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)

112. The third memorable occurrence. Once I woke up just after first light. I went out into the garden in front of my house and watched the sun rising in its splendor. There was a halo around it, at first very subtle, but later on more definite, shining as though it was made of gold. Beneath the sun's rim I saw a cloud rising up. Mirroring the flame of the sun, it gleamed like a ruby.

At that point I fell into a meditation based on the myths of the most ancients, reflecting on how they pictured Aurora, the Dawn, as having silver wings and carrying gold in her mouth. Mentally taking great pleasure in these sights, I came into my spirit.

I heard some spirits in a discussion saying, "I would love an opportunity to talk to that innovator who has tossed an apple of discord among the leaders of the church. Many lay people have rushed to that apple, picked it up, and set it before our eyes. "

The "apple" they meant was the little volume titled Survey of Teachings for the New Church.

"It is something genuinely schismatic that no one has thought of before," they said.

I heard one of them cry out, "Schismatic? Its heretical!"

Some by his side retorted, "Be quiet! It isn't heretical. It cites many statements from the Word that the strangers in our midst (meaning our lay people) pay attention to and support. "

[2] When I had heard all that, I went to them (since I was in my spirit) and said, "Here I am. What's your concern?"

One of them - I heard later that he was a German, a native of Saxony - speaking with the tone of authority, immediately said, "Where did you get the audacity to overturn the worship that has been established in the Christian world for so many centuries, the practice of calling on God the Father as Creator of the universe, his Son as its Mediator, and the Holy Spirit as its Effecter? You remove the first and the last God from our concept of personhood. Yet the Lord himself says, 'When you pray, pray like this: "Our Father who is in the heavens, your name must be kept holy; your kingdom must come. "' We are commanded then to call on God the Father. "

After he had spoken it became quiet. All who sided with him stood like mighty soldiers on warships who have spotted the enemy fleet and are about to shout, "Now to battle! The victory is sure!"

[3] Then I stood up to speak. "Surely you are all aware," I said, "that God came down from heaven and became a human being. We read, 'The Word was with God and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh. ' Again, surely you all know" - and I looked at the Lutherans, including the tyrant who had just spoken to me - "that in Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, God is human and a human is God. "

The crowd objected loudly to this, so I said, "Don't you know this? It accords with the point of view in your confession called the Formula of Concord, where this statement is made and extensively supported. "

The tyrant turned to the crowd and asked whether they had known this. They replied, "We haven't paid much attention to what that book says about the person of Christ, but we have sweated over the article there on justification by faith alone. Still, if that is what it says, we will grant you that. "

Then one of them remembered and said, "It does say that. It goes on to say that Christ's human nature was raised to divine majesty and all the attributes that go with it, and that Christ in his human nature sits at the right hand of his Father. "

[4] When they heard that they kept quiet. With that point resolved, I spoke again and said, Since that is so, is the Father then anything other than the Son, and is the Son anything other than the Father?

Because this too sounded harsh to their ears, I went on to say, "Hear the actual words the Lord said. If you haven't paid attention to them before, pay attention to them now. He said, 'The Father and I are one. The Father is in me and I am in the Father. Father, all that is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine. Those who see me see the Father. ' What else do these words mean except that the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father, and they are one like the soul and the body in a human being, so they are one person? This has to be part of your faith if you believe the Athanasian Creed, where statements just like this occur.

"Of the passages I quoted, just take this saying of the Lord's: 'Father, all that is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine. ' Surely this means that the Father's divine nature belongs to the Son's human nature and the Son's human nature belongs to the Father's divine nature; and therefore in Christ God is human and a human is God and they are one as the soul and the body are one.

[5] "We can all say the same thing of our own soul and body: 'All that is yours is mine and all that is mine is yours. You are in me and I am in you. Those who see me see you. We are one individual and we have one life. ' Why? Because the soul exists throughout us and in every part of us. Our souls life is the life in our body. It is something the soul and the body share.

"Clearly then, the divine nature of the Father is the Son's soul, and the human nature of the Son is the Father's body. Where does a son's soul come from except from his father? Where does his body come from except from his mother? When I say 'the divine nature of the Father' what I mean is 'the Father himself,' since he is the same as his nature; his nature is one undivided thing.

"The truth of this is clear from the angel Gabriel's words to Mary: 'The power of the Highest will cover you, and the Holy Spirit will descend upon you; and the Holy One that will be born from you will be called the Son of God' [Luke 1:35]. Just before that the Lord is called 'the Son of the Highest' [Luke 1:32], and elsewhere he is called 'the only begotten Son' [John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9].

"Those of you, however, who call him only 'the Son of Mary' lose the idea of his divinity. The only people who lose that, though, are learned clergy and scholarly laity whose only goal in lifting their thoughts above their physical senses is to gain glory for their own reputation; but that glory does not merely overshadow, it actually extinguishes, the light that brings the glory of God.

[6] "Let's go back to the Lord's prayer. There it says, 'Our Father who is in the heavens, your name must be kept holy; your kingdom must come' []. You who are here understand these words as referring solely to the Father in his divine nature. I, however, understand them as referring to the Father in his human manifestation, which is in fact the Father's name. The Lord said, 'Father, glorify your name' [John 12:28], that is, your human manifestation. When this takes place, then God's kingdom comes. This prayer was commanded for this time, that is, when people are going to God the Father through his human manifestation.

"In fact, the Lord says, 'No one comes to the Father except through me' [John 14:6]. And in the prophet, 'A Child is born to us, a Son is given to us, whose name is God, Hero, Father of Eternity' [Isaiah 9:6]. Elsewhere it says, 'You, Jehovah, are our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is your name' [Isaiah 63:16]. There are also a thousand other passages where the Lord our Savior is called Jehovah. This is the true interpretation of the words of that prayer. "

[7] After I had said all that I looked at them. I noticed that their faces changed as they changed their minds. Some were agreeing with me and looking at me; some were disagreeing and turning away from me.

Then to the right I saw a cloud the color of an opal, and to the left a dark cloud, and precipitation below each of them. Under the dark cloud the precipitation was like a hard rain in late fall; under the opalescent cloud it was like dew falling at the beginning of spring.

Suddenly I came from my spirit into my body and returned from the spiritual world to the physical one.