Divine Providence #123
123. 7. It is the unceasing effort of the Lord's divine providence to unite us to himself and himself to us in order to give us the joys of eternal life; and this can happen only to the extent that our evils and their compulsions are banished. I explained in 27-45 that it is the constant effort of the Lord's divine providence to unite us to himself and himself to us, and that this union is what we call reformation and regeneration. I explained also that this is the source of our salvation. Can anyone fail to see that union with the Lord is eternal life and salvation? Everyone can see this who believes that we were originally created in the image and likeness of God (see Genesis 1:26-27) and who knows what the image and likeness of God are.
[2] If we are truly rational and use our rationality when we think and use our freedom when we try to think, can any of us believe that there are three gods equal in essence and that the divine Being or divine Essence can be divided? As for a threefold nature in one God, that is something we can conceive and understand, just as we understand the soul and the body of an angel or a person and the life that they bring forth. Further, since this threefold nature in a single Being exists only in the Lord, it follows that any union must be a union with him.
Use your rationality and think freely, and you will see this truth in its own light. First, though, admit that the Lord, heaven, and eternal life are real.
[3] Now, since God is one and since by creation we have been made in his image and likeness, and since we have come into a love for all our evils through our hellish love, its compulsions, and their pleasures, thereby destroying the image and likeness of God within us, it follows that it is the constant effort of the Lord's divine providence to unite us with himself and himself with us and thereby to make us his images. It also follows that the Lord is doing this so that he may give us the bliss of eternal life, since this is the nature of divine love.
[4] The reason he cannot make this gift, cannot make us images of himself, unless we banish sins from our outer self in apparent autonomy is that the Lord is not just divine love but divine wisdom as well; and divine love does nothing unless it stems from divine wisdom and is in accord with it. It is in accord with divine wisdom that we cannot be united to the Lord and thus reformed, regenerated, and saved unless we are allowed to act freely and rationally. This is what makes us human. Anything that is in accord with the Lord's divine wisdom is also in accord with his divine providence.
Genesis 7
1
And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
2
Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
3
Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
4
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
5
And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.
6
And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7
And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8
Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9
There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10
And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12
And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13
In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
14
They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
15
And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
16
And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
17
And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18
And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19
And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20
Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21
And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
23
And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
24
And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
