Según los Escritos, el Señor ha estado expresando su amor por nosotros desde que existimos, variando su forma para adaptarse a nuestra capacidad de recibirlo. Entre los primeros pueblos -en lo que los Escritos llaman la Iglesia más antigua- esto era relativamente directo, con la verdad divina fluyendo a través del cielo hacia las mentes internas de las personas. La gente entonces pensaba en el Señor como un ser humano espiritual, no natural, pero el mundo espiritual era tan real para ellos como lo era el mundo natural.

Pero la gente finalmente se apartó, queriendo usar su propia inteligencia para explorar lo que es verdadero. Así que el Señor se ajustó, llevando a la gente a conocerlo a través de su huella en el mundo natural, viendo la verdad de su amor en todo, desde la alineación de las estrellas hasta las plantas y animales más comunes. Pero de nuevo la gente se apartó, utilizando ese conocimiento para pensar por sí misma y servirse a sí misma.

Así que el Señor se ajustó de nuevo, imprimiendo su amor en las historias y leyes del Antiguo Testamento, en las canciones del salmista y en las visiones de los profetas. La gente se apartó en gran medida, pero si leían estas palabras y seguían estas reglas en sus vidas externas, Él todavía podía fluir en sus interiores. Pero de nuevo la gente lo rechazó, convirtiendo las leyes en cosas totalmente externas y torciendo las profecías para que se adaptaran a sus propios deseos. En ese momento la oscuridad era casi completa, con apenas un atisbo de conocer al Señor para ser encontrado en cualquier lugar.

Así que el Señor se ajustó de nuevo, imprimiendo su amor -la verdad divina- en la carne humana natural con el nacimiento de Jesús. Jesús predicaría el amor y el cuidado que estaban ocultos en el Antiguo Testamento, y pondría las ideas en nuevas formas, que hacían que el amor al Señor y el amor al prójimo fueran primordiales - una vez más una expresión pura del amor del Señor.

Los Escritos también dicen que los cristianos se apartaron en última instancia del verdadero mensaje de Jesús, primero al dividir la idea de Dios en tres personas y después al hacer de la salvación una simple cuestión de creencia -de fe solamente- en lugar de una cuestión de creencia que desemboca en la vida. Y dicen que ellos mismos son una nueva expresión de la verdad divina, restableciendo el significado de la Biblia y los verdaderos mensajes entregados por el Señor durante su vida en el mundo natural.

Es evidente, pues, que la "luz" de la verdad divina ha "brillado en las tinieblas" de la mente humana en repetidas ocasiones. Y repetidamente la gente no la ha comprendido.

(References: About God 2; Arcana Coelestia 4687 [2-3]; Apocalipsis Explicado 151 [3-4])

4249. 'And Jacob was exceedingly afraid, and was distressed' means the state when it is being changed. This is clear from the fact that fear and distress are the first stage in temptations, and that they are precursors to the turning round or the change taking place within a state. The arcana which lie deeper still within these details - that is to say, Esau's coming to meet Jacob with four hundred men, and Jacob's consequent fear and distress - cannot be explained easily and intelligibly since they are rather more internal ones. Let just this one be brought forward here. When good takes up the first position and subordinates truths to itself, as happens when a person undergoes spiritual temptations, the good which flows in from the interior is accompanied by very many truths which have been stored away in the person's interior man. Those truths cannot come into focus and be seen by him until good is playing the leading role, for when this happens the natural starts to receive light from good, and it is apparent to him which things in the natural agree and which ones do not. And this is what gives rise to the fear and distress that are the precursors to spiritual temptation. For spiritual temptation acts upon the conscience, which is an attribute of the interior man, and therefore when entering such temptation a person does not know the origin of his fear and distress. But the angels present with him know it full well. Indeed temptation has its origin in angels' maintenance of the person in goods and truths, while evil spirits maintain him in evils and falsities.

[2] The things that occur among the spirits and angels present with a person are perceived by him purely as things going on within himself. For while he lives in the body and does not believe that everything within him flows in from somewhere other than himself, he imagines that the causes of the things that go on within him do not lie outside himself but that all causes lie within him and are his own - which is not in fact the case. For whatever a person thinks and what he wills, that is, all his thought and all his affection, originate either in hell or in heaven. When he thinks and wills anything evil and as a consequence takes delight in falsities, let him realize that his thoughts and affections originate in hell; but when he thinks and wills anything good and as a consequence takes delight in truths, let him realize that these originate in heaven, that is, in the Lord by way of heaven. But the person's thoughts and affections more often than not take on a different outward appearance. A conflict between evil spirits and angels, for example, arising from the things in one who is to be regenerated, takes on the different outward appearance of fear and distress, and of temptation.

[3] These matters are bound to seem paradoxes to man, for almost every member of the Church at the present day believes that all the truth he thinks, and the good he wills and does, originate in himself, even though he says something other than that when speaking from doctrine taught by faith. Indeed his nature is such that if anyone told him that spirits from hell exist who flow into his thought and will when he thinks and wills anything evil, and angels from heaven when he thinks and wills anything good, he would be dumbfounded at anyone putting forward such an idea, for he would say that he can feel the life within himself and that he thinks from himself and wills from himself. His belief is based on that feeling and not on what doctrine teaches. Yet that doctrine is true and such feeling deceptive. This I have been allowed to know from almost uninterrupted experience lasting several years now, and to know it in such a way as to leave me in no doubt whatsoever.