Finding Jesus in the Life of Abraham, Part 1: Beginnings

A Sermon by Pastor Joel Christian Glenn

30 April 2017

We all know that the Word, or the Bible, is about God. That’s not hard to believe. But shortly after His resurrection Jesus pushed this idea to another level. When He appeared to two disciples on the way to Emmaus, it says, “Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). From this we can gather that all of the Scriptures are not just about God, but are about Jesus Himself. That’s a concept that is harder to grasp. Yes, there are the prophecies that are clearly about Jesus. But what about, say the story of Creation? Or the Exodus from slavery in Egypt? The many kings of Israel, both good and evil? Or all the many lists of laws and genealogies, are even those about Jesus?

The truth of the matter is that the whole of the Word is not just about Jesus, it is Jesus. Listen to these verses from the opening of the Gospel of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-4, 14)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That is a clear reference to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the eternal Word, the Word that is also embodied in the Word of God, our Old and New Testaments.

If you feel that it is hard to grasp how Jesus and the Word are one and the same, you are not alone. It is difficult to comprehend how a living, breathing, person and an apparently lifeless slab of paper can be one and the same. The Writings for the New Church acknowledge this difficulty and offer a way around it. This is from the Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture:

Few understand how the Lord is the Word, for it is generally supposed that the Lord, by means of the Word, can enlighten and teach people, and yet He cannot, on this account, be called the Word.

So as we’ve said, it makes sense that the Word is about the Lord, and it is the Lord’s way of teaching us, but that doesn’t mean He is the Word. The passage however continues:

It should be known, however, that every person is his own love, and consequently his own good and his own truth. A person is a person for no other reason than this, and there is nothing else in him that is a person. For the same reason that a person is his own good and his own truth, angels and spirits also are people; and for all good and truth proceeding from the Lord, is in its own form, a person. But the Lord is Divine Good itself and Divine Truth itself; thus He is Personhood Itself, from whom every person is a person. (Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture 100)

There is a lot going on in that passage. What it all boils down to is a definition of humanity that transcends having a physical body, a definition that helps us see how a book and a person can be one and the same. As the passage said, a person is a person because of his loves, and therefore because of all his good and truth that stem from that love. In short, you are what you love, and what you love makes you human. Think of it this way: if we were to transplant your brain from your body into someone else’s, and this new person loved the same things you love and in the exact same way, and so behaved as you would behave, wouldn’t we say that it is still you, even though the body is completely different? Take that a step further and think of death. Even your brain will die, but your spirit, your spirit in which resides everything of your love, will carry on. Even though there will no longer be a shred of “you” left on this earth, you will still live on. So that’s what makes a person a person: the mind, especially the love within the mind.

If a person is a person because of what he or she loves and so thinks from that love, then anything that reveals our love or our thought reveals us. We know this instinctively from other books we encounter. Have you ever read a book that you loved immensely, and felt that in some way you were connected to the author, as if you understood each other even though you’d never met? I’m not just talking about biographies either. You can read a book that never once refers directly to its author and yet still feel connected. That can happen because the book is a kind of extension of the author, since it reveals the authors loves and ideas.

We now come to the Word. The Word, more than any other book on earth, reveals the mind of its Author. This is so deeply the case that we say that the Word is one and the same with its author, the Lord. Yet unlike with some books that engross us, the Word can feel like a tangled mess that reveals little about the true character of God, much less the inner workings of the mind of Jesus. I have here two images that can help us understand this. On one side there is a brain scan. On the other, an open copy of the Word. At first glance these pictures have little to do with each other. But think about what this brain scan really is. To you and I and most other people it reveals little. But to a trained doctor it would reveal a great deal about what is going on in a person’s mind at a given time. It is a snapshot into someone’s inner life, but one that we can only read if we have the proper training to understand it.

On the other hand we have a copy of the Word. As with the brain scan it reveals what is going on in someone’s mind at a given point. In this case it is the mind of the Lord that is being revealed. And like the brain scan, even though any particular story we might open up to reveals the Lord’s mind, we need the proper training to understand it. If we read this document correctly than we will discover the loving mind of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Every page, every sentence, contains insight into how He thinks and what it is that He loves and cares about. The purpose then of exploring the stories of the Word in light of how they reflect the life and mind of Jesus Christ is that we will then be better equipped to follow His example, not only following the path He set with His words and actions, but going deeper to follow the path He set in His mind.

With this in mind, over the next three weeks we will be looking to the story of Abraham. Even though Abraham lived thousands of years before Jesus was even born, his life perfectly reflects the inner life that Jesus experienced. When we can see this connection we will be better able to not only understand the Lord, but to understand how to model our lives on His. This week we will spend a short time getting a glimpse of how this works. Over the next two weeks we will go deeper into the story of Abraham and into the mind of Jesus. We begin with the first inkling that Abraham had that God had chosen him for a special purpose. As a side note, early on Abraham was known as Abram:

Now the LORD had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,

From your family

And from your father’s house,

To a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation;

I will bless you

And make your name great;

And you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

And I will curse him who curses you;

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran….

Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South. (Genesis 12:1-4, 7-9)

Prior to the moment described here Abraham did not know of Jehovah in the slightest. He was in fact an idol-worshipper like most people of His day. Yet when he heard the call from the Lord he responded and moved with his family and everything he owned into a new land. This moment may not seem significant but it is the beginning of the epic saga of the Children of Israel, and the land to which the Lord sent Abraham would one day become the Kingdom of Israel. What began as the simple travels of one man from a faraway country into the heart of the Holy Land would lead to momentous things in the future. What we see here is simply the seed being planted, but a seed that would grow to become a great nation, a nation of which the Lord said it would become a blessing for all the nations of the earth. That is the reason that God called Abraham in the first place.

What can this simple beginning tell us about the mind of Jesus? Like the Kingdom of Israel, the great works that Jesus would do needed a beginning: a seed had to be planted that would grow into something greater. That seed was planted in Jesus early childhood. Just as Abraham was called to enter into the heart of what would become the earthly Kingdom of Israel, Jesus from the very beginning was brought to the heart of His own heavenly Kingdom. That heart, the heart and soul of heaven, is childlike innocence and love. Now as with Abraham, the journey does not end there: for Abraham, many centuries would pass before his people were a great nation. And for the Lord it would take years of temptation and struggle before He could fulfill His mission. But all of it, every last bit, stemmed from that first seed planted in childhood.

It might seem odd to think that everything the Lord needed to face the hells, to put them in their place, and to conquer them was established while He was still a little boy, but it is so. It is in fact the case for each of us that something essential to our life is planted within before we are even aware. Listen to this passage from the Teachings of the New Church that speaks to how powerful our childhoods are for our later lives:

The Lord had first of all to be endowed from infancy with the heavenly things of love - the heavenly things of love consisting in love towards Jehovah and love towards the neighbour, and in innocence itself present in those loves. From these, as from the very sources of life, flows every single thing, for all other things are simply derivatives. These heavenly things are implanted in a person primarily in the state of infancy through to childhood. (Secrets of Heaven 1450)

As a child Jesus received deep stores of love and innocence. This took place before He could even talk or conceptualize these things in His mind. They were simply blessings of love that would remain with Him for the rest of His life, and indeed, to eternity.

This stage of the Lord’s life was not trivial. Without these perfectly innocent and heavenly remains sitting at the core of His being He never would have been able to face the onslaught of hell later in life. That which would later give Him strength in temptation, even on the Cross itself, had been received in childhood innocence and stored away, hidden, until such time as it would be needed. Every loving word and parable, every miracle, every demon cast out and every sickness made well, all flowed from the fountain of love, a fountain established in His youth. We all know the power of little children and their heavenly innocence. There was never a moment that that innocence of infancy dissipated. We don’t often think of the fact that while that innocence recedes and is hidden, it never leaves us.

We all have those same heavenly remnants left over from our childhood. Before we were born the Lord was with us in the womb. He has blessed us, as Jesus was blessed, so that now we have all the innocence and power of a child. As does every human being you will meet. The boss who frustrates you to no end, the spouse that drives you crazy, the acquaintance you can’t stand, all were once little children that would have been beautiful to hold and love, that were beautiful and were held and were loved. None of that goes away. It is always there, part of you, making you who you are. And any time you make an effort to show true love, you are only able to do so because love was once the only thing you knew.

