Exodus 30:26ff.

[8] The truth that the Lord is the real Holiness that was represented is evident also from the Lord's words in Matthew when they are seen in the internal sense,

Fools and blind! Which of the two is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold holy? And which of the two is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift holy? Matthew 23:17-19.

'The temple' represented the Lord Himself, and so did 'the altar', while 'the gold' was a sign of the good that comes from the Lord, and 'the gift' or a sacrifice was a sign of things constituting faith and charity that come from the Lord.

The Lord was represented by 'the temple', see 2777, 3720, and by 'the altar', 2777, 2811, 4489, 8935, 8940. 'Gold' was a sign of good that comes from the Lord, 1551, 1552, 5658, and 'a sacrifice' a sign of worship springing from faith and charity that come from the Lord, 922, 923, 2805, 2807, 2830, 6905, 8680, 8682, 8936.

[9] From all this it is now evident why it is that the children of Israel were called a holy people in Deuteronomy 26:19 and elsewhere, or as in the present verse men of holiness. That is to say, they were so called because every single aspect of their worship represented Divine realities that are the Lord's, and celestial and spiritual things of His kingdom and Church. On this account they were called holy in a representative sense; they themselves were not holy on that account, because representatives had regard to the holy things that were represented, not to the person who represented them, see 665, 1097 (end), 1361, 3147, 3881 (end), 4208, 4281, 4288, 4293, 4307, 4444, 4500, 6304, 7048, 7439, 8588, 8788, 8806.

[10] On that account also was Jerusalem called holy, and Zion the mountain of holiness in Zechariah 8:3 and elsewhere, as well as in Matthew,

And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of dead holy ones were raised; and coming out of their tombs after the Lord's resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Matthew 27:52-53.

Here Jerusalem is called 'the holy city', when in fact, quite to the contrary, it was unholy because the Lord was crucified there at that time, for which reason it is called 'Sodom and Egypt' in John,

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Revelation 11:8.

Yet it is called holy, because it means the Lord's kingdom and the Church, 402, 2117, 3654. The appearance of 'dead holy ones' there, an event witnessed by some in vision, was a sign of the salvation of people who belonged to the spiritual Church, and of the raising of those people to the Holy Jerusalem, which is heaven - the people who had been kept up to that time on the lower earth, spoken of in 6854, 6914, 7091, 7828, 7932, 8049, 8054, 8159, 8321.

脚注: