302. The glorification of the Lord's human nature and his gaining control over the hells were accomplished by means of crises of the spirit. Beyond all others, the Lord suffered the most severe spiritual crises: 1663, 1668, 1787, 2776, 2786, 2795, 2816, 4295, 9528. The Lord fought out of his divine love for the human race: 1690, 1691, 1812, 1813, 1820. The Lord's love was a love for the salvation of the human race: 1820. The hells fought against the Lord's love: 1820. The Lord, alone and by his own power, fought against the hells and conquered them: 1692, 1813, 2816, 4295, 8273, 9937. As a result, the Lord alone became righteousness and merit: 1813, 2025, 2026, 2027, 9715, 9809, 10178. The Lord's last spiritual crisis was in Gethsemane and on the cross, followed by the complete victory through which he gained control over the hells and at the same time glorified his human nature: 2776, 2813, 2814, 10655, 10659, 10828. The Lord could not undergo spiritual crisis with respect to his divine nature: 2795, 2813, 2814. That is why he took on from his mother a weak human nature that was susceptible to spiritual crisis: 1414, 1444, 1573, 5041, 5157, 7193, 9315. Through spiritual crises and victories he drove out everything he had inherited from his mother and shed the human nature received from her so completely that finally he was no longer her son: 2159, 2574, 2649, 3036, 10830. Jehovah, who was within him, nevertheless seemed to be absent during his spiritual crises to the extent that he was centered in the human nature he had from his mother: 1815. This was the Lord's state of being humbled: 1785, 1999, 2159, 6866. Through spiritual crises and victories the Lord set everything in the heavens in order: 4287, 9528, 9715, 9937. By the same means he also united his human nature to his divine nature-that is, glorified his human nature: 1725, 1729, 1733, 1737, 3318, 3381, 3382, 4286, 4287, 9528, 9937.

2786. 'And went to the place of which God had told him' means the state at that time according to perception. This is clear from the meaning of 'place' as state, dealt with in 1273-1277, 1376-1381, 2625, and from the meaning of 'God's telling him' as perceiving from the Divine, dealt with in 2769, 2778. As regards the state itself, this is described in the present verse - the state which the Lord assumed when undergoing temptations, here that state when He underwent the severest and inmost temptations. The preliminary preparation for that state consisted in His entering a state of peace and innocence, and also in the preparation by Him of His natural man, and of His rational man too, so that these might serve the Divine Rational, to which He joined the merit of righteousness, and by doing these things raising Himself up.

[2] These matters cannot possibly be explained intelligibly or presented to the thought of anyone who does not know that many states exist together simultaneously, yet distinct and separate from one another, and who also does not know what a state of peace and innocence is, what the natural man is, and what the rational man is, as well as what the merit of righteousness is. He must first have a distinct idea of all of these, and must also know that from the Divine the Lord was able to bring Himself into whatever states He pleased, and that He prepared Himself to enter temptation by bringing about many states. Although these matters are with man enveloped in obscurity like that of night, they are bathed in light like that of day with the angels; for the angels, dwelling in the light of heaven flowing from the Lord, see countless things - each distinctly - within those matters and others like them, and from the affection flowing in at the same time experience indescribable joy. From this it may become clear how far removed man's ability to understand and perceive is from angels' ability to do so.