The Bible

 

John 1:18

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18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Commentary

 

Explanation of John 1:18

By Brian David

Ancient of Days, by William Blake

The Lord, in His essence, is infinite. He is the source of all energy, the well-spring of reality itself. His love is of such power that we would be destroyed by its direct heat, which is infinitely greater than the heat of the finite sun. His wisdom, the direct outpouring of His love, is of such power that we would be blinded by its brightness, which is infinitely brighter than the light of the finite sun. His immensity – which is beyond immensity – is inaccessible to our finite imaginative powers. In His essence, He is unknowable to us.

Yet we know Him. How? The Writings say that His love and wisdom project as a human form, then pass through that form almost like a filter to come to us as divine truth. That truth is like a container that is conformed to our minds, enough that we can hang onto an idea of the Lord and receive His love. We can have ideas that are filled with the Lord, and feel like we know Him, though really what we know is just the amount we can handle.

That divine truth is, itself, "the only begotten son." It was the son as the soul within the physical man Jesus; it was the son as the inner meaning of the Old Testament; it was the son as expressed by the Lord in other ways before Moses, and it is still the son now as the inner meaning of the Old and New Testaments together. It knows the Father – the love that is the Lord’s essence – and does, in fact, declare the Father to us, if only we will listen.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 2025 [4], 4211, 4724, 5321 [2], 6849, 6887, 7211, 8705, 10579)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #7212

Study this Passage

  
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7212. 'And I will give it to you as an inheritance' means the Lord's life there lasting forever. This is clear from the meaning of 'an inheritance', when used in reference to heaven, as the Lord's life, dealt with in 2658; and since everything that is given as an inheritance is the perpetual possession of the one to whom it is given - in heaven the everlasting possession, since people live forever there - the Lord's life there lasting forever is meant. The reason why the life in heaven is the Lord's life, and why consequently those who are there have His life within them, is that they have within them the truth and goodness which emanate from the Lord; goodness that is present in truth is the Lord Himself, while truth that has goodness within it is the life flowing from the Lord by which they all live. From this it is evident that those who have good within themselves, and truth from that good, as all in heaven do, have the Lord's life within them.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.