So what do we do with this information? Abraham heard the call of God and left his home to dwell in a new land. Jesus felt a call from deep within His soul and left his own desires to accept the heavenly love that was welling like a fountain within Him. Can we follow the example of both Abraham and Jesus? Will you answer the call? Will you remember when times are hard that once in this life all you knew was love? That deep within your heart beats the love and innocence of childhood? That every human you ever meet has that same source of love and innocence within them? And finally will you use that love to become a blessing to those around you? Jesus answered this call. He continues to answer this call. And He calls on us to do the same. Will you answer? Amen.
(Read the next sermon in this 3-part series, about Bargaining)

10261. 'And olive oil' means the Lord's celestial Divine Good. This is clear from the meaning of 'oil' as good, both celestial and spiritual, dealt with in 886, 4582, 9780; and from the meaning of 'olive' as celestial love, dealt with below, so that 'olive oil' means the good of celestial love, or what amounts to the same thing, celestial good. The expression 'the Lord's celestial Divine Good' is used because the origin of all good that really is good and exists in the heavens lies in what is Divine and the Lord's.

[2] But it should be remembered that in itself the Lord's Divine Good is a single whole; for it is infinite and contains infinite characteristics. What is infinite is a single whole, because the infinite characteristics it contains make one. But the distinguishing of that Good into celestial and spiritual is due to the different ways in which angels in heaven and people on earth receive it. That received by angels and people belonging to the Lord's celestial kingdom is called celestial Divine Good, whereas that received by angels and people belonging to the Lord's spiritual kingdom is called spiritual Divine Good. For all angels in heaven and people on earth receive the Lord's Good, which is a single whole, in various or dissimilar ways. This may be compared to the heat and light from the sun in the world. Though these regarded in themselves are a single whole, they nevertheless vary according to the seasons of the year and times of the day, and are also different in each region of the planet. Such variations of heat and light are due not to the sun but to the changing conditions on the planet brought about by variations as it orbits round the sun and revolves on its axis, so that again the reception is the determining factor. The variations of the one same light as it falls on individual objects, producing different colours, is also attributable to the ways in which it is received. From all this it may now be recognized why it is that the Lord's Divine Good, which is a single whole because it is infinite, is called celestial and spiritual.

[3] The meaning of 'oil' as good, both celestial and spiritual, is clear in the places referred to above. But the fact that 'olive' means celestial love, and 'olive tree' the perception and affection belonging to that love, is clear from the places in the Word where 'olive tree' and 'olive' are mentioned, as in the following: In Zechariah,

The prophet saw a lampstand all of gold. It had seven lamps on it, [and had] two olive trees beside it, one on the right of the bowl, and one on the left of it. He said to the angel, What are these two olive trees, and what are the two olive berries which are in the spouts ¹ of the two tubes of gold? He said, These are the two sons of olives, standing beside the Lord of the whole earth. Zechariah 4:2-3, 11-12, 14.

[4] What these prophetic utterances imply none can know unless they know from the internal sense what 'a lampstand' means and what 'an olive tree' means. 'A lampstand' means the spiritual heaven, and its 'lamps' the holy truths there, see 9548, 9551, 9555, 9558, 9561, 9684. From these meanings it is clear that 'an olive tree' means the celestial kingdom born from the perception of and affection for good, and 'olive berries' the holy forms of good there, their truths being meant by 'the sons of olives'. 'Two' means the internal and the external parts of that kingdom, and a joining together.

[5] 'Oil' and 'lampstand' are used with similar meanings in John,

I will give [power] to My two witnesses, that they may prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. Revelation 11:3-4.

In Isaiah,

I will plant ² in the wilderness the cedar of shittah, and the myrtle, and olive wood ³ . Isaiah 41:19.

'The cedar' and 'olive wood' are mentioned because 'the cedar' means spiritual good and 'olive wood' celestial good, spiritual good being charity towards the neighbour and celestial good being love to the Lord. 'Planting them in the wilderness' means doing so in lands outside the Church, thus among gentile nations.

