Marriage #34
34. (19) Conjugial love depends upon the wife's love, and such too is the husband's love reciprocally; the wife's love does not depend on her husband's love. The reason is that just as the will acts on the understanding, good acts on truth; that is why it is said that a man ought to cleave to his wife. The reverse is true of those who are not in conjugial love.
Worlds in Space #159
159. Before being told this, they thought that our company too belonged to those who wanted to confuse them about God by conceiving Him as three. So they were pleased to hear this, and said that messengers have been sent to them too by God, whom they then called the Lord, to teach them about Himself. They said they did not want to admit visitors who upset them, especially by speaking of three Persons in the Divinity, since they know that God is one and consequently there is one Divine, not a unanimous group of three. But perhaps they were willing to think of God as being like an angel, in whom the inmost level of life is the invisible element which allows him to think and be wise, the outward level of life is the element visible in human form which allows him to see and act, and the outgoing life is the sphere of love and faith radiating from him, for each spirit or angel has a sphere of life, which allows him to be recognised at a distance. 1 As regards the Lord, the life going forth from Him is the Divinity Itself, which fills the heavens and makes them to be heavens, because it goes forth from the very Being of a life of love and faith. They said that this was the only way they could perceive the Trinity and the Unity [of God] at once.
[2] On hearing this I was allowed to say that such a concept of a Trinity co-existing with a Unity is in agreement with the concept angels have of the Lord. For He teaches that the Father and He are one, and that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father; that he who sees Him sees the Father, and he who believes in Him believes in and knows the Father. He also teaches that the Comforter, whom He calls the Spirit of truth, as well as the Holy Spirit, goes forth from Him, and does not speak of His own accord, but what the Lord says; by this is meant the Divine which goes forth.
[3] I went on to suggest that the concept of a Trinity co-existing with a Unity is in agreement with the Being and the Coming-into-being of the Lord's life, when He was in the world. The Being of His life was the Divine Itself, since He was conceived of Jehovah. The being of anyone's life is the source from which he was conceived. The Coming-into-being of the life from that Being is the human in form. The being of everyone's life which he has from his father is called the soul, and the coming-into-being of life from that source is called the body. Soul and body make up a single person. The analogy between them is as between what is contained in effort and what is in the resultant action, for an act is an effort in action, so that the two are one. Effort in a person is called the will, and effort in action is called an act. The body is the instrument by means of which the principal, that is, the will, acts; and instrument and principal are one in acting. So it is with the soul and body, and this is the concept of them held by angels in heaven. From this they know that the Lord made His Human Divine by the Divine in Himself, which was His soul derived from the Father.
Moreover, the creed everywhere accepted in the Christian world is not against this, for it teaches:
Although Christ is God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. Indeed, He is wholly one and a single person; because, as the body and the soul are one man, so too God and Man is one Christ. 2
Because there was such a union, or such a unity, in the Lord, He rose again not only as to the soul, but also as to the body, which He glorified in the world, unlike any man. He also taught His disciples about this, saying:
Feel me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have. 3 [Luke 24:39.]
The spirits could perfectly well understand these words, since they fall within the grasp of angelic spirits. They then added that the Lord alone has power in the heavens, and the heavens are His. In reply to this I was able to tell them that the church in our world also knows this from the Lord's words spoken before He went up into heaven. For He then said:
All power has been given me in heaven and on earth. [Matthew 28:18.]
Footnotes:
1. [Swedenborg’s Footnote] A spiritual sphere, that of their life, flows out and pours forth from each person, spirit and angel and envelops them (Arcana Caelestia 4464, 5179, 7454). Its source is their life of affection and thus thought (Arcana Caelestia 2489, 4464, 6206). In the next life these spheres determine how groups are formed and also dissolved (Arcana Caelestia 6206, 9606-9607, 10312).
2. [Swedenborg’s Footnote] From the Athanasian Creed.
3. [Swedenborg’s Footnote] Immediately after death a person rises again in spirit, and this spirit has human form and is a person in every detail (Arcana Caelestia 4527, 5006, 5078, 8939, 8991, 10594, 10597, 10758). People rise again in spirit and not bodily (Arcana Caelestia 10593-10594). The Lord alone rose again bodily (Arcana Caelestia 1729, 2083, 5078, 10825).
