The Bible

 

John 3

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1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:

2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.

7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?

10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.

23 And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.

24 For John was not yet cast into prison.

25 Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying.

26 And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him.

27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.

28 Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.

29 He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.

30 He must increase, but I must decrease.

31 He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all.

32 And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and no man receiveth his testimony.

33 He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.

34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

35 The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.

36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #92

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92. (iv) THE HUMAN BY WHICH HE BROUGHT HIMSELF INTO THE WORLD IS THE SON OF GOD.

The Lord said on many occasions that the Father sent Him and that He was sent by the Father; e.g, Matthew 10:40; 15:24; John 3:17, 34; 5:23-24, 36-38; 6:29, 39-40, 44, 57; 7:16, 18, 28-29; 8:16, 18, 29, 42; 9:4; and very many other passages. He said this because by 'being sent into the world' is meant coming down and mixing with human beings; this He did by means of the Human, which He took upon Himself by means of the Virgin Mary. The Human too is really the Son of God, because it was conceived of Jehovah God as the Father (as is stated by Luke 1:32, 35). The Human is called the Son of God, the Son of Man and the Son of Mary; by the Son of the God is meant Jehovah God in His Human, by the Son of Man the Lord as to the Word, and by the Son of Mary the actual human which He took upon Himself. It will be proved in the following pages that these are the meanings of the Son of God and the Son of Man; that the Son of Mary means His purely human nature is evident from the reproduction of human beings, where the soul comes from the father and the body from the mother. The father's semen contains the soul, and this is clothed with a body in the mother's womb. To put it another way, everything spiritual a person has is from his father, everything material from his mother.

[2] In the case of the Lord, what was Divine in Him was from His Father Jehovah, and His human was from His mother; the union of these two is the Son of God. This is clearly proved from the account of the Lord's birth, of which we read in Luke:

The angel Gabriel said to Mary, The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you; therefore the holy thing that shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God, Luke 1:35.

The Lord also described Himself as 'sent by the Father' because 'sent' has a similar meaning to 'angel', for angel in the language of the original means one who is sent. For it is said in Isaiah:

The angel of Jehovah's faces 1 has set them free, on account of His love and mercy He has redeemed them, Isaiah 63:9.

And in Malachi:

Suddenly the Lord whom you seek shall come to his temple, and also the messenger of the covenant, whom you long for, Malachi 3:1.

There are other similar passages elsewhere. It will be seen in Chapter 3 of this book that the Divine Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is in the Lord, and that the Father in Him is the originating Divine, the Son the Divine Human and the Holy Spirit the emanating Divine.

Footnotes:

1. The Latin here follows the Hebrew in using the plural.

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