[6] In Hosea,

His branches will go out and his beauty will be like that of the olive, and his smell like Lebanon. Hosea 14:6.

Here also 'the olive' means celestial good, and 'Lebanon' means spiritual good, so that 'Lebanon' is similar in meaning to 'the cedar'; for Lebanon was a forest consisting of cedars.

[7] In Isaiah,

Thus will it be in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the peoples, like the stripping of the olive tree, like the gleaning of grapes when the harvesting of them has finished. Isaiah 24:13.

Also Isaiah 17:6. Comparison is made with 'the stripping of the olive tree' and 'the gleaning of grapes after the harvesting has finished' because 'the olive tree' means a Church that is governed by celestial good, and 'the vine' a Church that is governed by spiritual good. For in the Word wherever good is the subject, truth is also, on account of the marriage of them. In like manner wherever the celestial is the subject, the spiritual is also. Furthermore the term 'celestial' is used in reference to good, and 'spiritual' to truth, see in the places referred to in 9263, 9314; therefore the terms are also used in reference to the vine and the olive tree. As regards 'the vine', that it means the spiritual Church, and its goodness and truth, see 1069, 5113, 6376, 9277.

[8] Here also is the reason why elsewhere the vine and the olive tree are spoken of together, as in David,

[Your] wife will be like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house, your sons will be like olive shoots, round about your table. Psalms 128:3-4.

In Habakkuk,

The fig tree will not blossom, neither will there be any produce on the vines; the olive crop will fail ⁴ . Habakkuk 3:17.

In Amos,

Your very many gardens, and your vineyards, and your fig trees, and your olive trees the caterpillar devoured. Amos 4:9.

The fig tree as well is mentioned, because 'the fig' means the external Church's good, 5113, whereas 'the vine' means the good of the internal spiritual Church, and 'the olive tree' the good of the internal celestial Church. Similar instances occur elsewhere.

[9] Since 'olive wood' meant the good of celestial love the two cherubs which were in the sanctuary in the temple were made from pieces of olive wood, as were the double doors, lintel, and posts, 1 Kings 6:23, 31-32. For the sanctuary in the temple represented the inmost heaven, where celestial good is present, and therefore everything in the sanctuary was a sign of something celestial. The ark there, for the sake of which the sanctuary existed, was a sign of the inmost heaven, where the Lord is, see 9485.

[10] 'The Mount of Olives', which was opposite the temple, had a similar meaning to 'the olive tree', just as 'Lebanon' had to 'the cedar'. Therefore in order that all the things the Lord did when He was in the world, especially Divine celestial ones, might be represented in the heavens, the Lord was very often on the Mount of Olives when He was in Jerusalem, as is clear in Luke,

By day Jesus was teaching in the temple, but by night He went out and spent the night on the mountain which is called Olivet ⁵ . Luke 21:37.

And elsewhere,

Jesus came out and went away, as was His custom ⁶ , to the Mount of Olives. Luke 22:39.

Regarding this mountain, that it was opposite the temple, see Mark 13:3; Matthew 24:3.

[11] The fact that 'the Mount of Olives' was a sign of celestial Divine Good is clear in Zechariah, where it is stated,

Jehovah's feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives, which faces ⁷ Jerusalem; and there He will fight against the nations. And the mountain will be split, part towards the east and towards the sea ⁸ , with a large valley; and part of it will move away towards the north, and part towards the south. Zechariah 14:3-4.

This is a description of the state of heaven and the Church when the Lord was in the world, fighting against the hells, conquering them, and at the same time restoring the heavens to order. 'The nations' there which He fought against are the evils coming from hell; 'the Mount of Olives' on which His feet stood is the Divine Good of Divine Love, for by this Good He fought and conquered. 'The splitting of the mountain with a large valley, towards the east and towards the sea' means the separation of heaven and hell; and the like is meant by 'its moving away towards the north and the south'. Those living in the light of truth are said to be in the south, and those in the love of good to be in the east, whereas those immersed in evils are said to be towards the sea, and those in falsities towards the north.

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